The following is a transcript of Greensboro City Council at-large candidate Gary Nixon’s answers at a Guilford County Unity Effort forum on Sept. 22:
Introductory statement
For 34 years, I was a consultant for cities, including every city in the Triad. You probably don’t know that 47 percent of the budget — $421 million for the city of Greensboro — is used for water resources, transportation and debt service: my areas of expertise. My approach to resolving differences of opinion will make the city council more effective. In my professional career I helped many communities to create and implement regional approaches to needs. I hope that you will pick up one of my campaign fliers that have more detail on my military and education background. I’d like to leave you with a thought — that my vision is to create an atmosphere for a unified and progressive city while providing taxpayers with affordable infrastructure, basic services and recreational facilities. Thank you.
Members of the sitting council have recently clashed over the proper relationship between the council and the city manager. What, in your view, is the proper role of each of these important entities?
Greensboro, like most communities in North Carolina, has a city manager form of government, as opposed to a strong mayor form of government. Therefore, the city manager should be running the show, and the city council should be giving them overall direction of how they should proceed. If the city council doesn’t like it, then they can fire the city manager. I do not think that the city council at all should be involved in any of the day-to-day operations of the whole city. That’s the city manager’s job and his staff. I think the relationship should be set goals, the direction you want to go, and let the staff, starting with the city manager, implement that. Thank you.
Would you be in favor of reopening the White Street Landfill to household waste? Why or why not?
I was hoping you’d ask me that question. I’ve had a lot of experience in creating regional opportunities for communities and getting them to work together, including Greensboro going to Reidsville to get water and Burlington to get water. Regarding the question at hand, I think that the city unequivocally made a promise to those residents twice that we would not reopen that landfill, so I think we have no choice even though it was the economical way to go, and I would honor that twice decision and not reopen the landfill. As Nancy said – steal my thunder for a little later – this is the obvious project that we should do regionally. It makes sense. Everybody has the same issue. And my advantage over the other members up here is I know all the players and all the communities because I’ve worked with every one of them, from staffs to the mayors and the councils. And we could make that happen, we could be the leader in that, and I would like the opportunity to complete that type of a project.
Economic growth and development have 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 parts of the city?
If you look around the city at the wonderful East Market Street renovations from the street, it makes it more appealing. If you look out at West Friendly Avenue, as an example, between Holden and Westridge, for the life of me, I cannot see why city council spends $6 million to put a center divider. We did get sidewalks there. So those sort of improvements can be moved to the northeast portion of the city. I think there’s also ways of giving some sort of tax incentives, especially basic needs, like grocery store chains. I suppose now you don’t need them for pharmacies because there’s one on every corner almost everywhere. But anyway you can put some tax incentives for that type of basic services. You can put some of our road dollars into those areas. And do away with some of the things we’ve been doing for years and years and years just because it was done that way. How many of you have driven on the streets of Greensboro and seen a street repaved, and shook your head and said, “Why does it need to be repaved? It’s in good shape.” And so we can save money that way to reinvest in ways like this to encourage investment in the other parts of the city.
Candidates say they will represent their constituents. This means they need to know their constituents’ wishes and perspectives. What, in your experience prior to running for office, can you point to that tells us you are person who is in touch with your constituents?
The way I interpret your question is, whoever you’re working for, how do you stay in touch with them? And I had a firm and we had 300 employees. I was the largest shareholder in that firm. And our door was always open to our staff. Because, you know, when you open your door to your staff sometimes they’ll come in and sometimes they won’t, so the best way is to go out and talk to them. And we did that all the time with our staff. For 34 years, I’ve been a consultant for cities and their capital needs and infrastructure improvements. And my expertise was in water and wastewater. When we were doing a project, sure, we worked with the city manager. And when it came time to go to city council, we worked with city council. But our most important work was done when we were talking to the people who were doing the day-to-day jobs in the facility that we were working at. We were talking to them, getting their ideas. Sometimes there they didn’t know what they were talking about, but we sat there and we listened to them. They did have some good ideas, and we incorporated them anytime that we could. So basically it’s a listening process, it’s an education process where we have a chance to go back and forth with each all the way up the tier. And so that we understand and they understand, and then we end up with a successful project.
How do you plan to include immigrants and refugee communities in the city council?
To be honest with you, I don’t have a plan for that. I think that just including people to be on a committee is not the right approach. What we’ve done in our Rotary Club is, I think, a good way of handling this type of situation. That is, to encourage people to be involved. We need to have people involved and coming to different meetings and getting some background and education for that type of assignment. You just can’t force people — you don’t have the right process to put people on committees and say, “Go to work,” when they don’t have the qualifications. You have to give them the qualifications, the backing and the education to do it. This, unfortunately, is going to take years, but that’s the way it should be handled.
Closing statement
My wife and I love it here in Greensboro. That’s why I’m offering my specialized experience and qualifications to solve complex issues that need addressing. I want to restore confidence in the city government. We need to find long-term solutions for our solid-waste garbage disposal we talked about. We need to reduce the traffic congestion. We need to resolve the legal issues so that the plaintiffs and the defendant don’t win the legal issues; the voters do. So we need to mediate those issues. I want to become the leader in promoting regionalism. I want to look for ways we can consolidate many city-county consolidation opportunities that economically make sense. Thank you very much, and I hope you will pick up one of my fliers on your way out so that you’ll know a little bit more about me. Thank you.
Triad Elections ’09
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