Despite the best efforts of City Councilmember Zack Matheny, it appears the Greensboro City Council legislative agenda for 2023 is moving from an exercise in futility to bizarre.

Matheny suggested that the City Council choose a couple of initiatives that had a good chance of passing in the NC General Assembly and concentrate its efforts on those.  But it didn’t appear he had Council support.

After much discussion of some of the proposed legislative items Matheny said, “What I’m trying to get us to do is to get out of the rut of settling for just some modifications versus some actual things that we may be able to get.  Let’s ask for $2 million for the Randleman Road corridor.  Let’s ask for it.  Let’s ask for $10 million for brownfields.  Let’s ask for it.  Let’s ask for help with the News & Record site rather than just letting it be a hole in the ground.  Let’s ask for something big.  If we need a million or two for our downtown library, let’s ask for it, not some modification on whether we can lock some wheels or not.”

One proposal on the legislative agenda was for state law to be modified to allow Greensboro to put locks on the wheels of cars that had three more parking violations, even if the car was legally parked.  Under the current law the vehicle has to have amassed at least three unpaid parking tickets and currently be parked illegally.

Matheny said, “Our legislative agenda should be more big picture, more strategic.”

He questioned having legislation supporting making the release of police body worn camera footage easier because it had been on the legislative agenda for years.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan noted that the last bill passed by the legislature made releasing police body worn camera videos, more difficult.

Matheny questioned supporting an issue that wasn’t going anywhere.

Councilmember Tammi Thurm said, “Just because we think something might not pass, if it’s the right thing to do we should ask for it because it’s the right thing.”

 

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