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.”
Showing posts with label Mary Rakestraw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Rakestraw. Show all posts
Greensboro primary: District 4 analysis
Color code: Hoffmann — blue
Rakestraw — red
Collins — purple
By Jordan Green and Eric Ginsburg
Challenger Nancy Hoffmann was the clear winner in early voting in the District 4 race, beginning the night with 50.7 percent, compared to 28.8 percent by incumbent Mary Rakestraw. But as more and more precincts came in on election night, Rakestraw crept to within 50 votes of Hoffmann.
This year’s election is shaping up as an extremely partisan contest although Greensboro City Council elections are nominally nonpartisan, with no indication of candidates’ party affiliation on the ballot. No contest is more partisan or evenly matched than District 4.
Hoffmann, a registered Democrat, performed most strongly in Precinct G48, which includes Lindley Park, a Democratic stronghold that Rakestraw attempted to eject from the district during a disastrous redistricting attempt. Hoffmann dominated a corridor between West Market Street and Spring Garden Street, including high-turnout G14, whose polling place is St. Andrews Episcopal Church. Hoffmann also enjoyed strong margins in a column of affluent, high-performing precincts west of Holden Road.
Rakestraw, a registered Republican, drew her largest pool of votes out of G32, whose polling place is located at Claxton Elementary School. Turnout in the Republican-leaning precinct slightly exceeded that in G14, and gave Rakestraw more than 10 percent of her total vote. Rakestraw also carried a number of Democratic-leaning precincts, including G50, a poorer, more racially diverse precinct with traditionally low turnout.
Tony Collins, another challenger, was eliminated in he primary, finishing a distant third. Collins carried only one precinct, G40A1, a Republican-leaning precinct near the intersection of New Garden Road and Bryan Boulevard. Collins enjoyed his strongest support in Republican-leaning precincts clustered in the northern tier that also delivered strong numbers for Rakestraw. A moderate Republican, Collins contrasted himself with Rakestraw more on tone than policy. While some of his supporters might switch to Hoffmann based on a desire for change or drop out, the numbers suggest they are Rakestraw’s to win over.
Wade, Knight make no apologies for landfill position
C4GC candidates forum, a set on Flickr.
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.”
Candidate profile: Mary Rakestraw
Mary Rakestraw said she considers herself a problem solver. One example she gave during an interview today at the offices of YES! Weekly involved a constituent who was upset about AT&T placing a five-foot transmission box near her house. Rakestraw, a two-term Greensboro City councilwoman who currently represents District 4, asked City Manager Rashad Young to get involved.
“I told Rashad: ‘I need you to go out and see this. This is about the ugliest thing.’”
It’s a difficult issue for a city council member to grapple with because, as Rakestraw acknowledged, AT&T has the legal right to place the transmission box.
“Nothing has happened yet,” Rakestraw said.
But she hasn’t given up.
She called NC Sen. Phil Berger, a fellow Republican who represents the northern portion of Guilford County and who happens to be the most powerful member of the Senate. Rakestraw’s constituents were dubious, noting that AT&T has been a significant contributor to Berger’s campaigns.
“He did call her,” Rakestraw said. “And now he’s talking to AT&T.
“We’ve worked very hard because we know this is only the beginning of what’s going to explode in Greensboro,” Rakestraw said, adding that she expects to see the boxes proliferate.
Rakestraw is part of a conservative faction, including Mayor Bill Knight, at-large Councilman Danny Thompson and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade, that has often been able to enact its agenda by bringing in District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny. On the matter of reopening the White Street Landfill, the conservative faction has prevailed until now through by the narrowest of majorities, with Vaughan and Matheny recused, although that is currently subject to change.
Rakestraw acknowledged that she has a tough race. In 2009, she won her contest against opponent Joel Landau by only 277 votes. This year, with widespread discontent over plans to reopen the White Street Landfill and a bumpy redistricting process, Rakestraw faces two challengers. One, Tony Collins, is a former chairman of the zoning commission with significant ties to the building and real estate industries. Another, Nancy Hoffmann, chairs the human relations commission and emphasizes a business background and responsiveness to the community.
The current council has been criticized as dysfunctional, divisive and a laughingstock, sometimes by its own members. On the dais at city council meetings, Rakestraw is one of the more restrained members of the conservative quartet, with Wade and Thompson waging most of the rhetorical battles and Knight often preoccupied with running the meeting.
“There are people who want to fuss and fight,” Rakestraw said. “That’s fine, but that’s not my style.”
Some have complained that the leadership of the current council has mistreated citizens who come to meetings pleading to keep the landfill closed.
“Every citizen deserves to be treated with respect by their elected officials,” Rebecca Klase, a Greensboro College professor active with the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad, said in an Aug. 16 Twitter message. “We have not seen this at this evening’s meeting.”
Rakestraw would agree in principle, but perhaps differ on who is the prime offender.
“Sometimes we have people who want to be laughing, talking and texting while some colleagues are speaking,” the incumbent councilwoman said. “You won’t ever see me making faces. I respect everybody that comes up to speak to us.”
In 2007, Rakestraw and others ran on a platform of transparency. She and Wade, in particular, objected to a practice under former Mayor Keith Holliday of having the city manager meet with small groups of council members to brief them on issues. The two have argued that other council members used the small-group meetings to decide a position on a given issue and then ram it through. Rakestraw argued that in the past four years the council has become more open.
“Asking questions is not a bad thing,” she said.
Rakestraw said she is open to working with anyone and will be fair to all, regardless of any political differences they may have. But she said she was not received in the same spirit when she was elected to the council in 2007.
“I was told by one of the incumbents that they were not interested in any of my ideas, or interested in anything from a former county commissioner,” said Rakestraw, who served on the Guilford County Commission from 1996 to 2004.
Notwithstanding assertions by Rakestraw and her conservative colleagues that they have brought transparency to council since 2007, the same group has been rapped by some for deciding which way to vote in private and then providing little or no public explanation for their decisions.
Those complaints were leveled in April when a four-member majority approve a redistricting plan submitted by Rakestraw (it was later withdrawn) and again, in August when the council voted to select Gate City Waste Services to operate a limited portion of the White Street Landfill.
Rakestraw discussed the decisions somewhat more forthrightly than before in her recent interview.
Among the more controversial aspects of the Rakestraw plan was its ejection of Precinct G48, which was carried by her opponent in the 2009 election, creating highly irregular district boundaries. The plan also swapped a significant number of precincts between districts 1 and 2, disrupting constituent relationships for council members Dianne Bellamy-Small and Jim Kee.
“Clearly the Rakestraw plan has the advantage of creating districts with better population balance,” Greensboro Geographic Information Services Manager Stephen Sherman wrote in an analysis. “To achieve this end, the author moves 10 full precincts and one partial precinct. It should be noted that, if a more equal population balance is desired, variances in the range of the proposed plan can be achieved by moving a single precinct.”
Looking back at the saga, Rakestraw said, “There was never a plan drawn up for me. [Political consultant Bill] Burckley drew it. I said, ‘Rashad, I have this plan. Can I submit it?’ I actually had my husband drop it off. Rashad said it passed muster. He said, ‘Somebody has to take ownership of it. The press will be calling to see whose plan it is.’”
Rakestraw said Burckley “said, ‘You may have to give up something.’ I said, ‘Well, look at Lindley Park.’ I was amazed to see that I didn’t carry that precinct.”
“I’m not clever enough to do it,” she added, in response to a question about whether she submitted the plan so that she could shed a precinct that did not demonstrate a record of political support.
As to whether the plan would have played havoc against Bellamy-Small, a member who frequently winds up on the opposite side of votes, Rakestraw said, “That, I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t speak to that.”
Rakestraw said one of the Lindley Park residents who complained about the redistricting plan hugged her later, and she doesn’t believe there are any lingering hard feelings between herself and constituents in the neighborhood.
As to the decision to pre-select Gate City Waste Services, a start-up company partially owned by a local businessman that offered the second lowest responsive bid, Rakestraw said, “I looked at what it cost across the board compared to the one we chose. The manpower. Aren’t we always saying we should support our local businesses?”
Rakestraw somewhat gingerly explained the basis for her belief that reopening the landfill is the right course for the city.
“I think it’s 980 acres that we have to use,” she said. “Have you ever taken a tour of the landfill? Before I took the tour — did the coup d’etat — I’d been going out there and sitting out there on hot days on rainy days to see what it was like when they dumped [construction and demolition debris]. We can make money through technology that should make a sustainable facility.”
Rakestraw takes pride in her committee assignments for the council. She replaced Matheny on the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments after he determined that the meetings conflicted with his schedule. She also serves on the Friends of the Library Advocacy Committee and the Guilford County Agricultural Advisory Board.
Going back to her years on the county commission, Rakestraw said it’s often said of her: “If you want somebody to go to the meetings, you ask Mary Rakestraw.”
