With 57 murders so far this year in Greensboro and businesses closing their doors because of COVID-19 restrictions, the City Council on Tuesday, Dec. 1 spent an hour discussing the boards and commissions it appoints.
It wasn’t a discussion about the boards doing a good job or not having enough members present for a quorum. In fact, there was no specific discussion of the work done by the boards and commissions.
Most of the discussion was about the Minimum Housing Standards Commission.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “The Minimum Housing Standard Board has one African American and one Asian and everyone else is white.”
Councilmember Sharon Hightower was upset because that board elected its chair and vice chair for a second two-year term.
She said, “I really want us to consider a term limit on the chair and vice chair.”
Vaughan said that they should not have people serving on two boards at the same time.
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter said, “I’m not sure we should change all the boards because we have a problem with one commission.”
Hightower said that all the boards needed to be made consistent with one-year terms for the chair and vice chair.
Councilmember Tammi Thurm said that wouldn’t work with the Participatory Budgeting Board because it runs on two-year cycles.
Hightower also wanted the boards to meet at different times, rather than the same time each month. The City Council has met at 5:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of the month for over a decade. Evidently it is not a problem for the City Council to meet at the same time, just for the Minimum Housing Standards Commission.
District 2 Councilmember Goldie Wells said the Minimum Housing Standards Commission had three members from District 1, two members from District 3, two members from District 4 and one member from District 5. It has no members from District 2.
She added that one board “had four people from District 4 and seven of them were white and two were black. Something needs to be done about something like that.”
Hightower also said that the last appointment to the Minimum Housing Standards Board was made by an at-large councilmember who refused to appoint the person Hightower wanted appointed.
Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann said, “My feeling at this point is we are having this discussion because of one board or commission in the city. All of the others seem to be working perfectly fine.”
She added, “I’m finding it difficult that we can micromanage the whole process.”
Hightower, who has been on the City Council since 2013, said, “I think six years is just too long to serve and tie up one particular board,”
Councilmember Justin Outling noted that the boards elect their own leadership and said, “That board is probably in the best position to decide who should lead it.”
All the members of the boards and commissions are nominated by the mayor or a city councilmember and are confirmed by a vote of the entire council. It is extremely rare for any nominee not to receive a unanimous vote of the council.
I think we should have term limits for the city council
We do have term limits . . .they’re called elections.
True, but we also have a multitude of uninformed, and/or misguided people who are allowed to vote.
I’m just surprised that Ms. Hightower did not work in the mw quota in her argument
Ugh. I can’t even find the words. Hypocrisy, Racism (Imagine if it were 7 blacks and 2 whites, then say “something needs to be done about this”)
Racism does not cure racism, sitting councilwoman should NOT receive taxpayer dollars for organizations she leads, city council along with commissioners should definitely have term limits too, along with no self-appointed lifetime benefits.
Sick and tired of this council and it’s idiocracy.
As long as these racist clowns keep making an issue of race, they will continue to have racial issues. Get a grip libtards!
Says the guy referring to people who think differently than him as retards.
I never used the word “retards.” I stand behind my original statement. Liberalism is a disease of the mind that leaves widespread destruction wherever it goes. Its much like a cancer in the brain that goes unseen as it grows until it has caused irreparable damage. A parasitic infection affecting even those who do not subscribe. A dangerous virus that keeps mutating into a more self-destructive entity that cannot see the forest for the trees. Libtards are liberals who have already been consumed by this terrible disease and cannot be cured. Their minds have been destroyed while sadly those in power have also destroyed their City and soon their County, eventually their Country.
Thomas Jefferson wisely said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” We are nearing a time where all citizens will have to decide if they wish to make manure and help the tree grow out of this heap of rubble, or be turned to manure to feed the cause.
I have only lived in Greensboro less than a year. The Rezoning of Cone and Cleburne has forced me to learn of our City Council, understand the Committees, and pay attention. It has been a great disappointment. Through the Rezoning, I had the opportunity and honor of meeting several Council Members and the Mayor, who came to my house. They were all big business, not constituents. Maybe if they focused more on the well being of ALL constituents, they would do a better job.
Wendy you really haven’t been here long have you??? Bless your heart….
Well Long, do you presume the thousands of small businesses permanently closing their doors across our country should NOT be painted as victims? When the owner loses their life savings (and often plan for retirement), the employees lose their jobs, the suppliers cut back their workforce/salaries, etc? Pretty obviously some victims here.
Meanwhile, none of this is due to a virus. The business owners didn’t die, neither did their customers. Instead, under threat of imprisonment or deadly force, we have been have been denied the ability for 2 consenting adults to conduct a transaction in a manner that they consider either A) completely safe or B) important enough to outweigh the potential risks. Instead the governmental babysitters make up their own rules on a whim, all across the country, based on what sounds good at the time and what will protect their votes. So yes, it’s because of the restrictions.
Lastly, you fail to recognize that these “grievances” are indeed relevant because the point of the whole article is, with all the legitimate problems we face this year, how much time our council wastes on artificially achieving some stupid intersectionality metrics. These are inherently discriminatory, while the plank in their own eye remains the fact that Justin Outline is the only male member of the council. (Which doesn’t bother me personally, but should be abhorrent to our council members if they had any consistency whatsoever).
Odd that the author sees businesses closing as a result of “COVID-19 restrictions” rather than COVID-19.
How on-brand for the Rhino Times to try to paint someone as a victim or to slip a grievance into an unrelated article.
Their comment wasn’t unrelated to the article. With EVERYTHING going on politically in the city, including businesses that are closing due to the stupid shut-down “guidelines” made by the city council related to COVID-19, the lack of tax income which results from everything that has been shut down, the large increase in deaths in GSO (I suppose people who murder don’t follow said COVID restrictions), the pressure that’s been put on law enforcement and EMS from racial incidents in the city and nation this year, the city council in all their stupendous wisdom wasted time to nitpick about how many minorities were on board and commissions they appointed.
The decision to appoint people to a position because of their color, age, sexual orientation, hair or eye color, religion, or lack thereof is distinctly moronic. People should be appointed based on their knowledge, interest, ability to bring about successful outcomes, willingness to serve. Until people see no color (or any other descriptive distinction) we will never have equality). Until the City Council (and the Commissioners) start doing some real work, nothing here will improve.
Yes – they DID close because of the restrictions. If it were because of COVID itself, that would mean the customer base died off because of it.
Term limits should mean you can serve a maximum amount of terms like the president can only serve 2 consecutive terms
We need term limits and a iq test these people are so dumb we need to vote them all out.