The 2021 election season started early and raised its ugly head at the Greensboro City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 19.
At the end of the meeting, Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter went after Councilmember Justin Outling for what she said was a violation of campaign law.
Outling announced he was running for mayor on Dec. 17, 2020, and since then there has been some back and forth between Mayor Nancy Vaughan, who has not announced she is running for reelection, but clearly intends to run. It is also a poorly kept secret that Abuzuaiter would like to run for mayor.
So, it was not surprising when at the end of the meeting during council comments, Abuzuaiter accused an unnamed councilmember of violating campaign laws by having city employees participate in his political campaign.
In particular what Abuzuaiter was complaining about was the fact that the city issued a press release about “Java with Justin,” an event Outling has been holding once a month for years.
Before COVID-19, “Java with Justin” was held at the Dolce Aroma coffee shop on North Elm Street. Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, Outling has been holding “Java with Justin” virtually on his personal Facebook page at www.facebook.com/JOutling/
Although it is his personal and not his campaign page, there is an “Outling for Mayor” graphic at the top of the page. Outling’s campaign page can be found here: voteoutling.com.
Abuzuaiter said, “We cannot have city employees do any work for us. There is a press release that went out when you click on the link it goes directly to that employees campaign page.”
She added, “I just want us all to be careful any kind of link we put in a press release should not go to our campaign pages.”
Outling responded, “I should disclose and be clear, as all of you know I have monthly office hours, get togethers, and I’ve been doing them for very many years. I make mention of them at nearly every one of these meetings. The fact that it links to that page as it has in the past doesn’t somehow magically convert that to a campaign page or using a city employee for campaign purposes.”
Outling said that he had discussed it with the city legal department and added, “But obviously if the city attorney or some lawyer disagrees that analysis could be addressed,”
Abuzuaiter said, “The issue is having a link in there going to a campaign page.”
Outling said, “It’s been going to same place it’s gone for over two years.”
Abuzuaiter continually said that the link went to Outling’s campaign page but, as noted above, Outling’s campaign page has a different address and is a different site.
It’s early in the campaign season and this kind of behavior is only going to get worse.
I’m sure Abuzuaiter is also welcome to share her husband’s legal woes with the world along with her many questionable actions over the years. She could even put a link to the many past RhinoTimes articles on the issue just to keep everyone informed of course.
Waa!
This will truly get ugly as we get closer to the election. Let’s all get in the mud!
Mrs Abuzuaiter is an especially unpleasant individual.
Marikay is running scared.
Lmao! They’re turning on each other already. Poor Justin. Guess he’s not the right gender for the job.
Well we have finally arrived in this day of “awoke ness “.More and more city and county government leaders are women and minority.As ms Hightower has said always we must have more and more minorities on the Jobs.Is there a priority to have the same thing with males???The people have slowly removed most white males from all board by their vote. We’ ll see how well female’s handle our political situation in the county and city. In other states they have not done well !!!! Are you missing Trump yet????
That’s funny. Usually she usually informs about things more confidentially that at a public meeting where folks know. Also our Mandate Mayor and council members regularly disregard everything from our US and state constitutions and even their own policies and procedures. They refuse to hold proper open meetings or even present honest agendas for many important, expensive, and questionable items .
I find it amusing that she points a finger at Outling, when she is as bad about taking campaign money and billboard space free of charge from Kotis. She then speaks up for Kotis and votes for whatever he wants’ without informing the public that she has taken money and has a vested interest in helping him.
Her, Outling, the mayor etal. have no ethics. They take money from developers, lawyers, and others that do business in front of council. They go around campaign finance laws regarding taking money from L.L.C. by having everyone in that company conveniently donate $250 per person as individuals instead of from the L.L.C. $250 or more appears to be the going rate to buy a city council or mayoral candidate.
If we don’t fix all the sleaziness and self serving at the local level; we have no chance of fixing it at the state or national level.
It’s hard to fix when you don’t have control or term limits. Our so called council voted themselves a large pay increase without public input and our congress get an annual pay increase automatically without any public approval would love to have a job like that They are all a joke. Circus monkeys could do better
I can think of two things that would take care of this, both of which are illegal – unless you are successful.
Please…throw your hat in the ring!!