Bellamy-Small asks for recount, releases statement

Long-serving Greensboro Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small is asking for a recount in her District 1 loss to Sharon Hightower at the behest of her constituents, she said in a press release this morning.

Hightower narrowly defeated Bellamy-Small in Tuesday's general election, winning with a mere 15 votes. There were 14 write-in votes in the district and the number did not reflect provisional ballots, but Guilford County Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said at the time that there were too few provisionals to change the  result. A losing candidate can call for a recount if the gap between the turnout numbers is 1 percent or less, Collicutt said. In this year's Greensboro City Council races, that only applies to District 1. 

Here is Bellamy-Small's full press release:

"T. Dianne Bellamy-Small has served District 1 for the past 10 years with dignity, respect, hard work, responsiveness and honor. The body of work that I have been able to accomplish with the professional support of city staff and the community speaks for itself. Being and elected official, who is a change agent and a stoker, has been demanding, challenging and a rewarding experience.

The request for the recount was made at the request of my constituents and I respect them enough to ask for this process. As I have said from the beginning of my service, I serve at the will of the people. I wish the new council well and hope that they will respect all the people they now serve and not themselves. The fact that I attempted to befriend and mentor the new District 1 representative meant that I had the greater capacity to look beyond someone’s faults and see his or her needs. I have encouraged,  mentored and befriended many others successfullly over the years.  District 1 need to have the best leadership possible and I hope that with the new council they will get what they deserve.

The concerns for District 1 and the city are not about whether one likes someone, but about getting out and doing the job for the greater good of our citizens. And finally, I want to thank all of my supporters. They should be proud of what we have accomplished over the last 10 years. Thank you."

If the results stand, Hightower will be one of two new candidates joining the city council. Jamal Fox, 25, upended District 2 Councilman Jim Kee. All other incumbents held their seat except for Mayor Robbie Perkins, who lost to At-large Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan. Former councilman Mike Barber, who last served in 2009, was elected to the at-large seat left vacant by Vaughan.

More candidates join Greensboro City Council races

Several candidates filed to run for Greensboro City Council today, and some of them are names you're apt to recognize.

Mayor Robbie Perkins and at-large Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter both filed to run for the same offices again today. Joseph Landis, a newcomer to Greensboro politics, also put his name in for the at-large race today. There are currently seven candidates signed up to run at large.

For now, Tony Wilkins is the only person running for District 5 and Tigress McDaniel is the sole candidate running for District 1. Districts 2, 3 and 4 each have two candidates, though past years the fields have been more crowded. Perkins and challenger George Hartzman are the only people who already filed to run for mayor, though at-large Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan said she will run and stickers and magnets for her mayoral bid have already appeared in a few scattered places across town.

Filing ends this Friday, July 19.

UPDATE July 17 (1:45 p.m.): At-large Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan has filed to run for mayor today. Corey Pysher is running in District 3, along with Councilman Zack Matheny and Wendell Roth.

Yesterday, John Alexander Underwood filed in District 4 (joining former Mayor Bill Knight and Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann).

Campaign season underway in Greensboro municipal elections

Interactive Resource Center candidate forum, a set on Flickr.

Candidates for Greensboro City Council have been making the rounds to meet groups that make endorsements and lining up financial backing.

Now, the campaign is in full swing. District 4 candidate Nancy Hoffmann met voters at M'Coul's pub tonight. Candidates courting the east Greensboro vote such as mayoral hopeful Robbie Perkins are expected to appear at Presbyterian Church of the Cross on Phillips Avenue on Friday evening. On the same night, at-large candidate Wayne Abraham will be holding a fundraiser at Mack and Mack on South Elm Street, while fellow at-large candidate Yvonne Johnson will be holding a reception at House of Jazz on North Edgeworth Street.

District 2 candidate Jim Kee holds his campaign kickoff at the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship on Saturday, while other candidates will be showing up at neighborhood festivals.

In one of the first public campaign events, the Interactive Resource Center held a lunchtime candidate forum on Tuesday. Candidates or their representatives sat at designated tables and shared lunch with homeless clients at the homeless day center. Afterwards, they stood up and make brief statements, and then answered questions.

The only incumbent who showed up was Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan, but she left without making remarks after she learned she was being served a lawsuit by a company that has been preselected to operate the White Street Landfill to try to prevent her from voting on the matter.

Candidates that participated in the candidate forum included at-large contenders Yvonne Johnson, Marikay Abuzuaiter, Cyndy Hayworth, Wayne Abraham and Jean Brown; District 4 candidate Nancy Hoffmann; and District 5 candidate Jorge Cornell.

