City extends deadline for applications to city attorney position

Mayor Bill Knight has agreed to allow an executive search firm to extend the deadline for applications from candidates for an open city attorney position by almost two weeks.

The original deadline was Monday, and Knight said he approved a request by the Mercer Group to extend the deadline to Nov. 27.

“It did not start as quickly as they had hoped as far as their response on the initial search,” Knight said, adding that the search firm has taken the additional step of advertising with position with the North Carolina State Bar.

Knight said that in his experience as an employer it is not unusual to extend application deadlines in recruitment efforts.

Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan said she had been unaware of the extension.

“I’m sure the reason they extended it is because they didn’t get the number or the quality of applications that they had anticipated,” she said.

Knight bristled at a perception expressed by voters at candidate forums before the election and amplified in the news media that the city might face difficulty recruiting a new city attorney and a new city manager because of the council’s reputation for division and turmoil.

“I think it’s time to start speaking positively about what’s going on in Greensboro,” he said. “This is an opportunity to bring in a first-rate city attorney to a first-rate city.”

The position profile posted by the search firm describes Greensboro as “one of the most historic, diverse, and progressive city governments in the southeastern United States”:

Greensboro is a desirable workplace with a very stable council-manager form of government, an excellent executive team, and a highly educated and committed staff. The community values its schools, commerce, cultural diversity, emphasis on social justice and transparent and involved government.

The job profile outlines the qualities the city is seeking in its next city attorney:

Clear communicator, patient, with strengths in facilitating the legislative process, parliamentary procedure, open meetings, and open records. Skills in intergovernmental and interpersonal relations as well as a proven record of giving sound, reasoned advice on controversial issues.

The job posting at the Mercer Group website cites the new Nov. 27 deadline, but a document advertising the job that can be accessed from the Jobs page on the city's website references the old Nov. 14 deadline.

Candidate decries 'write in' sign as racially divisive

Yvonne Johnson, an at-large candidate for Greensboro City Council, said she considers a sign urging voters write in their choice rather than vote for one of the candidates for mayor to be a tactic to divide the black electorate for the political benefit of incumbent Bill Knight.

Johnson noted the similarity between the "write-in" sign and her own campaign sign. Johnson served as mayor from 2007 to 2009, and is extraordinarily popular on the east side of the city. Robbie Perkins, Knight's challenger, is expected carry east Greensboro precincts by significant margins and benefit from Johnson's coattails.

"The signs are purple; I have the same font," Johnson said. "I just think it's lowdown and it is a racially divisive tactic. The signs are purple. I have the same font. I ain't happy about it. It's interesting how they're disappearing from the polling places now."

Johnson and Perkins have made no secret of their longstanding political alliance, and Johnson said she supports Perkins' bid for mayor "absolutely," notwithstanding what the mysterious "write-in" signs might suggest to voters.

"If I wanted to run for mayor, I would have," Johnson said. "It's not my time. I support Robbie 100 percent. He's always supported me. That is a tactic to divide the black community and get Bill Knight elected. There's no mystery to that."

Johnson said she doesn't think the tactic will be successful.

"I hope somebody spent a million on them, and it all goes down the toilet," she quipped.

Sharon Hightower, a politically active east Greensboro resident, concurred.

"The average voter who votes on a regular basis is stronger than that," she said. "It really strikes to the heart of somebody desperate, a group of people who are desperate and scared. It's not working."

Taxes and spending: Where Greensboro City Council candidates stand

Assuming a new city council reaches an agreement on what to do about solid waste early in the next term, the budget is likely to be the major challenge in the next two years. Revenues are likely to be lower than hoped for because of the depressed housing market, while services and infrastructure remain in demand. Mayoral challenger Robbie Perkins would like to move forward with the Downtown Greenway. At-large challenger Wayne Abraham wants to repair city roads. District 3 challenger Jay Ovittore wants to hire additional police officers.

No surprise that the four conservative incumbents on council, including Mayor Bill Knight, have pledged to not raise taxes or water rates, as documented in a video clip produced by Conservatives for Guilford County. At-large incumbent Danny Thompson and at-large challenger Chris Lawyer also took the pledge. Mayoral challenger Robbie Perkins has left his options open when asked the question.

“It’s a qualified maybe answer,” said Perkins when asked during a candidate forum hosted by the Greater Greensboro Republican Women’s Club on Oct. 25 if he would vote to raise taxes. Asked if he would raise water rates and if he would cut spending, he responded, “It depends.”

Abraham may be the only challenger that has campaigned against cutting taxes, calling the council vote in 2010 to cut property taxes by a quarter of cent, “a jobs-killing tax cut.” He argues that the reduction had an insignificant impact on taxpayers, but stripped the city budget with the result that council cut funding to the Greensboro Partnership, which works to recruit new businesses to the city.

Only one candidate has expressed active interest in raising taxes.

“I don’t believe we can move Greensboro forward if we keep our taxes the way they are,” District 2 challenger C. Bradley Hunt II told an audience at the downtown public library for a forum hosted by the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress on Oct. 24. “I am a citizen and I believe that everyone wants to keep taxes low. It makes us all comfortable. But in order for us to spur economic development, in order for us to improve our infrastructure and to improve our services we must look for new ways to generate income for the city. So I believe we have to look at new ways that we may increase our tax rate so we can provide services for our citizens. So I think that in order to improve our services and infrastructure, in order to increase our police department, fire services, and also to give small business owners and minority business owners a chance to compete, we must look at ways to raise taxes.”

Incumbent Jim Kee was happy to take the opposing side on the issue.

“Certainly I would not advocate raising taxes,” he said. “Matter of fact, I voted to lower taxes. In this type of economy, citizens could not afford any increase in taxes. The way we can expand the revenue in Greensboro is to bring more businesses, to create more small businesses right here in our city. And that’s exactly what I have been doing.”

Kee, a developer, said he worked with Kotis Properties to open the H&F cafeteria at the corner of Church Street and Pisgah Church Road, creating 60 jobs. He said he has also worked with Kotis Properties to open Pace Medical at the intersection of East Cone Boulevard and Summit Avenue, which employs 30 people.

“That’s the way we keep taxes low and keep services great in Greensboro,” Kee said.

Zack Matheny, a registered Republican seeking reelection to the District 3 seat, told the audience at the Greater Greensboro Republican Women’s Club Forum that he would not vote to raise taxes. One day earlier he gave a somewhat more qualified answer to the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress.

“I don’t know, quite honestly, what’s going to happen with taxes,” he said. “My goal would be to not increase taxes. I’ve said that and we’ve been able to accomplish that by not increasing and actually have a very small, slight decrease for the city. One of our major issues is going to be real estate valuations in the next couple years.”

Historically, home values have appreciated over all, with the result that local governments can cut the tax rate and maintain neutral revenue. Real estate is revalued every eight years, and Guilford County is due for a revaluation next year. If, as expected, property values have depreciated overall because of the foreclosure and housing crisis, then local governments will have to choose between increasing the rate to maintain neutral revenue or cutting spending to compensate for reduced revenue at the current rate.

After the candidate forum Matheny said in an interview that his ultimate objective is to keep the tax bill flat, whatever that requires.

Jay Ovittore, who is challenging Matheny for the District 3 seat, stressed spending needs.

“I don’t want to make promises that I can’t keep, so I don’t want to say that I’m not going to vote to raise taxes, if necessary,” he said. “We need 200 more police officers on our police force. We need more fire people. We need our roads taken care of. We need to upgrade the Osborne water treatment plan so we can handle a capacity that’s almost near full at this point and continue to bring clean water to our communities. So that money’s going to come from somewhere. We can either get creative and do something about the landfill: Keep it closed, make it a regional solution, maybe own a regional solution, maybe cut off some of that as a portfolio, do some waste to energy. And if we spend the money on waste to energy now, that waste to energy is going to make us back millions more. And if I can keep your tax rate flat, I’ll do that. But I simply don’t know until I have the numbers in front of me.”

Mary Rakestraw, the conservative District 4 incumbent, has consistently pledged that she will not vote to raise taxes.

“With the present economy that we have we’ve got to be good stewards of your money and my money,” she said. “And I pay taxes, too. And this is a situation, y’all, that we cannot go the well but so many times. You have a budget in your own home. And you have to look at how you spend your money. And when you don’t have enough money, what do you do?... And, you know, I bet you even if you go home this coming week and you say, ‘What could I cut out that would not hurt my lifestyle, what would it be?’ Surely there is something. And we’re going to have to look at that as we go into the next two years. We have to be smart. We have to be prudent. And again, y’all, I cannot say this enough: We cannot tax ourselves out of this situation that we’re in at the present.”

