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.