Crowdsourcing: Help us review e-mails

We examined some 1,100 emails from public officials to report our story on misspending at the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services.

Now you can, too.

Use the links below to view emails sent by top administrators related to DSS.

Let us know if you spot something that you think deserves further scrutiny. You can leave a comment below or send an e-mail.

The buzzword for this is "crowdsourcing."

But the concept is as old as the notion that two heads are better than one.

(Collective wisdom is illustrated this way by author James Surowiecki: On the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," the lifeline to an expert friend yielded the correct answer about 65 percent of the time, while the studio audience was right 91 percent of the time.)

Here are the links:

Click here for County Manager Harry Jones.

Click here for DSS Director Mary Wilson.

Click here for Finance Director Dena Diorio.

Click here for auditor Cornita Spears.

Click here for administrator Beverly Hinson.

Click here for supervisor Cindy Brady.

Here's a link to an e-mail highlighted in our story, in which Wilson says a senior fiscal administrator has left directors "frustrated with her inability to explain the simplest concepts of revenue and expenses."

- Doug Miller

Obama's remarks ahead of health care vote

Text of President Barack Obama's remarks Saturday at the White House on health care legislation:

Good afternoon, everybody. I just want to say a few words about the landmark vote that the House of Representatives is poised to take today – a vote that can bring us one step closer to making real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.

For the better part of a year now, members of the House and the Senate have been working diligently and constructively to craft legislation that will benefit millions of American families and millions of American businesses who urgently need it. For the first time ever, they've passed bills through every single committee responsible for reform. They've brought us closer than we have ever been to passing health insurance reform on behalf of the American people.

Now is the time to finish the job. The bill that the House has produced will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality, affordable options for those who don't; and lower costs for American families and American businesses. And as I've insisted from the beginning, it is a bill that is fully paid for and will actually reduce our long-term federal deficit.

This bill is change that the American people urgently need. Don't just take my word for it. Consider the national groups who've come out in support of this bill on behalf of their members: The Consumers Union supports it because it will create – and I quote – “a more secure, affordable health care system for the American people.”

The American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association support it on behalf of doctors and nurses and medical professionals who know firsthand what's broken in our current system, and who see what happens when their patients can't get the care they need because of insurance industry bureaucracies.

The National Farmers Union supports this bill because it will control costs for farmers and ranchers, and address the unique challenges rural Americans face when it comes to receiving quality care.

And the AARP supports it because it will achieve the goal for which the AARP has been fighting for decades – reducing the cost of health care, expanding coverage for America's seniors, and strengthening Medicare for the long haul.

Now, no bill can ever contain everything that everybody wants, or please every constituency and every district. That's an impossible task. But what is possible, what's in our grasp right now is the chance to prevent a future where every day 14,000 Americans continue to lose their health insurance, and every year 18,000 Americans die because they don't have it; a future where crushing costs keep small businesses from succeeding and big businesses from competing in the global economy; a future where countless dreams are deferred or scaled back because of a broken system we could have fixed when we had the chance.

What we can do right now is choose a better future and pass a bill that brings us to the very cusp of building what so many generations of Americans have sought to build – a better health care system for this country.

Millions of Americans are watching right now. Their families and their businesses are counting on us. After all, this is why they sent us here, to finally confront the challenges that Washington had been putting off for decades – to make their lives better, to leave this country stronger than we found it.

I just came from the Hill where I talked to the members of Congress there, and I reminded them that opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation. Most public servants pass through their entire careers without a chance to make as important a difference in the lives of their constituents and the life of this country. This is their moment, this is our moment, to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us – even when it's hard; especially when it's hard. This is our moment to deliver.

I urge members of Congress to rise to this moment. Answer the call of history, and vote yes for health insurance reform for America.

Thanks.

Where was Pat today?

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory spent today talking trains - in Florida.

During the first mayoral election he's sitting out in 14 years, McCrory stumped for transit in the Tampa Bay area, according to a story in the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Click here to read the story.

McCrory's appearance at the Regional Transportation Forum in Brandon was fitting. His signature civic project is arguably the Lynx Blue Line, the city's first light-rail line.

In a likely reference to the sometimes bruising political fights surrounding transit, McCrory says in order for a system to work, politicians from both sides will "have to give up a little bit of power."

McCrory also encouraged Florida leaders to move quickly on transit because he said it would create jobs to offset the state's high unemployment rate, the story said.

- Doug Miller

Obama's and Merkel's remarks on climate change

German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by exhorting the world in a speech to Congress on Tuesday to "tear down the walls of today" and reach a deal to combat global warming.
Following are the remarks by President Obama and Merkel, as released by the White House:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Well, I'm just going to make a brief statement. I am thrilled to have Chancellor Merkel here today. I want to congratulate her again for her victory in her recent election, the formation of a government, and we are honored to have her visit the Oval Office.

But the main reason she's here is that a great honor has been bestowed upon her. She is going to be the first German chancellor in 50 years to address Congress -- the first chancellor ever to address a joint session of Congress. And it is, I think, a very appropriate honor that's been bestowed on Chancellor Merkel. Obviously the alliance between the United States and Germany has been an extraordinary pillar of the transatlantic relationship.

