CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The City of Charlotte has released a statement regarding reports that Jacksonville, Florida has been selected as the host city to celebrate the renomination of President Donald J. Trump.
President Trump and the GOP pulled the convention from North Carolina because the Governor would not guarantee that a full crowd would be allowed inside the city's 19,000-seat Spectrum Center for events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including nomination acceptance speeches by President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Instead, those events, along with many of the publicly viewed parts of the convention, will be held in Jacksonville's 15,000-seat Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena.
Jacksonville beat out other cities under consideration including Nashville, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Orlando. Republican Mayor Lenny Curry lobbied publicly for the event to be held on the First Coast and Governor Ron Desantis said the state would welcome the event with open arms.
Statement from the City of Charlotte:
Since being awarded the 2020 Republican National Convention, we have been working with our partners to meet our obligations and to help ensure a successful event for the Republican National Committee (RNC), as well as for the Charlotte community. Given the RNC’s formal notice to relocate most convention events to Jacksonville, FL., the City believes it is in the parties’ best interest to immediately unwind the agreements among them and hold the RNC accountable to fulfill all its outstanding obligations to the parties and make them whole.
Editor's note: The City of Charlotte released an updated statement saying the one they released before was "the result of a technical error." The statement below is the statement the city said was not meant to go out.
"The City Attorney and members of his staff have been meeting regularly with the legal representatives of the Republican National Committee and other parties to the convention agreements. The City of Charlotte remains willing to work in good faith to complete its contractual obligations under the terms of the two Convention agreements. The City has not been officially informed of the RNC’s intent to relocate the convention. Considering the media reports of the RNC’s apparent unilateral decision to relocate a substantial portion of the convention to Jacksonville, an immediate discussion with the RNC and our partners regarding contractual obligations and remedies resulting from this apparent decision is required."
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