At last night’s Monday Night Football gathering (by the way, have I mentioned that I’m going to the Packers-Panthers game —- at Green Bay?) a group of pretty-much like minded guys discussed Greensboro city politics and came to the conclusion that Yvonne Johnson has an excellent chance to beat out Milton Kern for the mayor’s seat. I’ve also had phone conversations with another friend, whose opinion I respect, who said he was leaning toward voting for Johnson because Kern’s first job in city government shouldn’t be as mayor. Good point, except for the fact that Greensboro’s mayor is basically a glorified City Council member.
Maybe I’ve missed something, but my eyes were opened by Rhino editor John Hammer’s less-than-glowing coverage of Kern’s recent ‘press conference’:
The press conference itself was pitiful. The crowd at the press conference consisted of two reporters, two editors, two photographers, Kern, his campaign manager and three people presumed to be Kern supporters. If you are running a campaign for mayor of a city of 245,000 and the best you can do at a scheduled press conference is three supporters, you have a lot of ground to make up in two weeks, and it sure indicates that you have a lot to learn about political campaigns. There are people who know how to run political campaigns and they can be hired, but Kern has the attitude that he doesn’t know what he is doing and that shouldn’t be a problem.
Hammer also noted that “in 14 years on the City Council it is hard to come up with a local issue on which she has not taken a stand.” But he also noted that she’s also vulnerable on a number of issues, one of which is the Greensboro Police Department controversy, yet another aspect of which Johnson, along with the rest of the council, is (perhaps not so) surprisingly ill-informed:
City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Yvonne Johnson said, “I haven’t seen the black book. I’ve asked to see it but I was told it was locked up.” Johnson said she had asked several times to see the black book. She said that as far as she knew, no councilmember had seen it.
It’s troubling if our City Council, which is charged with making the decisions in the best interest of the city, is being prevented from seeing this key piece of evidence.
The fact that Johnson — along with at-large candidate Robbie Perkins —- bent over backwards for Project Homestead bothers me. Turns out it also bothers Guarino:
I do not think Robbie Perkins or Yvonne Johnson should be elected next week. I think their actions on Project Homestead….. were sufficiently problematic that they should not hold any elective position.
Come on, Greensboro. Can’t we do better than this?
Bending over backwards in not to offend certain groups —- as we saw late last week with Sandy Carmany’s postponement of a gang forum — are steps backward for our fair city, not steps foreward. Yet is there really any reason to be excited about the prospect of Milton Kern “leading” Greensboro?
I think what bothers me about this election is there seems to be more reasons not to vote for particular candidates than to vote for particular candidates. I’ll echo Guarino’s sentiment: Can’t Greensboro do better than this?
