News-Record.com

Grecia Sanniota made a small bit of High Point history Monday night, becoming the first resident to take advantage of High Point City Council's new public comment period.

The council set public comments at 5:30 p.m. at their first Monday meeting each month after the General Assembly ratified a new law requiring local governing bodies to open the floor to public comment at least once a month.

Sanniota was one of three speakers to take advantage of the public comment period.

Proving the old adage that all politics is local, Sanniota came to the podium to ask council about making improvements to Waterview Road, where she lives.

She asked for help with drainage problems and requested the city install sidewalks or widen the road to make it safer for her and her neighbors to walk to Oak Hollow Lake, which is at the southern end of the street.

Mayor Becky Smothers said the city would look into her request.

Our story this morning and Sandy Carmany mention how an incentive request for Epes Logistics was revived after failing on a 4-4 vote behind closed doors last month. Visit Sandy's Place for more background on how that came to pass.

We'll have a full story on the request in the morning, but in the mean time, I've posted a few things:

Friday (at noon) is the deadline to file for this fall's municipal elections. Going into the home stretch, we've got two new faces running for Greensboro City Council district seats.

If today's story on incentives for Epes Logistics seems heavy with council members opposed to the deal, there's a simple reason. They're the ones that returned my phone calls.

So while I would have gladly included incentive supporter Robbie Perkins in the story, I didn't talk with him until today. So for you, local Scoop readers, here's another voice on the issue.

While other council members suspect that Epes is bluffing when they say the expansion could go elsewhere, Perkins says it's not worth the risk to let a corporate headquarters go elsewhere.

"We could call their bluff all day long, but one day we'll be dead wrong," Perkins said.

He pointed to RF Micro Devices, which has asked for and received several rounds of incentives from Greensboro and Guilford County. He said he was shown evidence that the company was set to move to Norcross, Ga. before the city stepped in with its own incentive plan.

When asked, Perkins couldn't cite a case when the city lost a company after it turned down an incentive request. But he said that even if one in fifty deals were lost calling a company's bluff, that would be too many.

In a broader sense, Perkins said, the debate is more about the image Greensboro has in the world of economic development. He said that business recruiters in High Point and Greenville, S.C. are likely clipping out our story to show companies that Greensboro is unfriendly, or at least ambivalent about attracting companies.

"The message is that Greensboro doesn't want them here," he said.

As I write this, there are 69 minutes left until the end of election filing period. We've still got two uncontested races in Greensboro, including the top of the ballot.

So if you're ever wanted to run for mayor, here's your chance. You'll get to meet a lot of folks, answer questions at candidate forums and you'll be my new phone pal.

Last chance.

Here is an unofficial list of candidates for local offices. Primary elections will be Oct. 11, if needed, and the general election will be Nov. 8.

Greensboro City Council
Mayor
Keith Holliday (i)

At-Large (3 seats)
Sandra Anderson
Diane Davis
Florence Gatten
Dave Howerton
Yvonne Johnson (i)
Joel Landau
George Subasavage
Don Vaughan (i)

District 1
Dianne Bellamy-Small (i)
Charles Coffey
Luther Falls

District 2
William Lewis Byers
Toni Henderson
Goldie Wells
Ed Whitfield

District 3
Tom Phillips

District 4
Mike Barber
Joseph Rahenkamp
Janet Wallace

District 5
Sandy Carmany (i)
Angela Epps Carmichael
Todd Schmidt

High Point City Council
Mayor
Becky Smothers (i)
Steve Wood

At-large (2 seats)
Latimer Alexander (i)
John Faircloth (i)

Ward 1
Stephanie Parnell
Bernita Sims (i)

Ward 2
Thurman Marley
Ron Wilkins (i)

Ward 3
John Linton (i)
Michael Pugh

Ward 4
Robert Fowler
Bill Bencini (i)

Ward 5
Brett Moore
Christopher Whitley (i)

Ward 6
Timothy Brown
Lisa Stahlmann

Jamestown Town Council
Mayor
Billy Ragsdale (i)