Rakestraw sided with a group of traditional farmers in a long-running feud among vendors and customers at the city-owned Greensboro Farmers Curb Market. Asked about her affinity with farmers, she spoke of a childhood growing up in Rockingham County that included trips to join extended family to bring in tobacco harvests, her mother’s ability to “stretch a dollar,” a battle with polio and her eldest brother’s participation in Future Farmers of America.
Ultimately, Rakestraw found herself on the losing end of a vote this summer to begin contract negotiations with a nonprofit, instead of with the farmers group that she favored. The incumbent councilwoman indicated she considers the matter resolved.
“Once a decision is made,” she said, “we move on.”
Rakestraw presents herself as a unifier and a strong representative for her district.
“I have the experience,” she said. “I have had the ability to deal with our staff. I’ve worked with them. I do not make a lot of demands on them. I’ve kept taxes low for four years, and kept water rates low for four years. I have good relationships with everyone. My constituent services have been extraordinary.”
Anticlimax after rumored recusal vote
District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny was playing coy tonight, but apparently wasn't playing ball with District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade.An expected (link) vote to recuse Greensboro Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan from taking part in a decision to approve a solid waste contract did not materialize during a city council meeting tonight.
Typically, motions that are not on the agenda or added as part of an addendum come up for a vote at the end of the meeting during a segment called "matters to be discussed by the mayor and members of city council." Members discussed 9-11 commemoration activities, emergency response planning and the Greensboro Grasshoppers' winning streak, but no motion was made to recuse Vaughan.
At-large Councilman Danny Thompson and District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw — two of the four members who have voted to reopen the landfill in the past — indicated after the meeting that they were unaware of any plans to seek Vaughan's recusal.
Interim City Attorney Tom Pollard declined to comment on whether any of the four pro-landfill council members had approached him to ask whether it was legal to recuse another member against her will, but he said he discussed the matter with Steven J. Levitas, a lawyer who represents Gate City Waste Services. The company has been preselected to operate the White Street Landfill.
Pollard said his research into the legality of what he has described as an extraordinary parliamentary procedure "was derived from that conversation."
Gate City Waste Services filed suit against the city, Vaughan and District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny today seeking an injunction to prevent Vaughan from voting and to force Matheny to vote in the selection of the contractor to reopen the landfill.
Just as the meeting was beginning, Pollard and members of council received an e-mail (link) from Chris Brook, a lawyer for landfill opponents, requesting that the vote be delayed. Brook's argument that requiring Matheny to vote on whether Vaughan should be recused "is the equivalent of giving him a vote on Gate City as a vendor" — a company that he is deemed to have a conflict of interest with — might have been read as a shot across the bow.
After a break earlier in the meeting, six members of council reconvened without Thompson, Rakestraw and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade. Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer was also outside of chambers.
The six council members began rapidly moving through a motion to allocate funding for "downtown support activities" — an item expected to especially run counter to Wade's fiscally conservative, parochial proclivities. At-large Councilman Robbie Perkins, who was smiling mischievously with District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, made a rolling motion with his arms to urge the mayor to call for a vote. Everyone on the dais understood that as the three absent members were not excused their votes would count as yes.
Just then, Thompson, Rakestraw and Wade rejoined the meeting, looking stone-faced. Wade read the item on the screen and said, "I'm against it."
Matheny said he had been approached by a fellow council member, whom he declined the name.
"I was asked, 'What would I do?'" he said.
Asked how he answered, he said cryptically: "You'd have to ask them."
Presumably the reason the motion was not made was because the four did not feel confident that it would pass.
"I was waiting just like you were waiting," Matheny said.
Farmers market controversy continues
UPDATE: David Craft says his group has asked Jace Ralls to recuse himself from the farmers market selection committee.
Related: At the end of last night's council meeting, Assistant City Manager Denise Turner handed out copies of a draft audit review of Friends of the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market to the nine council members and to media representatives. Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw had been the loudest voice on council calling for the audit, and a series of articles [1, 2, 3, 4] in The Rhinoceros Times has cast suspicion on the nonprofit's financial management practices.
Len Lucas, the city's internal audit director, concluded, "All expenses reviewed were incurred for appropriate purposes and it does not appear that fraud has occured at the Friends of the GFCM as of this review; however, without proper segregation of duties or compensating controls in place, a window of opportunity for the misappropriation of assets exists."
Lucas found that the nonprofit has spent $7,125, the largest portion of which was spent on operating expenses for special event breakfasts, including goods, supplies, table rent and liability insurance. The city has asked the nonprofit to put on hold all plans to invest in the improvement of the market until the audit is complete. Of the $7,125 spent by the nonprofit, Lucas found that receipts were missing for $323.
"The Friends of the GFCM, like many other small non-profit organizations, is vulnerable to fraud because the treasurer is solely responsible for collecting and disbursing funds, reconciling the bank statement, and preparing financial reports," Lucas wrote. "Good internal controls dictate the segregation of duties such as cash handling from record-keeping."
The Friends of the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and the parks and recreation department will have the opportunity to review the draft audit report and respond, according to city documents.
ORIGINAL POST: Somewhat upstaged by former Klansman EH Hennis, David Craft made a plea during speakers from the floor for the city of Greensboro to conduct a fair and transparent process of selecting a private vendor to operate the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market.
Craft is a partner in the nonprofit Greensboro Farmers' Market, which has submitted a proposal to take over management and operations of the farmers market.
Craft publicly questioned the impartiality of the committee. After the meeting he told me that the daughter of committee member Jace Ralls works for one of the partners in the Farmer Community Collaborative, a for-profit entity competing for the contract.
Craft told the council that the conflict of interest on the part of the committee will cast a cloud of illegitimacy over whatever group ends up being awarded the contract, and ask them to postpone a meeting of the committee scheduled for tomorrow. He said the parks and recreation commission would be better qualified to vet the proposals considering that its members have a broad interest in parks rather than a specific stake in the farmers' market.
Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan concurred.
"I think giving it to parks and recreation would be a good option, and I think it needs to be done with openness," she said. "I think if there is some bias, we owe it to everyone to make sure it doesn't look wrong."
Assistant City Manager Denise Turner disagreed with the notion that the parks and recreation committee would render a more impartial decision, opining, "There is some concern that some members of the commission are close to some of the vendors that do not see the vision for the future of the market in the same way."
After the meeting, Turner disclosed that four out of the five committee members were appointed by District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw, who has sharply questioned past management of the market and the activities of group of market supporters aligned with Craft's group. The Rakestraw appointees are Ralls, Violet Landreth, Denny Crowe and John O'Sullivan. A fifth member, Galen Oliver, was appointed by District 2 Councilman Jim Kee.
Turner said at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade also made appointments, but their appointees were unable to participate. Wade told Vaughan she could appoint someone to fill her vacant spot on the committee.
Related: At the end of last night's council meeting, Assistant City Manager Denise Turner handed out copies of a draft audit review of Friends of the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market to the nine council members and to media representatives. Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw had been the loudest voice on council calling for the audit, and a series of articles [1, 2, 3, 4] in The Rhinoceros Times has cast suspicion on the nonprofit's financial management practices.
Len Lucas, the city's internal audit director, concluded, "All expenses reviewed were incurred for appropriate purposes and it does not appear that fraud has occured at the Friends of the GFCM as of this review; however, without proper segregation of duties or compensating controls in place, a window of opportunity for the misappropriation of assets exists."
Lucas found that the nonprofit has spent $7,125, the largest portion of which was spent on operating expenses for special event breakfasts, including goods, supplies, table rent and liability insurance. The city has asked the nonprofit to put on hold all plans to invest in the improvement of the market until the audit is complete. Of the $7,125 spent by the nonprofit, Lucas found that receipts were missing for $323.
"The Friends of the GFCM, like many other small non-profit organizations, is vulnerable to fraud because the treasurer is solely responsible for collecting and disbursing funds, reconciling the bank statement, and preparing financial reports," Lucas wrote. "Good internal controls dictate the segregation of duties such as cash handling from record-keeping."
The Friends of the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and the parks and recreation department will have the opportunity to review the draft audit report and respond, according to city documents.
ORIGINAL POST: Somewhat upstaged by former Klansman EH Hennis, David Craft made a plea during speakers from the floor for the city of Greensboro to conduct a fair and transparent process of selecting a private vendor to operate the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market.
Craft is a partner in the nonprofit Greensboro Farmers' Market, which has submitted a proposal to take over management and operations of the farmers market.
Craft publicly questioned the impartiality of the committee. After the meeting he told me that the daughter of committee member Jace Ralls works for one of the partners in the Farmer Community Collaborative, a for-profit entity competing for the contract.
Craft told the council that the conflict of interest on the part of the committee will cast a cloud of illegitimacy over whatever group ends up being awarded the contract, and ask them to postpone a meeting of the committee scheduled for tomorrow. He said the parks and recreation commission would be better qualified to vet the proposals considering that its members have a broad interest in parks rather than a specific stake in the farmers' market.
Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan concurred.
"I think giving it to parks and recreation would be a good option, and I think it needs to be done with openness," she said. "I think if there is some bias, we owe it to everyone to make sure it doesn't look wrong."
Assistant City Manager Denise Turner disagreed with the notion that the parks and recreation committee would render a more impartial decision, opining, "There is some concern that some members of the commission are close to some of the vendors that do not see the vision for the future of the market in the same way."
After the meeting, Turner disclosed that four out of the five committee members were appointed by District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw, who has sharply questioned past management of the market and the activities of group of market supporters aligned with Craft's group. The Rakestraw appointees are Ralls, Violet Landreth, Denny Crowe and John O'Sullivan. A fifth member, Galen Oliver, was appointed by District 2 Councilman Jim Kee.
Turner said at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade also made appointments, but their appointees were unable to participate. Wade told Vaughan she could appoint someone to fill her vacant spot on the committee.
Holliday draws the heat
Former Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday’s reported remarks last night warning District 2 Councilman Jim Kee against capitulation on the reopening of the White Street Landfill understandably galled its intended target.
In his typical good natured way, Kee said from the rostrum at the city council meeting tonight that he was disappointed about Holliday’s remarks “inferring that I might be supporting reopening the landfill. I have a long record of opposing the reopening of the landfill.”
He held up a copy of the June 20, 2001 edition of the News & Record showing him above the fold addressing then-Mayor Holliday and members of the council.
“The mayor knows where I stand,” Kee said. “I would like to see our current leaders and past leaders sit down and talk about the issues that face Greensboro in a civil way, and not resort to personal attacks.
Holliday reportedly called out District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny, District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade by encouraging audience members to ask them if they would be willing to put a landfill in their neighborhoods.
Matheny and Wade predictably expressed objections to Holliday’s rhetoric, but the harshest reaction came from Rakestraw.
“Former Mayor Holliday said to ask Mary Rakestraw if she would want the landfill in her neighborhood, Zack Matheny if he would like the landfill in his neighborhood and Trudy Wade if she would like the landfill in her neighborhood. When the folks moved over to White Street in that vicinity, that landfill was already there.”
Then she said she wanted Holliday “to quit doing things that are putting fear in the hearts of citizens.”
She said she’s had her differences with fellow council members, but “I’m not going to have my family talked about by somebody else. I think Mr. Holliday owes Mr. Kee an apology.”
Then back to the issue of whether District 4 council members in central-west Greensboro would accept a landfill in their backyards.
“Is he proposing to open a landfill in District 4?” Rakestraw asked. “District 4 constituents have already called me, telling me to reopen the landfill.”
A little commentary here:
It’s extraordinary in Greensboro for a major white political figure to take a stand with the roughly one-third of the city’s population who are black. Assuming the accuracy of my colleague, Amanda Lehmert’s report that “Holliday warned District 2 Councilman Jim Kee that if he has any role in reopening the landfill, Kee need not plan to run for the council again in the fall,” one wonders if the speaker’s remarks reflect a growing frustration by former District 2 representative Goldie Wells and former Mayor Yvonne Johnson with Kee’s conciliatory style.
From a more practical standpoint, Holliday’s rhetoric takes the fight off of mayoral candidate Robbie Perkins’ shoulders. Holliday is presumably not running for any office this year. Perkins is the other major white figure in Greensboro who has demonstrated solidarity with the black community, but he’ll have the unenviable task of finessing the conflicting demands of the city’s white and black constituencies. If Holliday can draw the heat off of Perkins, then Perkins might be able to effectively present himself as the unifier – someone able to transcend old divisions and take the city forward to renewed prosperity.
In that light, perhaps Rakestraw's comments are all according to plan.
In his typical good natured way, Kee said from the rostrum at the city council meeting tonight that he was disappointed about Holliday’s remarks “inferring that I might be supporting reopening the landfill. I have a long record of opposing the reopening of the landfill.”
He held up a copy of the June 20, 2001 edition of the News & Record showing him above the fold addressing then-Mayor Holliday and members of the council.
“The mayor knows where I stand,” Kee said. “I would like to see our current leaders and past leaders sit down and talk about the issues that face Greensboro in a civil way, and not resort to personal attacks.
Holliday reportedly called out District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny, District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade by encouraging audience members to ask them if they would be willing to put a landfill in their neighborhoods.
Matheny and Wade predictably expressed objections to Holliday’s rhetoric, but the harshest reaction came from Rakestraw.
“Former Mayor Holliday said to ask Mary Rakestraw if she would want the landfill in her neighborhood, Zack Matheny if he would like the landfill in his neighborhood and Trudy Wade if she would like the landfill in her neighborhood. When the folks moved over to White Street in that vicinity, that landfill was already there.”
Then she said she wanted Holliday “to quit doing things that are putting fear in the hearts of citizens.”
She said she’s had her differences with fellow council members, but “I’m not going to have my family talked about by somebody else. I think Mr. Holliday owes Mr. Kee an apology.”
Then back to the issue of whether District 4 council members in central-west Greensboro would accept a landfill in their backyards.
“Is he proposing to open a landfill in District 4?” Rakestraw asked. “District 4 constituents have already called me, telling me to reopen the landfill.”
A little commentary here:
It’s extraordinary in Greensboro for a major white political figure to take a stand with the roughly one-third of the city’s population who are black. Assuming the accuracy of my colleague, Amanda Lehmert’s report that “Holliday warned District 2 Councilman Jim Kee that if he has any role in reopening the landfill, Kee need not plan to run for the council again in the fall,” one wonders if the speaker’s remarks reflect a growing frustration by former District 2 representative Goldie Wells and former Mayor Yvonne Johnson with Kee’s conciliatory style.
From a more practical standpoint, Holliday’s rhetoric takes the fight off of mayoral candidate Robbie Perkins’ shoulders. Holliday is presumably not running for any office this year. Perkins is the other major white figure in Greensboro who has demonstrated solidarity with the black community, but he’ll have the unenviable task of finessing the conflicting demands of the city’s white and black constituencies. If Holliday can draw the heat off of Perkins, then Perkins might be able to effectively present himself as the unifier – someone able to transcend old divisions and take the city forward to renewed prosperity.
In that light, perhaps Rakestraw's comments are all according to plan.
Joel Landau and the ghosts of '79
Mary Rakestraw and her supporters would like to make Signe Waller Foxworth a political liability for Joel Landau in the District 4 race for Greensboro City Council. Landau is taking some heat for first listing Waller Foxworth on his campaign website as a supporter and then removing her name, giving the impression that he is embarrassed by the association.
The issue has resonated with the conservative types who would be expected to take issue with such an association: Guilford County Republican Party Executive Director Tony Wilkins, blogger Joseph Guarino and The Rhinoceros Times.
The matter was first broached by Rakestraw in a candidate questionnaire submitted to the News & Record. The newspaper asked candidates to pose a question to their opponents. Rakestraw’s question for Landau was, “Your website has listed at least one controversial political activist supporter (e.g. a Communist Workers Party organizer) but has now removed that one. Why are you removing names, and have you received any financial contributions from them?”
Landau told me in a phone conversation today that he considers the premise of the question to be misleading. Signe Waller was a member of the Workers Viewpoint Organization at the time of the fatal confrontation with the Klan and Nazis in Morningside Homes in 1979, when her husband, Dr. James Waller, was killed. The Workers Viewpoint Organization had planned to rename itself the Communist Workers Party at a conference held later that day, but the deadly confrontation at the mustering point of the march caused the organization to disintegrate.
In Landau’s words, Rakestraw “made reference in the N&R questionnaire to an organization that hasn’t been in existence for 20 years. That’s like referring to Ronald Reagan in 1983 as a ‘liberal Democrat.’”
Wilkins stepped up the pressure on Landau to address the question in blog post on Tuesday, entitled, “Joel Landau, Where Is Signe Waller?”
Guarino picked up the thread hours later on his own blog.
“Waller, of course, was one of the primary players in the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation process,” Guarino noted. “If Waller is supporting Landau, it might speak volumes about his political stance.”
Landau’s position on the truth process is actually a matter of record.
YES! Weekly asked candidates for city council in 2005 how they felt about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its examination of the circumstances surrounding the 1979 confrontation, and whether they thought the city council should take a more active role in the truth process.
Landau, then a candidate in the at-large race, answered, “Something is amiss when people are murdered on city streets in broad daylight and the known killers are set free. This is currently a divisive issue, but I think it’s important for the future unity and reconciliation of the city that we learn the truth about how that came about. I believe city council should endorse the work of the commission and encourage any city official with relevant information to come forward with that information.”
Landau told me today that he hasn’t changed his position on the truth process, but doesn’t see it as an important issue in this campaign.
