Grrensboro Mayor Keith Holliday announces he won’t seek another term. The N&R (unposted) editorializes:
Holliday probably will be remembered as much for how he did his job as for what he did. Genial and upbeat, he treats council colleagues and citizens alike with respect and patience. If there’s a shred of consensus to be found, he’ll seek it……
Holliday deserves neither all the praise for the good things or the blame for the bad things that have happened during his tenure. There are too many other players and factors involved.
But on the whole, he will return to private life — at least for now — having left the city in better shape than he found it.
But in a sidebar to her article, the N&R’s Margaret Banks points out one thing Holliday didn’t do:
The long-awaited International Civil Rights Center and Museum didn’t get built under his watch. Not his fault, but he did little to speed the process.
The only thing Holliday could do to speed up that process was either open his own checkbook or those of the taxpayers, and they made their voice heard on the subject last fall when they rejected a bond referendum.
Whether or not the city thrived under Holliday is debatable. If you count a downtown nightlife, a new baseball stadium and commerical development along Friendly Avenue as positive steps, then it has indeed thrived. Job growth —without the help of economic incentives — is still slow. Despite its emphasis on economic development, the city’s still waiting for the big announcement from the company that will bring hundreds of jobs.
But Holliday’s optimism was a positive variable in city government. If nothing else, he made us feel good about our city, and there is much to feel good about. I personally liked seeing the mayor around town, hanging out on the patio at M’Coul’s or standing in line with everyone else at the concession stand at First Horizon Park. I’m worried that the next mayor will have neither the power (as if he has it anyway) nor the rosy disposition. That will be pretty depressing.