At-large (4 seats)
Charles Dowdy (i)
Mickey Peeler (i)
Brock Thomas (i)
Keith Volz
Emily Ragsdale (i)

Pleasant Garden Town Council
At-large, 4 year term (2 seats)
David Goltare
Anne Hice
Chris Johnson
Alan Marshall
Edgar Phillips
Rick Wallace
Bob Wyrick

At-large, 2 year term (1 seat)
Eddy Patterson (i)
Nancy Jo Smith

Sedalia Town Council
At-large (3 seats)
Harold Ireland
Ophelia Jones (i)
Valerie Marie Mack
Clarence Meachem (i)
Don Newsome
Jeanne Rudd (i)

Oak Ridge Town Council
At-large (2 seats)
Myra Aderholdt (i)
Cindy Butler
Roger Howerton (i)
David Rowe

Stokesdale Town Council
Mayor
Randle Jones

At-large (1 seat)
James Attaway (i)
Thearon Hooks

Summerfield Town Council
Mayor
Mark Brown
Bill Peterson

At-large (2 seats)
Dwayne Crawford
Jane Doggett (i)
Michael Stewart (i)
Becky Strickland
Scott Swink
Don Wendelken

Whitsett Town Council
Mayor
Kenneth Jacobs
Mark Stewart
William Danny Whitsett (i)

Gibsonville Board of Aldermen
At-large (2 seats)
Paul Dean
Mike Duquette
Ken Pleasants (i)
Veronica Revels
Ann Marie Rierson
Randall Royals
Gerald Thomas

Sedgefield Sanitary District
At-large (5 seats)
Hyatt Hammond (i)
Dennis Howard (i)
Eugene Mozzoni (i)
Bob Stout (i)
Hub White (i)

J.D. Rowland, Guilford County's budget director, is retiring. Here's the memo
from county manager Willie Best.

We'll have more about Rowland's long tenure with the county in tomorrow's paper.

With election season in full swing in Greensboro, High Point and elsewhere, we want to hear from you on what you consider the top issues facing your hometown - and what you want to hear candidates talking about.

Your answers will help guide our election coverage, so post your thoughts here or send an e-mail to me or Matt Williams.

Update: This was post was changed from an earlier version to expand our request for input to include Greensboro, Jamestown and other local cities and towns holding elections this fall. (Being the High Point government reporter, I get a little parochial sometimes.)

Greensboro ranks 72nd on a list of politically liberal cities in the U.S., according to the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, a Berkeley, Calif.-based think-tank. (We're also No. 166 on the list of conservative cities. It all depends on how you look at it.)

Read the press release and full report for more on the results and the group's methodology.

In North Carolina, Greensboro is deemed more conservative than Durham but more liberal than Raleigh, Charlotte, Fayetteville and Winston-Salem. High Point didn't make the list.

Provo, Utah is America's most conservative city, according to the report. Detroit is said to be the most liberal.

Greensboro residents make up more than 50 percent of the population of Guilford County, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 3-to-2. Independents and a small number of Libertarians round out the voters here. The county's board of elections has all the numbers.

Some folks don't put much stock in this type of thing, but Scoop wants your take. Is Greensboro really more liberal than two-thirds of American cities with populations over 100,000?

I got a return phone call late Friday afternoon from Larry Leake, the chairman of the state board of elections.

Leake is the guy responsible for deciding when the state board will hold a elections hearing in Greensboro that continues the Trudy Wade-John Parks dispute over out-of-precinct provisional ballots.

The results of the hearing could go a long way toward determining who will win the months-long legal and electoral battle for at-large Guilford County commissioner, though the case will likely go back the courts.

Leake said the hearing will occur in mid-September. We should get an exact date sometime this week.

Update: 8/17 - This just in from the state Board of Elections: The hearing will start at 10 a.m. Sept. 19 at the Old County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro.

In case you missed it, here's what ran in Saturday's paper:

With the fall ballot set, the NCGOP has started off raising money to back candidates in fall's municipal elections. I'll try to post as many fundraising and campaign statements as possible during this election.

