I also read with interest the (unposted) op-ed piece in Sunday’s N&R by former Greensboro Mayor Jim Melvin and former City Council member Florence Gatten. Dr. Guarino offers his insight, concluding that the authors “must be kidding.”
Melvin and Gatten pretty much state that the council should knuckle under to city staff. But they also —gasp—- find the politics of the current council distasteful:
Too often we have seen the discussion of important issues devolve into nothing more than reaching the “magic” Number 5. Five votes needed to take any action. It doesn’t seem to matter what—-just “do you have five votes?” It is ridiculous. While citizens are being pushed to the end of council meetings, council members are preoccupied with who “wins” and who “loses.”
Yeah well, that’s the way politics work — the majority of votes prevail. It works both ways, too. a perfect example is illustrated in today’s N&R article on Guilford County’s controversial commission rezoning process. Interesting how Commissioner Bill Bencini—a member of the Republican minority — the process, in which a map was drawn by Chairman Skip Alston, only to have the state step in with its map:
Bencini said a more bipartisan solution — and a better final map — could have come about. Alston’s actions prevented that, he said.
“Chairman Alston always reduces everything to, ‘You only have to have six votes,’” Bencini said. “So there’s no point in being on the committee if you’re in the minority.”
I would hope to see a couple of op-eds in the paper bemoaning Chairman Alston’s governing based on the Magic Number Six. I’m not sure we will. The way I see it, that’s politics, and pretending that we should all somehow rise above it is a perfect-world fantasy. In other words, Melvin and Gatten have got to be kidding. Apparently, they’re serious.
