Guilford County Commission redistricting tools

Courtesy of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, here are maps of the nine Guilford County Commission districts, color coded by race.

I also have a spreadsheet produced by the coalition that lists current population for each precinct in the county broken down by race. E-mail me at jordan@yesweekly.com if you would like a copy. Precinct statistics on voter registration by race and political party are available at the Guilford County Board of Elections website.

Discussion at Guarino's blog. (Incidentally, I've been unable to comment for the past two hours. Do you know what's going on, Joe?)

Latin Kings leader to make second try for city council

I decided after a brief editorial discussion at the end of the hallway at YES! Weekly's office in Adams Farm to discard the following headline: "Latin Kings leader to take second shot at city council."

In all seriousness, North Carolina Latin Kings leader Jorge Cornell says he made the decision today to seek an at-large seat on Greensboro City Council in this year's municipal election. Cornell ran for the seat two years ago, and placed 10th in a slate of 11 candidates in the primary election.

Cornell is currently appealing a superior court conviction of resisting public officer stemming from an arrest during his 2009 campaign.

"[I'm] tired of the city council that we have now," he said. "The sad thing is that if I would have made it on this city council [two years ago], then the White Street Landfill wouldn't be opening up. The things that they're doing in our community are ridiculous, from the White Street Landfill to the $5 million energy-efficiency grant that they're trying to take from us to give to the upper-income areas. This has got to stop."

Cornell said he plans to run a grassroots campaign and will not accept campaign contributions.

"The most important thing is that people know I am serious about running for city council. I didn't have no hidden agenda the first time. I was sincere. I'm running again. I'm going to keep running until I get a seat."

Those who have previously announced plans to run for the three at-large seats include incumbent Danny Thompson, Wayne Abraham, Chris Lawyer and Tony Wilkins. Former Mayor Yvonne Johnson has indicated she is considering running at large also.

Some on Greensboro council are lukewarm on RUCO

Among members of the Greensboro City Council, viewpoints are mixed on the city’s proactive housing inspection program, which would be eliminated if legislation [1, 2] filed in both houses of the NC General Assembly proves successful.

Council members discussed the Rental Unit Certificate of Occupation, or RUCO program during a briefing yesterday. At-large Councilman Robbie Perkins, who serves on RUCO Advisory Board, said the board narrowly defeated a motion to recommend that the city express official opposition to the legislation. The RUCO board has traditionally been stacked with people associated with the real estate industry, who have made no secret of their desire to eliminate the program. Members of the board are appointed by council members, who are, in turn, generously supported in their election campaigns by people employed in the real estate industry.

Perkins was on the losing side of the vote.

The RUCO program requires that all residential housing pass inspection and receive a certificate of occupation before being rented and provides for proactive inspections through random sampling. Prior to the program’s implementation in the middle part of the last decade, Greensboro, like many other cities across the state, had a complaint-driven system that also allowed for inspections based on probable cause if city employees saw evidence of code violations on the outside of the property.

“It has been one huge success,” said Willena Cannon, healthy homes organizer at the Greensboro Housing Coalition. “People around the city of Greensboro, like in Durham and different places, say how different Greensboro looks. There have been doctors and nurses that sent people to us with a written request that we move people out of substandard housing because of things like roaches and asthma. That has been lessened. People fix up their stuff because they know they can’t run ’em if they don’t.”

Mayor Bill Knight said he holds landlords in high esteem.

“My whole working career has been here in Greensboro, and I’ve worked for a lot of property owners,” said Knight, who is an accountant by profession. “The problem, if you look at the landlord population, is there’s a few notorious examples, and I just want to say that the landlords do a great job in Greensboro as a body.”

Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, who represents District 1 in east Greensboro, said the city should consider the needs of tenants, too.

“I actually know of a lady who came to me,” Bellamy-Small said. “She could barely afford the rent. And she had gotten into a place and she was concerned about some things in the house. She came to me and she said, ‘Do I have any rights? What can I do?’ I said, ‘Do you have your RUCO?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’ We asked the landlord and the landlord started backing up because there wasn’t one. So we called code enforcement. They didn’t put the woman out, but they had the landlord correct some things that would have impaired this lady’s quality of life.”

Councilman Zack Matheny, who represents District 3, echoed a line of argument often made by members the real estate industry — that most of the problems are found with a small number of unscrupulous landlords and the city should focus its regulatory resources on them.

“Now, we’re at a place where RUCO, in my opinion, probably needs to be reevaluated as we reevaluate constantly anyway,” he said. “And I’m not saying in any case what we need to do with this bill today, but I think we need to look at RUCO from a standpoint of what we do going forward.”

Perkins noted that the city spent six to eight months reevaluating the program last year. Ultimately, no changes were made.

