Greensboro voters turned out Tuesday, Nov. 4, in a key municipal election that will bring in a new mayor and shift the composition of the City Council after years of much of the same leadership.
With Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan stepping aside after more than a decade of running Greensboro City Council meetings, the mayor’s seat was completely open for the first time in 11 years. Two candidates – Mayor Pro Tem Marikay Abuzuaiter and commercial real estate broker Robbie Perkins – competed for the job that was decided Tuesday.
The end of the night results showed that Abuzuaiter would claim the victory with roughly 60.7 percent of the vote to Perkins’ 39.3 percent.
The win ushers in a new era for Greensboro. Abuzuaiter inherits a city facing a lot of challenges: infrastructure demands, development pressure, a housing shortage, homelessness – and finding a way to maintain Greensboro’s identity while embracing the coming changes.
Abuzuaiter was very happy Wednesday morning when she spoke with the Rhino Times on the heels of her victory.
When asked what she had taken away from the fact that she had a solid lead on Perkins in the primary last month, she responded, “Absolutely nothing.”
“I knew my opponent was out there working every day,” she added.
She talked about teamwork and connecting with people a lot during the campaign, and she said she believes that helped her in this race.
“I think part of it is my community involvement and the fact that people can get a hold of me,” she said.
Abuzuaiter watched the election results at the Old Guilford County Court House along with friends, family, other candidates and political junkies.
“That’s become sort of a tradition with me,” she said of the practice that many local candidates engage in.
On election nights, one floor below the commissioners meeting room where many watch the returns, Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt and his staff – along with the Board of Elections – are counting the votes and checking them twice late into the night.
Abuzuaiter, as Greensboro mayor pro tem, already knows how to do the job. She has run meetings, made speeches in place of the mayor and, when Vaughan is out of town, she can sign city documents on behalf of the City Council. She is also the longest serving member currently on the council.
She said her first order of business will be to get with the newly elected members and have a discussion.
“I want to hear from them what their priorities are,” she said.
Several seats – both at-large and district seats – were up for grabs this year, giving voters an opportunity to reshape the governing body.
Under Greensboro’s municipal structure, the mayor and three at-large council seats serve the entire city; the other five seats represent individual districts.