“I felt that it would be beneficial for some people that needed resolution to hear information and get information out there,” he said. “I believe in dialogue and people listening to each other.”
I pushed him a bit, noting that the 30th anniversary of the shootings is coming up — right on Election Day, as it turns out — and that another important anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth sit-ins, is also imminently on the horizon.
Landau responded: “I think they’re important to acknowledge and recognize, but they’re not on the agenda right now for the right reasons. They’re being brought up as part of a smear campaign.”
The day after Wilkins and Guarino posted their commentary on the scrubbing of Waller Foxworth’s name from Landau’s website, Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer interviewed the candidate. Landau’s comments were published in the conservative newspaper today, essentially mainstreaming the controversy to the Greensboro electorate.
Landau told me essentially the same thing he told Hammer about his decision to remove Waller Foxworth’s name.
“Back in June and July, we were putting down names of people who publicly support me: Democrats, Republicans — we didn’t look at anyone’s affiliation,” he said. “One of my other supporters approached me, and raised that that could become a distracting issue because some people consider her to be a controversial figure. I talked to Nick, my campaign manager, about it. We agreed that it would be a distracting issue. She’s not the one running for office. That’s not a pressing issue that the city is dealing with right now. I called Signe and told her about my decision.”
Landau said he thinks it’s a sign of the Rakestraw campaign’s “desperation that they can’t find anything else to talk about. They’re afraid she’s going to lose the election.” He characterized his association with Waller Foxworth as “a non-issue.”
“It’s one of the silly things the rightwing does,” Landau said. “I could just as easily bring up EH Hennis, who went before the county commission and denounced them, and then went before the city council and called them ‘a pack of liars and whores.’ He’s a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. He didn’t have anything good to say about any of the other city council members, but he said, ‘Mary Rakestraw, that’s the one person on city council that I can get behind.’ What is it about her that gains the approval of this avowed racist? To me, both questions are irrelevant.”
I asked Landau for the date of the city council meeting in which Hennis expressed approval of Rakestraw. He told me he thought it took place in the late spring.
Hennis addressed the city council on April 21, 2009; April 1, 2008; and Feb. 21, 2008. After reviewing videos on the city’s website, I could find no record of Hennis calling the council “a pack of liars and whores” or saying, “Mary Rakestraw, that’s the one person on city council that I can get behind.” In fact, in the February 2008 remarks, which I transcribed at the time, he called Rakestraw “Motor Mouth,” accused her and fellow Guilford County commissioner, Phyllis Gibbs of lying to a magistrate and grand jury about him and marching through the courtroom like a couple hussies acting like lesbians, and then threatened to hang her in effigy at his house on Groometown Road.
Hennis did open his April 2009 remarks by saying, “I was so happy to hear that Mary Rakestraw wants to continue offering her services to you city folk, and I’m sure it makes you happy.”
Hennis possesses a sense of humor that is richly laced with sarcasm. His later comments make it clear that he is no fan of Rakestraw: “They ganged up on me, mayor, because I filed for county commission…. She would not come out and look at almost $4,000 worth of hate crimes perpetrated against me by the county officials destroying my real estate and personal property…. Mary and the others lied to the magistrate that I was extremely dangerous and had explosives on my property…. Their lies cost me over 10,000 dollars.”
One comment by Hennis during that sequence could be construed as support and, to be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it: “I tried to spend as much time with Mary Rakestraw as possible campaigning and introducing her to her constituents, so you can buy one and get one free.”
Landau said he thinks that a “much more pertinent issue” is why Rakestraw made a statement during a city council meeting in August that council members were unaware that staff was undertaking a rewrite of the Land Development Ordinance that reclassifies zoning districts.
“That got people agitated,” he said. “It made political hay, and it was false. The council had received a report on it from [Planning] Director [Dick] Hails. That’s a current-time issue. I trust that the majority of citizens are more concerned with real issues right now than what someone who’s not a candidate did 30 years ago.”
Rakestraw did not respond to a request for comment.
The issue has resonated with the conservative types who would be expected to take issue with such an association: Guilford County Republican Party Executive Director Tony Wilkins, blogger Joseph Guarino and The Rhinoceros Times.
The matter was first broached by Rakestraw in a candidate questionnaire submitted to the News & Record. The newspaper asked candidates to pose a question to their opponents. Rakestraw’s question for Landau was, “Your website has listed at least one controversial political activist supporter (e.g. a Communist Workers Party organizer) but has now removed that one. Why are you removing names, and have you received any financial contributions from them?”
Landau told me in a phone conversation today that he considers the premise of the question to be misleading. Signe Waller was a member of the Workers Viewpoint Organization at the time of the fatal confrontation with the Klan and Nazis in Morningside Homes in 1979, when her husband, Dr. James Waller, was killed. The Workers Viewpoint Organization had planned to rename itself the Communist Workers Party at a conference held later that day, but the deadly confrontation at the mustering point of the march caused the organization to disintegrate.
In Landau’s words, Rakestraw “made reference in the N&R questionnaire to an organization that hasn’t been in existence for 20 years. That’s like referring to Ronald Reagan in 1983 as a ‘liberal Democrat.’”
Wilkins stepped up the pressure on Landau to address the question in blog post on Tuesday, entitled, “Joel Landau, Where Is Signe Waller?”
Guarino picked up the thread hours later on his own blog.
“Waller, of course, was one of the primary players in the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation process,” Guarino noted. “If Waller is supporting Landau, it might speak volumes about his political stance.”
Landau’s position on the truth process is actually a matter of record.
YES! Weekly asked candidates for city council in 2005 how they felt about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its examination of the circumstances surrounding the 1979 confrontation, and whether they thought the city council should take a more active role in the truth process.
Landau, then a candidate in the at-large race, answered, “Something is amiss when people are murdered on city streets in broad daylight and the known killers are set free. This is currently a divisive issue, but I think it’s important for the future unity and reconciliation of the city that we learn the truth about how that came about. I believe city council should endorse the work of the commission and encourage any city official with relevant information to come forward with that information.”
Landau told me today that he hasn’t changed his position on the truth process, but doesn’t see it as an important issue in this campaign.
“I felt that it would be beneficial for some people that needed resolution to hear information and get information out there,” he said. “I believe in dialogue and people listening to each other.”
I pushed him a bit, noting that the 30th anniversary of the shootings is coming up — right on Election Day, as it turns out — and that another important anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth sit-ins, is also imminently on the horizon.
Landau responded: “I think they’re important to acknowledge and recognize, but they’re not on the agenda right now for the right reasons. They’re being brought up as part of a smear campaign.”
The day after Wilkins and Guarino posted their commentary on the scrubbing of Waller Foxworth’s name from Landau’s website, Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer interviewed the candidate. Landau’s comments were published in the conservative newspaper today, essentially mainstreaming the controversy to the Greensboro electorate.
Landau told me essentially the same thing he told Hammer about his decision to remove Waller Foxworth’s name.
“Back in June and July, we were putting down names of people who publicly support me: Democrats, Republicans — we didn’t look at anyone’s affiliation,” he said. “One of my other supporters approached me, and raised that that could become a distracting issue because some people consider her to be a controversial figure. I talked to Nick, my campaign manager, about it. We agreed that it would be a distracting issue. She’s not the one running for office. That’s not a pressing issue that the city is dealing with right now. I called Signe and told her about my decision.”
Landau said he thinks it’s a sign of the Rakestraw campaign’s “desperation that they can’t find anything else to talk about. They’re afraid she’s going to lose the election.” He characterized his association with Waller Foxworth as “a non-issue.”
“It’s one of the silly things the rightwing does,” Landau said. “I could just as easily bring up EH Hennis, who went before the county commission and denounced them, and then went before the city council and called them ‘a pack of liars and whores.’ He’s a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. He didn’t have anything good to say about any of the other city council members, but he said, ‘Mary Rakestraw, that’s the one person on city council that I can get behind.’ What is it about her that gains the approval of this avowed racist? To me, both questions are irrelevant.”
I asked Landau for the date of the city council meeting in which Hennis expressed approval of Rakestraw. He told me he thought it took place in the late spring.
Hennis addressed the city council on April 21, 2009; April 1, 2008; and Feb. 21, 2008. After reviewing videos on the city’s website, I could find no record of Hennis calling the council “a pack of liars and whores” or saying, “Mary Rakestraw, that’s the one person on city council that I can get behind.” In fact, in the February 2008 remarks, which I transcribed at the time, he called Rakestraw “Motor Mouth,” accused her and fellow Guilford County commissioner, Phyllis Gibbs of lying to a magistrate and grand jury about him and marching through the courtroom like a couple hussies acting like lesbians, and then threatened to hang her in effigy at his house on Groometown Road.
Hennis did open his April 2009 remarks by saying, “I was so happy to hear that Mary Rakestraw wants to continue offering her services to you city folk, and I’m sure it makes you happy.”