Like Ovittore, District 4 challenger Nancy Hoffmann emphasized spending needs, prefacing her remarks by saying she is “committed to sound financial stewardship.”

“No one can predict the future,” she said. “So we really have to see what the situation is next year or the following year, but we know that we have possibly deferred some very important maintenance in this city. Those things catch up with you sometime down the road, and when they do the cost may be greater. We bear the cost of training the police staff and the fire staff in this city. And if we lose them a year or two years after we train them, then we have lost the cost of that investment in those people, and they’ve gone to High Point, or to Burlington, or Reidsville for another thousand dollars a year.”

Hoffmann said that a city, like any business, must “drill down” to see what spending items are “not absolutely essential” during difficult economic times, and have an honest conversation with citizens about what services they want to maintain, what they’re willing to give up, and what they’re willing to pay for.

Trudy Wade, the conservative incumbent in District 5, said she would not raise taxes.

“There’s two ways not to raise taxes,” she said. “And no, I wouldn’t raise taxes. Two ways to do that. Either you’re going to have to cut things or you’re going to have to bring in more jobs, more people, and increase your base of people paying in. There’s only two ways to do it. I think we’ve tried as a council to bring more jobs here. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that. For 12 of 16 years the unemployment rate’s been going up. This last year it’s started to go down again.”

In fact, data for the Greensboro-High Point metropolitan statistical area posted by the NC Employment Security Commission indicates that the unemployment rate increased in eight of the past 16 years. The rate has been declining over all over the past two years, but has remained at above 10 percent since 2009 after bouncing between 3 percent and 7 percent during the period from 1996 to 2008.

Wade credited the city council’s efforts to keep property taxes and water rates low with what progress has been seen in reducing the unemployment rate. During her remarks the councilwoman linked the tax rate to efforts to reopen the White Street Landfill, which she favors.

“If we were using our own landfill, we could save $8 million a year,” she said. “We won’t talk about the $30- or $40 million we’ve lost over the past four or five years.”

The $8 million figure tossed around by Wade, Thompson and The Rhinoceros Times is at odds with the $3.1 million per year in annual cost savings estimated by the city’s solid waste consultant for the plan to reopen the landfill that was adopted by the conservative faction. The difference can be chalked up to closure costs once the currently permitted portions of the landfill are depleted. Those who cite the $8 million figure argue that closure costs should not be included because the landfill would eventually have to be closed anyway. But under the current arrangement, the permitted portion of the landfill accepts a miniscule amount of screening, allowing it to remain open indefinitely.

Wade blamed a group of citizens who filed suit against the city to prevent the landfill from reopening with scuttling the city’s ability to pursue a regional approach, recycling, waste-to-energy technology, investments in infrastructure and cost savings.

“And we tried to take a regional approach,” she said. “And we tried to take the companies on the cutting edge of waste management and bring them into an RFP, and say, ‘What can you do for this community with technology, with recycling, and do a long-range plan for us.’ This is the first council that really stood back and said, ‘Let’s take a look at that.’ What can we do to cut this $8 million-a-year cost? And, of course, we ended up in a lawsuit, so all that technology, infrastructure, all that additional money we were going to have for the city, of course that won’t be the case now.”

Gut punches at the Greensboro Partnership

Mayoral candidates Robbie Perkins and Bill Knight got rough with each other at an otherwise genteel candidate forum hosted by the Greensboro Partnership and SynerG.

“In terms of why I feel like I’m a better candidate for mayor, I have 16 years of experience in working under other mayors to know how to lead this city,” said Perkins, the challenger. “I think it’s been a problem the last couple of years that the mayor’s office has not had a lot of experience. For example, I never would have said that losing 1,600 jobs at American Express was a ‘blip’ on the radar screen.”

He ended his remarks abruptly to let the impact sink in.

For his part, Knight recycled attack lines from the Monday night mayoral debate at Guilford College.

“There are nine people on the council and they’ve got to work together all the time,” he said. “That means working together, paying attention; not sending out texts, not talking, not exhorting members of the audience to show disrespect. When we go on a retreat, it’s not a matter of getting in the mayor’s face and threatening an override if you don’t get your favorite commission appointment.”

Perhaps the question of most interest to the hosts was how the candidates proposed to support or work with the Greensboro Partnership, the city’s top economic and community development organization. The city council voted in June to cut $14,000 in funding to the partnership, along with other nonprofits. A last-minute effort to restore the funding failed, with council members Perkins and Nancy Vaughan on the losing end. Knight and Councilman Danny Thompson voted to maintain the funding cut.

“I think you’ve got to support the Greensboro Partnership,” Perkins said. “And I don’t think you can have a briefing session and have a 5-4 vote against retaining the full support of the partnership because you’re cutting advertising funding for the program…. So number one, you’ve got to support the partnership. Number two, you’ve got to support an environment in our city that small business thinks is stable, that we are going to support them, we’re going to be there for them. We’re going to give them the confidence to invest both money and time to make their businesses grow in our city.”

Vaughan said, “I currently serve on the board of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance, so I’m very aware of what’s going on in the partnership and the chamber, and I support them 100 percent. This year, our funding was cut by 10 percent during our budget process. I advocated very strongly to restore that 10 percent. Unfortunately, I was not successful. In the city of Greensboro we do not have a large business office where we can be proactive; we’re reactive. We need people who are out there pounding the pavement and helping us find large employers. That’s something the chamber does.”

Knight said the council would continue to work with the partnership, and named a number of initiatives the city was pursuing to help small businesses. He added, “Our responsibility is municipal responsibility. Municipal government: providing for the healthy and safety and infrastructure and the other services that go with it.”

Thompson said he supported the partnership in two undertakings: An allocation of federal funding to create a small business revolving loan fund that will be administered by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, and an initiative to join the partnership in funding a national public relations campaign to attract attention to Greensboro.

Remarks from other at-large candidates:

Wayne Abraham: “As a candidate, I have already reached out to the partnership, and so obviously as a city council member I would do the same. I sat down with them to discuss what we can do to provide economic development in Greensboro, and their response to me was, in large part, what I proposed in my platform for economic development in Greensboro. And one of the items I proposed was restoring funding, perhaps even increasing funding for the partnership on specific projects so that we could promote our city and promote our own economic development in this area and in our city: Buy local, implementing our Sustainability Action Plan, restoring funding to our infrastructure, and increasing our funding to the economic development partnership.”

Marikay Abuzuaiter: “We must have those who are able to go out and seek economic development for Greensboro. The city council does not create jobs. It is up to us working with the partnership to make sure that they have the tools available where they can go out and seek these economic development opportunities for us. Now, we need to make sure we have in certain instances the infrastructure, the viability for our city. We need to make sure that we are creating that positive image that will help them help sell Greensboro and in turn bring jobs to Greensboro.”

Yvonne Johnson: “I really think it’s our duty as an elected official to partner and do all we can with the partnership, with the chamber, with all of the groups that are working for economic development. For goodness sake, every candidate at every forum said one of the most pressing needs in Greensboro is jobs, so how can you not do that? And it would also give you an advantage when you are talking to the citizens about what is going on in Greensboro in terms of the effort to recruit jobs so that they become shareholders in that information and proud of what the partnership and the council and all the entities are doing.”

Chris Lawyer: “I think when you have an economic development group you have to bring that group together in order to have sustainable economic development. And as an elected official you certainly are obligated to be part of that discussion because your constituents have brought you to the forefront to be a voice for them in economic development, so we have to work closely together as a city, and as a group with the Greensboro Partnership to find the best solutions. That means bringing businesses to the table, large and small, along with the economic development arms and also the city council and mayor and get the discussion going and talk about real solutions. It’s got to be a very dynamic and very fluid situation in order for this to be a successful process. And if we’re not going to do this, then I don’t think we’re giving our citizens the full economic impact we possibly could.”

An allegation has been circulating in conservative circles that the Greensboro Partnership submitted a question to the Triad Real Estate and Building Industries Coalition, or TREBIC, for a questionnaire on whether candidates would support a prepared food tax. Answers from the questionnaire have been used by an anonymous group claiming to represent the restaurant industry to characterize candidates positions. (See previous posts: 1 and 2.)

Jason Cannon, vice president of government affairs, flatly denied the allegation.

