The following is a transcript of District 1 candidate Jeramy Reid’s answers at a Guilford County Unity Effort forum on Sept. 8:
Introductory statement
My name is Jeramy Reid. I’m a fourth generation Greensboro resident. My family’s been here for years. My great-grandparents retired from Cone Mills. My grandmother retired from Lorillard. We take a lot of pride in the city. I’d like to see – I know there’s been a lot of talk about creating jobs, creating jobs, and I think one of the keys to creating jobs in the 1st district is to work with our police force on creating a much more community based approach to where the citizens know the policemen that are in their neighborhood, and the policemen know the residents that are in the neighborhoods they patrol, and rebuild a lot of that trust. I think with that cleared up, I think a lot of businesses will return. There’s a lot of great people in the district. There’s a lot of money to be spent with businesses, but without that safety side to it I don’t think we’re going to see those businesses return to that district.
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 agree with some of what [Charles Dayton Coffey] said. I think promoting small business is something that, from a tax incentives standpoint, the city should strongly look at. Along with tying into those, extra incentives for those businesses that pay living wages, that provide benefits to their employees. There are countless people here in the city of Greensboro that are uninsured or under-insured or make non-living wages. And I think tying some of those in with some of those incentives for not just small businesses but for the great big corporations that we bring into the area would be a huge help to the residents in District 1. I also think that, as I said in my opening, focusing on community-based efforts to reduce crime to improve areas of the 1st district will bring businesses to the area. There’s a reason why Wendover is packed with businesses. And a lot of it is this money the city’s putting into make this area nice and promote business.
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?
We really need a community-based police force. We need beat cops in areas where there’s the highest crime, where people don’t feel safe to walk in their own neighborhood. We need police on the streets walking, getting to know the people in the neighborhoods. And I know it costs money. But with a budget of $400-something million I guarantee you there’s ways — a lot that we could trim out to come up with money to pay for those kind of programs, and get the police on the streets and in the neighborhoods and get to know the residents, and earn that trust so if the resident sees the person on the corner selling drugs they can call the cops and it’s not a three-hour response time; it’s a half-an-hour response time. But until we get those kinds of things in place, the citizens to buy in and not to be afraid to pick up the phone and call, or just feel that it’s not going to make a difference if they do because they’re going to be gone by the time anyone shows up anyway. We have to build that trust with citizens to be proactive in cleaning up their own neighborhood.
Do you favor maintaining funding for the Greensboro Police Department’s gang enforcement unit? Why or why not?
I would agree with most everybody here. I think that we do need to continue with our gang unit. I think that maybe we need to look for ways to increase funding, not just for the gang unit, but as Ms. Bellamy-Small put it, every police officer should also have that training, and if that’s something that can be expanded through more funding and expansion of our gang unit, then I think that would be a huge bonus. The gang unit does respond to gang-related crime, so to use it to train and work with the rest of the police force to further their knowledge and further their awareness of the issue — I think as Greensboro continues to grow, the problem’s not going away. I have several friends who live in Durham. Their gang problem is a thousand times worse than Greensboro’s is, just because they didn’t do anything for a long time. They let the situation get way out of hand before the community and the government in the area stepped in and did something about it. So I think it’s very good for Greensboro now to be proactive, to take care of the situation or make an effort towards the situation in the beginning.
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?
Yes, this is a question I’m uniquely qualified on. I am urban sprawl. As of July 1, I became a part of Greensboro. I live in McLeansville. I laugh every day when I get on the highway to come to work and the street sign right there says, “Greensboro, eight miles.” It is what it is. If urban sprawl’s an issue for Greensboro, it’s an issue that Greensboro’s created. We continue to reach out and satellite annex areas well outside of the city, but then in turn it costs the city — yes, we’re going to get tax rates out of it — but it costs the city services for those residents. And it’s a long time coming for those residents in those neighborhoods. Yes, they have water. Yes, we get trash service. We just wasted a bunch of money with three-year old street signs that the city just came out and took down today. They’re replaced with city street signs that look identical to the ones that were already there. It’s just laughable. But I think urban sprawl is an issue that the city has created itself and apparently wants.
What is your vision for a strategic, sustainable solid waste management system for Greensboro?
I believe that our current, trucking trash to another county is not a long-term viable solution for Greensboro. I know it’s been brought up earlier, economically, as the cost of gas increases, as other costs increase, it’s going to become exorbitant rates for Greensboro to continue to do this years into the future. Whether we open up the White Street Landfill or we look into construction of a new long-term — the White Street Landfill, I think earlier it was mentioned it has four years on it? — what’s the point of opening it up for four years? That’s a moot point in itself. I think we need to look at a long-term solution, which would be to build another landfill in the Greensboro area somewhere. People have talked about the impact on people’s lives and the cost of a human life. Where we’re trucking all that trash to now, it’s having the same effect on the people that live near that landfill. Are their lives any less important than someone’s in Greensboro. I mean, the trash has to go somewhere. I think we can be responsible about it. I think we do need to expand our recycling program. I work in a kitchen six days a week. I’ve worked in various restaurants around Greensboro. If you saw the amount of recyclable stuff that we throw away on a daily basis, because we just can’t recycle it. We have cardboard and paper. That’s all the resources we have to us. We throw so much that could be recycled, it gets thrown out. Even expanding the recycling program to businesses would make a huge, significant difference in reducing our trash.
If elected, what project would you like to have completed by the end of your first term?
I think my number-one goal — I mentioned earlier Wendover. You know, there’s a reason why — everybody can say, everybody can kind of pretend like it’s not there — but there’s a reason why you ride out Wendover and the city’s putting down sidewalks. I think they just paid $60,000 to put sidewalks — it’s going to benefit their business. Why can’t Lee Street be beautifully paved and look nice and have not-broken-up sidewalks? Why can’t that type of investment and that type of focus be put in the 1st district that is out in other areas of the city? You know, those things happen. And I think that would be my goal, is to make sure that the 1st district doesn’t get forgotten when the funds go out. With the amount of waste that the city has already, I think there’s room to free up a lot of money that could be put to great use in the 1st district.
Would you support giving subpoena power to the Greensboro Police Department citizen review board? Why or why not?
I’d also have to agree. I would assume that the city police force would have to attend. Outside of that, if the citizens don’t want to show up and do their part and testify about what they may or may not have saw then the system isn’t broken; it’s the citizens that are broken. If the people aren’t going to get up and use the resources that the city puts in front of them, adding subpoena power is not going to make a difference because they can show up and not say anything.
Closing statement
My name is Jeramy Reid. I’m running here in District 1. My family’s been in Greensboro for a long time. I think Greensboro’s a great place to live…. I grew up in Raleigh. I was born in Greensboro. I moved back to Greensboro because I like Greensboro. I think Greensboro’s a great place. I spent most of my summers here with my grandparents. I think we have some problems that really need to get fixed. I think we have a lot of financial problems that aren’t addressed. I think we need to do a much better job as a board reviewing budgets, reviewing where every dollar is spent. I know how hard I work to make every dollar I earn, and I’m sure every single taxpayer in the city feels the same way. And I think we need people on the board who are going to consider just how many hours someone works if we’re going to spend $14 million on this or $21 million on this. I know I work for a huge corporation. Every year when it comes budget time, you ask for this…. If there’s not a review and we’re going to pass this every time, the tax rates are going to force a lot more people out of the city.
Triad Elections '09
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