There was a fair amount of speculation that newly-elected member Nancy Vaughan would be the swing vote as the Greensboro City Council reconsidered the proposed aquatic center at tonight’s meeting. Sure enough, Vaughan —drum roll please — was the difference in a tight 5-4 vote as the council re-confirmed the previous council’s plan to use hotel tax revenue to make up the funding shortfall.
I caught the end of the debate, and council supporters of the aquatic center stressed time and again that the funding proposal was only coming off the backs of visitors paying for hotel rooms, but that in no way changes the fact that the city is supplementing the hotel tax as it is.
There was also an interesting moment when the council voted down Trudy Wade’s proposal to put the roughly $8 million shortfall on the May ballot on a bond referendum. The vote should have been the mirror image of the final vote, with Vaughan, Dianne Bellamy-Small, Robbie Perkins, Zack Matheny and Jim Kee voting no, except that Thompson pushed the wrong button, inadvertently siding with the majority. When Thompson asked to change his vote, Bellamy-Small had a cow, saying Thompson already had played his hand, although changing his vote wouldn’t have altered the outcome. The council then voted to suspend the rules and allowed Thompson to change his vote.
Thompson was right to insist that his vote be changed. He was elected on a platform of fiscal conservatism, and his voting record has to reflect that conservatism, period.
