Yvonne Johnson found a place to sit on a retaining wall near the steps of Laughlin Memorial United Methodist Church as dusk descended Monday night and as residents opposed to the reopening of the White Street Landfill passionately debated how to stall the process inside the church.
Eldred Hopkins, a 55-year-old resident of northeast Greensboro who has been diagnosed with colon cancer, greeted her.
“I need you,” Johnson said.
“Just tell me what you need,” Hopkins replied, “and I’ll do it.”
“I need you to be there at my campaign kickoff.”
The former one-term mayor and longtime city council member told him the details as he carefully wrote down the information. August 26. 6 p.m. Providence Baptist Church. On Tuscaloosa Street.
Two at-large members of the current council, Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan and Councilman Danny Thompson, are seeking reelection. A third at-large member, Robbie Perkins, is challenging Bill Knight for the mayor’s seat, leaving a third at-large seat undefended. With widespread name recognition and goodwill from a large segment of the electorate thanks to 16 years of service on council, Johnson is considered a virtual shoo-in.
And yet she was stung two years ago by an upset defeat from Knight, a challenger with no elected experience, so she knows she can’t take anything for granted.
Late last year Johnson made it known that she was strongly considering another run for council, noting her displeasure at her successor’s decision to move speakers from the floor back to the end of council meetings, which sometimes end after midnight. Since then the controlling conservative majority on council has moved decisively to reopen the landfill and voted for an unpopular redistricting plan before reconsidering. Those three issues have angered Johnson’s base, and reinforced a desire among her supporters to redeem disappointing voter turnout numbers in east Greensboro two years ago by mobilizing turnout this time around.
In the meantime, the 68-year-old Johnson has not retreated from public life.
She serves on the board of the Greensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau, adding with a gleam of the eye that she is the county liaison; she once served as the city council liaison. She explains that she was appointed by County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman.
And she serves on the board of the Golden Leaf Foundation, a statewide organization set up to disburse tobacco settlement money for economic development purposes, as an appointee of Gov. Bev Perdue.
She said the foundation recently approved a total of about $3 million for Piedmont Triad International Airport to expand infrastructure to support the new HondaJet operation, along with funds for the Center for Creative Leadership and NC A&T University in Greensboro.
“When I came back from that meeting, I knew I had done my job,” she said. “I brought back or was part of bringing back $3 million for Greensboro.”
During an interview on Tuesday in her office at One Step Further in downtown Greensboro, Johnson said she’s getting a late start in the campaign this year, but not because she’s feeling “cocky.”
She’s trying to run a frugal campaign this time around, eschewing campaign photos and slowly ramping up her website. She’s asking sponsors to kick in $150 to pay for her campaign kickoff, and she said she’s received almost 40 commitments. She expects the funds to pay for the event and for enough yard signs so everyone can take one home.
She said her campaign is coordinating with a grassroots group that has registered 3,000 new voters.
“I’m very comfortable serving all the people,” Johnson said. “I’ve always served at large. Some people ask me: ‘Don’t you think that’s a step down?’ I don’t think service is ever a step down.”
The former mayor said she hasn’t seen much civility on council since she cycled off. That’s the critical missing ingredient for a positive climate to create jobs, she argued.
“When there are people who are considering moving to Greensboro or considering moving a company to Greensboro, it’s a deterrent for council members to be sitting up there looking into the hinterlands or carrying on conversations while people are speaking,” she said. “I don’t see a lot of respect, and that bothers me.”
As executive director of a nonprofit that uses mediation between offenders and victims to divert young people from the court system, Johnson is a firm believer in dialogue.
“I’m person who, first of all, I say I am a public servant,” she said. “Embodied in being a public servant are characteristics I don’t see enough of: Active listening, respect, civility. Some people say that’s touchy-feely. I don’t think so.”
A Greensboro native, Bennett College graduate and participant in the 1960s civil rights movement, Johnson described Greensboro today as deeply divided. The landfill controversy is at the center of the turmoil.
“It’s an economic disaster,” she said. “We put the [roadway] infrastructure in because we knew that if we expanded that landfill, who would want to have a business there? Also, consider the health issues. How much does it cost for a cancer patient? We’ve had a lot of incidents of cancer and respiratory ailments. And there are racial overtones. It is predominantly African American. There is a pattern to where landfills are sited. They might be sited in a poor, white neighborhood. You won’t find them in Irving Park. I’m about justice and what’s best for the future of Greensboro.”
Right now, the wounds of racial division are raw in east Greensboro.
“When you write out a particular section of Greensboro — with the people who are voting to reopen the landfill, it’s how you treat the people who don’t want to reopen the landfill that is crucial,” Johnson said. “When you don’t listen, when you don’t come to the community, or when you only come to the community at election time, it’s suspect.”
But the trajectory of Johnson’s career in Greensboro politics reflects someone who is more natural championing the virtues of one united city than giving voice to the grievances of a particular segment of it.
“If you have any vision you can take a chance on some things that may bring revenue to the city,” she said. “A lot of people were opposed to the aquatic center. It’s going to bring revenue. I’m very excited about this partnership with the schools. I think it’s going to focus, on 4th and 5th graders. Teaching children how to swim — that will be a blessing. Maybe we’ll have less drownings. We’ll certainly develop the talents and abilities of our young people, and who knows what can come out of that.”
Her demeanor brightened when she was asked about economic and cultural development.
“I would like these things that distract us to be gone,” Johnson said. “People stay in places or move to places because of the quality of life. It can include how safe they feel or it can be because of cultural events. I want us to have diverse offerings so we can keep students here who graduate from Elon Law School, so that businesses will say this is a great location.”
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