Hennis possesses a sense of humor that is richly laced with sarcasm. His later comments make it clear that he is no fan of Rakestraw: “They ganged up on me, mayor, because I filed for county commission…. She would not come out and look at almost $4,000 worth of hate crimes perpetrated against me by the county officials destroying my real estate and personal property…. Mary and the others lied to the magistrate that I was extremely dangerous and had explosives on my property…. Their lies cost me over 10,000 dollars.”
One comment by Hennis during that sequence could be construed as support and, to be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it: “I tried to spend as much time with Mary Rakestraw as possible campaigning and introducing her to her constituents, so you can buy one and get one free.”
Landau said he thinks that a “much more pertinent issue” is why Rakestraw made a statement during a city council meeting in August that council members were unaware that staff was undertaking a rewrite of the Land Development Ordinance that reclassifies zoning districts.
“That got people agitated,” he said. “It made political hay, and it was false. The council had received a report on it from [Planning] Director [Dick] Hails. That’s a current-time issue. I trust that the majority of citizens are more concerned with real issues right now than what someone who’s not a candidate did 30 years ago.”
Rakestraw did not respond to a request for comment.
Mary Rakestraw transcript
The following is a transcript of District 4 candidate Mary Rakestraw’s answers at a Greensboro Neighborhood Congress forum on Oct. 12:
Introductory statement
Can you all hear me in the back? Okay, I won’t use the microphone. I rarely need a microphone. But if y’all need one, you just let me know. I apologize for my voice; a few allergies have settled in my chest, but we’ll move ahead.
I am Mary Rakestraw, and I’m asking you to vote for me for District 4. Let me tell you a little bit about my background so you’ll know what I’ve done. First of all, I worked for the Department of Social Services for seven years. I was a case worker for three and a half years, as well as a supervisor for three and a half years. I’ve worked not only in Greensboro, but in High Point. And I’ve learned how to do so many different things. I learned one of the most important things, being a good worker at the Department of Social Services, is how to ask questions. I have found that, especially not only those folks who were coming through the Department of Social Services but some of our senior citizens, didn’t know how to ask the right questions. So that’s what I do on the city council. I ask questions for everybody. I ask questions that may not be popular. I may ask the questions that you might not like but you ultimately want to hear the answer to. Now, that should not be, by any means, being argumentative. I just need to know the answers to my questions. And I am one of those who has an inquiring mind.
I’ve also worked with the Red Cross. And I want to tell you how I used my skills there. When I decided to volunteer for the Red Cross, it was during Katrina. And that was a very important time. People were coming from all over the Southeast, and the Deep South, to come here, to seek some kind of help and aid. I talked to people who sat there before me and told me stories of heartache and heartbreak that you had to listen to each and every one. And every time you finished with that family you had to go back and get another family and listen to an even more tragic story. With my background in the Department of Social Services, I was able to help those people there, too. Everything that I have done, from the Red Cross to the Department of Social Services, from Court Watch to also Summit House has been involved with people who have had a hard time getting maybe a fair shake in life, or didn’t make the right decisions.
As a Guilford County commissioner, I spent nine years on the Department of Social Services as well as the board, and I chaired the board the last year. Now, people say, “You don’t have a social services at the city.” But you do have issues that are the very same. And once again, you have to ask and answer questions for people.
Let me tell you this: We do need jobs in Greensboro. This is a great place to live. It’s a wonderful place to live. But we’re asked to go in the back room, and listen to people bring all kinds of projects into our city. We have to make a decision on who can come in and what we can do. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I generally don’t — well, let’s just say I’ve never voted to give a cash incentive to a business, but what I have done is to work for the infrastructure. Infrastructure, when you have that in place, you can bring anybody into Greensboro, and they’ll want to move here.
Do we have a problem with our police department? Yes. We have some problems with our police department. But we do have wonderful men and women who put that badge on and strap that gun to their hip everyday to protect and serve. And sometimes it’s just like in the classroom when I was growing up. There might be a few people who are disruptive and give the entire association a bad name. But we’re trying to change that. We’re trying to work with that. And with our new city manager coming in on — well, I’ll be meeting with him on Friday, I look forward to discussing some of these issues with him. We need jobs, yes. We need people who want to work, who want to volunteer.
And you all can say in your neighborhoods: “Well, you don’t understand.” Well, if you don’t let us know what you need in your neighborhoods, you’re right. Laura Jackson, I’ll use her as an example. And I hope she won’t get upset about this. She would come to the city council, and she would talk about the SuperJam and the problems that they were having. All I want to say is that I went and viewed that firsthand from a neighbor’s front porch. And ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t talk to us we can’t help you. And we’re going to do the very best that we can. I appreciate your vote on November the third. For District 4, Mary Rakestraw.
The question relates to the situation with police Officer AJ Blake. What can we do now to prevent a repeat occurrence of this, where we have the city manager very publicly overruling the chief of police on an issue and upsetting dozens of police officers to the point that they would come out to a city council meeting in a silent show of protest?
When this decision was made by our interim city manager I did ask for a meeting of our city council with our mayor, my colleagues, the city attorney and the interim city manager. The police department has standards in place. They know what’s expected of them, but for some reason — and I cannot tell you this — they’re not being enforced. And these are the types of things we need to have enforced. Because we want it across the board. We don’t want special rules and regulations for different people. Everything should be across the board in the police department. We did have our meeting. We went into closed session. I can tell you that I am still feel somewhat concerned with this because I feel that Chief [Tim] Bellamy has been under fire, and a review board made this decision for the termination of Officer Blake. And then it went to Chief Bellamy who also upheld that recommendation. Now, when this was overturned, or his decision was overruled it concerns me because he looked like, well, who’s running the police department? And it looks like his credibility was compromised as well as his decision-making ability. I’m hoping that — we made a couple of resolutions and we passed them, but we’ve got to make sure that all police officers understand the rules and regulations. They already have them at the police department. They just need to be enforced.
Pretend you are Greensboro’s lead economic ambassador for one day. You’re on a visit to Silicon Valley, and you’re meeting with a high-tech company there. What would you tell them to convince them to relocate a major facility with 500 good-paying jobs to the city of Greensboro?
Well, it’s easy enough to sell Greensboro: Greensboro sells itself. It’s got a wonderful environment to live here. People are business friendly. We have colleges and universities. We have businesses that relocated here. My husband worked for a small company that relocated here, and it’s called Vanity Fair Corporation. Now, they’re still here and they’re doing business. We have arts, we have parks, we’ve got it all, ladies and gentlemen. But we’ve got to have the infrastructure, again; we’ve said, site-ready places. We’ve got to have an airport that’s ready to take us anywhere and everywhere all over this world. We’ve got to be global, and we’ve got to be able to do all this. And we have it. We have it here in Greensboro. Now, if you want to come to a college town, you get more than just a college town in Greensboro. You have all kinds of businesses, small and large. If you want to come and be an entrepreneur, this is the place to come. If you want to learn how to raise a family, where people are friendly and they look after one another, this is a good place. Do we have crime? We do. But we don’t have crime like you probably do in Silicon Valley. I can’t even say it, much less go there. But this is the place to be. Greensboro is the place to be. When my husband and I, we got out of the service, this is where we came. We started working with Blue Bell, and now we went through and retired through Vanity Fair Corporation. This is a great place to be. People want to come here. People pass through here, and they want to retire here. So we’ve got it all. We’ve got it all. All you have to do is spend one day with us and with Our State magazine, and that’s fine. That’s all they need to do. Thank you very much.
Should we be concerned that our population in this city is stagnant or dropping, when Raleigh and Charlotte are increasing? Should we be concerned that we’re ranked the 37th smartest city compared to No. 5 in the Triangle and 14, Charlotte? Is our community stagnating, in light of some of our indicators?
I think a memo needs to be sent out to all the colleges and universities and the communities colleges to ask them this question: Are you feeling smart today? All right, good. You’re feeling smart today. We do have the educational system here. And I want to tell you one thing right now. Not only do our public schools and our private schools and our charter schools and our home schools schools, we’ve got a lot of well educated people who know how to do things with their hands that they’ve gone to community colleges to learn, to get their GED, to get whatever degree they want. We have people in this community that can take any kind of course anywhere in this city, and be happy. Now, I don’t know how they arrived at these statistics, and it really doesn’t matter. It’s how smart are you feeling today? If you’re not feeling smart, then we need to talk to our local colleges and universities. But I will say this: With all the bonds that fail and pass, I don’t think a community college like GTCC has ever lost a bond. Ever. I had the opportunity to sit on the stage with these students from 16 years old to 70 years old walking across, getting whatever degree they wanted. So this is very important to us. And so I don’t think we should put a lot of emphasis on that until we find out where those statistics are. And again, when we’ve got annexation, I don’t vote for forced annexation because we don’t have the infrastructure to support it. And that’s something we’ve got to do when we consider annexation.
