The following is a transcript of District 1 candidate Ben Holder’s answers at a Guilford County Unity Effort forum on Sept. 8:
Introductory statement
My name is Ben Holder. I was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. What I offer to you is a decade worth of activism that has resulted in improvements in District 1. I was the first one to complain about Southgate Motor Inn and the problems Southgate Motor Inn brought to the community. And Southgate Motor Inn is now demolished. I was the one who stopped the city from tearing Southgate Motor Inn down without removing the asbestos first, making people sick, these poor people that tear these buildings down. There was no special rule for Greensboro to protect. I went to the council and got that done. I have consistently, since 1999, worked with the city of Greensboro without a commission, without any appointment, by myself, with my own convictions, gone before the board and got things done time and time again. I got married in 2000, Sept. 9, 2000. My son was born 10 days later. We had a daughter. We moved to Winston-Salem. I’ve worked for the city of Greensboro, the local ordinance office. My wife died. I’m a single parent of two biracial children. I moved back to Greensboro two months ago to run for District 1. And since I’ve been back I have made public record policy for all of y’all simple, more efficient. I have brought attention to blight to the council. I’m the one that you can bring you complaints to, and I will see that it’s carried through to the proper channels all the way down until it’s done.
Economic growth and development has not occurred in east Greensboro to the same extent as in other areas of the city. If elected, what would you do to ensure that there is balanced economic growth and development across the various quadrants of the city?
I believe O’Reilly Auto Parts is the only new thing that we’ve had come in District 1 for quite some time. And all of ’em touched on it, but I will tell you — and I’ve told anyone who will listen to me — that there’s a huge double standard. The things that are not tolerated on the affluent side of town are ignored on the less affluent side of town. And until we get local ordinance — until we get our city getting rid of the blight, cleaning stuff up, as they’re supposed to do. Like the Ross Strange building, is a good example of something that should have been torn down a long time ago and made room for some kind of redevelopment. And it’s dangerous, too. So there’s many things that we could do without having to spend any extra money. We need to just be more efficient on working on in District 1 in addressing the blight problem. Then that will automatically address the criminal problem. And then everything else will take care of itself. It’s like coaching a football team and teaching them all these really complicated plays but you don’t spend any time blocking and tackling. In District 1, we need to learn how to block and we need to learn how to tackle because we don’t know how yet.
Because of drug activity and crime in their neighborhoods many of the city’s elderly in east Greensboro fear for their safety and do not come out in the evening or move around their neighborhoods during the day as freely as they would like to. What would you do to increase the elderly’s sense of public safety?
You used the example of the elderly being afraid. I was on Bilbro Street knocking on doors talking to people about an issue in their neighborhood, and more than one person told me that they would not have answered the door if I did not have those two children with me. I understand their fear, but I also understand that we can do better — every neighborhood that has somebody scared, every neighborhood that has a criminal infestation also has a severe problem with dilapidation and blight. And if we can get serious about picking bad neighborhoods and then zeroing in on one street at a time and going in there and cleaning these areas up, with local ordinance, with the neighborhood — it’s true that you could have more community building with the National Night Out, but we’ve got to get serious about what’s tolerable. There’s plenty of issues in District 1 that would not be tolerable anywhere else that feed the fear, that feed the crime, that promote that atmosphere of stay in your house and lock your doors.
Do you favor maintaining funding for the Greensboro Police Department’s gang enforcement unit? Why or why not?
Yes, I’m for keeping the gang unit. We have gangs, and it’s a problem. It’s a problem that affects District 1 greatly. I see gang signs in District 1. I see kids that wear the gang-style clothing in District 1. I don’t know if I would necessarily want to see the gang unit structured the way it is, but yeah, to fund the gang unit, we need a gang unit. We have gangs. We may need some restructuring on how they operate, but we do have a gang problem. I’ve said that for quite some time.
One of the questions in a candidate survey sent out by the Triad Real Estate & Building Industries Coalition is, Do you think that sprawl is a problem in Greensboro? How did you answer this question, and what are your reasons for your answer?
I didn’t answer the TREBIC survey. Nothing against TREBIC; I’m just kind of busy, and we get a lot of surveys. Like Mr. Sellars, I’m pro-residents, too. I am absolutely for small businesses, but I don’t really see sprawl as a problem in Greensboro. No, I do not.
What is your vision for a strategic, sustainable solid waste management system for Greensboro?
You would start with me on that one. I certainly do appreciate that. You know, that’s a really hard question. I think that the White Street Landfill is — I mean, I’m not going to sit here and say, “9 million this, $9 million that,” because you can’t put a price on sickness, you can’t put a price on quality of life, you can’t put a price on things like that. So, while I think we can find better ways to deal with our trash and deal with this problem in the long term, I don’t see reopening the White Street Landfill as an option. I also didn’t really see the purchasing of the land on Burnt Poplar Road for the transfer station — the city council bought that un-appraised. There are better ways that we could deal with this, but I don’t see opening the White Street Landfill as an option. The other thing is, where’s this trash going that we take away. I mean, it’s going to the Uwharrie landfill in Mt. Gilead. They have people that live close to there. We’re just dumping our trash on somebody else, so we have to sustain our problem, yes. We have to get on with the times and be green and be smart and be efficient and be honest and be transparent when we deal with our trash. But you’re not going to ever see me vote to reopen the White Street Landfill.
If elected, what project would you like to have completed by the end of your first term?
Whether I’m elected or not, I’m always going to fight against the blight and the crime. But if I were to get elected, one thing from experience that I can tell everyone is that we don’t have the best, most freest, transparent public record system in the city of Greensboro. And when I ask for a public record and I don’t get it, it just kind of makes you wonder, you know, why, what’s really going on, why are you hiding this? And many times I’ve found out that, yeah, they hide certain things. So what my main focus would be? Let’s be a big city, let’s be a smart city, let’s stop wasting time answering all these massive public records requests and put ’em accessible online. There’s no reason why everybody’s business license cannot be online. There’s no reason why the local ordinance, for instance — there’s no reason for you to ride down the street, see an abandoned house with the door open, be able to go online, check it and see what’s going on. Has it been inspected? Is it supposed to be boarded up? Who owns it? All that kind of stuff the city inspectors have. And nothing a city inspector does is not the public’s record. All of it is. There’s very little that isn’t public record. So if I were lucky enough to be elected, I would make sure that what is the public’s record would be made accessible to the public.
Would you support giving subpoena power to the Greensboro Police Department citizen review board? Why or why not?
A citizen review board is a panel that handles complaints about the police department. Sometimes the citizen review board can’t even get basic documentation from our police department. So until I completely trust the guys with the guns and the badges I would like for our citizen review board to be able to subpoena anything that they need to get to the bottom of the issue. So, yes, we need it badly.
Triad Elections '09
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