Councilwoman Trudy Wade, who represents District 5, suggested the elimination of the program would not be a significant loss.

“Let’s say the bill passes and RUCO doesn’t exist,” she said, directing her question to City Manager Rashad Young. “The tenant can still pick up the phone and call and say, ‘There’s a problem. Is that correct?’”
The question was mainly rhetorical because everyone knew the answer.

“Yes,” Young responded.

“The goal is to have safe housing in Greensboro,” Perkins said. “I think we can achieve that goal and we need to be vigilant and not allow us to backslide based on lightening up on this thing because then it’s going to cost the city huge amounts of money to come back and repair the damage.

“I hate to see the state legislature come in because a state senator in Raleigh is upset about a $15 charge per year on rental housing,” he added.

Six plans to re-district the Guilford County Commission

As promised, I've produced six potential redistricting scenarios for the Guilford County Commission.

Based on analysis indicating that the Greensboro City Council could move one precinct and reduce the population variance for its district map, I received brief notoriety. Later, when the infamous Rakestraw plan was approved — before being rescinded — my plan helped establish that massive disruption and realignment was unnecessary, leading to questions about the motives behind moving a large number of precincts around. It seemed only natural, then, to try my hand at redrawing the county district map.

In comparison, redistricting at the county level is not simple. Compared to the city council map, whose population variance was within the 10 percent threshold, the population map for the county commission map is 28 percent. Also, there are nine districts in the county, compared to five in the city. The constituencies represented by the county commission include two cities, along with rural and urban areas. As with my Greensboro redistricting map, here I'm not advocating any particular plan. And, in contrast to redistricting at the city level, here almost every plan has qualities to recommend it and drawbacks.

Evaluate. Trumpet the plans you like. Slam the ones you don't. If you want to draw your own maps, I'll be glad to share my expertise.

This week in YES! Weekly

feature: A tale of two wine festivals
feature: Scapes, truffles and slipper lobsters
be there: Salsa and bachata bash, If We Are Listening, Home run for homelessness, improv comedy, and more...
10 best: Failed predictions
dirt: Forsyth budget discussions focus on cuts to education, environmental programs
voices: Momento Miami
editorial: An investment in Winston-Salem's vitality
tunes: With new roots in the ground, SmileFest turns 15
flicks: Pirates of the Caribbean back for fourth go'round, Morgan Spurlock's selling out
visions: UNCSA alum Anderson and friends join forces to create 'The Drama Dept.'
crash: This long walk

New candidate in Greensboro City Council District 2

Clarence Bradley Hunt, a protégé of Greensboro NAACP President Cardes Brown and one of five members of the Spirit of the Sit-In Movement who was arrested last spring in a civil disobedience at a Greensboro City Council meeting, says he is considering running for council in District 2.

The seat is currently held by Councilman Jim Kee.

Previously.

YES! Weekly Preview -- May 25

YES! Weekly Editor Brian Clarey delivers a teaser of our annual Food & Drink issue. Here at YES! Weekly, we pride ourselves on being punctual... even if that means being a week early! See you next Tuesday, George Ewing!

District 2 constituents want rep to stand and fight against landfill

Untitled from Jordan Green on Vimeo.

District 2 Councilman Jim Kee told residents that the Greensboro City Council appears to have made the decision to reopen the White Street Landfill, and that he thinks it's important to make sure that people who live nearby don't suffer from noise pollution, heavy truck traffic and rodents as a result.

That didn't sit well with many constituents.

"My stand, and I'm sure everyone in the room's stance, is no compromise," Maurice Warren said, adding, "All that you're talking about is compromise."

One woman, exemplary of a spirit of resistance in the audience tonight at Laughlin Memorial United Methodist Church, said, "I marched in the streets in the sixties with Jesse. I will do it again."

Goldie Wells, who represented District 2 before retiring from council two years ago, promised opponents that pro bono legal counsel was preparing to file for an injunction to block the reopening of the landfill. Considerable discussion was held about an advertising campaign to publicize information about the landfill. One man, John Rick, handed over a check for $1,000. Wasif Qureshi of the Islamic Center of Greensboro, a neighboring mosque, pledged another $1,000 on behalf of his congregation.

"I think it has been established that the council the council has decided to go forward with the landfill," Wells said. "And our councilman has decided to make concessions on our behalf."

Then she asked if residents were willing to compromise. The answer was a resounding no.

While the narrow majority on council that favors reopening the landfill has offered no indication that they are willing to reconsider, opponents expressed equal resolution to fight the decision.

Marikay Abuzuaiter, a member of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission, said expects that an ad hoc committee of the commission will have a resolution in opposition to the landfill on the agenda for the city council's next meeting.

