A potential scandal in Greensboro no leaders are talking about--at least not yet

Well, what do we have here? Looks like another Flint is happening at our footsteps. If it smells like environmental racism, that because it is.

Is that supposed to be the price for a stinking megasite that is 20-25 miles southeast of Greensboro? Oh, and politicians being unresponsive to their constituents' needs. Where have I heard that story before? Do you all get what I said over three years ago about Greensboro being a model oligarchy now?

As far as the news media go, lower your expectations, folks. Triad City Beat is on its way out, so they won't even have the resources to cover this story after the 28th. Yes Weekly is the only possible remaining outlet that would be in the certain column. Maybe the public radio outlets but if certain people in D.C. get their way, those budgets could be slashed significantly. The establishment news outlets? Only if there's enough outrage. The official paper of record is a zombie outlet at this point. Which leaves the Rhino. Even though there has been a change in ownership, that publication does not have Southeast Greensboro as a primary demographic. 

 

Some sanity in Greensboro--for the time being

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, take a page from a Raleigh City Councilwoman and switch to the vacant District 2 seat (and actually force Vernon Johnson to actually earn the seat that was previously held by his late mother) or not run for anything at all in the fall.

Downtown Greensboro news

Triad City Beat | EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: The Assembly, and collaboration (triad-city-beat.com)

Let's hope that this new collaborative effort isn't going to suck up to the political clans that run the city and have gentrified downtown. Hope to REAL journalism since the daily is a zombie publication and the others have pretty much given up any type of investigative work.

Triad City Beat | Greensboro’s Mayor Nancy Vaughan will not seek re-election in 2025 (triad-city-beat.com)

First up, good riddance. Second, now is the time the groups that I previously mentioned to put up or shut up. Either they come together to start fielding a real antiestablishment slate, or they'll forever give up that shot as the city is forever stuck in a loop between establishment hacks and right wing nutjobs because 2029 will be too late.

NC Rants

• Greensboro's lack of a food hall is a new low for an area already known for being a national laggard and the fact that ROAR was converted to an event space four months ago shows that the Triad is moving in the opposite direction as the number of food halls is once again reduced to one
• What's happening to Triad Stage speaks for itself--namely, that Greensboro is taking yet another step to conceding the arts to Winston-Salem
• Meanwhile, a couple of hours to the east, the Raleigh City Council is making even more bonehead decisions as it decided table a proposal to add three seats while also introducing staggered four-year terms in 2026 without even putting it on the ballot like Greensboro did in 2015
• Speaking of Raleigh, the previous City Council reduced the hours of hot dog carts from 3 am to 1:15 am while doing nothing to curtail gentrification. In the two decades since I left the city, Downtown Raleigh has gone from a ghost town when I graduated to a place that has become unaffordable
• The election to replace Mary-Ann Baldwin is not looking too promising

Trouble in the Ballpark District

At the beginning of the year, the City of High Point decided to split ways with Elliott Sidewalk Communities. Out of the four parcels, only Parcel C was developed (into the food hall). Parcel A is still a parking lot while the other two never got developed.

I will not blame this on the city as yet another example of it being resistant to change. This is all on Elliott Sidewalk. They had six years and only developed 25 percent of the land given to them so if the Ballpark District ends up undercooked, it's all ESC's fault.

Source 1

Source 2

Stunted City Redux

Well, it looks like this prediction from almost seven years ago is coming to pass--albeit slowly:

Durham and Winston-Salem traded the #4 and #5 positions between 2007 and 2012 before the Bull City pulled away from the Twin City. Given the stagnant growth around the Gate City, it's plausible that Winston could leapfrog it for #3 or rather Greensboro falls to #5 some time around the 2020 Census or afterwards.

As it turns out, the Rhino took notice of Greensboro's stagnant growth, which is reaching zero population growth territory.

