Face Time: Nancy Vaughan

I had lunch with Greensboro City Council at-large candidate Nancy Vaughan this afternoon at Gray's Tavern in downtown Greensboro. We spoke about her experience as a former council member; her husband, NC Sen. Don Vaughan, himself a former member of Greensboro City Council (Disclosure: Don Vaughan is my lawyer); the GPD; economic incentives for businesses; and the role of the city manager, among other things.

History

Nancy Vaughan is running for one of three at-large seats on Greensboro City Council.

Vaughan served two terms on council, 1998-2001, under mayors Carolyn Allen and Keith Holliday. During  After Before her tenure, she became involved in the rezoning of a tract of land off New Garden Road owned at the time by Jefferson Pilot, which eventually sued her and the other sitting council members of her committee.

The protest petition, and Greensboro's exemption from it, was one of the things that lured her back to politics.

Her two biggest obstacles, she said, were her daughter, who is now eight years old, and the fact that "I hate raising money." According to her latest campaign finance report, she has $9,373.43 on hand.

The Greensboro Police Department

"I think we have a lot of great police officers; I think their morale has taken a hit."

Vaugha said she went on a police ride-around a few weeks ago, which covered territory from Adams Farm to Randleman Road.

"I was amazed at the amount of square footage they have to cover," she said. Of the force's 650 or so sworn officers, she said, many do not actually patrol the streets. "When you get down to it," she said, "we don't have a lot of [police] cars driving around."

Of the spate of EEOC complaints against the department, she said her preference is not to settle out of court but to "hear them out."

"So many allegations have been made," she said, "but I think we need a full airing of the facts. If there are instances of institutional racism, we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves. If not, we need to move on. I don't think we're going to get that by settling [out of court]."

She says she was not for a police review board while in office, but that she is now, and that she favors a board with subpoena power.

"What good is it when they can't make people show?" she said.

Transparency

Vaughan spoke briefly about government transparency and the Freedom of Information Act.

"We need to define what comes up under 'personnel exclusion,'" she said. "It's been used [by the current council] as a way to avoid giving out information.

"We've been sued by citizens asking for some of this information, and they've gotten it," she said. "That says they should have given it out."

Power couple?

Speaking about the advantages and possible conflicts of serving on council while her husband, Sen. Don Vaughan, represents out interests in the NC Senate, she said, she could only see benefits.

"I am going to know what's going on in Raleigh," she said, "and [Don]'s gonna take my call."

She cited Guilford County Commissioner Linda Shaw and her husband, former NC Sen. Bob Shaw; former Guilford County Commissioner Chuck Forrester and his wife, Maggie Keesee-Forrester, who served as a state representative; and NC Sen. Katie Dorsett, whose husband Warren was vice chair of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.

"It's not like it's the first time," she said.

City government

Vaughan expressed discontent with the current manager-council for of governance in Greensboro, wherein city council has one employee, the manager, who reports directly to them.

"I would like to see the city attorney report to us," she said, allowing for "unfiltered, uncensored information from the legal department." A change to implement this system, she said, was part of the legislative agenda this year after passing council by a 5-4 vote, though the measure was not adopted by state lawmakers.

Economic incentives

"Like it or not," she said, "economic incentives are here to stay."

She acknowledged the closing of the Dell Computers plant in Winston-Salem after the company had negotiated a combined $281 million in incentives from city, county and state agencies.

"There are lessons to be learned here in Guilford County," she said. "When a company comes and asks for money, I think we need to know what the whole pot is."

Feb. 1, 1960

Vaughan says she has been against bond proposals to benefit the International Civil Rights Museum in downtown Greensboro, but that a recent visit to the Smithsonian in Washington DC affected her. The Smithsonian prominently displays the Woolworth's lunch counter where the sit-in was enacted.

"I saw the counter at the Smithsonian," she said. "I was amazed at the conversations I was hearing around me — the adults telling the children what happened. You could hear dialects from all over the country. I realized it was bigger than Greensboro."