Former Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins is hoping to drop the “former” from his title and become the city’s mayor once again. The race will be decided on Tuesday, November 4, by Greensboro residents who are choosing between the real estate broker Perkins and current Mayor Pro Tem Marikay Abuzuaiter.

Perkins, who’s been in the commercial brokerage business since graduating from Duke University in the late ‘70s, points to his past accomplishments – when he was mayor from 2011 to 2013 and a City Council member before that – as a reason voters should pick him again.

“Throughout my career I’ve made things happen,” he told the Rhino Times. “I worked very well with the county commissioners when I was mayor and with legislators. We need someone who can talk business with business folks. Greensboro’s economy depends on business flourishing, and I have strong relationships across party lines and in the business community. That’s how you get the heavy lifting done – so we can increase the tax base. The bigger the tax base, the healthier the budgets for the city and county, and the better we can support law enforcement and provide needed services. If our business climate isn’t positive, revenues shrink and everything becomes a struggle. People haven’t talked enough about that in this campaign.”

He said his business know-how will be an important benefit if he becomes mayor.

“Marikay is a community grassroots person,” he said. “But when it comes to complex business negotiations and working out deals that benefit the citizens and the City of Greensboro, I’ll stand on my business experience and training.”

Starting in 1993, Perkins served on the Greensboro City Council for over a decade and a half. Then he won the mayoral job.  During his time leading the city he focused on things like transportation planning and regional cooperation. He helped bring about major additions to the city like the Greensboro Aquatic Center and the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts.

 He told the Rhino Times this week that one priority of his will be establishing “foundational principles at City Hall” – which he said includes transparency, accountability and open communication.

Perkins added that the city can do better on all three of those fronts than it is currently doing and said that, if those are established as core values, it will build trust with citizens and bring about better solutions for the city in realms such as public safety, the housing shortage, infrastructure and planning needs, and economic development.

Perkins said everything works better when the city’s day-to-day decisions are guided by the three foundational principles.

One major issue facing Greensboro and Guilford County in recent years has been homelessness. Perkins said the solution must strike the right balance between helping the homeless with compassion and considering the needs of business owners who may be negatively affected by the homeless population living nearby.

 He noted the problem is a very tricky one.

“I’ve been talking to people in High Point,” Perkins said. “They say every time Greensboro does something good, a lot of their homeless population moves to Greensboro; and when High Point does something good, people move there. This is a county problem – not just a downtown problem.”

He pointed out that there are many homeless camps across Guilford County and Greensboro and he added that the current City Council fumbled the ball on this issue and has made some very bad and costly decisions that “would get you fired in the private sector.”

“I think the permanent housing approach is the right course, and we’ll likely need four or five of those projects,” he said. “The county has been working on land to support it, which is a positive sign. At the same time, we can’t ignore businesses being negatively impacted. For example, go downtown to the Jerusalem Market – it can be rough getting in and out even though the food is outstanding. We need a balance. No one wants to see people in those situations; it’s heart-wrenching. But we’ve got to balance compassion with keeping the business environment workable.”

Perkins has served as the president of the Triad Real Estate and Builders Coalition – better known as TREBIC and been the chair of the Economic Development Committee of the NC Association of Realtors and board chair of Greensboro nonprofit One Step Further.

He said he was very pleased recently to receive the Simkins PAC endorsement as well as the personal endorsement of Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston.

He explained why he thought he got the PAC’s endorsement.

“I think it’s because I can work with people to make good decisions that improve Greensboro’s economy,” he said. “My business background has always been a strength in politics. I’ve been able to bring people together and get things done – everything from the Aquatic Center to the Tanger Center to water and sewer deals.”

When asked about taxes, he doesn’t just say the answer, he sort of shouts it.

“Revenue neutral,” he said three times.

That’s a short way of saying that he doesn’t think tax bills should go up after the coming 2026 revaluation of all property in the county.

“After revaluations during my 18 years in office, I voted for revenue-neutral tax rates,” he said. “That’s the approach I support. Skip has different pressures at the county – he’s got the schools. I understand where he’s coming from. But the city’s budget is large enough to do what needs to be done if we spend wisely. We can’t throw money away.

Perkins said there have been several times that the city spent money and “we got nothing to show for it.”

One touchy subject for Greensboro residents is the way leaves are collected.

“I’m also not convinced the numbers on the leaf-collection change made sense,” he said, adding that it’s hard to reverse things now that the equipment has been sold.

He said one problem is that the city hasn’t grown the ad valorem tax base fast enough to keep up with expenses.

“That’s why Raleigh’s and Charlotte’s rates have been lower – because their ad valorem bases have grown so fast,” he said. “We’ll get some of that with new companies coming in, but you really grow the tax base when local businesses succeed and expand. There are hundreds of them.”

He said everyone always hears about the big projects like the Toyota battery plant, but he noted that, if the smaller firms are prosperous, the countywide tax base increases.

He said there are some hiccups with the growth the city is seeing but growth is here to stay.

 “North Carolina is ranked the No 1 state to do business,” he said. “Jobs are coming into the region. You can’t put the worms back in the can – we’re going to grow. Growth can enhance Greensboro’s quality of life, or we can do what’s been done in recent years and fail to plan. Look at the water and sewer issues and the whole 421 corridor – there still isn’t a clear plan, and the Toyota plant is already opening. There hasn’t been a sense of urgency. When you don’t plan, you overreact later, make mistakes, and end up with a hodgepodge.”

He said he thinks Greensboro can grow while maintaining its essence.

“The last thing I want is for Greensboro to lose its character,” he said. “You avoid that by strategically planning and looking ahead. How could we not expect something to happen along the 421 corridor once the megasite came together? We need more vision—people who understand how to put a strategy together and execute it.”

He said that he will bring vision, strategy, accountability, and execution to city government and added that voters need to look to his past to see what he could do as mayor a second go-round.

“I have a record of setting direction and delivering,” he said.

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