Finally, one month before filing was set to open for the Greensboro City Council elections, it is official that the election will be delayed until March 2022 and filing will be in December of this year.
Gov. Roy Cooper announced on Friday, June 25 that he would not sign or veto Senate Bill 722, which delays the all the 2021 municipal elections in the state that involve districts, and that includes Greensboro.
Cooper in a press release stated, “While delays to census data caused by the pandemic necessitate changes to local elections, decisions about local elections like these should involve more open discussion and public input and therefore these changes will become law without my signature.”
Cooper ran out the clock on this bill. By law the governor has 10 days to sign or veto a bill and after 10 days the bill becomes law without the governor’s signature. Senate Bill 722 was sent to Cooper on June 16.
The 2021 municipal elections are an issue because COVID-19 delayed the 2020 US Census and the Census figures, which would usually have been released in the spring, won’t be available until September. Redistricting is required if the city council districts show more than a 10 percent deviation. Without the Census figures it is not known if redistricting in Greensboro will be necessary, although preliminary figures indicate that because of the city’s slow growth redistricting won’t be required.
The City Council doesn’t have the authority to delay its own elections, and in April Speaker of the House Tim Moore and President Pro Tem of the Senate Sen. Phil Berger issued statements separately stating that they did not anticipate a statewide bill to delay municipal elections.
So, at that point it appeared the Greensboro City Council elections would be held in October and November as scheduled.
However, in June, Senate Bill 722, which Moore and Berger didn’t anticipate, passed – delaying all 2021 municipal elections in the state that involved districts.
So, the Greensboro City Council elections are delaye,d with the primary set for March 8, 2022, the date of the statewide primary. The date of the general election has not been set.
Okay, we have an election in March, but we have NOT consented to have our control freak city council continue past November. Can we please send them packing in November and just do without a city council for four months? We went a whole two years one time without a mayor, so I know we can survive four months without Queen Nancy.
MAny would say that we are still without a mayor.
Maybe we can get Eric Roberts to help Nancy pack her office as well as high water and mr. kennedy
They should stay forever and increase their salary , thats what it is now.