The Greensboro City Council devotes the first meeting of the month to a public forum, also called speakers from the floor on non-agenda items.
Since 2018, this has been the only meeting each month where the public is invited to come to the City Council meeting and, for three minutes, speak about the topic of their choosing, and it is scheduled for the first Tuesday of each month.
After hearing the speakers, the council usually handles a consent agenda as well was short public hearing and general business agendas.
However, at the Tuesday, Sept. 5 City Council meeting, there were no public hearings and no items on the general business agenda.
The City Council often spends a considerable amount of time on the consent agenda, which is supposed to be a list of routine and housekeeping type items that do not need to be discussed and are all passed with one vote. At the Sept. 5 meeting, the City Council did just that and passed the consent agenda without discussion and without Councilmember Sharon Hightower asking a host of questions about items that are not supposed to be discussed.
The meeting did have a moment of drama when Luis Medina, who identifies himself as a member of the Working-class and Houseless Organizing Alliance and is a regular speaker at the City Council public forums, was ordered to be removed from the meeting by Mayor Nancy Vaughan.
At the end of Medina’s three minute speech, he slapped the microphone aside, apparently for emphasis.
After slapping the microphone, Vaughan said, “Mr. Medina I’m going to ask you to leave. I’m asking him to leave because of what he did to the podium.”
When Medina didn’t leave immediately, Vaughan said, “We have a meeting to run. Would you please leave.”
According to the policy passed by the City Council in July, speakers removed from a meeting for being disruptive are banned from personally attending a City Council meeting for three months. The policy does allow those banned from personally attending meetings to participate via Zoom.
Oooooooooo Nancy!
Too bad the citizens can’t have the council removed for not doing their jobs and continue to waste the taxpayers money with no end in sight.
A member of the “Houseless Organizing Alliance”??? With all the jobs unable to be filled, I’m not sure why anyone should be unemployed and “houseless”? During the Great Depression, the New Deal worked our citizens for as little as 15 cents an hour, and folks were dam glad to get that, or ANY job!
Bless your heart. Be glad you don’t need folks looking out for you.
Oh my! Someone didn’t bow down to Queen Nancy & her minions. Good show, mate! Nor would I. Now remember to bring more speakers with ya in 3 months and take up the entire block of time. And above all else, send these liberal dishrags home during the next election!
Absolutely!!!!!
Luis Medina is an avowed communist and was advocating for violence against cops before he was removed.
I certainly don’t support the man’s speech, he may be a total nut. I don’t have to like him or agree with him. It’s his 3 minutes. Anyone who wishes to speak should be afforded the time. Not all will be noble, or even sane. Some may well be POS, but it’s their time. It would do the council well to understand that disruption by our ancestors is what allows them the freedoms and powers they have. They shouldn’t be reverting to tyranny and trying to control every tongue.
Mandate Mayor does not allow dissent. Now body language can be deemed disruptive? Did he damage the microphone? Or did her royal highness just ban someone for the tone of their message? I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with her homeless removal actions that have been condemned recently by the ACLU in a letter to council. Her continued disdain and persecution of homeless near the Performance Arts Palace is well documented and mostly unconsitutionsl. She should be removed.
He was yelling and calling people to fight and hit cops with their own batons and then hit and broke the microphone. He was actually causing a disturbance and was advocating for violence.
Weirdly you are burying the part where he was yelling about hitting cops until everything is free and then he smacked and broke the microphone.
Luis was advocating that people defend themselves. The comments about the stick were explicitly a metaphor. He also didn’t break the microphone—the microphone was fine and speakers proceeded to use it directly after him.
The part about Luis being a communist is, however, correct.
Why is anyone homeless in these times? Plenty of job openings, good pay and benefits, Plenty of rental properties. Drugs, alcohol and crime. Make your bed hard, sleep hard.