The Greensboro City Council expects the residents of Greensboro to obey city ordinances, but it doesn’t hold itself to the same standard.
For example, in the current budget the City Council added a $25 fine for people who did not roll their garbage cans back from the street in accordance with the city ordinance.
However, the City Council is currently ignoring an ordinance on how it will conduct business, but there is no fine for violating this ordinance.
Sec. 2-42 of the City Code of Ordinances states, “Standing committees designated; composition; voting.
“(a) There shall be elected by the city council standing committees of the council as follows:
“(1) Community services committee
“(2) General government committee
“(3) Infrastructure committee
“(4) Public safety committee …”
Sec. 2-43 covers the “Duties and procedures of standing committees.”
The first legal definition of “shall” according to USLegal.com is, “An imperative command; has a duty to or is required to.”
So “shall” in an ordinance means it is something that is required, not an action that is optional. The ordinance states that the City Council is required to have standing committees as designated.
However, the Greensboro City Council doesn’t have community services, general government, infrastructure or public safety committees.
The City Council did have these committees. Former City Councilmember Jamal Fox, who served from 2013 to 2017, pushed hard for the City Council to change the way it did business from having work sessions where all city councilmembers attend on equal footing, to having committees comprised of four city councilmembers that basically did the work that was formerly done in work sessions.
The attempt to operate by committee was a dismal failure. City councilmembers who weren’t on a particular committee often felt the need to attend the committee meetings in order to get the background information on items that would be placed on the agenda and it took much longer to get an item on the agenda since the committee had to consider each item first.
With four committees holding meetings, there were a lot more meetings to attend and it didn’t appear that the committee meetings accomplished much because presentations still had to be made at City Council meetings so that councilmembers who didn’t attend the committee meeting would have the necessary background to vote on the items that had theoretically been vetted by the committees.
So, the City Council decided to stop using committees and go back to the way it had done business for years, in work sessions and full meetings of the City Council.
However, the current “Greensboro – Code of Ordinances” as updated on Nov. 23, 2022, requires the City Council to have committees.
The City Council could at any time rescind Sec. 2-42 and Sec. 2-43 of the Greensboro – Code of Ordinances, but so far the City Council has decided to simply ignore the ordinances, which for good reason it doesn’t like.
Sad but believe all are aware none of the council members care and are mainly on council for the tax dollars they live on. Majority of the council members live off of tax dollars funded to “projects” they are in charge of. Don’t ask about or request accountability.
We have to stop these people from action that do not hold them accountable. They work for us. Not the other way around.
Trust me. They do exactly what they want with little regard to the residents of Greensboro. I’ve made several inquiries about various unlawful observations and not a single one has been addressed. My most recent involved elder abuse and I can honestly say that the older one is, the less interested the council is. I guess they figure I’ll be dead soon enough and then the squeaky wheel will be silent.
Committees are good to have if the right people are on the committees and if the chairmen are effective leaders. Committees should meet, write minutes and present to City Council ideas that City Council may or may not be interested in pursuing. Most likely there will be incidences when a committee has nothing to report. That is okay. Think about committees as support tools to enhance effectiveness of City Council, unless Council members think they have all the answers.
City Council ignoring Ordinance or Rule?
You have to love every one you voted for.
Of course they ignore the rules. That’s in the (National Socialist) Democrat Guidelines handbook. Their hard rule is “Rules are for thee, not for me”
And Jamal has gone forward to be a very successful government manager in a large city. He has a great future ahead of him as he is active, keeps his community involved, demands performance and respect from his councils. Our Council Members? No expectations, no performance, just gossip, cater to developers, do things in secret with the new crooked and secretive manager and continue to take tappers money and assume they’re are fools. That said, there were indeed enough fools to vote them back in. Hopefully they will get it by next election.
Organized crime syndicate.