Keep in mind that most city and town elections are nonpartisan, meaning candidates' party affiliations aren't listed on the ballot. In Greensboro, it also extends after the election; alliances and votes almost never run down party lines.

But just as a reminder, here's the party affiliations of the council's 9 current members:

Keith Holliday - D
Yvonne Johnson - D
Don Vaughan - D
Tom Phillips - R
Dianne Bellamy-Small - D
Claudette Burroughs-White - D
Robbie Perkins - R
Florence Gatten - D
Sandy Carmany - Unaffiliated

From: North Carolina Republican Party [mailto:email@ncgop.org]
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 2:49 PM
To: Mark Binker
Subject: Municipal Elections Begin In 2 Months!

Dear M.,

Some municipal elections are less than two months away, and we need your help to elect Republicans at the most important level of government - the one closest to you!

We saw what can happen with Democrats in the majority with the passage of the state budget last week. The Democrats passed a budget that increased spending by over 8%, raised taxes by over $1.5 billion, and included millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending.

We cannot allow for more Democrats to be in office where higher taxes and liberal spending await!

Please contribute today at http://ncgoplist.c.topica.com/maadRZIabjvWAbd8vvKbafpLHL/ ! With your help, the N.C. Republican Party can elect more Republicans who will fight the Democrats’ tax-and-spend policies.

Your contribution will be used efficiently to elect fiscally responsible Republicans who will uphold North Carolina's conservative values and bring an end to the Democrats' tax increases and run-away government spending.

Thank you for your past support, and I encourage you to continue to stand with us in this important fight. Now, more then ever, your contributions will make a difference! Please contribute today by visiting http://ncgoplist.c.topica.com/maadRZIabjvWAbd8vvKbafpLHL/

Sincerely,  

Ferrell Blount, Chairman
North Carolina Republican Party

P.S. - Your contribution will help us elect Republicans, strengthen the Party and fight to uphold North Carolina's values and beliefs! Please visit http://ncgoplist.c.topica.com/maadRZIabjvWAbd8vvKbafpLHL/ today!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Paid for by the North Carolina Republican Executive Committee Rob Moseley, Jr., Treasurer Not authorized by any candidate

Contributions from corporations and foreign nationals are not permitted. Funds received in response to this solicitation will be subject to federal contribution limits.
Contributions to the North Carolina Republican Party are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

Last night, the Greensboro City Council voted to raise their own salaries 17 percent beginning next fiscal year (or physical year as some pronounce it), July 1, 2006.

To put that into perspective, city staffers did a survey of other major N.C. cities to see what they pay their council members. You can read that analysis here.

We like to be up front when we make an error, so here's mine: A chart in my story today misstated the salaries being paid to members of the Guilford County Board of Education.

Here's the story: On May 10, the board voted itself a 145 percent pay raise, bringing their salaries in line with what was paid to members of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. That salary was $14,700 with a little more for the chairman.

But the next month, the commissioners (which control school spending to some degree) approved a budget that merely doubled the school board's salaries to $12,000 a year.

My story failed to reflect that reduction, of which I was unaware.

Candidates in this fall's municipal elections aren't required to file a campaign finance report until next month, and most of the heavy fundraising hasn't begun yet.

But that doesn't mean that everyone is starting from square one.

Incumbents (and folks who have run before) can carry forward unspent money from past elections. So here's a roundup of campaign bank accounts as of the last report, some of which are eight months old. (If the candidates have raised or spent money since then, it isn't reflected here, and we won't know for a few more weeks.)

Mayor:
Keith Holliday: $1,085.38 as of 12/31/04

At-large:
Yvonne Johnson: $6354.88 as of 7/31/04
Don Vaughan: $23,880.17 as of 12/31/04
Florence Gatten: $9,907.55 as of 1/10/05

District 1:
Dianne Bellamy-Small: $504.31

District 3:
Tom Phillips: $4471.61 as of 12/31/04

District 5:
Sandy Carmany: $3,621.59 as of 1/10/05

A: You are.