"That is not true," he said. "We did not submit any question to TREBIC about the restaurant tax."

Cannon added that he coordinated with TREBIC on the questionnaire, and he was the only representative of the partnership that did so. He said he saw a copy of the questionnaire just before it was finalized and did not ask to insert any questions.

"There was no formal discussion and no formal activity with us looking at a prepared food tax," he said, adding that he heard some idle talk about it and researched the law to satisfy his own curiosity. Cannon is registered as a lobbyist with the state of North Carolina representing the Greensboro Partnership.

Vaughan said Assistant City Manager Denise Turner Roth told council on Tuesday that a local prepared food tax would require the NC General Assembly to pass enabling legislation. The legislature's Republican leadership has taken a dim view of tax increases and has worked closely with the conservative members of Greensboro City Council on other issues. Mayoral candidate Perkins has called the matter "a made-up issue."

Knight and Perkins' mayoral debate: style and content

The News & Record’s redoubtable Mark Binker caught the highlights of last night’s mayoral debate between incumbent Bill Knight and challenger Robbie Perkins in today’s newspaper. Others have offered impressions. I’ll throw mine in, and offer some excerpts of the debate on issues that may help voters make up their minds on the candidates.

What I took away from the two-hour exchange most notably was Knight’s rally. His reclusive performance in office may have set expectations low. Knight’s track record on the White Street Landfill probably rules out the possibility of him drawing many votes out of east Greensboro, so it made sense for him to fire up his base on the west side, even if it didn’t feel natural. (See Doug Clark.) Knight took shots at Perkins, who has not been shy about his opinion of the mayor over the past two years. The sitting mayor displayed a sense of humor, energy and relish for the job.

At two hours distributed between two candidates, the event was a bit exhausting, but the sponsors established an excellent format, with moderator Marsh Prause alternating between questions submitted on note card by members of the audience, and questions asked by a panel of journalists: News & Record reporter Amanda Lehmert, News 14 senior reporter Bob Costner and News & Record editorial editor Allen Johnson.

I particularly appreciated Lehmert and Johnson’s questions about the city council’s silence on legislation by the NC General Assembly that outlawed the city’s proactive rental housing inspection program, known as Rental Unit Certificate of Occupancy, or RUCO. Twice, Johnson indicated that he was unsatisfied with the candidates’ responses, and Prause followed up with a question by a member of the Rental Unit Certificate of Occupation board that kept the candidates on the spot. The audience was rewarded with answers that were more revealing than statements made in the past by two candidates that have both seemed uncomfortable with the subject.

“The question is,” Johnson said, “why didn’t the council stand up for RUCO?”

Knight noted that the city council was asked to vote on a resolution opposing state legislation.

“I will say that we’ve got a good program in the city, we’ve got a good inspections program,” he said. “And it’s been proven that of the thousands of units that had been inspected that the violations were relatively small in terms of the total. And again, I would argue that the problems are a small number of owners. I don’t know that that question has ever been answered: How many owners are a problem? I look at the landlords — these are people who take a risk. They take a substantial risk. I did work for a lot of them when I was in business, and I know they take a substantial risk in operating those properties. And we’ve got to respect that. They’re business people. They’re the people who create jobs. I’m comfortable with the decision we made.”

Perkins responded, “It seems to me that this issue came up at a Tuesday night council meeting, and the legislature was going to address it on Wednesday morning. And we decided as a council we had factions one way or the other. And we determined it would be better to table it and move on as opposed to voting on something that would be rendered meaningless by ultimately what was going to happen the very next morning, with or without input. And that’s kind of how I read it. I’m not sure that we had enough support on council to vote to sustain that particular ordinance.”

Oddly, Perkins did not mention that he voted, along with Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan and District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small against a motion in June to table a resolution urging members of the General Assembly and Gov. Bev Perdue to oppose legislation that prohibit local governments from carrying out proactive rental inspections. Knight voted for the motion, which was made by District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade.

Prause followed up by asking, “Do you consider one in 10 housing units in the city being deemed unsafe to be acceptable?” The candidates’ answers revealed markedly different positions on the issue.

“I voted for RUCO to get it started,” Perkins said. “I saw the success of RUCO over time and served on the RUCO board and was supportive of continuing the concept. The question is, is one in 10 acceptable? It’s not acceptable. But we’ve got a state law in place that really guts the RUCO program. So the question is, where do you go from here? You narrow the geography of each inspector so they become much more familiar with the individual properties in the area and try to get at the problem properties sooner. Number two, you increase the fines, so whatever this small handful of private landlords is are hit pretty hard and that they understand that it is our community’s priority that we all have safe housing.”

Knight responded, “Ten percent is hard to address that. What does that 10 percent mean? I mean, are you talking about serious violations? Are you talking about a window cracked, a door pane cracked or a lock that doesn’t work? Or are you talking about serious problems of houses that are crumbling? You need to know more before you can get a good answer to that.”

Prause paraphrased a question from the audience about how the Downtown Greenway ranks in priority and what they might do to expedite its completion. Knight indicated the greenway might have to take a backseat to other needs.

“I think we’ve got to look at all of our — we’ve got a lot of priorities. We’ve got unfunded libraries. We’ve got unfunded police positions. We’re going to have to look at that. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully. When we go into the budget next year, it will be ranked, along with everything else we do. So I can’t answer where it ranks, but it will have to stand in line and we’ll have to look at it. We, the council, will have to make some tough decisions when we talk to the city manager.”

In contrast, Perkins highlighted the greenway as a key asset in a part of the city that is critically important to the economic health and cultural vitality of Greensboro.

“Downtown Greensboro is the heart and soul of our community," he said. "It’s the one place that all of us can come together and have a good time, and celebrate being in Greensboro, North Carolina. And if you want to look at one place that is really common to all of us, it’s the downtown Center City Park. And you can go there anytime and see people from all over the community having a good time in downtown Greensboro. We don’t have a river in downtown Greensboro. A lot of communities have built their downtowns around a river. And so the decision was made: Let’s have a greenway that would be unique to Greensboro. And that would link the various segments of our city together. We’re through Phase I, working on Phase II. We need to move forward on that. That 4.8-mile loop will truly link our downtown with the rest of our city. It gives our citizens an opportunity to exercise. Importantly, it gives our developers an opportunity to link to the greenway to provide an additional amenity to spur economic development. $7 million of the $23 million cost of the greenway is being funded by the private sector. The balance is a combination of transportation bonds and other city funding sources. We need to move it forward soon as possible because that will create economic development and jobs in center city.”

Perkins blamed the controversy over the White Street Landfill for distracting the council from creating jobs.

“It’s been kind of difficult to tackle jobs like we wanted to because we spent the last 22 months focusing on landfill and dividing the community," he said. "I think right now we’re obviously in the middle of one of the great economic depressions in the history of our country. And everybody in America is struggling to try to create jobs and opportunities for their citizens to try to earn a good living. What we have in Greensboro is a tremendous infrastructure. And we’ve put that together over a period of years. And that’s something that I’m very proud of. Our water and sewer system is in the best shape it’s ever been in. Our roads are in tremendous shape, and there are more big roads coming. And when you’ve got five interstate highways running through your region, you can work towards building the type of aerotropolis with logistics-oriented companies that we have the opportunity to build at the airport. And at the same time you can work with your colleges and universities toward the nanotechnology and engineering center that’s being developed on East Lee Street in Greensboro.”

“I would say probably in my two years as mayor, I probably have done more for business than my opponent’s done in 16 years on council," he said. First thing I did when I was elected was reach out to the mayors of Winston-Salem and High Point. We do get together to discuss common issues. I’ve connected with mayors around the state. I’ve made multiple trips to Washington. I’ve made multiple trips to Raleigh on behalf of our business interests. I’ve talked to a legislative committee about regulatory reform to help small business where they’re being burdened by burdensome regulations and unfair taxes. I promise to continue to do that. We’re in a very difficult economy here. There are good things going on, but we’ve got a long way to go. There’s no short solution. It’s hard work. I’m dedicated to it. I also spend a lot of time out in the business community. It is a great dividend being out in our corporate community, and I do that well, and we have had some good things happen as a result of that.”

The two candidates responded to a question about conflict and dysfunction in city government. Knight called out Perkins and his ally, District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, without mentioning either by name.

“It takes the cooperation of all nine council members to have that orderly meeting," Knight said. "And when I have council members sitting down at the end of the row — my opponent and his colleague next — texting, talking, exhorting the audience to not cooperate, not participate in the meeting, and not be quiet, it makes it difficult, frankly. I’ll be very frank about that.”