It looks like the Gate City will fall to fourth place in no time and may even fall behind Winston-Salem by the 2030 Census. Consider the evidence:

The bad news is that the growth in two years was only 2,394 or 0.8 percent, which compared to Greensboro’s peer cities in the state is anemic...The latest figures show that by 2022 the population in Durham had grown to 292,939. The population growth during that period was 9,432 or 3.3 percent...Even Winston-Salem right next door grew in population more than twice as fast as Greensboro. Winston-Salem’s growth rate was 1.9 percent to a 2022 population of 254,200.

Given that Durham has recently had its own issues, what's happening to Greensboro represents a precipitous fall as it far outpaced Raleigh for second place in 1960 and is staring at a possible fifth place showing in the near future. As a friend said last year, Greensboro has lost its way.

Election 2023 Postmortem

A News Deficit

As I previously referenced, the lack of reporting has basically turned High Point into an information desert. Triad City Beat comes to the closest as it put out voter guide during the primary, but it didn't follow up for the general election--it didn't help that a number of candidates refused to cooperate for the questionnaire (I actually had to use one of the very organizations that I ripped for propping up a bland candidate running for a seat on the Greensboro City Council as a guide on who to endorse earlier this month). Yes! Weekly has all but abandoned the city. The Rhino went online-only in '19 and only chips in when there's drama between the city and the county (just like in 2017 when the City Council told the Guilford County Commissioners that it would go it alone on Truist Point after the latter refused to fund the ballpark). The News & Record can't even cover the ACC Tournament so forget about that publication covering its neighboring city so John Hammer can stop calling the daily The Eleven County Area News & Record now.

Reading Showroom City by John Joe Schlichtman and That Red-Headed Stepchild by Donald Mackinnon have provided me a much greater understanding of downtown's decline and city politics respectively. 

The lack of independent groups here makes it much more difficult to provide an accurate assessment of what's really happening with those of us who aren't part of the (old money) Emerywood crowd, the furniture showroom owners or the new money crowd of Far North High Point especially now that the People's Party of North Carolina has apparently become a stillborn organization.

The Results

Jefferson beating Jones comfortably was a bit surprising even for me even though he was the easiest choice for me. As far as the man he's replacing, it turns out that Jay Wagner is running for Kathy Manning's congressional seat so not a noble gesture (stepping down after two terms, that is) by the lame duck mayor after all. Wagner's national aspirations explain why he was the only one on the outgoing City Council to dig in on his opposition on all things One High Point Commission even as Jones and Moore changed their tune.

Cook leapfrogged Moore for the first at-large seat and she was the only one worth casting a vote for since Moore and Carr are both Republicans, and as for Davis, his affiliation as a Democrat helped him to advance to this round over the unaffiliated Orel Henry but as I correctly predicted, he's now 0-5 in five straight elections.

Ward Seats: McKiver swamped the historian in Ward 1. Johnson won overwhelmingly in Ward 2 as opposed to the at-large race four years ago. Peters rolled through in Ward 3 to the surprise of no one. I literally went back and forth on who to vote for in Ward 4 before going with the challenger who fell short. In Ward 5, the anti-critical race theory Black guy (Tim Andrew) comfortably won the vacant seat. Any fears of disaffected conservatives in Ward 6 using Holmes to get rid of Jason Ewing in 2019 only to dump him for Heather Brooks this time around turned out to be unfounded as Holmes beat Brooks by a 3-2 margin.

Fallout

The new City Council makeup is going to be interesting to say the least. For the first time ever, Blacks hold a majority whereas four decades ago there were no Black members on the council under the 0-8-1 system that was disguised as 4-4-1 during a six-year stretch. In terms of Black interests, it'd be appropriate to say that Andrew is akin to former councilman Lawrence Graves--who served a single term from '79 to '81--but much more conservative: He's less in touch with Black interests. Instead, Cook would have to be substituted in place of Andrew.

