The 9th Street Station stop along the LYNX Blue Line in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday, December 8, 2025.
Charlotte City Council approved a multi-million dollar marketing contract for its public transportation system on Monday, days after the second light rail stabbing in four months.
That decision has come under fire from critics who say it glosses over serious public safety concerns.
The optics aren’t great, agreed Charlotte Area Transit System spokesman Brett Baldeck. But the contract is unrelated to recent incidents. CATS has “always had” an agreement with an outside marketing firm. The previous contract happened to expire just as the transit system was thrust into the spotlight, he said.
CATS and city spokespeople did not immediately provide a copy of the previous contract when asked. The Charlotte Observer was unable to locate a comparable contract after reviewing City Council business meeting agendas dating back to September 2021.
“There’s no correlation between the contract approved at council last night and anything that’s happened along our system in the past year,” Baldeck said. “The timing was not good, so it makes it look different than it really is.”
The $3.4 million contract hired Texas-based communications firm Sherry Matthews Group to help CATS staff with “enhancing the public’s perception and use of public transit,” according to the City Council meeting agenda. Sherry Matthews Group will assist with advertising, branding, community engagement and crisis communications, among other tasks
Council approved the contract as part of its consent agenda, which requires no discussion and is used for items that typically have no opposition or controversy.
City Manager Marcus Jones can renew the one-year contract for up to three terms with potential price adjustments along the way.
Council’s approval came three days after a stabbing on the CATS-operated Blue Line. Oscar Solarzano, a 33-year-old Honduran man who does not have legal status in the United States, allegedly stabbed victim Kenyon Dobie after Dobie told him to stop yelling at other passengers.
Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed while riding the Blue Line over the summer. Her death drew national outrage and an increased focus on public safety, with some calling for President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard in Charlotte.
The city began soliciting marketing contract proposals on Sept. 11, according to the agenda, about three weeks after Zarutska was killed.
The contract’s timing drew the ire of Congressman Ralph Norman, who represents the South Carolina communities just across the border from Charlotte. He issued a statement Tuesday morning calling the council’s vote a slap in the face to law enforcement and taxpayers.
“It is outrageous that rather than fixing the problem of violent crime that is literally killing people, the Charlotte City Council wants to spend $3.4 million on public relations consultants,” Norman said. “I have already called on the mayor to resign, and it might be time for the city council to follow suit.”
The Mecklenburg County Republican Party also criticized the contract as propaganda, saying the city “wants to cover up the truth, and tell residents to sit down and be quiet about safety concerns.”
“Let us be clear, public safety in Charlotte is not a messaging problem. It’s a leadership problem,” party Chairman Kyle Kirby said in the statement on Tuesday.
CATS has its own internal communications team. Outside agencies are contracted to provide supplemental services and “specialized expertise,” according to the council meeting agenda.
Contractors have helped with brand and slogan creation, Baldeck said, including the “CATS Works for You” campaign, which involved advertisements on buses that explained how passengers could use transit to navigate their daily lives. Outside agencies have also helped build a website where people could apply for jobs.
New contracts go before council when old ones reach the end of their term, Baldeck said.
This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
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Nick Sullivan
The Charlotte Observer
Nick Sullivan covers the City of Charlotte for The Observer. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina, and he previously covered education for The Arizona Republic and The Colorado Springs Gazette.
