Marikay Abuzuaiter vs Robbie Perkins
No matter who wins, Greensboro is slated for a downward spiral. Both remaining candidates are proven lapdogs for the establishment. Both stood against the racial justice protests five years ago. Both use the homelessness crisis to attack the symptoms instead of addressing the root causes. A hard pass for the second straight general election and the third public nonendorsement counting the 2017 mayoral primary.
Hugh Holston vs Jamilla Pinder vs Denise Roth vs Richard Beard vs Irving Allen vs T. Dianne Bellamy-Small
The first four are all reliable establishment tools--it's just to which varying degrees. Holston was called out by Crystal Black earlier this year for sitting on the report on brown water in Southeast Greensboro. Besides that, he has been pretty uninspiring in the four years since he was selected to replace Michelle Kennedy.
As a principle, I cannot pick Pinder due to how the oligarchs have now determined that pre-election appointments are their preferred method. I mean, Roy Carroll spent the summer offering her prime billboard space at the Battleground/Wendover intersection.
Please refer to my primary election post on the case against Roth.
Then, there's Beard. George Hartzman uncovered that Beard may be unaffiliated in name only as a way of winning votes.
At least one of these four will be on the next City Council. That's the bad news.
The good news is that voting for Allen will at a minimum prevent an establishment sweep. If one is inclined, casting a vote for Bellamy-Small would make things a bit more uncomfortable for the oligarchs.
Sharon Hightower vs Crystal Black
Hightower has been in office for 12 years and has served East Greensboro's Black Misleadership Class and the downtown establishment very well. It's time for a change. Black was the one who sounded the alarm on the water scandal--eight months before local press started to cover it.
Cecile (CC) Crawford vs Monica Walker
Crawford has the better track record over Walker.
Zack Matheny vs April Parker
It's an embattled incumbent who's under SBI investigation vs a breath of fresh air. North Greensboro voters will have eggs on their faces if they send Zack back--only for the investigation to take him down. Therefore, Parker is the only option.
Meanwhile, voters in Northwest and West Greensboro are on their own as all four remaining candidates range from bad to hideously terrible.
Adam Marshall vs Nicky Smith
Both of these guys have managed to lower the already low bar that the retiring Nancy Hoffmann is leaving behind.
The latter is a right-wing nutjob who's spent half the campaign trying to distance himself from Trump--who may as well be persona non grata in the Gate City.
The former is an attorney who represents real estate interests and is a light copy of the lame duck.
Candidates: Robbie Perkins, Marikay Abuzuaiter, Mark Cummings, Akir Khan
Nancy Vaughan is retiring after 12 years in office--and not a moment too soon because her tenure has mostly been horrible. The list is long: Losing the ACC headquarters, Greensboro being the hungriest city in the nation, backing boondoggles like the Tanger Center, police violence/settlements.
The problem is that many of the people aiming to succeed her aren't any better. Let's start off with Vaughan's predecessor, Perkins. This guy was a certified jerk during his two years at the top. He only got elected in 2011 because the previous conservative coalition overreached by reopening the controversial White Street Landfill. Perkins was run out of office due to bankruptcy and a nasty divorce in which his ex-wife openly via billboards urged voters to back Vaughan. Greensboro's food problems started under Perkins when the city was the fourth hungriest in America, and then the second hungriest the following year before the 2015 bombshell. And what did Robbie do? He was too busy pushing for the Tanger Center and also insisted on it being built downtown while he and other leaders let the War Memorial Auditorium wither away. If the voters want to accelerate Greensboro's decline, then please send Robbie back to the mayor's office.
Abuzuaiter's past as a police informant during the early 2010s continues sticking out like a sore thumb. Besides her stance as the Blue Lives Matter Democrat, it seems like she's using this run developer Milton Kern did in '07: As a capstone on her bland legacy. Given her 14 years in office, a promotion for Marikay would be four more years of Nancy Vaughan but with lots more copaganda.
Cummings is running for mayor for the second straight cycle because of a 2019 deal that bars him from ever running for a judge again. The lack of support for him says it all.
Khan previously applied for the vacant at-large seat (alongside Allem and Smith). He's at odds with his own party as state and national leaders engage in open fascism. He's right about challenging the business as usual status quo given he's the only one in this race who is a breath of fresh air. Khan would have been much better off changing his affiliation to independent given how toxic being a Republican in Greensboro has become. His party affiliation makes this more of a begrudging endorsement than an enthusiastic one.
Incumbent: Hugh Holston
Seat Holder: Jamilla Pinder
Challengers: Richard Beard, Carla Franklin, Latoya B. Gathers, T. Dianne Bellamy-Small, Denise Roth, Michael McKinney, Irving Allen, Samuel L. Hawkins
Marikay Abuzuaiter is running for mayor.
Holston is another generic establishment shill.
Pinder replaced the late Yvonne Johnson last winter and is the fifth straight fill-in to run for a full term.