Perkins pointed to process as the source of dissension.

“It seems like to me that it’s the mayor’s responsibility to communicate with all the council members, not just the ones that the mayor agrees with," he said. "And I think the failure of this council to function as we should is the failure of us to communicate consistently on the issues. Take, for example, this landfill issue. When you cannot, as a city council member, even have a discussion about a relatively recent development in Randolph County, not even have that discussion, and not even have our professional staff evaluate that option, nor will the city council allow for our own people to put in a bid to compare the public sector versus the private sector on solid waste disposal, it’s very hard to keep a citizenry that feels they’re being imposed on checked at council meetings. So I think the basic function of the mayor is to make sure that everybody gets heard, everybody has a fair shake, and that we at least attempt to hear everyone’s perspective.”

Prause asked each candidate to address perceived shortcomings.

“Some people say you want to be mayor just to help your real estate interests," he told Perkins, who is president of a local commercial real estate company.

“I certainly hope we have the opportunity to see some economic development in this community because if I’m catering to the people in the development business I’m not catering well enough because we’ve been slow the last four years," Perkins retorted. "So we really need to have a balance in this community. One of the things that makes Greensboro a tremendous place to live is the quality of life and the quality of developments that we have across our city. And so proper planning for those developments is very important. And we need to work together to do that. And it can’t be one side of Greensboro or another. It can’t be one industry or another. We have to balance: Put the whole mix together, challenge our city council to come up with a shared vision and then make it happen.”

Prause noted that Knight has been criticized for rarely visiting east Greensboro. He asked, “Will you represent all people, not just one side of town?”

“I try to be responsive to all citizens," Knight said. "As I said earlier, I’m accessible, I have visitors, my door is open. Citizens can come to see me. I have about 200 invitations per month that I’m going to. As far as being in east Greensboro, I have been to events there. I will continue to go, as I go to other parts of the city. Many times it’s easier if people do want to come to the mayor’s office. We can discuss issues. We can discuss problems. We have, obviously, mail, telephone. I get a lot of telephone calls, as all council members do. And I’m confident that I’m doing well in that regard.”

Greensboro primary: mayoral returns analysis

by Eric Ginsburg and Jordan Green

Residents in east Greensboro turned out in force, delivering Perkins nearly 3,000 votes more than Knight overall. In District 1 and 2, residents in a handful of precincts overwhelmingly supported Perkins, most handily in two of the easternmost precincts G06 and G74 by nearly 300 votes in each.

Perkins won upwards of 85 percent of the vote in three precincts that lie along the Phillips Avenue corridor near the White Street Landfill. In the two districts closest to the landfill, turnout far exceeded the 11 percent average across the city. In G06, which includes the landfill, 24.3 percent of registered voters turned out, while nearby G05 saw 18.7 percent turnout.

Perkins also dominated a cluster of precincts in southeast Greensboro. G69, at Reid Memorial CME Church, where Perkins carried 87.4 percent of the vote was typical.

Less than an hour before the polls closed, six Bennett College students arrived in a minivan. One pulled out a bullhorn and led a chant: “Bennett belles are… voting belles!”

Robert Moore, a 71-year-old volunteer wearing campaign buttons for Perkins and at-large contenders Yvonne Johnson and Marikay Abuzuaiter, stood out in the rain throughout the day talking up his candidates.

“We want a major change; we want a better change for Greensboro,” he said. “When I say Greensboro, I mean everyone. We feel hurt from 2011.

“We are fighting for people who are going to get our district right,” he continued. “We’re fighting hard because we want Robbie Perkins to win. Robbie looks at things truthfully.”

Perkins territory chart

Precinct — Perkins — the rest

G03 — 209 — 32
G05 — 277 — 23
G06 — 332 — 44
G69 — 249 — 36
G73 — 236 — 51
G74 — 352 — 57
G75 — 234 — 52

Areas in west Greensboro with high voter turnout, most located in District 4, went to Knight but also showed strongly for Perkins. Knight only received more than 200 votes in three precincts, G32, 33 and 34 — clustered around Bryan Boulevard — all of which were among the nine precincts in the city with turnout over 20 percent. Put together, the three gave Knight less than 300 votes more than Perkins, helping to explain his overall lower turnout.

Low voter turnout in areas of west Greensboro that helped Knight win in 2009 did not vote for him in high enough numbers to balance the race more. Knight only won in precincts in District 3, 4 and 5 with most of the support coming from the northwestern part of the city. East Greensboro solidly chose Perkins, as did a number of precincts in the other districts too. Perkins picked off the easternmost precincts in District 3 and 5 as well as a decent amount of District 4.

Challenger Chris Phillips, a black Republican with ties to the local Tea Party, won more votes than Knight in a number of east Greensboro precincts as well. All of the precincts where Phillips performed the best in also favored Perkins. The candidate sought to appeal to black voters’ sense of racial solidarity by placing yard signs showing his face around east Greensboro.

Tom Phillips came in third in the mayoral race with 2,168 total votes but was still eliminated. After the primary he endorsed Perkins, suggesting many of his supporters would move into the challenger’s camp. Perkins will likely also pick up votes that initially went to left-leaning Bradford Cone, who came in last with 689 but wasn’t far behind Chris Phillips.

Perkins won with landslide victories in many east Greensboro precincts, but not all. Knight received solid support in some Perkins-leaning precincts, coming within 15 votes in G07, which includes the Revolution Mill complex, and showing well in G02 and G08, both flanking Summit Avenue, as well.

A handful of precincts were so close they will be impossible to predict before the general election, including G24, at the northeast corner of the Lawndale Drive-Pisgah Church Road intersection, where Perkins led Knight by two votes with nearly a third of voters choosing a different candidate. In G22, whose polling place is Irving Park United Methodist Church, Tom Phillips showed strongly with 124 votes — slightly trailing Knight’s 149 and Perkins 133. Perkins took G66, the upper tier of Adams Farm, by two votes; G60, along the High Point Road corridor, by three; and G63 by five. Knight carried CG3B, in the Air Harbor Road area, by five votes; and G62, near Stanley Road in the southwest, by three.

GOP volunteer reportedly threatened near polling place

A Republican Party volunteer who was setting out campaign signs was threatened on the eve of today’s primary election outside of a northeast Greensboro polling place, a party official says.

Ryan Wilson was making the rounds with a bundle of signs last night at about 9:40 p.m. when he was approached by a black man on a bicycle at Peeler Recreation Center, the polling place for Precinct G05, Guilford County Republican Party Chairman Al Bouldin said. Wilson was holding a sign advertising Bill Knight, the conservative mayoral incumbent. Bouldin said the lighting was poor, so Wilson had difficulty making out distinguishing features about the man.

“He said — I’m paraphrasing here — he said, ‘You’re not going to put those signs out there; if you think you are, I’m going to pull a gun on you,” Bouldin said. The man also reportedly said, “I’m patrolling this area to make sure” nobody puts out Republican signs.

Bouldin said Wilson, who is the Republican precinct chair for Precinct Mon1, placed the signs back in his car and left the area.

Susan Danielsen, public information officer for the Greensboro Police Department, said the emergency communication center received a call from Wilson at 9:51 p.m. reporting the threat. The department dispatched patrols to look to see if they could locate any suspicious subjects until 10:28 p.m., but not make contact with anyone.

“The description was very vague,” Danielsen said.

G05 is one of the most heavily populated precincts near the White Street Landfill.

“This smacks of the fact that things got so heated over the landfill,” Bouldin said. “That’s probably what generated this angry man to do such a thing.”

Knight and other conservative Republican council members, including Danny Thompson, Mary Rakestraw and Trudy Wade, have attempted to reopen the landfill. This morning a sign for Knight and one for Wayne Abraham, an at-large candidate who opposes reopening the landfill, had been knocked down outside the Peeler Recreation Center polling place.

The county Republican Party headquarters has been vandalized at least twice in the run-up to the election with graffiti inscribing “KKK” and other similar phrases.

Candidate profile: Bill Knight

In mid-September during one of his first candidate forums with mayoral incumbent Yvonne Johnson, then-candidate Bill Knight said, “I would like to be sure going forward that as we select new administration into the police department command group that we’re doing it based on ability and qualifications. We have one chief selected because of race. We had another interim chief — don’t know what his situ — We have another chief who was basically forced out on racial issues. And we have a chief today who, in my opinion, is there primarily because of race.”

