UNCC is pumping grads into local tech jobs (free version)
UNCC is pumping grads into local tech jobs (free version)
Plus: Answering reader question about demolished homes in Ballantyne; CMS school reopening plans; Financial planner helps sweepstakes scam victim; Mayor's mask flip-flop
Good morning! Today is Wednesday, August 11, 2021. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
Editor’s note: This is a shorter, free version of The Charlotte Ledger sent to people on our free sign-up list. The complete version for paying subscribers went out 15 minutes ago. It contained:
An in-depth article about how UNCC’s College of Computing and Informatics has grown during the last decade to become the biggest computing college in North Carolina, and how its graduates are supporting the boom in tech jobs here in Charlotte.
The scoop on some changes in the works at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as district officials get ready for schools to reopen in two weeks.
The answer to a question a reader posed about why homes are being torn down along Marvin Road in the Ballantyne area, and what’s going up along that land.
A look at what Charlotte’s new nondiscrimination ordinance means and how it’ll work, including the steps it will take to lodge a complaint.
Ledger members on Tuesday also received our Ways of Life obituaries newsletter, with the story of the lives and tragic deaths of two Myers Park High School graduates who died in a car crash in the Eastover neighborhood earlier this month — plus summaries of 15 local obituaries.
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UNCC’s computer sciences college has exploded in recent years to become the biggest in the state; some 74% of its graduates stay in Charlotte, where tech jobs are booming
UNCC’s College of Computing and Informatics more than doubled its number of students over the last decade, and its most popular programs are in data analysis, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. (Photo by Mike Fresina/UNC Charlotte)
by Lindsey Banks
Charlotte is in the midst of a tech job boom, landing on national Top 10 lists with the expansions and arrivals of companies from LendingTree to Honeywell. And while these businesses’ goals may be unique, they share a key challenge, even in these days of the remote-heavy workforce: recruiting local talent.
Enter UNC Charlotte, which has grown to become the largest computing college in North Carolina and one of the biggest technology graduate generators in the South.
UNCC’s College of Computing and Informatics turns out more than 1,000 graduates each year, about half with bachelor’s degrees and half with master’s or doctorate degrees. Some 74% of the program’s graduates report taking jobs in North Carolina, with the vast majority staying in Charlotte, university officials say. The result: a deep pool of workers for local companies.
Related Ledger article:
“Surprise: Charlotte is passing Raleigh in tech jobs” (June 17, 2019)
CMS readies for back-to-school: New quarantine rules, Covid testing in schools, recruitment bonuses
With the first day of school for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students exactly two weeks away, there were a few news nuggets out of the CMS school board meeting Tuesday night. (Yes, we listened to all 5+ hours of it so you don’t have to.) They included:
You Ask, We Answer: Why are single family homes coming down in Ballantyne?
Today we bring you the latest installment of “You Ask, We Answer,” The Ledger’s effort to help satisfy your burning🔥 development questions.
As we always say, there’s no rezoning request we can’t track down; no land sale we can’t sniff out. Have a question? Ask us here.
Here’s today’s question:
What’s the development happening along Marvin Road near Old Ardrey Kell Road in the Ballantyne area? There was a string of single-family homes along Marvin and they seem to have been knocked down overnight.
TIMBER: Six single-family homes are coming down behind a newly installed chain link fence now running along Marvin Road.
Prepare to be shocked!
Charlotte’s new nondiscrimination ordinance: How it would work
Charlotte City Council unanimously passed a nondiscrimination ordinance, or NDO, Monday night, updating an ordinance that had been on the city’s books since 1968 to add new protected classes: familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, pregnancy and natural hairstyle.
It also added employment protections for protected classes, making it unlawful for an employer of any size company to fail or refuse to hire a person or discriminate against them in the workplace.
While that certainly sounds and feels like progress toward ensuring equal treatment for all, it’s worth looking at the steps someone would take to lodge a complaint, according to the new NDO:
A financial planner gets a chilling call from a scam victim: ‘Can you keep a secret? I’ve won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes.’
Charlotte financial advisor Mark Dillon had a feeling something was wrong when a client in her 70s said she needed to withdraw more than $100,000 from her retirement account but was being cagey about why.
Dillon asked her if she was being scammed or threatened. She said no.
When he questioned her further about why she needed the money, the answer was chilling:
“She said: ‘Can you keep a secret? I’ve won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes for over $2 million. I have to pay the taxes up front, and then I can cash this check,’” Dillon recalls.
He told her to hang up and call the police.
Police went to the woman’s house to investigate and were able to stop a FedEx package that she had already sent with around $20,000 to the scammers before she called Dillon. Police are now investigating the scam, which appears to have originated out of New York.
Like many victims of scams, Dillon says his client was too embarrassed to tell him how much money she’d already lost to the con artists before Dillon raised the flags. If she’d given away the $100,000 she asked Dillon for, it would have represented about a quarter of her retirement savings.
“It probably would have caused her to run out of money before she passed away,” he said.
Senior citizens are often targets for con artists who take advantage of a generation that tends to be more trusting, polite and likely to answer the phone. Younger generations may be more likely to jump online to verify that a caller is who they say they are.
In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 116,000 reports of fraud involving prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries that swindled victims out of $166M. The median loss was $1,000.