In That Red-Headed Stepchild, Mackinnon feared a whitelash this time around would upend the 2019 results in the at-large and Ward 6 races after monied interests took their eyes off the ball that year and would roar back with a vengeance, but it seems that did not happen. And while it's worth noting that Johnson traded the second at-large seat for an easy win in Ward 2, Cook has shown herself to be a white ally.

Mackinnon recommended that 6-2-1 be dumped in favor of an all-ward system and that there be an independent redistricting commission via a new ordinance or city charter so that the gains from the '19 election wouldn't stand a chance of being reversed. While I share the author's sentiments, I also realize that this city is a very reactive one that is usually one of the last ones to do the right thing, so it probably would be that worst-case scenario Mackinnon brought up for any substantive change to happen--and probably after the 2030 census.

High Point General Election Endorsements

Mayor: Cyril Jefferson

At-Large: Amanda Cook

Ward 1: Glenn Chavis or Vickie McKiver

Ward 2: Tyrone Johnson

Ward 3: Monica Peters

Ward 4: Patrick Harman or Wesley Hudson

Ward 5: Beverly Jo Bard

Ward 6: Michael Holmes

High Point Primary Endorsements

Before I get into the endorsements, some major changes need to be highlighted:

First, this is the first full election cycle in which my endorsements will be based on personal beliefs rather than who's best for the creative community because while Greensboro's is compromised, High Point's is too transient to be a reliable force.

Second, the fact that Jay Wagner is stepping down as mayor after only two terms (while his predecessor only served one term) shows that the politicos here are way more disciplined than the career climbers in Greensboro.

Third, while the races are officially nonpartisan, the drastic rightward shift of the Republican Party in Raleigh (as well as nationwide) has led me to automatically disqualify anyone running locally if they identify with that party.

Mayor

Candidates: Cyril Jefferson, Victor Jones, Gene Kininmonth, Richard Siddiqui

Based on what I said above, both Ward 5 representative Jones and Siddiqui already fail the test. Kininimonth's positions were once suitable when I used to think that centrism was the way to go, but Ward 1's Jefferson has the better plan.

At-Large

Incumbent: Britt Moore

Challengers: Sam Carr, Amanda Cook, Willie H. Davis, Kenneth Harper, Orel Henry, Shazia Iqbal

The second seat holder (Tyrone Johnson) is running for the vacant Ward 2 seat. The top vote-getter, Moore, has ditched his political independence for the GOP, which tells me that he may have higher political ambitions like a county or state seat next year or 2026.

Harper was going to run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Richard Burr on the Constitution Party ticket until that party fell short of enough signatures to get back on the 2022 ballot. As a result, Harper was forced to switch to the crowded GOP field where he languished. If running as a Republican is a nonstarter for me, then being a part of the CPNC, which is even further to the right, is an even worse look in my eyes.

Iqbal not only failed the party affiliation test, but she didn't respond to Triad City Beat's questionnaire. 

The same thing about Iqbal also applies to Carr but with more reasons. Carr is HPU's candidate the same way Don Scarborough was six years ago with one major difference: the former is a Millennial/Gen Z cusper who will use City Council as a steppingstone whereas the latter (and Baby Boomer) used it as a capstone. In other words, Nido Qubein will have a puppet in City Hall for more than one term.

Davis has the backing of the Guilford County Democratic Party, but he has gone 0-for-4 running in Ward 1. While there's a 50/50 chance of him advancing, he's more likely to be 0-5 after either next Tuesday or next month as he's a perennial candidate at this point.

Cook gets my first vote because she is all in with the One High Point Commission on reparations. The unaffiliated Henry gets my second vote by default.

Ward 1

Candidates: Glenn Chavis, Henry Harris, Vickie McKiver

Either Chavis or McKiver would be a fine choice.

High Point Since 2017

Things have changed quite a bit over the last six years. The ballpark got built without the county commissioners' help as HPU's Nido Qubein chipped in. In the spring of 2018, the City Council doubled the terms of every member from two years to four years, which took effect with the 2019 elections.