The city has made an effort to communicate better with city residents in the creation of an assistant city manager position for communications and other steps. Comment on the city’s efforts to communicate better with its citizens and what more can be done to improve communications and transparency.
In this wonderful world of tweeting and twuttering and whatever you want to do, blogging and e-mailing and faxing and calling, there’s no reason why people shouldn’t be able to get information. Now, having said that, let me you a little probably I have with sometimes the city staff: Some times it’s hard to get information. Sometimes maybe it’s not convenient, or maybe they don’t want to make it available. Maybe. I’m just saying maybe. Maybe they don’t want you to have the information right then. But if we want the city council people to make the best decisions that we can make we have to have the facts before us. We’ve got to have the information. We do have Channel 13 and we have the website. And I tell you: I think one of the best things we have is called 373-CITY. Those are some of the nicest people I’ve ever talked to. And tell them what you want, and they can help you, put you in the right direction. Now, again, sometimes people have not been able — citizens who wanted information — to do reporting — we’ve been sued by the News & Record, we’ve been sued by The Rhinoceros Times, I think. We’ve been sued by about everybody, y’all — to get information. So there is a problem there. And we need to have that information. Now, I don’t know, I can’t go as far as Mr. Boyett says about the closed sessions. Sometimes we have to have them for personnel issues. And if we want to have economic development people aren’t going to run up to us and start singing what they, you know, can do for us right there in public. I’ve always been transparent. I’m accessible and I’m available. I’ve never had a person who said, “I can’t get in touch with you.” Wherever I am, there’s the public, and that’s the way it should be. That’s what a public official is all about. And you should always be available to the public when they call you.
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the removal of the public-art Five Points bench placed on the Downtown Greenway in the Warnersville community. Do you support the city’s decision to remove these benches? Why or why not? What would you propose as the best long-term solution to the problem of drugs, prostitution, public intoxication and loitering at this location so that users of the greenway and neighbors feel safe? Would you support the replacement of the bench back at its original location?
Thank you. When I got the call from Andy Scott saying that they had made the decision to move those benches one of the reasons was some of the neighbors had come and had spoken before the city council. And that they were concerned because they felt like, it was right in the direct vision of some of the neighbors and they were complaining about the prostitution and the drinking and everything else that was going on over there. Now, I don’t know that if by removing the benches we’ve removed the problem. I haven’t heard anybody say. So, what else are we going to do? We’re going to need more police officers on foot. We need something else to do. Now, at some point I feel like the benches will be restored, but when I don’t know. But we’ve got to have some kind of agreement with the folks that are affected, the council person that represents that area. And I think it’s best that we monitor this because I think people have just really had — the neighbors are upset. The city now is upset. Look at the person who created these benches. He’s upset. So let’s see what we can do to have some kind of a win-win situation with this.
Triad Elections ’09
Introductory statement
Can you all hear me in the back? Okay, I won’t use the microphone. I rarely need a microphone. But if y’all need one, you just let me know. I apologize for my voice; a few allergies have settled in my chest, but we’ll move ahead.
I am Mary Rakestraw, and I’m asking you to vote for me for District 4. Let me tell you a little bit about my background so you’ll know what I’ve done. First of all, I worked for the Department of Social Services for seven years. I was a case worker for three and a half years, as well as a supervisor for three and a half years. I’ve worked not only in Greensboro, but in High Point. And I’ve learned how to do so many different things. I learned one of the most important things, being a good worker at the Department of Social Services, is how to ask questions. I have found that, especially not only those folks who were coming through the Department of Social Services but some of our senior citizens, didn’t know how to ask the right questions. So that’s what I do on the city council. I ask questions for everybody. I ask questions that may not be popular. I may ask the questions that you might not like but you ultimately want to hear the answer to. Now, that should not be, by any means, being argumentative. I just need to know the answers to my questions. And I am one of those who has an inquiring mind.
I’ve also worked with the Red Cross. And I want to tell you how I used my skills there. When I decided to volunteer for the Red Cross, it was during Katrina. And that was a very important time. People were coming from all over the Southeast, and the Deep South, to come here, to seek some kind of help and aid. I talked to people who sat there before me and told me stories of heartache and heartbreak that you had to listen to each and every one. And every time you finished with that family you had to go back and get another family and listen to an even more tragic story. With my background in the Department of Social Services, I was able to help those people there, too. Everything that I have done, from the Red Cross to the Department of Social Services, from Court Watch to also Summit House has been involved with people who have had a hard time getting maybe a fair shake in life, or didn’t make the right decisions.
As a Guilford County commissioner, I spent nine years on the Department of Social Services as well as the board, and I chaired the board the last year. Now, people say, “You don’t have a social services at the city.” But you do have issues that are the very same. And once again, you have to ask and answer questions for people.
Let me tell you this: We do need jobs in Greensboro. This is a great place to live. It’s a wonderful place to live. But we’re asked to go in the back room, and listen to people bring all kinds of projects into our city. We have to make a decision on who can come in and what we can do. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I generally don’t — well, let’s just say I’ve never voted to give a cash incentive to a business, but what I have done is to work for the infrastructure. Infrastructure, when you have that in place, you can bring anybody into Greensboro, and they’ll want to move here.
Do we have a problem with our police department? Yes. We have some problems with our police department. But we do have wonderful men and women who put that badge on and strap that gun to their hip everyday to protect and serve. And sometimes it’s just like in the classroom when I was growing up. There might be a few people who are disruptive and give the entire association a bad name. But we’re trying to change that. We’re trying to work with that. And with our new city manager coming in on — well, I’ll be meeting with him on Friday, I look forward to discussing some of these issues with him. We need jobs, yes. We need people who want to work, who want to volunteer.
And you all can say in your neighborhoods: “Well, you don’t understand.” Well, if you don’t let us know what you need in your neighborhoods, you’re right. Laura Jackson, I’ll use her as an example. And I hope she won’t get upset about this. She would come to the city council, and she would talk about the SuperJam and the problems that they were having. All I want to say is that I went and viewed that firsthand from a neighbor’s front porch. And ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t talk to us we can’t help you. And we’re going to do the very best that we can. I appreciate your vote on November the third. For District 4, Mary Rakestraw.
The question relates to the situation with police Officer AJ Blake. What can we do now to prevent a repeat occurrence of this, where we have the city manager very publicly overruling the chief of police on an issue and upsetting dozens of police officers to the point that they would come out to a city council meeting in a silent show of protest?
When this decision was made by our interim city manager I did ask for a meeting of our city council with our mayor, my colleagues, the city attorney and the interim city manager. The police department has standards in place. They know what’s expected of them, but for some reason — and I cannot tell you this — they’re not being enforced. And these are the types of things we need to have enforced. Because we want it across the board. We don’t want special rules and regulations for different people. Everything should be across the board in the police department. We did have our meeting. We went into closed session. I can tell you that I am still feel somewhat concerned with this because I feel that Chief [Tim] Bellamy has been under fire, and a review board made this decision for the termination of Officer Blake. And then it went to Chief Bellamy who also upheld that recommendation. Now, when this was overturned, or his decision was overruled it concerns me because he looked like, well, who’s running the police department? And it looks like his credibility was compromised as well as his decision-making ability. I’m hoping that — we made a couple of resolutions and we passed them, but we’ve got to make sure that all police officers understand the rules and regulations. They already have them at the police department. They just need to be enforced.
Pretend you are Greensboro’s lead economic ambassador for one day. You’re on a visit to Silicon Valley, and you’re meeting with a high-tech company there. What would you tell them to convince them to relocate a major facility with 500 good-paying jobs to the city of Greensboro?
Well, it’s easy enough to sell Greensboro: Greensboro sells itself. It’s got a wonderful environment to live here. People are business friendly. We have colleges and universities. We have businesses that relocated here. My husband worked for a small company that relocated here, and it’s called Vanity Fair Corporation. Now, they’re still here and they’re doing business. We have arts, we have parks, we’ve got it all, ladies and gentlemen. But we’ve got to have the infrastructure, again; we’ve said, site-ready places. We’ve got to have an airport that’s ready to take us anywhere and everywhere all over this world. We’ve got to be global, and we’ve got to be able to do all this. And we have it. We have it here in Greensboro. Now, if you want to come to a college town, you get more than just a college town in Greensboro. You have all kinds of businesses, small and large. If you want to come and be an entrepreneur, this is the place to come. If you want to learn how to raise a family, where people are friendly and they look after one another, this is a good place. Do we have crime? We do. But we don’t have crime like you probably do in Silicon Valley. I can’t even say it, much less go there. But this is the place to be. Greensboro is the place to be. When my husband and I, we got out of the service, this is where we came. We started working with Blue Bell, and now we went through and retired through Vanity Fair Corporation. This is a great place to be. People want to come here. People pass through here, and they want to retire here. So we’ve got it all. We’ve got it all. All you have to do is spend one day with us and with Our State magazine, and that’s fine. That’s all they need to do. Thank you very much.
