The much delayed City Council election is fast approaching, which is one explanation for why the City Council is holding yet another virtual work session on Thursday, April 28, which happens to be the day that early voting opens.
During most of this four-year term, City Council work sessions have been few and far between. Even the work sessions that were held were abbreviated versions with little time for discussion among councilmembers.
But with the election looming, the City Council has been meeting early and often. This will be the third virtual work session scheduled for this month, but only the second one held. Because the work session scheduled for April 14 was cancelled, the items from that work session have been added to the agenda for the April 28 session.
In fact, even cancelling the work session on April 14 is being used as a campaign issue. District 3 City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Justin Outling, in a campaign email critical of Mayor Nancy Vaughan on public safety issues, states, “That sense of urgency is missing. At tonight’s Council meeting the incumbent mayor did not mention public safety, and left the meeting early to go to a concert. This after she abruptly cancelled (and did not reschedule) last week’s council work session.”
The reason the April 14 work session was cancelled was because President Joe Biden visited Greensboro on April 14 and a majority of the city councilmembers who area all Democrats wanted to see Biden. It’s also incumbent on the mayor to be available to welcome the president of the United States regardless of political party.
It is true that the work session was not rescheduled but agenda items from that meeting were added to the agenda for the April 28 meeting which is going to make it an unusually long work session, if the City Council doesn’t adjourn and continue some items for another day which is the usual practice.
The items on the agenda for the April 28 virtual work session are:
Fund Balance Policies Update
Water and Sewer Extension Policies
Council Strategy Session Follow-up
MWBE Update (Part 1)
By the way, the concert mentioned in Outling’s email was the twice postponed Elton John concert at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Nothing like having priorities huh nancy. Did you and Eric sit together
How much City Council business will be funneled to improving chances of recollection?
“Throw the bums, out.” All of them
I hope the RED WAVE drowns all of them.
I would like Justin or Nancy to define what they mean by “public safety.” Still waiting. Waiting.
I think they should rename the mwbe to the black business set asides. Racist policy. Racism is giving one group favoritism over another. Plain and simple