Of course, the pandemic took its toll on the Furniture City. On the creative side, the High Point scene...it's so hard to keep up with who's still around. After all, the Furniture Market still has its grip on downtown. It's been my prediction that if anything, Downtown High Point is headed for a future where the area around Truist Point thrives while the rest of the area continues its decline due to the furniture showroom owners' tight grip.

The coverage of local matters has been very lacking as the Enterprise has put everything behind a paywall and it and the local news stations are in the pockets of the business interests. I couldn't find anything on redistricting until after it happened. Recently, residents were told to stop putting yard waste and recyclables into plastic bags after the ordinances went into effect or to face fines. My work schedule precludes me from attending any City Council meetings on Mondays.

Greensboro's Missing Performing Arts Center

It’s time to revisit an old blogpost a local blogger made.

As shown above as #5 on this map from page 7 of the  A&T PREEMINENCE 2020 plan for which the State of North Carolina approved $200,000 to be used for planning the new PAC in 2007. When did we first hear of Greensboro's PAC, 2011?

Why were we not told another PAC was being planned so close to Downtown?

That's a very good question. The 2000 Higher Education Bonds gave A&T the right to build its own PAC. Best case scenario, city leaders were extremely jealous of the university being funded to build its own performing arts center.

The first $98 million in bonds went on sale in November of 2015 and have an A+ rating. Has the City of Greensboro sold any bonds yet? And how will a second PAC so close by effect the bond rating of bonds issued by the City of Greensboro for a competitive project?

Leave it to Greensboro to royally botch something like this unless…

Now some may say this venue is only for NC A&T students but look at who performs at Carolina Performing Arts on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill.

And look at who performs roughly a mile west of the  Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts at UNCG's Aycock Auditorium.

Not to mention Greensboro's other theater venues.

...you know, stuff…meanwhile, here’s a current picture of the site where the proposed A&T PAC was supposed to go.

Still residential with a parking lot to access a couple of academic halls across the street. It makes you wonder to what lengths the city's bigwigs went to make sure that downtown would be the only place for a performing arts center.

The only logical conclusions that a person can reach are that:

1. The puppet masters who really run the city were truly that sinister in the sense that they didn’t want an HBCU providing world class entertainment while the War Memorial Auditorium was crumbling

2. If they wanted to, the Greensboro City Council would have found a way to fund the WMA after voters repeatedly rejected paying for repairs. Given that the Coliseum renovation went off the rails financially in the ‘90s, the public was weary of spending more money around that area. The fact that past City Councils were unable to convince the voters that the facility needed repairs is an indictment of those leaders

3. The fact that the General Assembly signed off on the A&T PAC showed that the state had faith in the university to develop it

4. The question then becomes how much did the city pay off A&T administrators in 2016 to make the Aggie PAC go away and line up behind the downtown performing arts center instead?

5. The elites’ envy over DPAC an hour to the east has helped to alter the arts scene in Greensboro—and not necessarily for the better given the high ticket prices once all of the fees for Tanger events have been factored in

6. Their scorn for A&T is consistent with the way they have treated other colleges and universities in the Gate City whereas Durham leaders actually support their universities and the DPAC has the strong backing of Duke University—how many students of any of Greensboro’s higher ed schools are hanging out at the Tanger Center on a regular basis?

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.

Recapping Greensboro Primaries

Some Surprises, But Mostly Business as Usual

The worst-case scenario would have been a future City Council divided between gradually giving police more money (most people on the outgoing City Council) and exponentially giving the police more money (a position shared by Rossabi, Wilkins and Fentress). Instead, it looks like only Wilkins is likely to win in July as Fentress is gone. 

Given the increased enthusiasm on the Republican side, I expected Rossabi to have a better showing with Fentress possibly sneaking in at sixth. Imagine my relief as the latter completely fell off and the former is in fifth place—the Karen Candidate could still make up the votes to claim the final at-large seat, but it’ll be an uphill climb as conservatives outside of West Greensboro could punt to November. As a result, Marikay remains the Blue Lives Matter candidate.

