News-Record.com

So, which Billy Yow are we discussing today: the Good Billy Yow or the Bad Billy Yow?

The Good Billy Yow is a lot smarter than he lets on and capable of prudent votes on key issues such as the downtown property swap that paved the way for a new downtown ballpark in Greensboro. The Bad Billy Yow can be caustic and divisive, even when you’re convinced he knows better.

Yow’s a Hatfield to fellow County Commissioner Skip Alston’s McCoy when it comes to racial politics, and both have played starring roles in “The County Commissioners’ Most Forgettable Moments.”

Good Billy seems sincere when he says he regrets past transgressions. Then, oops, Bad Billy goes and does it again.

Yow and Alston often lock horns in name-calling and petty childishness that embarrass the whole county and tarnish its image statewide and arguably beyond.

And unfortunately, you can’t have Good Billy without the bad one. That’s why it’s worth taking a chance on a newcomer rather than returning Yow, 45, to a third term in the District 5 Republican primary, which essentially decides the outcome. No Democrat filed to run.

Yow’s prime challenger, Rick Wallace, 45, is a Town Council member and a former mayor of Pleasant Garden. A third candidate, Lisa Andrews, has not responded to interview requests and seems not to be mounting a serious campaign.

Wallace is a chemical plant supervisor who is running on a platform of “sensible planning,” “quality education” and “professional behavior.” Yow stresses his opposition to property tax increases, incentives and county funding of community-based organizations.

Yow and Wallace clearly differ on $671.6 million in county bonds, which also will appear on the May 6 ballot. Yow supports only the jail bonds and bonds to help rebuild Eastern Guilford High School, which was destroyed by fire in 2006. Wallace supports bonds for GTCC, the schools and Eastern Guilford. He argues, correctly, that the county finds itself where it is with school spending because it neglected school needs for so long.

Yow says he opposes tax increases while Wallace pledges to hold them “to a minimum.” Both, however, support the proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase as a means to ease the burden on property-tax payers.

The main difference between the two men is, in fact, more style than substance. Yow is unpredictable. Wallace at least offers a hope for more consistent and professional behavior.

Yow contended in an interview that Wallace has been “rude” as a Pleasant Garden leader. But Yow himself has been involved in so much infamous behavior that the uncertainty of a less-familiar face is preferable to the one we know.

That’s why Wallace is the better choice in District 5.