Crawford officially withdraws from District 5 race

David Crawford has officially withdrawn from the District 5 race for Greensboro City Council, the Guilford County Board of Elections reports. That leaves incumbent Trudy Wade and challenger Jorge Cornell as the two remaining candidates.

"No votes will be tallied," Deputy Director Charlie Collicutt said. "Jorge and Trudy are the nominees. Even though it will be on the ballot, we will not even display the results on election night."

Previously.

Crawford announces withdrawal from District 5 race

UPDATE: As of about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday (Sept. 29), Crawford has not officially withdrawn from the District 5 race for Greensboro City Council, according to a source at the Guilford County Board of Elections.

ORIGINAL POST: David Crawford says he is dropping out of the race for the District 5 seat on Greensboro City Council, citing one of his parent's poor health.

Developing.

UPDATE: I understand that Crawford's name will remain on the primary election ballot, but any votes he may receive will not be counted. I'm awaiting confirmation on this information from officials at the Guilford County Board of Elections.

Crawford's decision narrows the field of candidates to two, ensuring that incumbent Trudy Wade and Jorge Cornell will advance to the general election in November.

Charlie Collicutt, deputy director for the Guilford County Board of Elections, says via e-mail that Crawford has not officially withdrawn from the race, but he expects him to do so this afternoon.

If and when that happens, § NCGS 163-294.1, entitled “Death of candidates or elected officers,” applies:

If a candidate for nomination in a nonpartisan municipal primary dies, becomes disqualified, or withdraws before the primary but after the ballots have been printed, the board of elections shall determine whether or not there is time to reprint the ballots. If the board determines that there is not enough time to reprint the ballots, the deceased or disqualified candidate's name shall remain on the ballots. If he receives enough votes for nomination, such votes shall be disregarded and the candidate receiving the next highest number of votes below the number necessary for nomination shall be declared nominated. If the death or disqualification of the candidate leaves only two candidates for each office to be filled, the nonpartisan primary shall not be held and all candidates shall be declared nominees.

Collicutt said that although the three candidates will appear on the ballot for District 5 voters, the votes won’t actually be counted, and Wade and Cornell will automatically be nominated for the general election.

Candidate profile: David Crawford

David Crawford, candidate for Greensboro City Council District 5. (photo by Keith T. Barber)

As the CEO of Greensboro Recycling Center, it’s no mystery why David Crawford has made his opposition to the reopening of the White Street Landfill the centerpiece of his campaign for Greensboro City Council.

“I think [District 5 Council Member Trudy Wade] is going to get something out of it,” Crawford said. “I think she has more to be involved in than just a vote. Basically, I think [all council members] are just out for themselves. You notice everyone on the council is saying, ‘Open, open, open it,’ and no one is looking at what else we can do.”

“It’s just open it, quick fix and then when it gets filled, what are you going to do then?” Crawford added.

On Aug. 16, the Greensboro City Council approved a resolution to select Gate City Waste Services to operate the White Street Landfill. Wade cast one of the four votes to approve the resolution. On Tuesday, Gate City Waste Services notified the city of Greensboro that it was withdrawing its bit to operate the landfill. Greensboro City Council had the opportunity to vote on extending its contract with Republic Services to receive the city’s solid waste at its Uwharrie Environmental Landfill in Montgomery County through the end of the year during its regular meeting this week. By approving the extension, the city council could buy itself some time to postpone a long-term decision on the landfill until after the Nov. 8 municipal election.

Crawford said he’s received more than 200 letters from concerned citizens in recent months expressing strong opposition to reopening the landfill.

“We’ve to find another solution,” Crawford said. “I think the landfill should stay closed. They’ve built too many homes around it. We don’t know what kind of health issues it could be causing; nobody’s researched it.”

The other major planks of Crawford’s campaign platform include making the city’s Economic Development & Business Support Office more user-friendly and hiring more police officers.

“It would be nice if they had an information packet [at the Economic Development office] that would tell you what was available for each person and what you could apply for,” Crawford said. “It’s like applying for a grant; it could be promoted better.”

Crawford said he’s opposed to merging of the Greensboro Police Department and the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office. Rather, Crawford said he would advocate for putting more cops on the street and raising the salaries of all first responders. Crawford said he’s spoken with a number of residents of the 5th District who have complained about the slow response times of the Greensboro PD.

With regard to environmental issues, Crawford said he’s concerned about declining water quality in the city, and believes Greensboro’s recycling program should be expanded.

“I would like to see recycling become mandatory,” he said.

If elected, Crawford said he would push for the city to purchase biodiesel for its fleet of city buses. Crawford said he would also advocate for expanding the city’s support of Greensboro’s arts community. Crawford said the city's economic development strategy should include greater funding for the arts. He lauded city officials in Durham and Winston-Salem for their focus on investing in arts infrastructure and creating a vibrant arts community.

“They have their act together,” he said. “It would be nice if Greensboro would do something like that.”

David Crawford to withdraw

David Crawford says he will drop out of the District 5 race for Greensboro City Council today. I talked to David earlier this evening, and he told me he's planning to move to High Point.

The news came to me in a cell phone message that was concise and eloquent by David's standards: "Talked it over with Tim and Brenda and Linda and Charlie all down at the Board of the Elections. I talked it over on Thursday and Friday, saying I might as well get out. There's no need to waste the taxpayers' money. There's no need to have a primary. There's no need to do none any of that crap. Give the other candidate a run for the money; he can focus on the other candidate. I think it's the manly thing, and I think it's the right thing to do. I told them I would come down on Monday and withdraw from the race."

The remaining contenders are incumbent Trudy Wade and challenger Art Boyett.

Guilford soil and water super-elect reportedly moved out of county

You'll read about it tomorrow in the News & Record, as they say in the blogging biz....

David Crawford, a political gadfly with some erratic tendencies who has run unsuccessfully for city council in Greensboro and Winston-Salem and for Guilford County School Board, says that the man elected to Guilford County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor has moved out of the county, and will not be allowed to serve.

Kirk Perkins, the supervisor-elect, shares a name with a well-known Guilford County Commission. The latter Perkins chaired the county commission at the time of the election, thus making him the highest-ranking elected official in county government. Perkins, the candidate for soil and water super, was well aware of that, says Crawford, who added that several people told him they voted for the candidate for soil and water super thinking they were casting a ballot for the county commissioner.

Crawford, who told me he managed the lesser-known Kirk Perkins' campaign, says he encouraged him to run.

"He needed some structure and responsibility in his life, and I thought it might help him advance in his life," Crawford told me.

Not only did Crawford manage Perkins' campaign, but he also says he gave him a place to live. That is, until Crawford evicted Perkins. After that, Crawford said he was advised to cut off all contact with his former protege.

Name recognition is the only way that Kirk Perkins could have won the soil and water super race, considering that incumbent Herb Hendrickson has been universally well regarded for his work on the post.

Perkins won the five-way soil and water race in November with 34,907 votes, followed by Andrew Courts, who garnered 33,847. Hendrickson received only 28,097 votes.

Crawford is no stranger to the tactic of exploiting other better-known candidates' name recognition for political advantage. His name is similar to that of David R. Crawford, chairman of the NC 5th Congressional District Democrats and the Democratic candidate for the District 5 seat in 2002.

The lesser-known David Crawford said he learned that Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor-elect Kirk Perkins had moved out of Guilford County through a phone call from an acquaintance.

Candidates for Guilford County School Board: McKinney, Alexander and Hawkes

At-large candidates for Guilford County School Board Michael McKinney, Sandra Alexander and Alan Hawkes debated at the Greensboro Historical Museum on May 1. Along with EC Huey and David Crawford, the three are vying against each other to replace outgoing at-large member Dot Kearns, who chose to not run for reelection. Two of the candidates will advance to the general election in November after tomorrow’s primary.

McKinney and Alexander said they supported a proposed $412.3 million school bond, while Hawkes said he remained undecided. McKinney and Alexander proposed a variety of ways to pay for school construction should the bond fail.