Cornell embraced Abraham as candidates and clients were lining up to be served a meal.

"We need you," Cornell told Abraham, who served on the complaint review committee of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission when Cornell and other members of the Latin Kings filed complaints against the Greensboro Police Department.

Marikay Abuzuaiter: "You do not need to own a home for me to listen to you. If you are at the homeless shelter, I will listen to you. Yes, we need more homeless shelters. We need more jobs."

Wayne Abraham: "We need to create a buy-local campaign. We need to adopt a sustainability plan and restore funding for critical infrastructure."

Yvonne Johnson: "If you think the biggest need in the city of Greensboro is jobs, then I am your candidate."

Jean Brown: "I want to balance the budget. I want to stop excessive spending. Some of the laws are not necessary. I want to change some of these laws that are taking away our rights, like saying you can't park in your front yard. I've got a paved driveway, but not everybody is so fortunate."

Cyndy Hayworth said she has no hidden agendas; reported that she has recently been elected chair of the zoning commission and much of council's business involves land-use decisions; expressed the view that the city should be run like a business; and concluded, "at the end of the day, it's about you."

Nancy Hoffmann: “I’m running because I love the city. I’ve lived here by choice for 14 years. I want it to continue to be a very good city with a good quality of life for all of our citizens, and I feel that I have some background and experience that I could bring that could be helpful to create a new city council that could work together effectively.”

Jorge Cornell: "It's important that we take the money from these nice neighborhoods, nice districts, and take it back for the neighborhoods that need it....

"They call me the quote-unquote gang leader. I'm not a gang leader. I'm just a brother that's striving to improve my community."

Cornell told the audience that he is setting up a temporary labor agency, Community United Staffing, to put ex-felons to work. One client challenged him on whether the agency will be able to provide sustained employment.

"There's no guarantees," Cornell responded.

Candidates learned that Greensboro does not have an adequate number of beds to accommodate all the people who are homeless on any given night.

"My concern is the lack of beds for both men and women in Greensboro, but especially for women at different shelters," said James Reaves, a volunteer. "Every day, we send people from Greensboro to High Point, to Winston, as far away as Charlotte because we can't find a place for them. We are often asked, 'Why are you sending homeless to us? Why aren't you taking care of them yourself?"

A number of candidates responded.

"I did not know the discrepancy was so great in beds," Johnson said. "We have a lot of abandoned houses.... And if we were to give a tax break to those who own the houses, maybe we can use those for emergency shelter. I don't have all the answers. But I'm willing to sit down and try to find a solution."

Abraham concurred: "I agree we are going to have to work with the nonprofits in this city and pull them together.... I will certainly be willing to work on that kind of issue with you."

Hoffmann said, "It's not like we can do anything tomorrow, but you're looking at the candidate you can vote for in October and November that came to listen to you."

Candidate profile: C. Bradley Hunt II

C. Bradley Hunt II is arrested with fellow activists Cherrell Brown and Wesley Morris in May 2010 after a sit-in on the Greensboro City Council dais to protest alleged police corruption in May 2010. (file photo)

This year’s city council race features an influx of younger candidates, a handful of them in their twenties, and C. Bradley Hunt II is the youngest. As far as he is concerned, his youthfulness is an asset.

“That which I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm,” Hunt said. “I do mean business. Historically young people have changed this nation.”

The 24-year old A&T senior and political science major might be young, but he is no newcomer to politics. Hunt, a Greensboro native, has campaigned for Gladys Robinson, Marcus Brandon, and Barack Obama. Hunt serves on the Guilford County Community Political Action Committee and the executive board of the Greensboro NAACP.

He is a part of A&T’s Political Science Society and cofounded “The Movement,” a campus group aiming to involve students in civic issues off campus. And, in 2010, Hunt served as Greensboro’s mayor for one minute during a civil disobedience action by the Spirit of the Sit-in Movement Initiative to protest the council’s unwillingness to adequately address the group’s concerns about a number of issues, particularly police corruption and the White Street landfill.

“Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘It’s always the right time to do the right thing,’” said Hunt, who added that he has matured since the city council action. “When you take a stand, the people will stand with you.”

After considering a run in the last election, Hunt decided to throw his hat in the ring challenging Jim Kee for the District 2 seat because he says Kee hasn’t taken a strong stance on important issues.

Hunt’s approach to leadership is central to the campaign and sets him apart from the other candidates, he said. Instead of formulating positions on issues, Hunt said he would vote according to what his constituents want. His campaign to reach out and listen to constituents is well under way: Hunt said he knocked on approximately 500 doors this summer.

