Greensboro City Council District 4: Mary Rakestraw

I have received questionnaire responses from Joel Landau and Mike Martin, both of whom are running in the primary against Mary Rakestraw, who currently fills an at-large seat.

Mr. Martin offers an interesting candidacy.  He opposes incentives for private real estate development.  He favors increasing usage of the White Street Landfill.  He says he is forsaking the Simkins PAC endorsement-- but is open to receiving the support of TREBIC -affiliated organizations.  He says he will not increases taxes (but might vote to increase fees).  He favors benchmarking our police department against lower-crime cities to achieve lower crime rates.  He opposes giving tax money to Action Greensboro or the Greensboro Partnership.

I should state that Mr. Martin had a number of other positions with which I disagreed.

Joel Landau also "generally" opposes incentives for private real estate development, but does not rule it out.  He says he will not seek or accept the endorsement of TREBIC-affiliated organizations, but will accept the Simkins machine endorsement.  He wants a welcoming attitude for businesses, and a simplified permitting process.  He favors an evaluation to see if we can achieve more efficient deployment of our current police resources.  He favors bringing the city attorney under the control of the City Council.

I probably disagree with more of Mr. Landau's positions than in the case of Mike Martin.  I have also heard Mr. Landau speak at a couple of forums (fora?) two years ago.  My impression is that Mr. Landau is an honest, congenial, well-intentioned liberal.

Mary Rakestraw has not completed a questionnaire (nor did she two years ago).  This creates certain dilemmas for me.  This year, however, we have the benefit of having been able to observe her performance on the City Council.  I think she has done a good job, and has voted the right way on most of the important issues of substance.  I was particularly impressed with her support of Scott Sanders at his trial.

There has been an effort to undermine Ms. Rakestraw.  A letter-writing campaign to the News and Record attempted to disparage her, and stereotypically lump her with the so-called contentious former County Commissioners who had brought their fighting ways to the City Council. 

And fellow councilwoman Goldie Wells has treated her like dirt.  Mayor Johnson has allowed that to happen repeatedly.

When I have watched City Council meetings, I have not really seen Ms. Rakestraw fight.  She is fairly circumspect with respect to her comments at Council meetings.  But there is a prevailing expectation in Greensboro that we will have groupthink on the City Council, and that everyone serving on that governing body will always accede to the Melderec con Simkins status quo.  That is an absurd, dangerous expectation, but it certainly has been given voice repeatedly.

On primary day, I will be voting for Mary Rakestraw.

Comments

[scharrison]

"This creates certain dilemmas for me."

Don't take this the wrong way Joe, but if it really created a dilemma for you, you should have refrained from endorsing Mary. I'm not saying she should be condemned for not taking part in your survey, but giving her a thumb's up without it is sort of a slap in the face to the ones who did take part.

[Joe Guarino]

It can be interpreted that way, Steve. And it was a BIG dilemma two years ago when she was a newcomer to the city council, because I felt that I would agree with her on many issues. But in this case we have a record that enables us to know what she is all about.

[scharrison]

I get that, Joe. You can't unlearn or ignore things you already know, and things like your survey only play a part of how you would vote.

But the thing is, other incumbents answered your questionnaire (how many?), and had their answers scrutinized and gnawed upon by both you and commenters. To receive an endorsement here after avoiding that scrutiny just seems unfair.

I don't know. I probably shouldn't even comment about anything other than District 1 (one of my children lives there), but I really like(d) the way you developed and presented this survey, and I felt this approach by you actually hurt your survey's overall value.

[Joe Guarino]

I appreciate that, Steve, and that is, indeed, one of the dilemmas. The only choices otherwise would have been to refrain from sharing with readers for whom I would vote, or to say I was voting for one of the other two candidates. Neither of those options were ideal, either.

BTW, I empathize to some extent with candidates who receive a number of these written questionnaires. It can be a time-consuming chore to get them completed. If the instruments circulated by some of the other parties involved were of sufficient value, I would not even have bothered doing it. But unfortunately, they are not.

[Stormy]

Unfair? Excuse me, but isn't this Greensboro politics? When has it ever been a fair sport?

[bubba]

But....but.......but.......but......we need to make EVERYTHING in life "fair", Stormy!

Isn't that what our "regressive" friends always tell us?

And we all know that they're NEVER wrong about ANYTHING!