Mecklenburg County Lags In Road Stimulus Dollars

Despite being the largest county in the state, Mecklenburg County is only getting the sixth largest amount of stimulus road money.

Eyewitness News wanted to know how much stimulus money the county got for roads so far compared with other counties in the state.

Here are the latest numbers: Cumberland County: $56 million Lenoir and Wake counties: $44 million Lee county: $42 million Buncombe: $38 million Iredell and Mecklenburg counties: $35 million

So Eyewitness News asked road leaders, the state stimulus czar's office and elected officials why places like Fayetteville and Sanford beat Charlotte.

Some said other counties may have had more shovel-ready projects. Others said those counties may have applied for all of their stimulus dollars upfront for a few big projects, and that Mecklenburg is tackling a lot of smaller projects over a longer period of time.

Others, like Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, blame the state's formula for deciding who gets what road money.

"It's a purely political formula that favors other areas of the state, and those areas have benefitted pretty well," he said.

He consistently blames state leaders for sticking with the formula. So Eyewitness News asked Gov. Bev Perdue if she plans to change it.

"I think the whole equity formula is open for discussion, but at the end of the day, every person in North Carolina who pays taxes deserves a road, and it would do us no good to decide that one place got all the money and one place got no money," she said.

Counties care how much stimulus money they get because those dollars are saving and creating jobs, such as those for contractors like Rusty Hill.

"It's like anyone trying to make a living, and with no commercial work out here, and then without stimulus money, we'd have no work," he said.

While Mecklenburg County hasn't gotten the most stimulus road dollars, it did get the most money in three other important areas – transit, schools and crime-fighting.