Oddly enough, the statement hardly came up again during the campaign.

The police chief at the time was Tim Bellamy, who is black. The former chief who had been “forced out on racial issues” was David Wray. As a citizen, Knight had called for the termination of Wray’s former boss, Mitchell Johnson, as a citizen. By the time Knight launched his mayoral candidacy, Mitchell Johnson was already history.

Mayor Knight denied making the statement earlier this year, when a former police captain spoke to council and quoted the mayor as saying, “Former chief Tim Bellamy got his jobs because he was black.”

“That is incorrect,” the mayor said repeatedly.

After serving his first term, Knight is seeking reelection in a crowded race with four challengers, including political rival and fellow council member Robbie Perkins. The Oct. 11 primary will narrow the field to two candidates. During his campaign so far, Knight has declined interview requests by YES! Weekly and the News & Record. He did not show up at a mayoral candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad, a group that is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against city council seeking to keep the White Street Landfill closed. He also skipped a candidate forum hosted by the Guilford County Unity Effort.

Some have questioned the mayor’s low-profile strategy, but Knight has been underestimated before.

Bill Burckley, a political consultant working on candidate’s campaign, told YES! Weekly on Election night in 2009 that the formula for Knight’s success was high turnout in predominantly white, newly annexed precincts in northwest Greensboro along with interest in the Natural Science Center bond, which was more likely to appeal to white voters. Those elements, combined with complacency in the black electorate spelled disaster for incumbent Yvonne Johnson.

The annexation of the Cardinal neighborhood near Piedmont Triad International Airport effectively tipped the city’s political balance. Knight won the 2009 election while carrying only two precincts in east Greensboro, relying on heavy turnout and strong margins of support in affluent neighborhoods such as Irving Park and in western ones such as the Cardinal, Starmount and Adams Farm.

Steve Bowden, co-chair of the Simkins PAC, said after the election that he regretted that the political action committee had not highlighted the possible reopening of the White Street Landfill to black voters in the run-up to polling.

“The main issue for our community is there’s going to be an effort to open a dump in our section of town,” Bowden accurately predicted. “These new people, I’m sure they wouldn’t want a dump where the Cardinal golf course is. That’s what the people of east Greensboro are facing. There’s going to be a big push to cut taxes. And [reopening] the landfill is an easy way to make up the revenue if you want to cut taxes.”

Considering that battle lines have long been drawn over the White Street Landfill and most voters appear to have made up their minds, there has been little effort by the two presumed frontrunners, Knight and Perkins, to use persuasion to peel off each other’s respective supporters. This election is all about turning out the base.

Conservatives for Guilford County, a group that formed since the last election, has members canvassing neighborhoods with door hangers that advertise their endorsements, with Knight at the top of the list. Landfill opponents lead by community activist Goldie Wells have been meeting every weekend to canvass neighborhoods in east Greensboro to get out the vote. While Wells’ group is not making endorsements, the demographics of their target audience are likely to favor Perkins, who has a long relationship with constituents in east Greensboro.

Knight’s first significant vote after being sworn in as mayor was to oppose the use of certificates of participation backed by hotel/motel taxes to finance the completion of the Greensboro Aquatic Center. The mayor came out on the losing end of a narrow vote, with Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan tipping the balance in favor of the project.

From the start, Knight’s leadership has drawn protest, especially from constituents in east Greensboro. First, it was the mayor’s decision to move the public comment period at council meetings from the beginning to the end of the meeting, relying on his prerogative as chair. Initially, the council voted the change down, but in May 2010, after a group of college students protested the city’s handling of allegations of corruption within the police department, Knight and other conservatives were able to assemble a 6-3 majority to close the deal.

In the first months of the new mayor’s term, Knight’s remarks about the police chief became an issue, and speakers at council meetings repeatedly called on him to apologize. He quietly refused. Bellamy retired as police chief, and in September a new chief, Ken Miller, was sworn in. Incidentally, Miller is white.

Like the public comment controversy, much of Knight’s first year seemed to be taken up with cosmetic and ceremonial affairs. He organized a ceremony to honor military veterans during a city council meeting, but found himself embarrassed when it turned out there were no African-American veterans present. He rectified the oversight at the next meeting. And, in June 2010, Knight again used the prerogative of the chair to replace the traditional moment of silence at the beginning of the meeting with an invocation.

In the past term, Knight has been part of unanimous votes to approve economic incentive grants to companies such as Samet Corp., Ziehl-Abegg and Honda Aircraft Co., along with a decision to give International Textile Group free methane gas valued at $1.8 million as an incentive to retain hundreds of jobs.

Knight’s aversion to taxation and regulation has moved him to vote in sync with the wishes of local landlords on at least two occasions. In September 2010, Knight voted with the majority to exempt properties north of Fisher Avenue from the Downtown Design Overlay, a new ordinance that would subject downtown development projects to an architectural review process. And this past June, Knight was part of a successful vote to reduce an added special tax on property owners in the College Hill historic district. Among those lobbying for the reduction was the wife of his political consultant, Bill Burckley. Officers of the neighborhood association later complained that the decision had been made without their input.

In the fall of 2009, most of the council members expressed some reservations about the guidelines of a $5 million energy efficiency grant received by the city from the federal government, but in November Knight was on the losing side of a vote to finally approve the program. Many of the grant’s supporters, including former Mayor Yvonne Johnson, had hoped the grant would help revitalize the deteriorating housing stock in east Greensboro.

Knight mentioned that he had grown up in east Greensboro in a family of modest means, and then explained his objections.

“I worry about our national debt,” he said. “At the local level we lose sight of the fact that we’re taking money down on an overdrawn credit card. I have concerns about that.”

In June of this year, after significant program revisions, Knight would join his colleagues in voting to allow the grant to move forward.

The mayor also voted in favor of an initiative championed by District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny — to institute a teen curfew after 11 p.m. in downtown Greensboro.

The council passed a budget in 2010 that slightly decreased the municipal property tax. Conservative members tried unsuccessfully to block a water-rate increase. But when the city received a favorable lawsuit settlement, Knight and others voted to rescind the increase in two separate motions, using the settlement proceeds to make up for the lost revenue.

Knight has actively lobbied the NC General Assembly to delay enforcement of new environmental regulations that would force the city and private developers to restrict nitrogen and phosphorous runoff that end up in the Haw River, and to change the city charter so that the city attorney would report directly to council.

In contrast, the council under Knight’s leadership remained silence on a law passed by the General Assembly that outlawed the city’s proactive housing inspection program. The Triad Real Estate and Building Industries Coalition, whose members generously donate to city council candidates’ campaigns, has made no secret of its desire to dismantle the program, while the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress and the Greensboro Housing Coalition fought to defend it.

The mayor and other members of the conservative group hit a rough patch when public outcry forced them to reconsider a redistricting plan proposed by District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw. The plan angered voters by moving an active precinct that had not supported Rakestraw in the past election into District 1, creating an irregular map with districts that were barely contiguous. It also moved a significant number of voters among the two districts in east Greensboro, leading to suspicion that the intent of the plan was to create confusion at the polls.

Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan was the first to recognize the vote to approve the Rakestraw plan had been ill considered. The mayor quickly joined ranks with her, and the plan was discarded.

Despite some discussion about the landfill in the 2009 election, the council delayed action on the controversial decision through the end of 2010.

In January 2011, council voted to issue a new request for proposals for a private company to handle the city’s solid waste. With Vaughan and, later, Matheny, conflicted out, a pattern quickly emerged with Knight voting with a mini-majority of four out of seven members to reopen the White Street Landfill, joined by Rakestraw, Wade and at-large Councilman Danny Thompson. Knight’s political rival Perkins, along with members Dianne Bellamy-Small and Jim Kee, found themselves on the losing end of those votes.

In the late spring they ignored warnings from a lawyer representing residents who live near the landfill that they could not expand the landfill without taking proper steps outlined by state law. The courts agreed, and the conservative quartet regrouped, voting to initiate a new and rushed process to reopen a limited portion of the landfill. Vaughan’s recusal was eventually lifted because the company her husband provides legal services to had not been not selected by the city. Vaughan’s signal that she would vote against the landfill prompted vendor Gate City Waste Services to file a lawsuit against her. Once it became apparent that efforts to sideline Vaughan would fail, the company withdrew its bid to operate the landfill.

Knight and his conservative allies have taken criticism for not explaining their decision to reopen the White Street Landfill. But last week, addressing a friendly audience at Conservatives for Guilford County’s candidate forum, the mayor displayed a rare candor.