Should we be concerned that our population in this city is stagnant or dropping, when Raleigh and Charlotte are increasing? Should we be concerned that we’re ranked the 37th smartest city compared to No. 5 in the Triangle and 14, Charlotte? Is our community stagnating, in light of some of our indicators?
I think a memo needs to be sent out to all the colleges and universities and the communities colleges to ask them this question: Are you feeling smart today? All right, good. You’re feeling smart today. We do have the educational system here. And I want to tell you one thing right now. Not only do our public schools and our private schools and our charter schools and our home schools schools, we’ve got a lot of well educated people who know how to do things with their hands that they’ve gone to community colleges to learn, to get their GED, to get whatever degree they want. We have people in this community that can take any kind of course anywhere in this city, and be happy. Now, I don’t know how they arrived at these statistics, and it really doesn’t matter. It’s how smart are you feeling today? If you’re not feeling smart, then we need to talk to our local colleges and universities. But I will say this: With all the bonds that fail and pass, I don’t think a community college like GTCC has ever lost a bond. Ever. I had the opportunity to sit on the stage with these students from 16 years old to 70 years old walking across, getting whatever degree they wanted. So this is very important to us. And so I don’t think we should put a lot of emphasis on that until we find out where those statistics are. And again, when we’ve got annexation, I don’t vote for forced annexation because we don’t have the infrastructure to support it. And that’s something we’ve got to do when we consider annexation.
The city has made an effort to communicate better with city residents in the creation of an assistant city manager position for communications and other steps. Comment on the city’s efforts to communicate better with its citizens and what more can be done to improve communications and transparency.
In this wonderful world of tweeting and twuttering and whatever you want to do, blogging and e-mailing and faxing and calling, there’s no reason why people shouldn’t be able to get information. Now, having said that, let me you a little probably I have with sometimes the city staff: Some times it’s hard to get information. Sometimes maybe it’s not convenient, or maybe they don’t want to make it available. Maybe. I’m just saying maybe. Maybe they don’t want you to have the information right then. But if we want the city council people to make the best decisions that we can make we have to have the facts before us. We’ve got to have the information. We do have Channel 13 and we have the website. And I tell you: I think one of the best things we have is called 373-CITY. Those are some of the nicest people I’ve ever talked to. And tell them what you want, and they can help you, put you in the right direction. Now, again, sometimes people have not been able — citizens who wanted information — to do reporting — we’ve been sued by the News & Record, we’ve been sued by The Rhinoceros Times, I think. We’ve been sued by about everybody, y’all — to get information. So there is a problem there. And we need to have that information. Now, I don’t know, I can’t go as far as Mr. Boyett says about the closed sessions. Sometimes we have to have them for personnel issues. And if we want to have economic development people aren’t going to run up to us and start singing what they, you know, can do for us right there in public. I’ve always been transparent. I’m accessible and I’m available. I’ve never had a person who said, “I can’t get in touch with you.” Wherever I am, there’s the public, and that’s the way it should be. That’s what a public official is all about. And you should always be available to the public when they call you.
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the removal of the public-art Five Points bench placed on the Downtown Greenway in the Warnersville community. Do you support the city’s decision to remove these benches? Why or why not? What would you propose as the best long-term solution to the problem of drugs, prostitution, public intoxication and loitering at this location so that users of the greenway and neighbors feel safe? Would you support the replacement of the bench back at its original location?
Thank you. When I got the call from Andy Scott saying that they had made the decision to move those benches one of the reasons was some of the neighbors had come and had spoken before the city council. And that they were concerned because they felt like, it was right in the direct vision of some of the neighbors and they were complaining about the prostitution and the drinking and everything else that was going on over there. Now, I don’t know that if by removing the benches we’ve removed the problem. I haven’t heard anybody say. So, what else are we going to do? We’re going to need more police officers on foot. We need something else to do. Now, at some point I feel like the benches will be restored, but when I don’t know. But we’ve got to have some kind of agreement with the folks that are affected, the council person that represents that area. And I think it’s best that we monitor this because I think people have just really had — the neighbors are upset. The city now is upset. Look at the person who created these benches. He’s upset. So let’s see what we can do to have some kind of a win-win situation with this.
Triad Elections ’09
Landau goes on the offensive
District candidates for Greensboro City Council appeared together for a forum hosted by the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress earlier this evening at the downtown public library. The event was notable for being the first time District 4 candidates Joel Landau and Mary Rakestraw have given voters a chance to hear from them at the same time.
Befitting an underdog with ground to make up, Landau made two sorties against Rakestraw in his opening statement.
“I have no ties to private interests," Landau said. "That’s a place where I’m different from Ms. Rakestraw. If you look at her 2007 campaign finance report for her campaign, you’ll see it full of donations from builder groups and from builders and from attorneys who frequently come before city council, and I think that’s a conflict of interest that should be avoided – financing a campaign on contributions from people that you know will be coming before you with financial interests at stake.”
That statement echoed a charge leveled by District 3 challenger George Hartzman against incumbent Zack Matheny, both of whom attended the forum. Landau continued with a thrust that seemed designed to exploit Rakestraw's polarizing effect on the electorate. Voters seem to either love or hate her.
“Personally, I’m tired of the discord and negativity that we’ve been seeing on council," Landau said. "I’m a voice for civility. I’ve been in the cooperative movement for decades where we seriously take how people work together, and listen to one another. And it doesn’t mean we have to agree; it just means we listen to one another and try to come to something that works for the common good. I have a history of working with others to get things done and to move Greensboro forward. And if you’re ready for a positive change, please support me in District 4.”
Later, in response to a question about the quality of city communication, Landau suggested his opponent is uninformed.
“One time that the city didn’t do such a good job is with the recent complaints about the rewrite of the LDO, the land development ordinance, to change the names of all the zoning districts," he said. "Council was briefed a year ago actually, in August – Aug. 4, 2008 – even though Ms. Rakestraw claimed at a meeting this summer that they didn’t know about it.”
Rakestraw explained her position on a variety of issues but largely refrained from acknowledging Landau's attacks. She used her past experience working for the Guilford County Board of Elections to set up an explanation for her role on council regarding the ongoing police controversy.
“Some of our senior citizens didn’t know how to ask the right questions," Rakestraw said. "So that’s what I do on city council: I ask questions for everybody. I ask questions that may not be popular. I may ask the questions that you might not like but you ultimately want to hear the answer to.”
The candidate, who currently serves at large, presented the softer side of her public service, describing volunteer work with the American Red Cross receiving Hurricane Katrina evacuees in 2005.
“Everything that I have done from the Red Cross, from the Department of Social Services, from Court Watch to also Summit House," Rakestraw said, "has been involved with people who have had a hard time getting a fair shake in life, or just didn’t make the right decision.”
Then she briefly returned to the issue of the police department.
“Do we have a problem in our police department?" she asked. "Yes, we have some problems in our police department.”
Landau treaded carefully around a question about interim City Manager Bob Morgan’s decision to reinstate police Officer AJ Blake, who was acquitted by a jury of assaulting two women at a drunken police party, and who has said the gang enforcement unit abused its authority in its treatment of members of the Latin Kings.
“I think it’s very odd to have the city manager overturn the police chief," Landau said. "I think within the department there needs to have clarification of what is expected behavior and what’s not. And the chief may have to make some examples of people who don’t perform those behaviors and increase the internal affairs staffing.”
Rakestraw seemed comfortable describing her role in the controversy.
“When this decision was made by our interim city manager I did ask for a meeting of our city council with our mayor, my colleagues, the city attorney and the interim city manager," she said. "The police department has standards in place. They know what’s expected of them, but for some reason – and I cannot tell you this – they’re not being enforced. And these are the kind of things we need enforced. Because we want it across the board. We don’t want special rules and regulations for different people. Everything should be across the board in the police department. We did have our meeting. We went into closed session. I can tell you that I still feel somewhat concerned with this because I feel that Chief [Tim] Bellamy has been under fire, and a review board made this decision for the termination of Officer Blake. And then it went to Chief Bellamy who also upheld that recommendation…. When his decision was overruled it concerns me because he looked like, Well, who’s running the police department? And it looked like his credibility was compromised as well as his decision-making ability.”
District 1 incumbent Dianne Bellamy-Small, whose opponent Luther T. Falls Jr. left early in the program, seemed to be running against Rakestraw also.
“We have a process," she said, giving her take on Blake's reinstatement. "There is a legal process that is mandated by the state of North Carolina personnel act. Each one of us here has made a mistake. And we would want the right to appeal. The way the process works is the way it worked. He was put on suspension. He went to trial for what he was accused of. He was acquitted. He was recommended for termination. He had the right to appeal. City council does not have the right to be involved in any personnel matter except for one person that we hire and fire, which is the city manager. Now, we cannot make special rules because perhaps we do not like the fact that this time the rules didn’t favor who you wanted it to favor. We’re getting into some dangerous territory here.”