Zack curbstomping Chip in District 3 speaks for itself. 

Meanwhile in District 5, Tammi Thurm is in trouble as her vote total failed to reach 50 percent (she earned 45.4 percent). Motivated conservatives could use former Sheriff BJ Barnes’s enthusiastic support for Wilkins to put the latter back in office.

Going back to the at-large race, Hugh Holston got 11th hour endorsements from some longstanding PACs (Simkins, Replacements Limited). I thought for sure he wouldn’t make it out of the primary due to a lack of name recognition—remember, Wilkins ran the Guilford County GOP, Outling is a member of a high-profile law firm that represents the city, Wells was on City Council from 2005 to 2009—a guy on a committee no one pays attention to was surely not going to advance, right? So much for that, but Holston is in trouble as he starts the next round almost 200 votes behind Tracy Furman for the final seat.

Progressives and creatives had a bad night overall. For the former group, Franca Jalloh simply did not get the votes she needed to be competitive. As for the latter group, Dusty Keene only bested a mostly nonparticipating Taffy Buchanan. And, then there’s the mayor’s race…

…A disgraced judge got more votes than the true outsider, a guy who’s done more creatively for Greensboro than any mover and shaker? I mean, what do you even say? It was one thing to fall to Nancy and Justin since they had everything in their favor, but I have to say that the voters of Greensboro failed Eric Robert.

Whither Marcus Smith! Whither George Floyd! Whither Any Efforts to Overhaul Greensboro Police!

Meanwhile in East Greensboro, the biggest impediments to the 2020 uprisings are well ahead of their second-place challengers. This is where Greensboro Rising failed as the group should have fielded candidates to hold Hightower and Wells accountable for their anti-defund the police copaganda stances. If there’s a demographics issue (i.e., older residents), then, we have our problem right there. If it’s something else, then, these activists will need to find a new way to break decades of paternalism.

Speaking of Marcus Smith being forgotten as a major stain on Greensboro’s reputation, these tweets from WHOA spell out what happened:

The elites who run the Gate City caught a huge break with the city settling with the Smith family. Instead of a major political overhaul, the local races were reshaped in favor of the establishment. 

Consider the following:

1. Smith’s family was legally prohibited from rallying against the eight remaining City Council members (excluding Hugh Holston, but including his predecessor, Michelle Kennedy who's working for the city in another department)

2. A vital issue was eliminated from this election cycle, which meant the powers that be no longer had any reason to be uncomfortable

3. The absence of any groups fighting police brutality in the nine contests enabled three formidable Back the Blue challengers (Rossabi, Fentress, Wilkins) and a fringe fourth one (Marshburn) to join Abuzuaiter in shifting the pendulum in the opposite direction

Hospital mergers just don't stop

The ink hadn't even dried on Atrium Health's purchase of Wake Forest Baptist when this bit of news dropped. When it's all said and done, it will be the fourth ownership change for High Point Regional Hospital over the past decade. It went from local ownership to being owned by UNC Hospitals to being owned by WFU Baptist to Atrium to soon being run by Advocate Health Brand.

A skeptic of the High Point City Council once took the High Point Enterprise's former editor to task for suggesting that the city had "survived the Hospital Wars" because High Point Regional ceded local control to a public university at the time. Well, nothing is really local any more.

2022 Primary Endorsements for the Creative Community

Mayor: Eric Robert

At-Large: Franca Jalloh (Mayor Pro Tem), Dusty Keene, Linda Wilson

District 1: Felton Foushee

District 2: Cecile (CC) Crawford

District 3: No endorsement

District 5: No endorsement

Greensboro Mayor

Incumbent: Nancy Vaughan

Challengers: Justin Outling, Eric Robert, Mark Timothy Cummings 

While enough can be said to not support Vaughan for reelection as mayor, here's also the case against Outling getting a promotion. (alternate thread here).

