The United Way of Greater Greensboro has scheduled a virtual forum via Zoom for three mayoral candidates on Wednesday, Feb. 16 from noon to 1 p.m.
The three mayoral candidates who have been invited to participate are Mayor Nancy Vaughan, District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling and Eric Robert.
The only one of the three who has actually filed to run for mayor is Outling, who filed on Dec. 8, 2021. The North Carolina Supreme Court suspended filing for all candidates on the evening of Dec. 8 when it also delayed the statewide primary from March 8 to May 17.
Filing for the Greensboro City Council election and all other races on the statewide primary ballot is set to resume on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 8 a.m. and to end on Friday March 4 at noon. The current schedule for the City Council election is for the primary to be on Tuesday, May 17 and the general election on Tuesday, July 26.
However, at this point the NC Supreme Court has ruled the congressional districts and the state legislative districts unconstitutional and the deadline for having new districts approved is Feb. 23, or one day before filing is set to resume. If that deadline is not met, then filing, the statewide primary and the City Council general election could all be delayed, again.
Outling announced he was running for mayor on Dec. 17, 2020 and Vaughan announced she would be running for reelection on Feb. 13, 2021. Robert announced his intention to run for mayor on Dec. 22, 2021, over a year after Outling’s announcement.
The election was originally scheduled for a primary on Oct. 5, 2021, and the general election on Nov. 2, 2021, but the primary was postponed by the state legislature to March 8 because the release of the 2020 Census data was delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions. Then the NC Supreme Court postponed the primary to May 17 because of concerns about the congressional and state legislative redistricting.
The title of the United Way mayoral candidates forum is “Perspectives on Poverty and the Future of Greensboro.”
Those interested in viewing the forum can use this link to sign up: http://www.unitedwaygso.org/Calendar
Current Mandate Mayor can definitely speak about paying lip service with zero results. Or using tax dollars for monuments to the donor class like the Performance Arts Boondoggle and the Greenway system that has never been funded except to move out the unhomed. Or how she repeatedly steps in or defies citizens rights repeatedly thru unconstitutional mandates and policies like panhandling permits, bans on coliseum gun shows, her complete distain for public speakers at open meetings, or the slew of nonprofits run by council members (current and former) that get lots of city dollars for their organizations no matter their results (or lack).
Alex, I have a made numerous public information requests, and I have never been stonewalled like I am currently regarding the gun shows.
Since the city lacks the authority to regulate the second amendment, it first tried to used existing city ordinances to ban gun shows altogether. An obtained memo from the city attorney shows that the original idea was to simply enforce the section prohibiting firearms on city owned facilities. Since the coliseum is technically a city owned facility… you can figure out the rest. Then, it was confirmed by two high ranking city staff (off the record of course), that the coliseum had in fact used taxpayers monies to purchase the long term lease from the gun show lease owner as it had been done once before for the arts and craft show. When I asked for the purchase contract, the city first acknowledge there was a draft but could not find the final document. I was then told it was with Matt Brown at the coliseum, finally I was told ” we do not possess such document”. I then asked for Matt brown’s emails re this topic and have been waiting for months. They definitely do not want the public to know how they are, repeatedly, using Matt Brown and the coliseum commission to do their dirties. Maybe a journalist with a conservative readership and political access could look into this.
Big money lobbying at its finest.
They want to be sure the city still takes part in that big fund raising scam every year. Besides, we don’t need to watch to know Vaughan needs to go.
Hmmmmm. Who controls the NC Supreme Court? Perhaps our next Dem nominee for Governor?