“This campaign, in a sense, has nothing to do with me, it’s about giving people back their seat and vote on council,” he said. “It’s very important to build relationships and for people to be able to trust you, and in turn you have to be accountable.”

As an example, Hunt said that Kee often differs from his constituents on the landfill, trying to reduce the negative impact of opening it or proposing technological advances.

“He has never taken a stand on an issue since he’s been on council,” Hunt said. “Silence unintentionally allows evil to flourish. We cannot tolerate and allow a leader who won’t take a stand. The landfill is a nonstarter and we will not compromise on this issue.”

Hunt takes issue with other things the current council has done too, including cuts to early voting, the forced resignation of the city attorney, and moving speakers from the floor to the end of council meetings, he said.

But Hunt said his central campaign issues are job creation, economic development, transportation infrastructure and coming up with a long-term solid waste solution.

Referencing the old saying that teaching a man to fish is more valuable than giving him one, Hunt said helping the unemployed develop job skills is important, but added, “the people in my district do not have anywhere to fish. We need to create streams, rivers, oceans.”

Hunt, who lives off campus with his family, said one problem with economic development is barriers to employment, citing the difficulty convicted felons face when looking for work.

In addition to politics, spirituality is the other major part of Hunt’s life. He grew up attending New Light Missionary Baptist Church, where he is still active. His pastor, the Rev. Cardes Brown Jr., is like a father to him, but Hunt said Brown discouraged him from running for office.

“I’m a man of faith and strong religious belief,” Hunt said. “ I take my relationship with Christ very seriously.”

Not surprisingly, then, when he has time for reading outside of school he often reaches for the Bible. Hunt is also reading The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. One day, Hunt wants to be a civil rights attorney.

“At this point, a change from the status quo is necessary,” said Hunt. “[This] ultra-conservative council is not safe for the city. I see an opportunity for myself and the citizens of District 2 to really come together and inspire.”

Candidate profile: Wayne Abraham

When Wayne Abraham decided to run for city council, he always knew it would be at large. After six and a half years serving on the human relations commission, including two as chair, Abraham has come in contact with issues that are city wide in nature.

Abraham has been involved in a number of community-oriented projects since moving to Greensboro in 1977, including the Triad Health Project. A graduate of UNCG, he is currently the majority owner and executive director of Personal Care Inc., a home health care company that serves residents throughout the Triad.

To Abraham, running for city council seemed like a natural next step.

“I’ve been committed, since the mid 80s, to making Greensboro a better place,” he said at the outset of our conversation at the Green Bean. “For me this was one more way I could serve our community and make it better.”

Particularly after his tenure on the human relations commission, which works closely with council but is often tasked with following the council’s directives, Abraham decided he could have more impact as one of the policy makers rather than just working on implementation.

Like most challengers this election cycle, Abraham often found himself differing with the council about how to move forward. As a commissioner he was able to find ways to work through this, but feels it’s time to make more significant changes.

“I disagreed with their vision of what Greensboro should be like,” he said. “I don’t think they’re looking long term. They created the controversy we’re living with.”

In particular, Abraham takes issue with the council pushing issues like the landfill that citizens aren’t clamoring for action on. He also expressed concern that talented and capable city staff have resigned, saying some were leaving because they couldn’t handle the current council.

As a candidate, Abraham’s primary objective is economic development, and he’s not short on ideas for how to create it. Two key approaches that he said would be relatively simple would entail enacting the city’s sustainability plan, which he said has not been implemented, and initiating a buy local campaign. The sustainability plan offers a variety of proposals that could increase investment, including incentivizing green building techniques.

During the current council’s tenure, Abraham said funding to the Greensboro Partnership was cut by 10 percent, a move he sees as detrimental to attracting businesses.

When asked how he would balance increased funding for certain projects with the city’s budget, Abraham said, “I would have to hear what the city manager has to say about areas where we could save.”

Consulting the experts was a recurring theme in his explanation for how he would approach being a councilmember, whether it be listening to planners about the proposed increase in bus fares or consulting the human relations commission.

Many residents have publicly expressed that they will only vote for candidates who oppose reopening Phase III of the White Street Landfill, and Abraham spoke at length about his opposition to the proposal as well as the way the process has been carried out.

“I don’t understand why they’ve done anything they’ve done,” he said in response to a question about why he thought Gate City Waste Services was preliminarily selected over other companies bidding to run the landfill.

In general, city council members have showed a lack of respect for residents who have raised concerns with them, particularly about the landfill but around other issues too. Abraham said it takes courage to speak at a council meeting, and that not only should those residents’ input be respected, but also valued. To that end, he supports moving the speakers from the floor portion of the regular meetings back to the beginning in correspondence with what it appears most residents want.

