Charlotte City Council approved a non-binding resolution on I-77 Monday night with only one dissenting vote. Then Renee Johnson moved to rescind the council's approval of the I-77 toll lane public-private partnership — the binding action the Black Political Caucus and corridor residents had been demanding for months — and James Mitchell Jr., the mayor pro tem who committed in April to supporting rescission, said no.

"There was a commitment I made in the month of April about supporting a rescind," Mitchell told the council. "I'm more educated now. I'm more informed now. And I don't know rescinding a P3 in the best interest of the work we did on the resolution."

The rescission motion drew six votes — not enough for a majority. Mitchell had said yes in April. He said no on Monday.

Two actions. One non-binding, one with teeth. The council took the non-binding one near-unanimously and split on the one that would have changed the project's trajectory.

What the Resolution Does

The resolution, listed as Item 13 on the business meeting agenda, passed with a substitute amendment from Council Member J.D. Mazuera Arias that replaced the original language directing NCDOT to conduct the reevaluation with a call for an independent third party to do it instead.

The amended language: Charlotte City Council calls for "an independent third party reevaluation and alternatives analysis of the I-77 South Corridor, including multimodal non-highway and transportation demand management strategies," and "encourages that any draft RFP for toll lane development be paused until the findings are presented to council and the public."

City Attorney Leslie Fite told the council directly: the resolution is "a non-binding document." It codifies the council's position. It does not compel NCDOT or any other body to act.

Council Member Kimberly Owens framed the stakes before the vote.

"I hear it described as a $600 million project, but we all know it's a $4 billion project," Owens said, "and the billions are not coming out of some developer's kindness or largesse. These dollars are coming out of our pockets for 50 years."

Owens called the resolution "a first step in this council's accountability to the people of the region" and connected the corridor's history to the council's present responsibility: "No one on this dais made the decisions that originally prioritized growth and progress over people when these roads originally tore through black neighborhoods. But that doesn't absolve us of responsibility now."

Johnson cast the only no vote. The I-77 resolution came on the same night the council unanimously scheduled a 150-day data center moratorium — the second time in two weeks this body used its position to push back on growth assumptions it once accepted without question.

The Substance: Watlington's UNC Charlotte Plan

The resolution's policy weight comes from the independent evaluation Watlington has been convening with researchers at UNC Charlotte — faculty in transportation engineering, spatial analysis, and public policy with access to the university's USDOT-designated University Transportation Center.

Watlington laid out a three-phase timeline:

Months 1 through 3: A fully documented inventory of every assumption and known limitation in the current transportation model. Not a new model. Not a final answer. An independent record of what the current tool can and cannot tell the city — delivered before the full RFP is issued and before a developer is selected.

Months 2 through 4: Short-term technical improvements to the existing modeling software — better data inputs, more current land use information, improved performance measures.

Months 5 through 8: Full benchmarking — a peer-reviewed evaluation of whether the model adequately handles induced demand, land use feedback, and equity.

"Independent analysis actually requires more than just saying, 'Yep, check, we did it right,'" Watlington told the council. "It requires more than just hiring someone to check that math."

The funding decision comes through the budget process next month. Watlington said she will bring the work to the transportation committee in early June, before the budget vote, so the council can see exactly what it is being asked to fund. There is interest from independent community partners and a pathway to NCDOT's own university research grant program.

Council Member LaWana Slack-Mayfield estimated the study at $150,000 to $200,000 and suggested Foundation for the Carolinas as a potential funding partner — an arrangement that would keep city budget dollars directed elsewhere.

The Harder Question

Johnson did not wait for the resolution vote to settle. Immediately after the result, she moved to rescind the council's approval of the I-77 P3.

"Madam Mayor, may I make a motion?" Johnson said. "I'd like to make a motion to rescind the approval for I-77."

Watlington seconded the motion.

Johnson's argument was direct: the resolution lacks enforcement power. Her motion would have had it. "My motion simply has teeth where the other one is non-binding," she said. "If you think of rock, paper, scissors, you all are saying paper, and I'm saying scissors. We just need to cut it and start over."

She told the council that its constituents expect more than influence. "Our citizens don't elect us to use our influence," Johnson said. "They elect us to use our power. And our power is stopping this."

The legal mechanics are not simple. Fite explained that the motion would direct the council's representative on the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization to seek rescission of the P3 approval from October 2024 at CRTPO. Charlotte holds a 41 percent weighted vote on that multi-jurisdictional body — significant, but not a majority. Several jurisdictions, including Mecklenburg County and Huntersville, did not support the original P3 approval, but Charlotte's weighted vote carried it. Rescission would require CRTPO to add the question to its own agenda, receive a motion and a second, and pass by majority vote.

Slack-Mayfield made the procedural distinction explicit: rescission and the resolution are "two separate conversations." She had originally planned to bring the rescission question through the Transportation, Planning, and Development Committee, but the discussion moved to the full council Monday night.

What Rescission Would Cost

Council Member Ed Driggs, who served on CRTPO when the P3 was approved, laid out the financial consequences.

NCDOT told CRTPO that without a P3, they would stop working on the project entirely. The $600 million in state funding is committed and being held. Without the P3, Driggs said, that money would be reassigned in the next STIP planning cycle — permanently.

"You can't sort of stop this, kill it, and then expect to restart in a couple of years," Driggs told the council. "The 600 million is gone. The developer community will see that happen. It's not going to be motivated to kind of partner with us."

His conclusion: "We will not be in this position again anytime soon if that happens."

Johnson pushed back. "I'm not asking for it to be removed from STIP," she said. She framed rescission as concurrent with the resolution's milestones and Watlington's independent evaluation — not as an alternative to them, but as a stronger version of the same posture.

Mitchell's Reversal

Mitchell's statement was brief and delivered without elaboration.

"There was a commitment I made in the month of April about supporting a rescind," the mayor pro tem said. "I'm more educated now. I'm more informed now. And I don't know rescinding a P3 in the best interest of the work we did on the resolution. So I just want to say to the public and to my colleagues who I guess I will see on Sunday at the Black Political Caucus meeting, I cannot support or rescind tonight."

The acknowledgment that he would face the Black Political Caucus — which has demanded rescission for months — was pointed. Rocky McGregor, speaking on behalf of the caucus earlier in the meeting, had been unambiguous: "Recension is what we're looking for. Recension is what we've asked for for the last three months. And recension is still what we ask for."

Watlington voted for rescission, honoring her own April commitment, but acknowledged the math. "I also made a commitment, and I intend to honor it tonight," she said. "That said, I see that likely this is not going to pass."

The motion failed. Six votes in favor. Not enough.

What Comes Next

Council Member Malcolm Graham, who supported the resolution but warned against severing the NCDOT relationship, listed the other state projects Charlotte needs: NC-160 widening, NC-49 widening, the Oakdale Sunset Roundabout, the Idaho Drive Interchange. "We can tell our partners that we disagree, and we can strongly do that for sure," Graham said, "but we cannot throw away the partnership or the relationship because most of the majority of the roads throughout the city are state roads."

The council returns to I-77 Thursday for a presentation on interchange feasibility. Watlington brings her UNC Charlotte evaluation to the transportation committee in early June. The budget vote follows.

The resolution is on the record. The rescission is not. Whether NCDOT reads the first as a signal or the second as a reprieve is the question the next several weeks will answer.