The N&R reports on yesterday’s Greensboro City Council work session:
The tension during Tuesday’s meeting was palpable.
The council members listened patiently to the two items actually on the agenda — an annual report by Downtown Greensboro Inc., and a preliminary discussion with the firm hired to conduct the search for a city attorney.
But the meeting ended in a free-for-all once those items were discussed and the landfill was brought back up — with council members sometimes talking over each other.
Now comes word that council member Nancy Vaughan is considering legal action if interim City Attorney Tom Pollard does not allow her to vote on the contract with Gate City Waste Services to operate the White Street landfill. So we could have a situation where a council member will be taking legal action against advice from the council’s own attorney. Great.
I’m sure that in Ms. Vaughan’s mind, she’s trying to do right thing. I also realize her husband, Sen. Don Vaughan, has the right to earn a living. But the fact that he represents one of the other companies bidding for the contract to operate White Street is their problem, not ours. Her participation in the vote will raise more questions than it will settle, and from this citizen’s point of view, she should not vote on this issue.
Bonus observations: I find it fascinating to juxtapose Greensboro’s reasons for wanting to get rid of its garbage with Randolph County’s reasons for wanting G’boro’s garbage:
“The landfills still got the connotation of the old city dump,” said David Townsend, III., the county’s public works director and engineer. “People just don’t realize that these landfills are high-tech, run by very intelligent people and engineers. It’s monitored by the state. It’s monitored daily by the county.”
What I also find interesting is county staff is out front on this issue in Randolph, while the politicians are out front here in G’boro.
