Enlarge Tony Marciano of the Charlotte Rescue Mission. (Photo: Charlotte Observer.)

Posted: November 17th, 2011 Lee Howard

Stories worth sharing this week:

• Mayor Anthony Foxx and fellow Democrats swept this past week’s elections, and Republicans blamed a poor voter turnout among their constituents. But it ain’t necessarily so. According to election results, 19.2 percent of Democrats voted, 18.9 percent of Republicans voted and 11.4 percent of unaffiliated people voted. Race and geography were at least as significant as voter turnout.
• And this past week’s election marked a milestone for Charlotte: The city elected its first openly gay council member, LaWana Mayfield. Mayfield is a longtime community activist whose credentials range from supervising relief work after Hurricane Katrina to serving as a board of advisors member for the Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Fund. She bettered incumbent Warren Turner in the primaries and Republican Ed Toney in the general election.
• Many honored our service people on Veterans Day this past week. But vets returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are finding their sacrifices are largely unappreciated by the current job market. Unemployment among vets returning from the Middle East is more than 12 percent, compared to 9 percent nationwide. Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont is trying to help with a training and job placement program aimed at vets seeking work. It’s called Operation Independence.
• The Charlotte Rescue Mission is trying to raise $300,000 to buy furnishings for the 120 rooms at its new Dove’s Nest residential recovery center. The center, which should be complete in August, is being designed to help homeless women who suffer from addiction, says Tony Marciano, the mission’s executive director. For more information, call 704.333.4673, then press zero.
• The Charlotte Area Transit System took a beating from the feds this past week for failing to adequately include minority and women businesses among its suppliers. The Federal Transit Administration released a report that, among other things, said CATS did not consistently provide a directory of women- and minority-owned companies to prospective bidders and contractors.

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