“We’re faced with trying to find a way to stop the hemorrhaging of millions of dollars each year; that was not the case just five years ago,” Knight said. “We did have a solution at hand, but it’s too late now to turn back the clock on that. I’ve seen nearby communities, Winston-Salem and Raleigh, for instance, with landfills very similar to ours that have gone forward to significant economic development without the problems that we have here or have had in Greensboro. Economically, we are behind on this issue.”

Knight proposed that a study committee take up the issue in the next term, adding that the city can’t afford to continue its current arrangement of transporting garbage out of the county. He noted that the city has had to delay construction of projects such as the Lake Jeannette Branch Library. The library is located in an affluent, north-central section of the city where Knight drew strong support in his last election.

In keeping with, Knight’s fiscal conservatism and accounting background, he expressed a cautious outlook on public expenditures.

“While we hear about a lot of cities and counties, and certainly the national government that are either just bankrupt or in red ink or in dire straits — and while we are in maybe an enviable position, we need to take every possible precaution to protect and hedge against that proverbial rainy day,” he said. “And what has happened elsewhere, I sincerely believe, could happen here. And what can we do to prevent that? Well, we started in this current budget year. For years, the city of Greensboro’s budget has grown and grown and grown. There’s been a rubber-stamp mentality, in my opinion. And we did start to find that we could curtail expenditures and start finding some expenditure reductions.”

Knight articulated who he considers to be his primary constituency.

“I spend a lot of my time as mayor out in the business community,” he said. “I think that’s one of my roles: I should be. One of the things I wanted to do was bring a pro-business attitude to our city government when I got here. And I feel like we have done what I considered a lot of social engineering, and it was time to get down to the thing of business.”

Conscious that the time allotted for his remarks during the candidate forum was rapidly dwindling, Knight hastened to conclude.

“And so I’m spending time traveling to Washington, to Raleigh,” he said. “I want to help work with the legislators on regulations, taxes, a host of issues. I think we can work with [the] business community. That is how we’re going to get back to jobs. Those are things that I will continue to do. I’m a full-time mayor, and I spend a lot of time out in the business community.”

In response to a question about criticism that the council has not demonstrated transparency, Knight revealed whom he does not regard as legitimate constituencies.

“As far as I know, there’s no involvement of something I was concerned [about] in the past,” he said, “what I consider to be special interest groups or community organizer groups getting involved in what’s going on.”

Knight gave a somewhat rambling answer, referring to transparency as a “buzzword” and explaining how he views communication with the public.

“I remember in 2005, maybe before I was a candidate, that word started making the rounds,” Knight said. “It’s openness. I believe this council has been quite open. We have a number of discussions. We have long agendas. Everything is discussed openly in open council meeting. We do have closed sessions for certain sensitive matters, but we do not engage in what used to be called small-group meetings.

“We have long debates sometimes, but we discuss, we debate, yes, sometimes we argue,” he continued. “It’s interesting that sometimes we have a consent agenda for non-controversial items, which suggests there may be controversial items. And we certainly go through those. But we make the decisions, and we move on.”

Wade, Knight make no apologies for landfill position

C4GC candidates forum, a set on Flickr.

Conservative incumbents Trudy Wade and Bill Knight made their first public appearances in a lively City Council election campaign before a friendly audience at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum during a forum hosted by Conservatives for Guilford County last night.

The host organization asked candidates to address the White Street Landfill, along with the issues of fiscal responsibility and job creation, and the District 5 councilwoman took to the first issue in particular with zeal.

“The problem with the landfill is our trash is costing us millions of dollars,” she said. “There were conservative members of council that decided we needed to look at this issue for the people of Greensboro – all the people of Greensboro. Is there a way we could save money and with that money do things for economic development such as put in infrastructure, do things we really need in this city? Are we getting the best bang for our buck with paying all that money to transport our trash, which is our responsibility, not our responsibility to go stick it in somebody else’s backyard – our responsibility as citizens that we should take care of our own trash.

“So yes, it’s a hot item; it was emotional,” she continued. “But let’s think about it a minute: Four of us – actually five, but one conservative member could no longer vote on the matter and had to recuse himself – took on this challenge: Let’s talk about White Street. Let’s see if there’s something we can do.”

District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny had been recused because of a conflict of interest with Gate City Waste Services, a vendor that was pre-selected to operate the landfill before withdrawing its bid. Matheny has not indicated publicly which way he would have voted on the question of whether to reopen the landfill.

Wade went on to dispute the cost-savings estimated by city staff and an outside consultant for reopening the landfill. Wade contended reopening the landfill would save the city $8 million per year, as opposed to $3.1 million.

“We can play with numbers all we want, but the way you get [the low] number is you add the closure cost in over a period of seven years,” she said. Wade’s math assumes that the city will have to pay closure costs for the White Street Landfill whether it’s reopened or not, but the city has maintained permitting and operational capabilities at the landfill since it stopped accepting municipal solid waste in 2006 and staff has put forth no plans to decommission it.

“It took brave people to bring this issue up,” Wade said, drawing applause. “There’s been people on the council for years. You’ve heard some candidates tonight and city council representatives that said, ‘I’ve been on the council 12 years, 16 years.’ Well, we don’t have a plan for solid waste, and they’ve been there for that amount of time because they didn’t tackle the situation.”

Mayor Bill Knight appeared to be dispirited by a recent reversal that took place when the interim city attorney ruled that Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan could vote on the landfill, but made no apologies for his handling of the matter.

“We’re faced with trying to find a way to stop the hemorrhaging of millions of dollars each year; that was not the case just five years ago,” Knight said. “We did have a solution at hand, but it’s too late now to turn back the clock on that. I’ve seen nearby communities – Winston-Salem and Raleigh, for instance – with landfills very similar to ours that have gone forward to significant economic development without the problems that we have here or have had in Greensboro. Economically, we are behind on this issue.”

The mayor proposed a study committee to take up the issue in the next term.

The program included two follow-up questions for mayoral candidates. The group did not give the incumbent candidate a free pass, despite their shared conservative philosophy. The moderator asked Knight to address criticism that the council has not demonstrated transparency under his leadership.

“I believe this council has been quite open,” Knight said. “We have a number of discussions. We have long agendas. Everything is discussed openly in open council meeting. We do have closed sessions for certain sensitive matters, but we do not engage in what used to be called small-group meetings.”

Chris Phillips, a self-described conservative candidate who has worked with Conservatives for Guilford County in the past, backed away from a previous position of conditional support for reopening the landfill.

“To keep the peace in Greensboro I would say keep it closed for right now,” he said.

“Saving money, if the White Street Landfill is the best option, I’d say, ‘Let’s do that,’” the candidate added. “But what we need to do also is the city of Greensboro needs to prove to the people in the area that it is the best option – that there is no foul odor…. As an African American, I can say that I have struggled with asthma, I have struggled with bronchitis, so any children that live in that area, we need to make sure that they feel safe, that there are no health hazards.”

The moderator noted that Phillips has gone on record as saying that he’s a regular user of Greensboro mass transit. Contending that city buses are underutilized during non-peak hours, the moderator went on to ask the candidate what changes could be made to make the system more efficient.

“In riding the buses every day, as I do, I understand what Greensboro’s residents who ride the buses go through every day,” Phillips said. “I think that we need to make sure there’s a safety net in place for the transit system so the money is used for that purpose. Another solution, I would say, we could have for the low ridership and the cost of diesel fuel, let’s have fuel-efficient cars, or let’s have shuttle vans that can go to these areas and pick up people. One of the things that I face is that if I miss the bus sometimes I have to catch a cab. And catching a taxi has become more and more expensive. So we need to make sure that there’s an effective bus system in Greensboro to pick up the riders who need those bus routes.”

The 45-year-old candidate noted that he is not married and has no children, adding, “those are some desires that I do have one day.” He told the audience that he graduated from UNCG with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

“I thought that when I graduated the world was going to be my oyster, so to speak,” he said. “I thought: I’m smart, and I’m going to get a job, and I’m going to live happily ever after. And please don’t get me wrong: I thank God for HH Gregg, and I thank God for my job, but there are other gifts, other dreams that I would like to put in place, and I know a lot of other college students who feel the same way that I do.”

The forum presented a test for mayoral candidate Robbie Perkins, a longtime councilman who is favored to win by many political observers. Although he is a registered Republican, Perkins is distrusted by many conservatives because of his alignment with the council’s progressive faction.

