Matt Britt: The At-Large Candidate Who Brings a Bus Schedule to a Soundbite Fight
Who He Is
Matt Britt is a first-time candidate for Charlotte City Council at-large. He works in marketing and communications in the Atrium Health system and has a cross-sector background that runs from hotel sales to brand agencies to retail marketing. He has lived in South Charlotte since 2019 and serves in early-childhood leadership, including Smart Start of Forsyth County and NC Pre-K. The resume reads like a civic generalist who learned to translate between rooms rather than perform in them.
What He’s Running On
Transit that shows up
Britt backs the one-cent countywide transportation sales tax and does not pretend it is painless. He frames it as an accountability problem as much as a funding problem: put riders on the authority board, publish metrics people can understand, and then make the buses and trains arrive when they say they will. He has even talked about offset ideas for low-income residents so that “fund transit” does not become “fine the poor.”
Housing that respects time, tenants, and trade-offs
His housing posture is practical rather than poetic. Expand supply where it belongs, push for fair notice and relocation help for renters, and use incentives that reward keeping units attainable. Nothing revolutionary, which is kind of the point. He treats housing like infrastructure for families, not a podium.
Accountability that is legible
Britt has already used the city’s public-records portal to pull budget and code-enforcement data. He is the rare candidate who posts real contact information and invites constituents to test him on responsiveness. The through-line is simple: if public money touches it, the public should not need a decoder ring.
The Case For — and Against
For: He is a listener who shows up, favors receipts over rhetoric, and is explicit about how to measure success on transit and housing. If you want fewer speeches and more headways, that will land.
Against: He is new to Charlotte politics and would need to build leverage in a hurry. Support for a sales-tax is an easy attack line in a city tired of being promised shinier commutes. Offsets and oversight will need more than slogans.
What Would Count as a Win
- A clean, public dashboard for transit performance and spending.
- Tenant standards that are clear, enforceable, and paired with pilot-sized incentives.
- A culture shift from “trust us” to “here are the documents.”
These are small hinges that swing big doors at City Hall. The work is not glamorous. That is the point.
Voter Notes
- Ballot lane: City Council at-large, Democratic primary Sept. 9, general Nov. 4.
- Style: Phone-on, records-pulled, willing to be graded in public.
- Focus: Transit reliability, housing fairness, real transparency.
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About the Author
Jack Beckett, senior writer, drinks coffee like it is an oath of office, then files copy that makes city budgets sweat. When not interrogating bus headways, Jack is trying to convince the office espresso machine to unionize for better water pressure.
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© 2025 The Charlotte Mercury / Strolling Ballantyne
This article, “Matt Britt’s At-Large Run: Transit Reliability, Housing Fairness, and Real Transparency,” by Jack Beckett is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
“Matt Britt’s At-Large Run: Transit Reliability, Housing Fairness, and Real Transparency”
by Jack Beckett, The Charlotte Mercury (CC BY-ND 4.0)