Dillon, a certified financial planner with Carroll Financial, said the experience is a good reminder to warn elderly friends and family members not to give out personal information over the phone, that sweepstakes “wins” are almost always too good to be true, and that agencies like the IRS will never contact you by phone. —CB
Quotable: Mayor Vi Lyles on a mask mandate for Charlotte
From a news conference on Tuesday, at which Mayor Vi Lyles was asked if she supports requiring masks indoors, as Boone, Durham and Chapel Hill have started doing this week. Lyles has previously co-signed orders during the pandemic requiring residents to stay home and ending liquor sales at 11:00 p.m.
Q. [Tony Mecia, The Charlotte Ledger] The county health department has indicated it might be interested in having a mask mandate, as other towns have done. Boone has done it. Durham’s mask mandate started last night. As you know, in order for the health department orders to take effect, the mayors of towns and cities need to sign off on that, as you’ve done previously in other orders. Do you support or do you not support a mask mandate for Charlotte?
Lyles: I think I just addressed that I support personally wearing masks, because I do believe that after the vaccine, that is the most important tool against this virus, the most important way to keep your family, your friends, your coworkers safe.
The protocols with this pandemic, over a year and a half ago, it seems, were established for all of us. And we now pretty much are all informed about what the state requirements are, what the public health director has the authority to mandate, what the governor has the authority to do.
I believe that we will continue to follow those same protocols. And if the public health director is making a recommendation, that — we have also instituted protocols around collaboration, that she will work with every mayor of every city in this county, that she will work with our two major healthcare systems to say, “How do we do this? And how do we make it possible to be successful in what we’re doing?”
And I think that that worked for us a year and a half ago. I think it will work for us as we move forward.
Q. [Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV] I don’t think I got a lot of clarity from that answer. Do you support a mask mandate? You said earlier you want to follow the science. … You have the power to do this. Are you going to?
Lyles: I do not have the power to mandate a mask requirement for the city of Charlotte. Charlotte is a part of Mecklenburg County, with seven cities in it. What we have to do is work with our public health director.
I think that we do have some things that we can do internally. And we do recommend mask-wearing inside our building. But we are taking this day by day and looking at it. …
We are following the guidance of the CDC. My understanding is that it is optional right now, but it may change.
I will support wearing masks. I believe that it is, again, an effective way to address this virus. We have to understand what we can do and have an approach that allows us to prepare people to get it done, and I think we’ll still continue to work on that.
I don’t know if I can be any more clear than you will see me in a mask, I think it’s important to wear one, and that we’ll have to figure out how to get this done — as a city, as a community, across our borders, and the people that come to work in here that live in other communities, our six towns and cities around us, all of this is important.
Five hours later, after an Observer article pointed out that mayors do have the authority to declare states of emergency for public health reasons, the mayor’s office released a statement:
I want to clarify my comment from earlier today that I do not have the authority to implement a mask mandate. Throughout this entire COVID-19 pandemic, we have listened to the experts and taken recommendations and guidance from the Public Health Department and Policy Group. It is important that the entire Charlotte-Mecklenburg region work together to battle COVID-19. At this time, we have not received a recommendation to reinstitute the mask mandate. If we do get that recommendation, I along with the Mayors and other elected officials will discuss and consider that recommendation, which is consistent with the approach that we’ve taken throughout the pandemic.
—TM
In brief
Court is not in session: The Mecklenburg County Courthouse will stay closed all week “to prevent or slow the spread of COVID-19 among court personnel and members of the public,” according to a statement Tuesday afternoon by the N.C. 26th Judicial District. The courthouse has been closed since Monday, when it was said that said that five employees had tested positive, “a number of others” had reported symptoms, 19 were awaiting test results and 29 were quarantining. Several types of hearings are being held online, and grand jury proceedings are continuing as scheduled. (NC Judicial Branch statement)
Money talks: Vaccination sites that are giving out $100 cash cards to people who get vaccinated are seeing a surge in traffic, and the website listing where people can get $100 for vaccines has more than tripled in page loads since the state increased the reward for getting a vaccine from $25 to $100, state officials said. (AP via WFAE)
State budget: The N.C. House released a budget plan Tuesday that calls for average 5.5% raises for teachers — more than the Senate plan, but less than Gov. Roy Cooper says he wants. (News & Observer)
High school football: Garinger High won’t field a varsity football team this year. It has more freshmen and sophomores on the team than upperclassmen, and its coach doesn’t want younger players competing against older players on other teams. It will have a JV team. (Observer, subscriber-only; WCNC)
More land for Centene: Centene Corp. bought an additional 10.5 acres on 8 parcels for $4M next to its planned campus off Mallard Creek Road in University City, property records show. The majority of the lots contain houses along Island Park Circle, a residential street.
Bear warning: Bears are now walking into campsites in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. “Bears are coming up to tents and picnic tables, which is obviously a danger to people in the area, but can also be a danger to the bears,” the U.S. Forest Service wrote in a Facebook post this week. (Observer)
Investing in Charlotte houses: Investors make of 14% of all home buyers in Charlotte, up from 9% a year ago, according to new figures. (Axios Charlotte)
CMS email mistake: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools erroneously sent an email on Friday with the names, addresses and medical information for nearly 3,000 students to families in the district’s after-school program. (WSOC)
Programming note: Ledger editor Tony Mecia appears as a guest on 90.7 WFAE at 6:40 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. on Thursdays for a discussion of the week’s local business news in the station’s “BizWorthy” segment. Audio and transcripts are also available online.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory