The following is a transcript of Greensboro City Council at-large candidate Nancy Vaughan’s answers at a Guilford County Unity Effort forum on Sept. 22:
Introductory statement
Thank you. I want to tell you a little bit about who I am. I was elected to two terms on the city council, and I served from 1997 to 2001. After the birth of my daughter, Catherine, I chose to not run for a third term. I recently completed six years as the city council’s appointee on the Piedmont Triad International Airport. For two years, I co-chaired a task force on studying the effects of domestic violence on children. I have been on the boards of Greensboro Beautiful, the Greensboro [inaudible] and I am a strong neighborhood advocate. I’m a diversity liaison at my daughter’s school, I serve on a board of trustees, I’m a Brownie leader and I teach Sunday school. Four years ago, I retired after 18 years as operations manager of Talley Machinery, and two years ago I became a certified paralegal. My top four issues are jobs and economic development, public safety, preparing for our future and governing with openness and integrity. Thank you.
Do you support continued funding for the Greensboro Police Department gang enforcement unit. If so, do you think it should possibly be restructured?
Yes, I do support continued funding. I’m not sure about how it should be restructured. I do support extra funding for our police department. I feel that our police department is very undermanned at this point. I think we could probably use a couple hundred more officers than we have right now, which might actually take some pressure off the gang enforcement unit. This past week I did a ride-along with our police department, and I was really surprised how huge each territory was — the city is broken up into territories — and how much room they have to cover, and really how few responding vehicles there are. That is something that we need to look at because everybody deserves to be home, and they’re safe in their leisure and their work.
Would you be in favor of reopening the White Street Landfill to household waste? Why or why not?
I was on the council that closed the White Street Landfill, so this is something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. I was just at a city council briefing today and we discussed solid waste and what our opportunities are. I think that this is really something that we need to look at as a regional approach. We hear a lot about regionalism. And you know, Greensboro, High Point, Winston, Kernersville, we all have trash. I don’t see why we can’t all get together and find a regional solution for our solid waste, just the same way we did for our water problem. I think we need to investigate all of the options that are available to us, but, you know, long term I think we need to be looking regionally.
Some residents have expressed concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest when individuals who have contributed to candidates’ campaigns bring business such as rezoning requests before city council. Would you be in favor of imposing a 12-month cooling-off period on campaign contributions before and after individuals bring business before city council?
As long as we’re all on a level playing field, I really don’t care. I think trying to limit contributions 12 months in advance is a little difficult because people don’t know necessarily because people don’t know that they’re going to come before council or zoning. You know, as I said, as long as it’s a level playing field, then that’s fine with me. There may be some First Amendment issues, and I’m sure we’ll have some lawyers who will take a look at that. I do think that we need to look at ethics and financial disclosures. And the city of Winston-Salem just passed something within the last few months that was fairly significant. I think that as a council we need to work together and come up with a form that will help people feel more comfortable with our decision-making process. And that is something that I would support. Thank you.
One of the questions in a candidate survey sent out by TREBIC [Triad Real Estate and Building Industries Coalition] is, do you think that sprawl is a problem in Greensboro. How did you answer this question?
I believe when I answered the questionnaire I did say that, yes, sprawl is an issue. You know, Greensboro didn’t grow like normal cities grow. Usually there’s a big business node in the middle and then the suburbs go out. You know, we have all these little nodes. We’ve got downtown. We’ve got Four Seasons. We’ve got Green Valley. We’ve got a bunch of different office parks all over the place. And the problem with that is it’s very difficult for mass transit and getting people to and from their jobs. It’s very difficult for the police to cover that area. I do think that sprawl is an issue and that we should focus on infill development. But we do know that infill issues are some of the ones that are the most hotly contested when they come before city council. So it’s really going to behoove neighborhoods and the developers and the staff to work closely together to come up with the best product.
Closing statement
Thank you. The reason why I’m here tonight is really pretty simple: I love Greensboro. This is a great place to live. I want my children to stay here, live here and prosper. And I want that for everyone. I have a vision for this city, and it is to attract new jobs, focus on a quality of life, public safety and having equally for everyone. And I hope you will support me in this coming election. Thank you.
Triad Elections ’09
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