Many residents have stated that council members and candidates only show up in their neighborhoods during election time, and while he said he wouldn’t have time to be at everything he was invited to, Abraham said that as a council member he would do his best to be out in the neighborhoods and attending what meetings he could.

“This is a very serious responsibility and I am going to take it seriously,” he said. “I owe them that much.”

Through greater community engagement, Abraham said people would start to see it more as their government and not as someone else’s.

Our conversation focused mostly around economic development and the landfill because Abraham explained that those are the two main issues people tell him they are concerned about. After talking to more people, however, Abraham said he will outline more of his positions on different issues.

Abraham serves as the 6^th congressional district chairman for the Democratic Party, giving him connections to state legislators that he said he could leverage to help advocated for Greensboro in Raleigh.

When he’s not busy with work or service, Abraham can be found throughout the city, walking in the city’s parks with his partner, working out at the Central YMCA three times a week or attending church at St. Mary’s House.

And when he’s not reading something political, Abraham enjoys reading science fiction. He can’t remember the exact name of the book he’s reading now, maybe it’s Dance with Dragons, but he knows George R. R. Martin is the author.

When asked about his favorite restaurants in town, he names a few Italian places and Phoenix Asian Cuisine, but said his real love is chocolate.

“I love going to Maxie B’s,” he said. “That’s my weakness.”

At this point the campaign’s website is up, voteabraham.com, and he has a core team of six people as well as around 15 volunteers. Voters can get a better sense of his positions as outlined on Facebook, where Abraham said he tries to write updates at least every Friday and where people can contact him with questions or comments.

Greensboro mayoral race expands

Jay Ovittore (right) chats with Guilford County Republican Party Executive Director Michael Picarelli after filing to run in District 3. Picarelli supports incumbent Zack Matheny, who is a registered Republican, and joked that he was considering filing for the race to discourage Ovittore from running.

Two new candidates entered the Greensboro mayoral race before filing closed today at noon.

Chris Phillips is an African-American conservative who participated as a presenter in a county government spending reform summit organized by Conservatives for Guilford County. Bradford Cone, 31, is a longtime Democratic Party volunteer who is interested in making Greensboro a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants.

Cone said the fact that there were no other Democrats in the race factored in his decision to run.

The three other candidates are Mayor Bill Knight, at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins and former Councilman Tom Phillips. All three are registered Republicans, although each holds a unique ideological position. Of the three candidates with experience on council and name recognition, Knight is the conservative choice. Perkins frequently votes with the liberal end of the council.

Tom Phillips was often considered a lone staunch conservative during his tenure on the council in the 1990s and 2000s, but the city's politics have moved to the right since his retirement from council in 2007. He opposes current plans to reopen the White Street Landfill and alienated some conservatives by backing former City Manager Mitchell Johnson's handling of discrimination complaints by black police officers.

Jay Ovittore began filling out paperwork for the District 3 seat on council at 11:15 a.m. and asked board of elections staff to wait until literally the last minute to allow him to file in the event that no one stepped up to challenge incumbent Zack Matheny. A rumored challenge from the right by conservative activist Jeff Hyde did not materialize, so Ovittore made the jump into the race. Ovittore ran for the seat two years ago, but was eliminated in the primary.

Ovittore said he couldn't allow Matheny to run unopposed.

"I'm still really miffed about the teen curfew downtown," he said. "It wasn't teens downtown causing problems. It was adults with guns and knives. We did nothing but send kids home."

Ovittore told Michael Picarelli and Tony Wilkins, respectively the current and former executive directors of the Guilford County Republican Party, in the hallway after filing that he plans to change is registration from Democratic to unaffiliated.

Two additional candidates, Christopher McLaughlin and Marlando Pridgen, also filed in the at-large race, bringing the total number to 14. Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan and at-large Councilman Danny Thompson are running seeking one of the three at-large seats, along with former Mayor Yvonne Johnson and a host of other well organized and qualified candidates.

One person who didn't file to run was Theresa Yon, a former candidate for NC House. Wilkins had encouraged Yon to run at large. She said she decided this morning against filing, but came down to the board of elections office to observe before the filing period closed.

Considering the number of candidates, all races except districts 1 and 3 will have primaries, narrowing the contests to two candidates per seat. In District 3, Matheny and Ovittore will be on the general election ballot, as will District 1 incumbent Dianne Bellamy-Small and challenger Donnell "DJ" Hardy.

Bradford Cone (standing in center foreground) filed to run for mayor of Greensboro today.