Greensboro 2022 Postmortem

So, the results are in: Nancy Vaughan has held off Justin Outling in the mayor's race. All of the people who were in office in the other seven contested seats will be returning as Zack Matheny will join them for a second tour of duty after officially running unopposed in District 3. The two biggest surprises are Hugh Holston and Tammi Thurm. 

In the at-large race, Holston made it 4-for-4 with fill-ins being elected to full terms. Greensboro voters will always find a way to boost unremarkable people. Katie Rossabi jumped up to fourth while Linda Wilson remained in sixth. Meanwhile, Tracy Furman slipped from third to fifth. Her electability has to be questioned at this point. She lost to Justin Conrad in the 2018 county commissioner's race, and now, she's blown a lead to a bland, propped-up candidate and to a dangerous woman.

In District 5, Thurm held off Tony Wilkins. This means that there's been a demographic shift that no longer favors Republicans or right wingers in that part of town.

In short, the establishment fielded a clean sweep tonight. Also, the people who really run the Gate City love it when the City Council appoints someone to fill unexpired terms because it makes it easier for their candidates to win the following election.

Missed Opportunities and a Gloomy Future

Greensboro Rising and others fighting police brutality could have taken cues from the People's City Council's Los Angeles chapter as the latter fielded candidates in that city's municipal races last month. Instead, mostly inaction in the Gate City led to the right-wing filling a void and shifting the discussion towards the ridiculous notion that Greensboro police somehow didn't get any support when the status quo City Council gave them more money after George Floyd's name faded from the headlines. 

What it means for 2025 is that I completely expect the right-wing to mainstream William Marshburn's position on policing and other issues as well--ergo, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rossabi or Thurston Reeder, Jr. to move even further to the right three years from now and to have some success riding that wave.

What needs to happen now is for those of us who are tired of business as usual together around the groups I mentioned in April. They can continue as their respective groups for nonelectoral proposes, but when it comes to electoral politics, they need to form a group similar to the Richmond Progressive Alliance.

They need to come together and let the public know just how out of touch the City Council is because the local press is in bed with not only these elected officials but the people who fund and prop up the politicians.  

This is reason enough for me to punt on Greensboro politics until 2025. It's time for other groups to join WHOA to shut down the Greensboro City Council and expose them and their funders as the forces who are really driving the city into the ground

Moving Away From Creative Focus

After viewing this year's races in Greensboro, I have to seriously review how I look at who's running and what they stand for.

Greensboro should be ripe for a creative revolution...but yet, there are roadblocks, some of which I've seen over the past six years. My guess is that half of the community has some type of association with the very people they ought to be opposing--they're either related to members of the moneyed elite, work for them or take funding from them. 

Three candidates technically fit the criteria as being members of the creative class, but I disqualified one of them for being just as reactionary as more established candidates and being so rabidly anti-defund the police that I will have nothing to do with her in the future.

Starting in the fall when I analyze the Raleigh races, I will no longer be focused on the creative connection, and it's also worth noting that the Triangle scene is full of clashing egos, so it's easier for me to merely focus on the political.

2022 Endorsements

Mayor: No endorsement

At-Large: Tracy Furman, Linda Wilson

District 1: Previous support for Felton Foushee rescinded

District 2: Cecile (CC) Crawford 

District 3: Write in Heather Hogan

District 4: No endorsement

District 5: No endorsement

Greensboro 2022 General Election

Mayor

Nancy Vaughan vs Justin Outling

Last month, Eric Robert decided to shun the devil you know approach in endorsing Justin Outling. He cited Nancy Vaughan's attempts (alongside the movers and shakers) to deprive East Greensboro residents of essential needs.

Vaughan doesn't need any more demerits to be ruled out, but Outling has his own problems as I detailed three months ago.

With the chalk holding to form here, both the incumbent mayor and her challenger from District 3 are easily exposed as enemies to the cause that so many people were advancing two years ago so I have no problem telling Greensboro creatives to sit this round out.

At-Large

Yvonne Johnson vs Marikay Abuzuaiter vs Hugh Holston vs Tracy Furman vs Katie Rossabi vs Linda Wilson

Rossabi's positions are so horrible that this blog wishes her (nothing but) ill in the event she gets elected. Abuzuaiter would probably welcome Rossabi in the hopes of gathering a Thin Blue Line coalition. In any case, she can get bent. Some progressive groups have endorsed Johnson, but this blog doesn't because she participated in the stonewalling of the Marcus Smith case. Holston is being propped up by establishment PACs (Simkins, Replacements Limited) because, so few people know who he is.

To Furman's credit, she did call out the police over it handled the murder of Joesph Lopez before the officer who killed him got fired. 

Wilson deserves the other spot for no other reason that she wants to rein in the gentrification people like Roy Carroll and Marty Kotis have engaged in over the last decade.

District 1

Sharon Hightower vs Felton Foushee

There is nothing that the incumbent can do to win this blog's support as her association with Greensboro's Black Misleadership Class is well documented.

However, we now have serious buyer's remorse about her challenger as well. A June 7 Triad City Beat article highlighted the Greensboro Police Officers Association PAC donating to three candidates--none of whom are named Katie Rossabi, Tony Wilkins or Melodi Fentress--this election cycle.

The donations were actually made earlier this year, but it took last month for the details to come out.

Foushee says his stance on police accountability hasn't changed but how is he supposed to hold the police accountable when he's taking money from a PAC that is at best upholding the status quo?

I expect nothing less from the mayor since she's flush with establishment money. Holston is another rotating face on the City Council so him taking money from police is par for the course. I expected much better from Foushee given that Hightower went radio silent on Marcus Smith after her initial statement and the incumbent was also a deciding vote against written consent. Given how different the political environment is from 2017, Foushee posing as someone who's willing to rein in police abuses only to be exposed as someone who takes money from a police PAC (i.e., he would give the Greensboro PD more money if he's elected) is actually worse than Tammi Thurm posing as an antiestablishment candidate and being revealed as establishment friendly the whole time.

So, the end result is that we are rescinding our previous endorsement of Foushee and will now be sitting this contest out.

District 2

Goldie Wells vs Cecile (CC) Crawford

Wells is even worse than Hightower, and she's proven to be a gatekeeper for her constituents. Crawford's positions on housing and policing are more than enough to carry her over the top.

District 3

Zack Matheny vs Chip Roth

Roth withdrew from the race after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Given who Zack represents, he's all but guaranteed to return to City Hall.

However, a last-minute write-in campaign has now happened as Heather Hogan has thrown her hat in the race. This blog recommends writing her in next Tuesday and hopes like crazy that she runs an active campaign to unseat Matheny in 2025.

District 4

Nancy Hoffmann vs Thurston H. Reeder, Jr.

Early last year, the incumbent called defund the police "a bumper sticker phrase." Her challenger wants full funding of the police and clapped back at anyone who wanted police funding reduced. The end result is yet another Hoffmann vs right winger scenario, which shows how much of a grand exception 2017 really was. Given that it's a contest between the biggest enemy of the creative community and someone who's even worse, this race is easily another hard pass.

District 5

Tammi Thurm vs Tony Wilkins

This blog remains neutral for the reasons that were previously stated.