The arithmetic is the whole story. A community applicant for Charlotte's interim mayor needs six council votes to win the appointment. A sitting council member who applies needs only five, because he can vote for himself. At Monday's council meeting, Council Member Kimberly Owens put that gap on the record and asked her colleagues what they intended to do about it.
"Those members of the community need to get to six," Owens said. "This member of council would only need to get to five, presumably voting then for himself." She did not leave the conclusion implied: "I believe there to be a conflict of interest, and I believe there is an appearance of impropriety to have Mayor Pro Tem vote."
The Mayor Pro Tem is James Mitchell Jr., a veteran at-large council member who has applied for the seat the council will fill, and who, unless he is excused, will help fill it. He is one of more than 100 applicants for the appointment, and the only one already seated at the dais. Owens said the question had come to her from constituents over the weekend, "particularly, who have asked me about what they perceive to be the unfairness of a situation where there is competition between a member of council and other members of the community." Council Member Danté Anderson raised it too, and pressed a second point: the interim mayor earns the mayor's salary, which is more than a council member's. Voting himself into the office, on that framing, is voting himself a raise.
What the law requires
City Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite did not soften her answer. Under state law, she said, a council member has a duty to vote unless a specific statutory conflict bars it, and no such conflict applies here.
The relevant statute, North Carolina General Statute 160A-75, "contemplates a responsibility for council members to vote unless there is a statutory purpose or reason," she told the council, naming the two exceptions it recognizes: a financial interest under another section of state law, or a conflict of interest under the state's land-use chapter. Neither fit. "There is not a legal reason why a sitting council member could not vote for him or herself if they are part of the candidate pool."
She had precedent ready. When former Mayor Anthony Foxx left office to become U.S. Transportation Secretary, the council appointed one of its own, Patsy Kinsey, as interim mayor. Kinsey voted for herself. "This is not unprecedented," Leslie-Fite said, "nor is it a legal prohibition for a council member to vote for him or herself."
That left a narrower question, and Council Member Ed Driggs stated it cleanly. A true conflict requires recusal, he said, but the absence of one does not end the matter: "if they have a concern about an appearance of impropriety, they may ask the council to excuse them, which would then require a majority vote to be excused. Those are two different things."
In other words: Mitchell cannot be forced off the vote by law. He can step aside voluntarily, or the council can excuse him by majority vote, but only if he asks. The decision belongs to him.
What the council did about it
Nothing, yet. Late in the meeting, Council Member Victoria Watlington noted that the recusal question raised at the start of the day was still open: "I was under the impression that we were gonna deal with that today." Council Member J.D. Mazuera Arias agreed the council still needed to talk about it. Doing so required a motion to excuse Mitchell. No member made one, and Mitchell did not ask to be excused. The question that Owens brought into the room left the room exactly as it entered: unresolved.
There was an appetite to slow the process down and route these questions through committee. That effort failed. The council instead set a compressed timeline, with a public forum on the candidates June 18 and a vote to appoint the next mayor targeted for June 22.
Mitchell, for his part, campaigned. He used his two minutes to point to North Lake Mall, Eastland Yards, and the CIAA tournament's long run in Charlotte, and pledged to lead "on day one with a clear vision and an action plan." He asked the council, as any applicant would, for its votes.
The difference is that he is one of the people who will be casting them.