We are now moving towards the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down and Germany being reunified after so many painful years. And this is a special moment for Chancellor Merkel, as somebody who grew up in East Germany, who understands what it's like to be under the shadow of a dictatorial regime, and to see how freedom has bloomed in Germany, how it has become the centerpiece for a extraordinarily strong European Union.

I think all of these things converge, and we are very pleased that she's going to be here to spread her view of what's taking place in the world, the many challenges we face, to members of Congress and the American people.

I should just note that Germany has been an extraordinarily strong ally on a whole host of international issues. We appreciate the sacrifices of German soldiers in Afghanistan, and our common work there to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and to create the environment in which the Afghan people themselves can provide for their own security.

Chancellor Merkel has been an extraordinary leader on the issue of climate change. And the United States, Germany, and countries around the world I think are all beginning to recognize why it is so important that we work in common in order to stem the potential catastrophe that could result if we continue to see global warming continuing unabated.

And on economic issues, on issues like nuclear proliferation, consistently I found Chancellor Merkel to be thoughtful, to be energetic, and to have a strong vision of how we can move forward in the future.

So I am very pleased to be working with her as a partner. We are thankful, Chancellor, for your leadership not just in Europe but around the world. And I'm looking forward to many more years in which the American people and the German people are working together to expand the boundaries of freedom and to create prosperity for ordinary men and women on both sides of the Atlantic.

So thank you so much for coming.

CHANCELLOR MERKEL: (Speaking in German.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think what she said was good. (Laughter.) I'm teasing.

CHANCELLOR MERKEL: (As translated.) First of all, I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to be here again today. I would also like to say that it is obviously a very great honor for me to address today the joint session of Congress, both houses of Congress, as it were.

But I'm also very much looking forward to having an exchange of view with the President again. We have always had very intensive discussions and we're going to have those today again on issues that are of mutual interest to us and that we have been working on almost daily. We are working and discussing issues, for example, related to climate change, Afghanistan, Iran, and obviously also the world economic situation.

But I wanted to use this opportunity today also to express our gratitude, my gratitude, to the American people for the support that the American people have given us throughout the process leading up to German reunification, and I think it something that I would like to later on say it very clearly also in my speech to both houses of Congress. And let me tell you that this is something that we, the Germans, shall never forget.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: All right, thank you guys.

Morgan: Charlotte faces a 'reset'

Chamber president and self-described city cheerleader Bob Morgan this week gave a candid appraisal of Charlotte's post-boom economy.

Local stockholders suffered from declines in share prices at Bank of America and Wachovia (now Wells Fargo), but the accompanying loss of dividends, Morgan said, has been "absolutely devastating."

"There is a tremendous amount of wealth - here yesterday, gone today - and we, the community, are still dealing with that reset," he says in a SNL Financial report released Tuesday.

"You have a lot of shareholders that are employees, retirees, investors, foundations and trust funds, and nonprofits and for-profits who have invested in these two organizations and the dividends are basically gone as part of the TARP."

The report, entitled "Rattling the Hornet's Nest," lays out in stark terms what Charlotte has working in its favor, and against it.

The pros:

• Lack of speculative run-up in home prices.


• Favorable demographics.


• A history of well-performing banks.

The cons:

• Increasing bad loans at Charlotte-based banks and thrifts.


• Decline in local wealth from hits to bank stocks.


• High unemployment.


• High office vacancy rate.

Click here to read Nathan Stovall's full report.

In a separate story published the following day, Morgan offered another sober assessment.

Under the headline "This is the bust in the boomtown that banks built," the Washington Post quotes Morgan this way:

"I think there's a new humility to Charlotte," said Bob Morgan, president of the city's Chamber of Commerce. "We didn't worry too much about the things being done in Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco," he said, when banks in those cities were swallowed by Charlotte's giants. "We are now living it ourselves."

- Doug Miller

Pay czar's letter to BofA

Top executives at Charlotte-based Bank of America will take deep cuts in compensation under determinations announced Thursday by Kenneth Feinberg (right), the independent master given the task of setting pay and stock levels for officials with companies getting the most funding from the federal government.

In a letter released Thursday, Feinberg cited the bank's initial pay proposals, which included a cash salary range of $700,000 to $950,000 for everyone but the CEO and stock-based salaries ranging from $2 million to $19 million for top employees who were at Bank of America in 2008 and 2009.

According to the letter, Feinberg capped cash salaries at "generally less than $500,000," with stock salaries reduced to $1.7 million to $9.3 million.

Read Feinberg's letter to Bank of America here (PDF).
You can read the letters to the other six "exceptional" companies here.

What do you think of the new pay rules introduced Thursday?

Suit: Palisades owes $347,288 for tournament

The company that runs the men’s senior tennis tour is suing the Palisades development over more than $350,000 in unpaid sponsorship fees, the Observer's Rick Bonnell reports.

The suit, filed Monday locally in federal court, says Rhein Palisades failed to pay any of the $347,288 owed InsideOut Champions Series for running last month’s tournament at the South Charlotte planned community.

The suit also says Rhein Palisades owes $10,250 in unpaid fees from the 2008 tournament.
Mike Boston, director of operations for the Tim Wilkison Complex at the Palisades, said via email Tuesday night he was unaware a lawsuit had been filed.

InsideOut has run a tournament at the Palisades each September since 2006 and is contracted through 2011. The eight-man fields have included Pete Sampras, John McEnroe and tour co-founder Jim Courier.

Click here to read the suit.

- Doug Miller