One by one on Thursday afternoon, five people who want to be the next mayor of Charlotte sat at a table in the center of the council chamber, facing the eleven members who will actually make the choice. Each had thirty minutes. Each was asked the same set of questions, drawn from a list the council had agreed on in advance, and each was kept in a separate room without a screen so no one could hear the answers that came before. By the end of the afternoon the council had heard from all five, taken no vote, and scheduled the decision for the following Monday.
The five are the finalists to fill the seat Mayor Vi Lyles vacates June 30. Lyles is resigning before her term ends, and under state law the council appoints her replacement rather than sending the question to voters. The interim mayor will serve roughly the next year and a half, to the 2027 municipal election, and the appointment takes six of the eleven council votes.
How the field got to five
The five were not chosen by the public. They came off the council's own ballots. More than 100 people applied for the appointment, a field the council heard from in two-minute statements at a June 15 candidate forum. To narrow it, each member then submitted a written ballot nominating up to three names, due to the clerk's office by noon on Tuesday, June 16. The five who drew the most nominations advanced to Thursday's interviews.
Deputy City Clerk Billie Fruit-Tynes read the five names Thursday in alphabetical order, not by count: Harold Cogdell, Carrie Cook, Robert Harrington, James Mitchell Jr., and Caleb Theodros. The actual tally ran:
- Harold Cogdell, 6
- Robert Harrington, 5
- James Mitchell Jr., 5
- Carrie Cook, 4
- Caleb Theodros, 4
That top line matters more than it looks. Six members nominated Cogdell, and six votes is exactly the number it takes to win the appointment. If those six stay with him on Monday, he has the seat. The nominations are not binding votes, but they are the closest thing to a head count the public has.
Former Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, who had applied, did not advance. Three other names surfaced on individual ballots without advancing: Sebastian Feculak, who drew two nominations, Mike Evans, who also drew two, and former Planning Commission chair Douglas Welton, who drew one.
The ballots, member by member
The council released how each member's ballot broke down. The order within each ballot does not indicate a ranking; these are the three names each member put forward, with two members submitting fewer than three.
- Dimple Ajmera (at-large): Harold Cogdell, Sebastian Feculak, Jennifer Roberts
- James Mitchell Jr. (mayor pro tem, at-large): James Mitchell Jr., Caleb Theodros, Harold Cogdell
- LaWana Slack-Mayfield (at-large): Carrie Cook, Robert Harrington
- Victoria Watlington (at-large): Carrie Cook
- Danté Anderson (District 1): Harold Cogdell, Carrie Cook, Mike Evans
- Malcolm Graham (District 2): Harold Cogdell, Robert Harrington, James Mitchell Jr.
- Joi Mayo (District 3): Carrie Cook, Robert Harrington, Douglas Welton
- Reneé Perkins Johnson (District 4): Harold Cogdell, James Mitchell Jr., Caleb Theodros
- J.D. Mazuera Arias (District 5): James Mitchell Jr., Caleb Theodros, Sebastian Feculak
- Kimberly Owens (District 6): Harold Cogdell, Robert Harrington, Caleb Theodros
- Ed Driggs (District 7): Robert Harrington, James Mitchell Jr., Mike Evans
Mitchell put his own name on his ballot, the act at the center of the conflict-of-interest question the council debated at the June 15 forum. The city attorney's ruling on that question is that there is no legal bar, and Mitchell has not asked to be excused.
Who they are
Harold Cogdell has held elected office twice before, as a Charlotte City Council member and as chair of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners. He led the field in nominations.
Robert Harrington is an attorney and the president of the North Carolina Bar Association, and he serves on the board of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. He is the only finalist with no prior elected office.
James Mitchell Jr. is the only sitting council member in the group, the mayor pro tem and an at-large member.
Carrie Cook is a nonprofit and Federal Reserve executive. She founded the GreenLight Fund and was previously a vice president for community development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and a vice president at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. She is the only finalist who has not held or run for public office in the city.
Caleb Theodros, D-Mecklenburg, is a state senator representing District 41 and a former chair of the Mecklenburg County Black Political Caucus. At 32, he is the youngest of the five, and he addressed his age directly when the council raised it.
The council asked the same questions of everyone. Three of them mapped onto the decisions the interim mayor will inherit: how to run a meeting, what to do about the Interstate 77 toll lanes, and how to keep the airport strong without leaving its workers behind. The answers are the clearest record of how each of the five would handle the job.
Running the room
Council Member Joi Mayo, who represents District 3, asked each candidate how they would keep meetings efficient while still allowing what she called "robust debate with discussion." It is not an abstract question for a body that has spent much of 2026 in long, contentious sessions.
Cogdell drew the sharpest line. Debate within the scope of an agenda item is fair game, he said, but "when the conversation gravitates away from that, outside the scope of that particular agenda item, if I'm being blunt, whoever's chairing that needs to call that out of order and needs to bring the focus back to the decision that's sitting in front of the board."
Theodros put the same emphasis on existing rules. "In large part, following the already existing policies and procedures that are set in place," he said, pointing to his time running Black Political Caucus meetings as his training ground.
The toll lanes
The Interstate 77 South toll project is the unfinished business the next mayor cannot avoid. The council's regional transportation representatives voted in May to seek rescission of the project, and the question of what comes next is open.
Mitchell, who sits on the council's economic development committee and serves as an alternate to the regional planning organization, said he would not try to undo that May reversal. "I would not be in favor of rescinding the rescinding," he said. "It has to be a new model that we put forth for this community to solve this problem."
The airport
Charlotte Douglas International Airport runs under the constraints of state law, which limits how far the city can set hiring and labor terms there. Several candidates were asked how they would protect airport workers without overstepping those limits.
For Harrington, the answer turned on the city's standing with Raleigh. "We have to continue to show that we are not good but exceptional stewards of that business," he said, "because we are, as is any city like us that operates an airport, we are at risk with Raleigh."
Council Member Kimberly Owens, who represents District 6, asked Cook how she would keep residents involved as the city manages growth and congestion. Cook returned to a theme she stressed repeatedly. "Building trust with communities," she said, "so things happen with people and not to them."
What happens Monday
The council settled the mechanics before it adjourned. By voice vote it adopted the method it will use to choose: a simple majority of six of the eleven members, with the top vote-getter advancing. If the leading candidate falls short of six, that candidate goes to a runoff against the second-place finisher; if two candidates tie for second, that pair goes to a runoff first to decide who advances. A proposal to require a supermajority was raised and rejected.
The vote itself is set for Monday, June 22, at the council's 5:30 p.m. meeting. Members will receive paper ballots at the start, fill them out, and hand them to the clerk's office, which will count them during the meeting; Mayor Lyles will read the result. At the council's direction, the item was moved up on the agenda, and the public forum will come before the vote. If no one reaches six on the first ballot, the runoff happens the same night.
That is five candidates, three weeks of process, and one seat. On Monday it goes to a vote.