McKinney: “I hope it don’t fail because I’m a supporter of it, and our kids need it. In the event that it does, however, I think that the board of education has to step back and do some operational assessment to ensure that we are operating in an efficient manner and are not wasting our taxpayer monies excessively by having an overlap of positions and an overlap of programs. Secondly, we have to look at alternatives… and that is we turn to looking at builders who are experts in the industry at possibly building our facilities. And the way that would work is – I’ve seen it work at HBCUs in the past, where they deed over a plot of land to the developer, and they will build a facility and lease it back to the institution, and the institution would lease it over a period of time. The developer would share a small percentage of the net income with the lessee. And after ten or fifteen years the ownership would revert back. Now the way that would work is the district would have to have its own revenue, which means I think we would have to look at the possibility of the district having its own taxing authority.”

Alexander: “I too am a supporter of the school bonds, both of them. Rebuilding Eastern Guilford High School is a no-brainer; we simply must do that. But I also support the second bond as well, because I’ve been in and out of our schools, and I see many of them are dilapidated. Many of them are badly in need of repair, and so we do indeed need the school bond. I’ve thought long and hard about it, because I know there are segments of our community, which do not support the bonds, but I reasoned that if we can spend $12 billion per month on a war halfway around the world, then surely we can invest in our schools. If, indeed the bond fails, I think we should begin to examine why it has failed, and try to build relationships with those segments of the community that feel that they are unfairly treated when it comes to receiving the benefits of the bond. And we all know who that segment of the community is. We should seek federal funding to help us with our capital improvement problems, and we should develop relationships with private developers in order to meet our needs.”

Hawkes: “I acknowledge that the need is great for capital expenditures. I have a major problem, first of all, that there’s such extravagance. We can see that out at Northern High School. This school board seems to be obsessed with buildings…. It’s an issue of equity, in my opinion. The dollars should be spent more equally around the county and around southeast Greensboro. That said, it’s not the building itself that actually makes a learning experience; it’s what’s going on in that classroom. My preference is putting the resources in the classroom, giving the teacher control of the classroom, helping these children learn to read and write. It’s not how beautiful the building is; it’s what’s going on in that classroom and how those children are getting that true sense of joy and accomplishment when they can read and write.”

McKinney and Alexander said they believe that students of color and poor students benefit from attending schools balanced along racial and socio-economic lines, while Hawkes said diversity is important, but not a paramount social good.

McKinney: “As a former diversity trainer for a national bank, absolutely they benefit. We’re living in a global society, and we are moving towards a global economy, and we need to be able to teach and equip our children to be prepared to deal with that global society. I think it’s important that our teachers, our staff, our administrators all attend a diversity training, if they have not done so, and I think we need to monitor to ensure that everyone, regardless of their differences are respected because of their differences. I remember hearing someone say, ‘We have to continue to work on our differences until differences make no differences.’ I have found that children from challenging socio-economic backgrounds are in need to exposure to a more diverse school environment.”

Alexander: “My answer to that is that all children benefit from being educated in a diverse environment. Ideally, I would like to see our schools reflect the larger society. If students are going to have to work and operate in a diverse society as adults, they can best do so if they’re trained to do so while they’re young. And our schools are the very best place to do that. I too believe in the value of diversity training. I think Guilford County Schools have moved in a positive direction with regard to that, by hiring a diversity officer, and I think that person has made a great deal of difference in our schools. This is a world that’s going to be radically different from the one that we have experienced. Our students are going to be competing not just against folks from the other side of Guilford County, but with students from around the world, and the earlier they begin to experience competition with persons who are very different from themselves the better we all will be.”

Hawkes: “I agree that diversity is a desirable aspect of education, but it’s trumped, at least initially, by other factors, including accomplishment. Diversity in elementary school is great, but if you’re coming out of elementary school and you’re not reading and writing at grade level and you’re not doing your math at grade level, you’re not going to be able to compete. I believe there’s something to be said for neighborhood schools, and giving children reading and writing and doing their math at grade level. And as they climb academically naturally they’re going to enter diverse and challenging environments. Diversity, just as a goal in elementary school, I think is trumped by resources to the classroom, good teachers and genuine achievement. Diversity for diversity’s sake, I think, does more harm than good.”