Dianne Bellamy-Small, who represents District 1, said she so objected to Mayor Bill Knight's threat to clear council chambers of people disrupted the meeting that she was prepared to be the first to be arrested.

She said she is pressuring the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce to take a stand against the landfill.

"I just got a phone call from them saying they want us to save their 10 percent in the budget," Bellamy-Small said. "I ain't hearing them because they ain't hearing me."

Kee said in defense of the Greensboro Partnership, which closely coordinates with the chamber, that he met with them twice and at the time they were interested in vetting a number of alternative technology approaches. Now that the council has narrowed the options to two companies proposing to reopen the landfill, Kee said it would be good to get the partnership and the chamber to take a stand.

ADDENDUM: One thing the landfill opponents would like to accomplish with an ad buy is to challenge the notion that the landfill was there before the resident were, and with it notion that the siting of the landfill was and is about race. That perspective gained currency with a 2009 opinion column by the News & Record's Allen Johnson describing how he moved into neighboring Woodmere Park as a child with his family in 1968 when it was still predominantly white.

Supporting the assertion that the people came before the landfill, Wells said tonight that the Neal family, which is black, lived in the area as far back as the 1880s, and that some members of the family sold off some of their property to the city for the landfill. The Neals, one of whom spoke at a rally held recently at the landfill, are the namesake of Nealtown Road and the Nealtown Farms community.

YES WEEKLY! TO SPONSOR RESEVERED SEATING AREA AT WHITE OAK AMPHITHEATRE

The Greensboro Coliseum Complex has announced YES Weekly! as the official sponsor of the chairs in the reserved seating area at White Oak Amphitheatre.

White Oak Amphitheatre will be located on the southern end of the Greensboro Coliseum Complex property and feature a seating capacity of 7,688, including more than 2,000 reserved seats that will be adorned with the YES Weekly! logo. The venue will open on Sunday, June 5^th with a concert by The Beach Boys.

“We are thrilled that Charles Womack and YES Weekly! are a part of the growing excitement for the debut of White Oak Amphitheatre this summer,” said Greensboro Coliseum Complex managing director Matt Brown. “The interest from promoters and event organizers in booking the facility is extremely high and support from sponsors such as YES Weekly! will be a key part of this new venue’s success.”

YES! Weekly debuted in January, 2005 and has become a vital part of the Triad media scene, breaking stories, uncovering hidden cultural gems and winning both statewide and regional awards. The publication is also renowned for its comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage.

"As the largest weekly paper in the Triad and the fact that we put such a strong focus on arts and entertainment, coming in for this project was a no brainer," said Charles Womack, publisher of YES! Weeklyand president of Womack Newspapers, Inc. "YES! Weekly is extremely proud and excited to be a part of this wonderful, needed addition to the Triad entertainment scene. My hat goes off to Matt (Brown) and Scott (Johnson) for working so hard to make this venue a reality and with something like this, of course YES! Weeklyhad to come along for the ride. We look forward to sitting with you in the YES! Weekly chairs and watching some great shows along with a few thousand friends."

In addition to The Beach Boys concert, White Oak Amphitheatre will host a diverse selection of community events, music, arts and crafts and festival type events as well as also support entertainment at the annual Central Carolina Fair. Other events booked thus far for the Amphitheatre’s inaugural season include Maze featuring Frankie Beverly (June 25), the 37^th Annual Fun Fourth Festival Fireworks Celebration (July 4), Wiz Khalifa (July 21) and The Avett Brothers (October 8).

Greensboro city council election roundup

Following DJ Hardy’s announcement on Friday that he will be running for Greensboro City Council in District 1, it seems like a good time to review who’s declared plans to run or expressed interest in doing so.

Hardy ran at large two years ago, but did not obtain enough votes to clear the primary. Dianne Bellamy-Small, the incumbent in District 1, has not announced whether she will run again.

Not to be underestimated, she typically waits until filing time to announce her intentions, and she has fended off well regarded challengers in the past three elections. Luther Falls Jr., who faced off against Bellamy-Small in the 2005 and 2009 general elections, had not made up his mind about running again at last check.

In other races, at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins and former council member Tom Phillips will challenge Bill Knight for mayor. Former Greensboro police Capt. Charles Cherry has also indicated an interest in the seat, but as a county resident he would have to move to be eligible to run.

Perkins’ run for mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan’s announced retirement create two vacancies in the at-large seats. At-large Councilman Danny Thompson plans to run again. Former Mayor Yvonne Johnson has expressed interest in running at large, along with former candidate Marikay Abuzuaiter. Others announced at large candidates include Wayne Abraham, Cyndy Hayworth, Chris Lawyer and Tony Wilkins.