In her opening statement, Bellamy-Small described what she considers one of the significant achievements of her current term.
“I also feel that I’m a voice for those who sometimes don’t have a voice, like our homeless population," she said. "And I’ve been working very hard and closely with other organizations to try to bring about a day center. And though you may have seen in the newspaper recently that they don’t have enough money, they will get the money because I believe Greensboro has the will to finally do something to help folk who are standing out in the cold and in the rain once they get out of the shelters at night. They’ve got to have a place to go where they can become whole individuals again if they choose to.”
Bellamy-Small expressed confidence in the police department, striking a contrasting note to Rakestraw's statement.
“As far as the police department’s concerned I believe we have one of the best police departments in the nation," she said. "I think that you have to look under all the rhetoric, and look at what Chief Bellamy inherited as far as what he’s been dealing with, with the police department. And I think the Buracker Report that we funded, which was a quarter of a million dollars, did say that he was one of the best chiefs that they’d seen in our department, though had some issues, but for the most part was a very well run police department, and it received the highest national accreditation that a police department can get.”
Bellamy-Small also spoke about the removal of a set of public-art benches in the Warnersville neighborhood, which was a cause championed by one of her primary-election opponents, Ben Holder.
“It’s interesting how certain people come out of the woodwork whenever it’s election time. And then they decide – what I call bully politics," she said. "I’ve been involved with the Warnersville community as it relates to the greenway and the benches for two years. We had numerous meetings. Over a hundred people gave their input. The benches were designed by what the people said. The benches represented the fact that Warnersville is the oldest black neighborhood in Greensboro. Those words “hope,” “triumph,” “endurance,” “faith” were put there as a symbol. The reason that they wanted benches was because most of the people who were involved in the sit-in movement came from Warnersville. So they wanted a recognition of the fact that they were involved in that."
"I went and sat on the benches, and I had the police called on me because they were looking for a prostitute," Bellamy-Small continued, provoking laughter. “I sat on those benches on four different occasions, four different times, including 11:30 at night. The benches were not at fault. What you saw there was a person given an opportunity to be able to have her 15 minutes of fame, with some people pushing her that have not been in that community. I’m very disturbed about it; I’m upset about it. I went out to the benches last Tuesday and took a picture. Let me tell you what I saw: On the side where she lives there are trees. There were two brothas sitting up under a tree, and they were smoking a cigarette, and it was not a Newport. So now we’re gonna root up the trees? Come on, we gotta do some common-sense kind of things, and stop being the victims of bully politics.”
Triad Elections '09
D4 and D3 campaign finance update
Joel Landau, a candidate for Greensboro City Council in District 4, has raised $3,055 since Jan. 1, and holds $3,487 in cash on hand, according to a campaign finance report filed on Sept. 10. Mary Rakestraw, who currently holds an at-large seat and his Landau's most formidable opponent, reports raising $1,665 and has $2,996 in cash on hand for roughly the same period. Mike Martin and Joseph Rahenkamp, who are also candidates in the District 4 race, have filed no campaign finance reports.
District 3 candidate Jay Ovittore reports having raised $1,075, with $824 in cash on hand as of Aug. 24. Ovittore is receiving support from people active across the state in the Democratic Party, including former US Senate candidate Jim Neal and NC Rep. Grier Martin. Ovittore remains significantly behind the other two District 3 candidates, Zack Matheny and George Hartzman, who have respectively raised $7,900 and $2,850.
District 3 candidate Jay Ovittore reports having raised $1,075, with $824 in cash on hand as of Aug. 24. Ovittore is receiving support from people active across the state in the Democratic Party, including former US Senate candidate Jim Neal and NC Rep. Grier Martin. Ovittore remains significantly behind the other two District 3 candidates, Zack Matheny and George Hartzman, who have respectively raised $7,900 and $2,850.
Greensboro council to discuss officer's reinstatement
Interim City Manager Bob Morgan confirms that the Greensboro City Council will hold a closed-session meeting on Friday to ask him questions about his decision to reinstate Officer AJ Blake, overturning a termination decision by police administration. An official notice states that Mayor Yvonne Johnson has set a special meeting for 2 p.m. "for the purpose of adjourning to closed session for the discussion of personnel matters."
Some background here and here about the suspension, criminal charges against, and eventual acquittal of Blake.
"Some council members are interested in the issue, and I offered to explain that in closed session," Morgan told me. "We don't have another meeting until Oct. 20, and they wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way, so we scheduled a special meeting." Morgan said he was constrained from identifying the council members who had expressed concern about his decision. He added that he is legally prohibited from publicly discussing his reasons for overturning Blake's termination.
One member of council will not be there. Robbie Perkins said he already had plans to be out of town on business on Friday, adding that he was "very concerned" about the meeting and does not think it was appropriate for council to be involved in such a personnel decision.
UPDATE: Colleague Amanda Lehmert reports that the council member who requested the meeting was Mary Rakestraw. Lehmert says that Rakestraw and another council member did not realize Blake had been acquitted.
Some background here and here about the suspension, criminal charges against, and eventual acquittal of Blake.
"Some council members are interested in the issue, and I offered to explain that in closed session," Morgan told me. "We don't have another meeting until Oct. 20, and they wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way, so we scheduled a special meeting." Morgan said he was constrained from identifying the council members who had expressed concern about his decision. He added that he is legally prohibited from publicly discussing his reasons for overturning Blake's termination.
One member of council will not be there. Robbie Perkins said he already had plans to be out of town on business on Friday, adding that he was "very concerned" about the meeting and does not think it was appropriate for council to be involved in such a personnel decision.
UPDATE: Colleague Amanda Lehmert reports that the council member who requested the meeting was Mary Rakestraw. Lehmert says that Rakestraw and another council member did not realize Blake had been acquitted.
Missing Rakestraw expenditures surface
I received three pages of previously missing pages of campaign finance reports today showing expenditures by the Mary Rakestraw campaign in the final sprint before the 2007 general election. They were e-mailed to me by Brenda Wallace of the Guilford County Board of Elections, who received them in turn from the Rakestraw campaign.
I left a phone message for the Rakestraws about the missing information on Saturday, Sept. 12. (Husband Frank Rakestraw is wife Mary Rakestraw's campaign treasurer.) I also spoke to Wallace about the missing information on Monday.
The reason for my inquiry was that I wanted clean data for the purpose of analyzing expenditures by victorious candidates in Greensboro's 2007 municipal elections. The processed information went into this cover story. Not having the all the itemized expenditures when we went to press on Tuesday obviously threw off some of my computations with regard to sector totals and individual recipients — total amounts spent with Compulis and The Rhinoceros Times were under-reported, for instance — but I am confident the new information does not change any of my rankings or conclusions.
In any case, I'm happy to be able to share the once-missing expenditures — totaling $10,885 — here:
° $3,231 to Compulis, a company owned by Republican consultant Bill Burckley, for mail labels;
• $2,476 to the US Postal Service for unspecified expenses;
• $2,348 to Kay Rod Printing for flyers;
• $1,020 to The Rhinoceros Times for advertising;
• $600 to radio personality Dusty Dunn for advertising;
• $560 to Mailing Service for affixing labels and mailing;
• $499 to Apple Spice Junction for fundraising-related expenses; and
. $150 for entry fee for the A&T homecoming parade.
CORRECTION: Frank Rakestraw was Mary Rakestraw's campaign treasurer for the 2007 election. He has since been replaced by Phyllis Gibbs.
I left a phone message for the Rakestraws about the missing information on Saturday, Sept. 12. (Husband Frank Rakestraw is wife Mary Rakestraw's campaign treasurer.) I also spoke to Wallace about the missing information on Monday.
The reason for my inquiry was that I wanted clean data for the purpose of analyzing expenditures by victorious candidates in Greensboro's 2007 municipal elections. The processed information went into this cover story. Not having the all the itemized expenditures when we went to press on Tuesday obviously threw off some of my computations with regard to sector totals and individual recipients — total amounts spent with Compulis and The Rhinoceros Times were under-reported, for instance — but I am confident the new information does not change any of my rankings or conclusions.
In any case, I'm happy to be able to share the once-missing expenditures — totaling $10,885 — here:
° $3,231 to Compulis, a company owned by Republican consultant Bill Burckley, for mail labels;
• $2,476 to the US Postal Service for unspecified expenses;
• $2,348 to Kay Rod Printing for flyers;
• $1,020 to The Rhinoceros Times for advertising;
• $600 to radio personality Dusty Dunn for advertising;
• $560 to Mailing Service for affixing labels and mailing;
• $499 to Apple Spice Junction for fundraising-related expenses; and
. $150 for entry fee for the A&T homecoming parade.
CORRECTION: Frank Rakestraw was Mary Rakestraw's campaign treasurer for the 2007 election. He has since been replaced by Phyllis Gibbs.
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