The political clans are out in full force here. Outling, for instance, is backed by the Marty Kotis and Jim Melvin factions. Not to mention, they all hate Robert since he called them out in the past.

The only good thing about Vaughan reneging on her 2017 campaign pledge not to run again is that she froze out the biggest opponent of any kind of police overhaul on the City Council. Let's face it, if Marikay Abuzuaiter had run for mayor against Outling in an open contest and had there not been any Census delays, many East Greensboro residents would have begrudgingly supported the latter simply to stop the "fund the police" candidate. 

As bad as the two members of the City Council are on policing, the outsiders are only slightly better on the issue as these two tweets from a People's Freedom Assembly member attest (i.e. Cummings and Robert are more incrementalistic). 

Given the lack of advocates supporting a radical overhaul of the GPD, it goes back to who would be better for the creative community's issues, and on that front alone, Robert gets the nod over Cummings.

Greensboro At-Large

Incumbents: Yvonne Johnson, Marikay Abuzuaiter

Seat Holder: Hugh Holston

Challengers: Linda Wilson, Katie Rossabi, Tracy Furman, Taffy L. Buchanan, Franca Jalloh, Dustin Keene, Melodi Fentress

Johnson has been the top vote-getter for a while. Abuzuaiter is only in this race because Nancy Vaughan broke her promise to not run for mayor after the 2017 election, and she is the Blue Lives Matter candidate despite being a Democrat. 

Holston replaced Michelle Kennedy, and based on his credentials, he is a surefire insider. Holston not only became the fourth consecutive fill-in to run for a full term but he was selected by the rest of the City Council precisely for that reason. Given his lack of name recognition though, he could be on the outside looking in come May 18.

Rossabi is giving Marikay a run for her money in terms of who "backs the blue" the most--and she's also the Karen Candidate--claiming that Marcus Smith was "treated humanely" and, for the lack of a better term, even caused his own death. Her ties to the police (alongside her husband) make her even more dangerous than Abuzuaiter. Plus, she's an overall killjoy who would be a major obstacle for creatives.

Buchanan is a business owner but her Facebook page didn't show any political activity when I visited it last week.

On paper, Fentress should be a shoo-in for this blog's endorsement given her direct ties to the creative community (Note: I was a frequent attendee of 2 Art Chicks, a gallery that Fentress co-owned, when events were held there from 2005 to 2007), but her "fund the police" plank--not to mention, it's the very first thing on her website--is a major deal-killer two years after the biggest uprisings in decades (the perfect analogy would be the Lakers going from championship favorites to failing to make the play-in tournament this season).

Keene is another candidate who's directly involved in the arts scene. On policing, he's a reformist, which is good enough for this cycle. Jalloh and Wilson get the other two spots over Fentress and Furman because their positions are the best among all of the challengers.

Greensboro District 5

Incumbent: Tammi Thurm

Challengers: Tony Wilkins, Robert Bodenhamer

Thurm had this blog's support in 2017 because she campaigned as an outsider and netted a perfect score from Democracy Greensboro. However, she was revealed to be a fraud by George Hartzman shortly after she got elected.

She's an insider who posed as an anti-establishment candidate and her record as a councilwoman shows it despite her fervent support for the failed written consent ordinance for police officers. Another demerit against Thurm is the map below. Her antics towards the Pie-Shaped map shows that she's just as interested in preserving her own interests as the other members of City Council.

Wilkins was the biggest obstacle for creatives when he was on the council from late 2012 to 2017 but he would be number two if he returns because Nancy Hoffmann has become even more insufferable. Wilkins is a strong supporter of the police and has used it to attack his successor. 

Bodenhamer is the outsider in this contest and he can be described as a bit less conservative than Wilkins.

This race will determine one of two things: Either 2017 was a blip due to depressed conservative turnout after John Brown had a disappointing mayoral run, or the demographics have changed to the point that it will become more difficult for a right-wing candidate to get elected in Greensboro. Either way, Thurm has lost this blog's support as we sit this race out.