Beard is a jack of all trades among the elite--Greensboro Sports Foundation CEO, pickleball enthusiast, real estate consultant.
Franklin is a charter school advocate and works for Amazon. Morte recently, she has come under fire for being associated with Moms For Liberty.
Roth was the City Manager in the early '10s and got a job with the Obama Administration just before news broke about a potential scandal that eventually resulted in the city attorney being scapegoated--that's a long way of saying that the former city manager does not deserve to become a councilwoman.
Gathers ran in District 2 in 2022 and was described back then by Triad City Beat (RIP) as a left-leaning Republican. While Gathers is to the left of Franklin, her viewpoints still put her firmly on par with corporate Democrats.
Even though Bellamy-Small has been unfairly smeared by the establishment press in the past simply because she wouldn't play ball with them, I stand by what I previously said about her needing to decide which office is better suited for her and stick to it.
McKinney has worked in the finance sector and is also backed by real estate interests.
Allen ran for this seat eight years ago and is still the best option for City Council. Hawkins is the only other one worth an endorsement.
Candidates: Jim Kee, Monica Walker, Cecile (CC) Crawford, Anthony Wesley, Irish Good
Goldie Wells is retiring after being on the Council for 12 of the last 16 years.
Kee represented the district from 2009 to 2013, and he was known as being the go-to guy for the developers back then. After avoiding a recount against C.J. Brinson by one vote (the margin had to be within a point--and it was by 1.03 points), he threw the 2017 election by switching parties. Last year, Kee not only failed to make the runoff for the Republican nomination for State Auditor but he finished third in Guilford County enroute to a last place finish statewide.
Good already works for the city and would be the continuation of the status quo.
Wesley's comments on the Interactive Resource Center are a turnoff.
While Walker has some good ideas, she cannot outmatch Crawford, who was at Center City Park to back those who were feeding the hungry and provide essential services to the homeless.
Incumbent: Zack Matheny
Challengers: April Parker, Mr. Mohamed Bashir
Matheny is one of the gatekeepers of the local arts scene due to his position as DGI Chairman, and it's that position that makes him worse than Nancy Hoffmann or Tony Wilkins.
Hoffmann was born the same year as the late Yvonne Johnson and ex-POTUS Joe Biden, so when Millennials yelled those "OK, Boomer" quips six years ago, that meant that she was too old to even be a Baby Boomer (when people said she was generationally challenged to relate to the youth, this is what they meant).
As for Wilkins, he was open with his hostility towards creatives during his five-year span on City Council. Zack, on the other hand, is basically helping to mold artists to be more establishment friendly.
His arrogance aside, Matheny is now under SBI investigation, so we may be dealing with an actual crook in office. I mean, there are so many reasons why he needs to go.
Mr. Bashir seems to be doing little than occupying space.
Parker is the only viable candidate to end "business as usual." She has proven chops running the Juneteenth Food Truck Festival and Elsewhere Museum before that.
Candidates: Nicky Smith, Adam Marshall, Steve Ignac
Nancy Hoffmann is retiring after 14 years.
Smith talks about a "more business-friendly council" which reminds me of Roy Carroll saying the same thing a decade ago, and Smith's alignment with the controversial David Wray tells me all I need to know about his positions on policing--making it a hard pass in terms of an endorsement.
Marshall represents all of the worst aspects of being an establishment Democrat--HOA attorney, backed by the lame duck, endorsed by the Greensboro Police Officers Association.
Ignac is a vehicle technology specialist at Honda and would be much better than either frontrunner.
Things are worse than you think. While there will be some turnover on City Council at a rate not seen since 2009, there are just as many rethreads running.
Greensboro's movers and shakers are busy trying to turn downtown into a gated community, and they also contain gatekeepers who have infiltrated the arts scene. By infiltrate, I mean that they determine which artists get to shine and which artists are shut out.
The city responded to the homeless crisis by attempting to outlaw mutual aid and vastly restrict WHOA from feeding the homeless downtown.
Bloggers and writers alike have pointed out how most of
Greensboro’s population pays little attention to City elections. I can count on
one hand how many times residents have cared about local issues:
Half of these involve the ex-lieutenant governor—and
arguably, all of them have national inclinations. Even other significant
local issues since the GPD scandals of the late 2000s have only gotten the
public’s attention if there’s some kind of a link to a state or national issue.
At a recent candidate forum, the moderator brought up a hypothetical scenario of Trump sending troops to the city. On one hand, it came out of nowhere to the point of being irrelevant. On the other hand, the idea of D.C. interfering in everyday Greensboro life being a possible motivator for voters in a year that most candidates represent various shades of the status quo says a lot about the batch of people running in the first place--which is to say, negatively.
Nepotism did not prevail after all despite the best efforts of the Clerk of Court, Skip Alston and Marikay Abuzauiater. The big question now is whether Ms. Pinder will follow the previous four fill-ins or not run for anything at all in the fall.
