As the race for mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina heats up, local government programming is getting caught in the crossfire between mayoral candidate Martin Davis and City Councilman John Lassiter.

On Monday, Lasiter asked election officials to order his opponent to remove a video clip from the opponents web site. The clip is question is from the December 22, 2008 episode of City Source – Council Member Profiles 2008, which originally aired on “The Government Channel 16″ and is currently available OnDemand.

What’s Martin’s allegation? That the video constitutes an “illegal contribution” and that the clip used taxpayer dollars for the Lassiter campaign.

Davis said he has a video on his own campaign web site that cost $2,400 to make and is of lesser quality, so taxpayers may have paid more to cover the cost of the Lassiter clip.

The only problem with Lassiter’s request is that the video is part of the public domain and freely available on the city’s web site. In addition, the piece was produced independently of the election season, so there’s no merit to the argument according to the City Attorney, Mac McCarley.

Legal issues aside, I think the producers of City Source should take this challenge as a compliment. Davis clearly states that his own video is of lesser quality than the City Source episode and in my opinion is the real root of Davis’ angst.

It may be an off-hand compliment, but it’s a complement none-the-less!

Source: Charlotte Observer
Photo: DSC_5544 courtesy of Craig Lammes
Channel Info: City of Charlotte Cable 16