Rahenkamp's conservative platform

Joseph Rahenkamp, who somewhat resembles a diminutive Edward Kennedy, stopped by to talk about his candidacy for the District 4 seat on Greensboro City Council.

Rahenkamp is a Republican, and is quite a few clicks to the right of any Kennedy. The 74-year-old former Greensboro firefighter told me he's run in every Greensboro City Council election since 1997. He's never tried to raise money and has never won an election — I'm not implying there's a correlation necessarily.

This time around, he's running for an open seat, although he faces stiff competition. Mary Rakestraw, who has served one term at large is running for the seat. So is Joel Landau, a reputable progressive who serves on the city's planning board and sustainability committee. A fourth candidate in Mike Martin.

Rahenkamp laid out a three-point campaign platform for me.

No tax or fee increases:
"I'm for holding property taxes flat. The same with water and garbage collection. Too many people are losing their homes and their cars. They can't pay their taxes now."

Tax incentives for all:
"For residential and commercial property owners — suppose you have a piece of property valued at a million dollars. If you build on it or improve it, wait three years to tax them. Down the line three years, your tax base will get better. That's an incentive for people to invest in their properties and increase the tax base."

Appointment of police and fire commissioners:
"I am for having a fire commissioner and a police commissioner. Let them run every four years for it. If you have someone running every four years they're not tied to anything. Just like the sheriff. The sheriff runs every four years. It doesn't matter if it's a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn't hurt to change the guard every so often."

He also has some things to say about former City Manager Mitchell Johnson's handling of the police controversy, about the coliseum and the bus service, and about his philosophy on political service.

To wit:

"I think that City Manager Mitchell Johnson, he handled it completely wrong. In my opinion, he did not want David Wray to be chief in the first place. It's costing the city millions of dollars. Locking the chief out of his office was a big mistake. That's what caused the city manager to be fired.... [David Wray] was a good police chief. He was getting too close to things. He knew what was going on."

His viewpoints on the Greensboro Coliseum and the Greensboro Transit Authority are simple; they should be privatized.

As a campaigner, Rahenkamp doesn't raise any money and he doesn't consider himself beholden to anyone.

"I'm not tied to anybody," he said. "I don't owe anyone. I get into these [candidate] forums. They want to ask me: 'What are you going to do for the Afro-Americans?' I say, 'The same thing I'm going to do for white people. White people, brown people and black people are all the same. I will represent everybody. It doesn't matter what you do; you can't make people like each other."

UPDATE: I should have noted that bus service is already privatized in Greensboro. Veolia Transportation holds the contract.