If you'll remember back in July, the Greensboro City Council expressed concerns about taxpayers paying for the maintenance of the planned water feature in Action Greensboro's Center City Park. The council knows from other cities that fountains tend to break, get expensive to run and have to get shut down when there's a drought. The mayor went so far as to say that city funding for fountain maintenance should be taken "off the table."

On Tuesday, the council assented to a maintenance agreement with Action Greensboro (and their park conservancy subsidiary) and Downtown Greensboro Inc. It splits up the maintenance and operating costs - projected at about $400,000 a year - and says what everyone's money is going to be used for.

Half the cost, about $200,000, will be paid from the city's General Fund. That's the big pot of money generated from property and sales taxes from all around the city. None of that money will be used to run or fix the fountain. Based on that item, Sandy Carmany writes on her blog (her caps) "THE CITY WILL HAVE ABSOLUTLEY NO REPSONSIBILITY FOR THE FOUNTAIN OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE..."

So who is paying for the fountain? According to the agreement, that will be paid for partially by the city's Business Improvement District, a private group that is tasked by the city with spending the proceeds of a special tax on downtown property owners. In the case of the park, the BID will use local-option sales tax revenue to pay for their share of the park maintenance.

So while only $200,000 is coming from the city's General Fund, $340,000 of the $400,000 annual operating cost is being covered by taxpayers, including the fountain maintenance.

(Full disclosure: This reporter rents an apartment downtown and pays the BID tax on his car.)

Anyone with a business, especially construction and landscaping, or anyone that tends to make a bit of noise may be interested in the city's proposed noise ordinance (read it here). For the first time, there will be a set decibel standard for noise.

The most stringent standard, the nighttime residential limit, only allows a business or person to cause a sound that registers 45 dBA at the nearest residential property line. It's 55dBA during the day, and there are higher limits for residences in commercial and industrial areas, such as downtown.

Click here to see a list of normal activities and their decibel levels. Keep in mind that those levels are measured at the point of creation, while the noise ordinance measures the sound at the point of the nearest property. But according to the noise examples, it would be illegal to stand in your backyard at night and, lets say, use an electric toothbrush (50-60 dBA) or use a leaf blower (110 dBA) anytime near another house.

The council plans to return to the noise ordinance in the next few weeks after they get a chance to review it.

Tom "the blogging councilman" Phillips signs off in this post.

The Aug. 18 Guilford County commissioners meeting featured a lively discussion about whether board members should be allowed to participate in meetings via telephone.

On that night, Skip Alston was the one phoning in from out of town. (Click here for the story. The discussion is noted toward the end.). Other commissioners have also phoned in when they can't make a meeting.

In the few meetings I've covered where this has happened, the officials who phone in rarely participate in the discussion. But they cast votes, and that's especially important on a closely divided board where one vote matters. The county says state law allows phone participation.

Last week, county manager Willie Best weighed in with a little context from other large North Carolina counties.

What do you think? Is phoning in simply a convenient way for elected officials with busy day jobs to conduct the county's business? Or should commissioners be physically present if they want to cast votes?

From District 2 candidate Ed Whitfield's communication director, Joya Wesley:

August 30, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Joya Wesley
275-5953
joyawesley@aol.com

DIVERSE TEAM WORKING TO ELECT WHITFIELD IN DISTRICT 2

GREENSBORO – Ed Whitfield, a compassionate working man of vision, principle and action, is seeking the District 2 City Council seat with the assistance of a diverse team of community workers and the support of district residents who want to improve the quality of life for all of Greensboro.

Lewis A. Brandon III, a grassroots historian with nearly five decades of local community work under his belt, is co-chair of the Committee to Elect Ed Whitfield. The other co-chair is Sheila Manning-Moss, a Guilford College double major in Peace and Conflict Studies and Community and Justice Studies.

