Next week the City Council will once again have nine members when Hugh Holston is sworn in at the Tuesday, Sept. 21 meeting.
Holston was unanimously selected by the City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 14 to fill the seat vacated by former At-large City Councilmember Michelle Kennedy, who resigned to accept the position as director of the Greensboro Neighborhood Development Department.
The Sept. 14 City Council meeting was much shorter than anticipated because only 20 of the 47 candidates for the open seat chose to speak at the virtual meeting. Each candidate was offered the opportunity to speak for three minutes via Zoom. The meeting also moved along quicker than predicted because as soon as all the candidates were given the opportunity to speak, the City Council without discussion started voting.
Holston has never served in elective office but has an impressive resume of service to the community. He is currently chair of the Greensboro Planning and Zoning Commission and is a former chair of the Greensboro Board of Adjustments. The controversial land use issues that come before the Zoning and Planning Commission are almost always appealed to the City Council. In pre-COVID-19 days those were the agenda items most likely to fill the Katie Dorsett Council Chambers to capacity. Holston should be well prepared to handle those zoning issues as a member of the City Council.
Holston is also on the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, the Board of Trustees for the College Foundation of North Carolina, vice chair of the Board of Directors for the Greensboro Housing Coalition and secretary of the Board of Directors of National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont Triad.
Holston is a former director of life customer services at Lincoln Financial, was the area manager for operations and performance at AT&T Mobility and an assistant vice president at Wells Fargo.
He is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with a bachelor of science in business administration.
Mr. Holston does indeed have an impressive record of service. Please allow him time to find out if he can be his own man or just another minion. His term of service, although limited, should give him enough of the taste of the current administration to see if indeed he can continue his impressive record of service or if he should holler UNCLE at election time.
Good luck Mr. Holston!
Doesn’t matter if he could walk on water there needs to be a white man on the Council soo that ALL citizens in Greensboro has a voice on decisions made for us ALL. This City Council doesn’t understand and DO NOT care that ALL citizens have a voice. This is true corruption in government.
See Martin, that’s not true. There’s no reason that the current demographic balance couldn’t serve our city well, and fight for the needs of all citizens. As a white male, I dont theoretically need to see someone like me up there to be represented. Likewise if I was an Asian female there is no cause for alarm.
That said, this current group fails in many obvious ways. One of which is the over emphasis on the race and gender of every commission and business which they consider contracts for. This is obvious hypocrisy from a group which doesn’t actually “represent” the demographics of their constituency. The pendulum has swung too far. We have overcorrected the mistakes of the past.
Mr. Galt, I know your brother JOHN well. And I agree with everything that you say. I truly and sincerely HOPE that YOU are right. We ALL need to balance our conception of truth and actions to live a better way of life for us ALL. WE ALL MATTER. The greatest gift we can give to each other is to give of yourselves!!!
So you are saying that it is impossible for a white man to be represented by anything other than a white man?
No dumb ass that’s not what he said go to school learn to read for content. He said he doesn’t need to see someone like him on the council to feel like he’s represented jeez what a moron
Mr. Holston apparently is a well educated and experienced leader.He is obviously intelligent and a refined individual.
He is going to be lonely on that council.
Maybe he and Outling can hang out.
Not disputing the guy’s record, but it seems like the fix was in. 47 candidates, half of which spoke at the meeting, resulted in ZERO discussion and an immediate unanimous vote? Come on. Contrary to popular belief, the citizens of Greensboro are not so stupid that we believe this was anything short of a predetermined outcome. See you at the poles next year future former councilmembers.
Does diversity mean anything to the left?
The answer is no. Diversity only means one thing. And you know what is crazy? No one can tell my race by looking at me because it is not obvious unless one makes an assumption. And that seems to be what all of the appointments to boards and commissions around town are based on-assumptions. I could go speak at council right now and not one council member could guess my race. (If we were allowed at meetings).
Just wait and see how he votes.
Other than a few here, hardly anyone else bothers to find out.