McKinney and Alexander said they support recommendations by the School Climate Task Force to assign a social worker to each school and reduce class size, while Hawkes remained noncommittal. McKinney discussed some options for paying for those initiatives, while Alexander took a pass.

Alexander: “Attending the School Climate Task Force meetings was how I became involved in wanting to pursue candidacy for the school board. These statistics [in the report] were appalling to me. I won’t go into them, but when only 42 percent of African-American males in North Carolina graduate from high school I begin to see the magnitude of the problem that we’re facing.

“I’ve read the document, and I believe that hiring a social worker and reducing class sizes are just two of the recommendations from the report, but they will not do the job. I think the most important recommendation to come out of the School Climate Task Force was the use of the positive behavior support initiative in all the schools in Guilford County. That’s a [state] Department of Public Instruction mandate. It suggests that schools reward students for doing rather than punishing them, dismissing them and suspending them for poor behavior. Guilford County has been slow to implement the positive behavior support initiative. And I have seen it work in other counties where the population is infinitely more diverse than our own, and I believe if we implement this program in every school in Guilford County we will see students behaving much better than they are today.

“The way it stands now, many of our students are in a vicious cycle of suspension, dismissal and readmission. And most of the students caught up in that cycle are of Hispanic and African-American descent. As long as that continues our schools are going to be chaotic. The behavior is not going to be modified so that teachers can teach and students can learn.”

McKinney: “I, too, agree with Sandra that I think smaller classrooms provide more direct attention to the students. I think a social worker at each one would be ideal. The question is how do you pay for it? When I look at the number of crimes that occur at Guilford County Schools in the year 06-07 and how the majority of those were related to the possession of substance or the possession of alcohol, or assault on school personnel that there’s some underlying issues that I think a social worker will be able to assist with. Now how do we pay for that? Again, we go back to surely it is a budget shortfall and there’s always been a need for additional funds to manage what we do, but we need to make sure that we are effectively managing what we have to make sure that we are not wasting money, first and foremost. Secondly, if an opportunity presents itself that professionals from the community that could lend their support, it might free up other revenue that we could use to support other initiative like the social worker and reducing class size and hire more qualified teachers.”

Hawkes: “One of the six points in my program is the expectation to children, clearly articulated, that they will succeed, and getting parental buy-in for those children’s education. Twenty-five years ago the Education Department issued a report called “A Nation At Risk” about our public education system. In the preamble to this report, it said, ‘If a foreign power inflicted our public school system on us, it would be considered an act of war.’ I wonder how much has changed in the last twenty-five years. In my view, we’re focused on smaller classrooms and we’re focused on a lot of issues other than what goes on in that classroom and making the children excited about learning…. The lower class size per se is not necessarily the answer; it’s getting that parental buy-in, it’s getting the expectation clearly articulated for our children that they can succeed, and pouring the resources into the classroom instead of building an extraordinary edifice in northern Guilford County. Show the children and the parents and the teachers at some of our poorer schools that they are valued too, but that the expectation is there.”

Preview: NC Senate 28, Guilford County Commission and Guilford County School Board candidates

I got the opportunity to ask questions of incumbent NC Sen. Katie Dorsett and challenger Bruce Davis, a Guilford County commissioner, at a debate sponsored by Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro at the Greensboro Historical Museum last night.

At-large candidates for Guilford County School Board and Republican candidates for at-large Guilford County Commission seats (the Democratic primary isn't competitive) were also invited. Among the at-large school board candidates, Sandra Alexander, Alan Hawkes and Michael McKinney were present; EC Huey and David Crawford were not. Inexplicably, only one county commission candidate, Joseph Rahenkamp, showed up. Rudy Binder, EH Hennis, Larry Proctor and Wendell Sawyer were missing in action.

I'll be posting excerpts of the candidate's responses, along with School Board Chaiman Alan Duncan's call for support for the school bond referenda, over the weekend. Our print edition comes out after the election, so time is of the essence.