Joya Wesley, a local media professional since 1988, is serving as the campaign's communications director; Kathleen Mitchell, an NAACP activist and Lorillard retiree, is the treasurer. Marilyn Baird, a longtime labor activist and director of Greensboro's new Workers Center, is leading Whitfield's get-out-the-vote efforts.

A native of Little Rock, Ark., Whitfield is a Carolina Peacemaker columnist and a longtime community activist involved with issues of education, community development, peace and justice. He also is a musician and composer, and co-chair of the Greensboro Peace Coalition.

Whitfield, who for the past 27 years has made his living as a second-shift electronics technician for Lorillard Tobacco Co., began a lifelong continuum of community activism and service as a youth member of the NAACP in the 1960s.

In the 35 years since he moved to Greensboro, he has proven himself a strong and effective leader committed to fairness and justice for all of the city’s residents. He is an active mentor known as "Uncle Ed" in the community and in public schools including Washington, Lincoln, Gillespie and Dudley, from which his two grown children graduated.

A Leadership Greensboro graduate, Whitfield's vision and integrity have made him a popular choice for advisory boards and similar bodies. He served nine years as chairman of the city's Redevelopment Commission, providing leadership for the Southside revitalization project and the beginning of the East Market Street revitalization.

Other efforts to which he has lent his guidance include the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project, the Community Advisory Committee for the basic skills program at GTCC, the Board of Directors for the Triad Minority Development Corporation, the advisory committee for the city's Multi Modal Transit Center and the Citizens Task Force for the Prevention of Crime and Violence.

Dismissed by one local commentator as a "60s radical," Whitfield embraces the legacy of one of the most powerful social movements of the world's history and uses its best lessons in his work, which is aimed directly at building a better future.

"The spirit with which I approach my current activism is the spirit that I inherited from the 60's," he says. "It tells me that when something is wrong we need to think hard and work hard to change it. I am looking forward to carrying that spirit with me onto the Greensboro City Council."

Whitfield's Campaign Kickoff Rally is scheduled for 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, in Sternberger Park, located at 715 Summit Ave. in the Aycock District, where Whitfield lives. The rally will feature hot dogs, soft drinks, music by Logie Meachum and others, and more. For more information, call 272-4378 or e-mail whitfield4dist2@aol.com.

#####

BONUS: District 1 Challenger Luther Falls sent out his first campaign flier in the last week. You can read it here.

"Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind
Vote him, don't vote her, can't you read the sign?"

And that ditty from the Five Man Electrical Band brings us into the campaign sign season. While this fall's city council races probably won't devolve into a Red State/Blue County argument over who stole who's signs, the city has promised a crackdown on signs illegally posted in medians, rights of way, and tacked on telephone poles.

Councilwoman Sandy Carmany even suggested that citizens might do a bit of sign vigilantism: "Note: any citizen can legally remove these illegal signs as well, just be safe in doing so and don't be stopping in the middle of the street to jerk one up."

Here's a refresher from the city on the sign placement rules:

RESIDENTS URGED TO POST POLITICAL SIGNS PROPERLY
GREENSBORO, NC (August 31, 2005) - Political candidates, campaign workers and residents are reminded of the City regulations on political signs during this year’s election. Signage that meets City
requirements will remain posted throughout the entire campaign.

Political signs may be placed on any private property if authorized by the legal property owner provided that:

There are no more than six signs per zone lot.

A sign must not be larger than six square feet in area or six feet in height.

Signs cannot be illuminated.

No commercial message may appear on the sign.

Signs must be removed within seven days after the election.

Signs may not be placed within a street-right-of-way, median or divided streets, power or utility poles, government sign poles/signs, trees or other natural features, underpass columns or support and traffic control boxes and vacant lots.

Signs exceeding six square feet in size may not be placed on private property without securing a sign permit from the Zoning Enforcement Office at the Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 West Washington Street. Political signs improperly placed are subject to removal and disposal. Anyone found posting a sign illegally may be charged with a criminal or civil offense under the City code.

Residents who believe a sign is placed improperly can call the Zoning Enforcement Office at 373-2630.