Perkins looked extremely composed, betraying only the slightest hint of nervousness as he answered a question about his vote to close the landfill a decade previously.

“The solution to the issue that we looked at in 2003 was similar to what we looked at today,” he said. “Your worst-case scenario, as a public official, is that you have no solution for your garbage. The assumptions made that you could keep White Street open and expand it were problematic then, as they are today. We’ve all heard about the issues involved in section 4 and section 5 of White Street and how that’s going to require rezoning, that’s going to require additional permitting. Those issues were up in the air in 2003 as well. What we were looking at is retaining our unused capacity, using that as a way to negotiate against the haulers, for them to give us a fair price.”

The candidate also answered a question about public subsidies for the Greensboro Coliseum with ease.

“I look at the billion dollars of tourism business in Guilford County as a huge community asset,” he said. “And the centerpiece of that business is the Greensboro Coliseum. So the million and a half dollars that we are giving the coliseum out of the general fund each year is a small part of the many millions that we bring in through that facility to the benefit of all of our citizens. I contend that the tourism business, the hotel business, and the restaurant business would not be close to the same in our city without the coliseum driving that business.”

One of the questions posed to mayoral candidate Tom Phillips, a former councilman who is also a registered Republican, related to the candidate’s long experience as a director of the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority, which is responsible for bringing the Randleman Reservoir online to supply the water needs of Greensboro and neighboring municipalities. The moderator asked Phillips if the projected needs for water were inflated and whether citizens could expect a rate cut as a result of the new supply.

Phillips responded that if the city’s projected water needs had been inflated, it was because of the decline of the textile industry – once a major user. If the new water supply lasted for more than 50 years, as projected, Phillips said he doesn’t consider that a problem. He offered no relief on rates.

“You have expenses, and you never know what environmental rules will come along to require us to spend money,” Phillips said. “I really don’t see rates going down from here.”

Bradford Cone, the only Democrat on the mayoral slate, put forward a flat recitation of positions antithetical to conservative agenda. He said the landfill issue should not have been brought up by council and is unnecessarily dividing the city. And he said the city should invest in infrastructure to create jobs, and spend money in the short term to achieve long-term savings.

“I would also reinstate the moment of silence,” he added, “as the prayer, for anyone who’s not Christian would feel they’re less welcome and less a part of the community.”

Mary Rakestraw, a member of the conservative faction who is seeking reelection to her seat as the District 4 representative, pushed back against the notion that the process was rigged to favor Gate City Waste Industries.

“Now, some people have said that the RFPs that were sent out were written specifically for one server,” Rakestraw said, adding that after staff developed the request for proposals, council members made only “four or five minor changes” before the document was posted.

Rakestraw noted that studies about health impact of the landfill have come back inconclusive, and remarked that the landfill was currently “a moot point.”

Only one of two challengers in the District 4 race, Tony Collins, showed up for the forum. Collins said there was a need for new blood, but did not take a stand on either side of the landfill debate.

The three candidates competing to represent District 2, where the landfill is located, waded into hostile territory.

Incumbent Jim Kee geared his remarks somewhat to a conservative perspective on cost savings.

“It’s a bad economic idea because you’re looking at a short-term gain of four and a half years, and once the landfill is filled the profits that we would have earned would have evaporated when we went back to the open market, which we would have to do,” Kee said.

Challenger C. Bradley Hunt II made no apologies for his stance against reopening the landfill.

“We have to come together to understand that the White Street Landfill should not be opened in Greensboro,” he said. “I feel that no amount of savings is worth the quality of life for the residents that live near the landfill. To me, that conversation should not have ever come up, and I will do everything that I can to keep the White Street Landfill closed.”

Dan Fischer challenged audience members to who employ people in Greensboro.

“We need to start paying a living wage to everybody who walks through our doors when we’re hiring,” he said.

Jorge Cornell, who is challenging Wade for the District 5 seat, cut a striking contrast amidst the nattily dressed and politically conservative crowd. Cornell’s introduction did not include any mention of his role as leader of the North Carolina Latin Kings, a group considered to be a street gang by the Greensboro Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. All the same, the candidate and audience appeared to be in separate psychic universes.

Cornell gamely pitched himself on a bootstrapping theme, noting that he plans to launch a temporary labor agency.

“I’m proud to say that our doors will be opened in January, and it’s a joint effort with the Beloved Community Center, which has built in a training center,” the candidate said. “Which is going to help a lot of brothers and sisters that are homeless, brothers and sisters that got felonies, those that are considered marginalized in our community. The reason why I think this is important is that these brothers and sisters need to know that they still are community and we need to let them know by giving them that second chance in life because everybody deserves a second chance in life.”

In his closing remarks, Cornell echoed Frederick Douglass, who was quoted in a mass e-mail sent out by Conservatives for Guilford County to publicize the event: “In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.”

Cornell said, “We need to get away from this two-class citizenship, okay? We really do. We’re all one people. And I think that’s really important, because the only way we’re going to make change in this community is if we come together as one. As long as we sit here on this side and we have people sit on this side, we’re never going to make change. It’s been like this for awhile. As long as we stay divided, they shall conquer. And when I say that, I’m talking about us conquering ourselves.”

At-large candidate Chris Lawyer, a self-described conservative offered some general comments about fiscal responsibility, but made no mention of the landfill.

Jean Austin Brown, another conservative in the at-large race, exhibited difficulty articulating a position on the landfill, making equivocating statements about public input process and the merits of recycling.

“Nobody has the answer to the landfill,” she said. “I don’t think so. I’ve listened to everything. I’ve read everything I can about the landfill. I don’t think anybody has the answer yet. But I’m open to suggestions. Even when I’m on city council I would not be against town-hall meetings if all possible participants were there to voice their concerns, whether it’s yes or no. But I’m not for listening to just a bunch of folks who are angry and who are not willing to listen and to try to do something about this.”

Austin said, “When you say recycling, it’s probably like putting a Bandaid on cancer.”

Then she added, “I would be all for more recycling.”

Moderators Algenon Cash and Kevin Daniels gave remarks about the connection between conservativism and civil rights, but the real more resonant statements about the setting came from candidates.

“Earlier this week… the letters ‘KKK’ were spray-painted on one of my yard signs,” said Mayor Bill Knight, who graduated from Greensboro High School in 1957, the year before it accepted its first black student. “And what I took this to mean was hate. I can’t interpret it any other way but hate. Being where we are here I find it rather meaningful where we are. And this center symbolizes injustice and struggle.”

Sal Leone, an at-large candidate who drew a boo from the audience when he mentioned he was a Yankees fan, brought an unpopular message on the landfill.

“The future of Greensboro is in the east; we have no place else to go,” he said. “We need economic development. Landfills do not bring a lot of jobs. We need to develop the east. It will bring economic development, jobs, corporations, which bring money, taxes, revenue. It’s what we need.”

Then he drew back to a historical period that Daniels had referenced as the dawn of American civil rights.

“With the city council divided as they are, Abraham Lincoln said it the best: ‘A house divided cannot stand,’” Leone said. “And we all know what happened in 1860. That’s what’s happening here now. We’re in a crisis. We’re in big trouble.”

City staff: Nothing improper about mayor's meeting with human relations commission

UPDATE: Interim City Attorney Tom Pollard tells City Manager Rashad Young and members of Greensboro City Council today:

An issue was raised by a speaker last night about a meeting of six members of the Human Relations Commission. Mayor Knight and Councilman Matheny met with these members at their request. It is my understanding that members of the city staff were not present at this meeting. The Human Relations Commission has 15 members. Under the Open Meetings Law, an official meeting of a public body is defined as a meeting of a majority of the members of such body. A meeting of six members of the Human Relations Commission is not an official meeting of the Human Relations Commission. There was no violation of the Open Meetings Law or the Commission’s Rules of Procedure. If questions, please let me know.

ORIGINAL POST: At last night's Greensboro City Council meeting, Human Relations Commissioner Michael Roberto alleged that a May 16 meeting between Mayor Bill Knight, Councilman Zack Matheny and select members of the commission was illegal, indicating that he was not notified of the meeting. Another commissioner, Marikay Abuzuaiter, also indicated that she was excluded.

Matheny has inquired with City Manager Rashad Young about whether there was any problem with the gathering.

Assistant City Manager Denise Turner Roth responded in an e-mail this morning:

A quorum [spelling corrected] of the Commission is eight members so it did not constitute an official meeting of the Commission. There is nothing preventing you from having met with them. Anthony Wade confirmed this with legal this morning.

Matheny tells me: "There was no quorum and none needed."

I'll be digging deeper into this.

Knight, race, police and job qualifications

Charles Cherry, a former Greensboro police captain, made some remarks during the speakers from the floor portion of last week’s city council meeting about the racialized cast of some statements made by city officials about police administration.

He took direct aim at Mayor Bill Knight, quoting him as stating, “Former Chief Tim Bellamy got his job because he was black.”

The mayor interrupted Cherry, and contradicted him.

“That is incorrect, sir,” Knight said.

Cherry shook his head in disbelief.

“Well, I don’t know what the newspaper said, but that is incorrect,” Knight said. “That is incorrect.”

Knight is technically correct in that he did not say verbatim that Tim Bellamy got his job as police chief because he was black. In fact he did not mention the former chief by name or use the word “black.”

The statement made by Knight during a well-attended candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Sept. 15, 2009 was this:

“I would like to be sure going forward that as we select new administration into the police department command group that we’re doing it based on ability and qualifications. We have one chief selected because of race. We had another interim chief — don’t know what his situa — We have another chief who was basically forced out on racial issues. And we have a chief today who, in my opinion, is there primarily because of race.”

At the time, Tim Bellamy, who is black, served as chief of police. Prior to that Bellamy, had served as interim chief following the resignation of David Wray, who is white, in January 2006. Prior to that, Anthony Scales, who is black, served as interim.

There is no doubt that Knight was referring to Bellamy when he said, “We have a chief today who, in my opinion, is there primarily because of race.” And Bellamy's race is undoubtedly black.

Cherry is correct in essence in saying, "Mayor Bill Knight stated that former Chief Tim Bellamy got his job because he was black."

I had the opportunity to further confirm that the remark was directed at Bellamy in a phone conversation with Knight the following Sunday, when he told me: “It does not appear to me that he might have been the most qualified person for the job.”

I have left a phone message to Knight to ask him to explain his disavowal during last week’s city council meeting. I hope he will take the opportunity to clarify the matter.

A public apology from Rev. Cardes Brown to Mayor Bill Knight

Statement made by the Rev. Cardes Brown at a press conference held at New Light Missionary Baptist Church in Greensboro on June 24:

"I think I want to apologize to Mayor Knight. Please put this down. I want to apologize to him because he made a statement sometime ago, and I challenged the statement. He made the statement that the chief was only made chief because he was black. And I stood up against that statement. And I have to really apologize to Mayor Knight because the more I research this the more I’m inclined to agree that, in part, he was right. He was only made chief because he was black and would show favor to the majority of officers on the force.”

The majority of officers on the force, it should be noted, are white.

Chief Tim Bellamy is scheduled to retire on July 31.

NAACP reiterates call for mayor to apologize

The Rev. Cardes Brown (center left) is leading an effort to get Mayor Bill Knight to apologize for a statement he made about police Chief Tim Bellamy.

The Greensboro NAACP reiterated a call for Mayor Bill Knight to apologize for a statement expressing the view that Tim Bellamy and predecessor Robert White were selected as police chief because of their race.

I and another reporter asked the Rev. Cardes Brown, president of the Greensboro NAACP, why objections were not raised against candidate Knight's remark during the election, when voters might have considered it while evaluating Knight against his opponent, Yvonne Johnson.

Brown responded, "Some would say that hindsight is 20/20.... There are many regrets as it relates to things that have happened and that could have happened." (Some timely reflection on the significance of the remark here.)

The formal statement by the local NAACP and other groups is that "the language Mayor Knight used is not only divisive and offensive, it misrepresents the truth; and whenever falsehoods are declared they should be recanted and those who have been injured by them should receive an apology. It is troubling that the mayor's ramblings would indicate that one third of the city's population could have been selected as chief of police, based on his assessment, because one third of the population of Greensboro is represented by people of color."

Brown went on to say, "I want it to be understood that there are differences of opinion, as it relates to issues, with the chief of police. These differences, however, are in respect to issues, and not his qualifications to be chief of police."

UPDATE: The News & Record's Doug Clarke, the only other working print journalist present when Knight made his infamous remark, notes that his paper endorsed against Knight partly on the basis of the remark and voters didn't seem to much care at the time.

Alston warned mayor of consequences of revisiting hotel bond vote

Skip Alston warned Bill Knight and Nancy Vaughan that there could be consequences if an item approved by the Greensboro City Council in December related to hotel bond financing were to come back up on the agenda. Alston acknowledged that he told Knight and Vaughan that “the community would hold them responsible to do the right thing and not to cave into influence by one of the largest taxpayers in Guilford County.”

Knight and Vaughan said that Alston warned if the hotel bond financing item came back up, the mayor could be dis-invited from opening ceremony for the International Civil Rights Center and Museum on Feb. 1, that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be present, and it could be pointed out to the embarrassment of the city representatives that the proposed downtown luxury hotel was a black enterprise, and that Knight, a white man, had defeated the city’s first African-American mayor. Alston categorically denied the specific allegations.

Vaughan went one further, and said that Alston had warned that she, Knight and fellow at-large Councilman Danny Thompson could face recall initiatives if the hotel bond financing were reconsidered. Alston also denied that allegation.

During the conversation, Alston represented himself as a friend passing along information.

Read the full story here in our digital version.

UPDATE: Pickups by Cone and Guarino.

Mayor's crime statements at odds with new data

New crime statistic released by the Greensboro Police Department today appear to contradict claims made by Bill Knight last year in his successful campaign for mayor.

A GPD press release reports today that violent crime dropped 4 percent and property crime declined by 3 percent in calendar year 2009, compared to the previous year. More dramatically, homicides dropped 28 percent.

The Knight campaign website argued, "The department appears reactive to growing [emphasis mine] crime instead of pursuing vigorous proactive policing in high crime areas. Following a recent string of murders the newspaper reported that the police chief was reviewing the numbers to determine how to respond. The police department should be ahead of the curve on this by deploying sufficient experienced officers on patrol, particularly at night and on weekends. High police visibility, particularly in troubled areas, supported by efficient intelligence gathering capability, will serve to deter further criminal activity."

Influential Knight supporter Joe Guarino continually emphasized crime in blog posts in the weeks leading up to the election, claiming that the city was suffering from "epidemic crime conditions."

Mayor to push speakers from the floor back

Greensboro Mayor Bill Knight said during a city council briefing today that at the council's next meeting on Jan. 19 he plans to begin scheduling speakers from the floor at a time near the end of the meeting. Currently, speakers from the floor is the sixth item, after resolutions and before public hearing items. Knight said he will have speakers from the floor address the council after public hearing items and business items.

"The speakers from the floor will have ample time," Knight said. "This gives them time to go home and get dinner."

District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small predicted the move will not go over well with citizens, noting that many of those who address council are elderly people who make their presentation and then go home.

"I think the message is going to be that you don't want to hear from them," she said.

District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade said they support the mayor's decision.

"Some of the folks that are going to speak from the floor might have to wait for awhile, but unfortunately people who have business have to wait until 11 o'clock," Matheny said. "We've got to get back to doing the business of the city."

Matheny refutes Guarino's account

UPDATE: Matheny asked me to publish this clarification: "Jordan, as a point of clarification, I stated that there is no question that Guarino has never supported me and that the story is untrue. To try and educate him on the facts of the day would be difficult and with my day job, city council and upcoming marriage this weekend, I do not have the time to call him nor do I think it would help."

Without citing any sources, Guarino reports that Greensboro District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny "threatened" Mayor Bill Knight at a retreat this past weekend at the Center for Creative Leadership.

Notwithstanding the hyperbolic headline, Matheny says there is absolutely no truth to the story. I happened to have been present for all but the first hour of the nine-hour marathon session, and I witnessed nothing like what Guarino described. Guarino wasn't there, so his information is second hand. There were obviously many side conversations taking place after the meeting broke up and people were walking to their cars, so I may have missed something.

Matheny told me that he told Knight that he wanted to serve on the War Memorial Commission, and Knight responded that he would have to await his decision. Matheny said he never threatened to muster five votes to overturn Knight's decision, which is allowable under council's parliamentary rules.

"It's not worth my time to call Guarino and try to educate him," Matheny said. "I did call Bill twice, and say, 'I would love to work with you; let's go.'"

As it turned out, the list of council liaison appointments Knight sent out yesteday evening did pair Matheny with the War Memorial Commission.