Pretty full agenda for tomorrow night’s Greensboro City Council meeting. It will be interesting to see if Mike Barber, in his last meeting as a council member, will go head to head with his buddy Robbie Perkins one last time.
I note that John Hammer plays up the Barber-Perkins angle, while I didn’t say much after watching a replay on cable access. I realized the irony behind Perkins —- of all people —- wants “contacts with elected officials and all lobbying efforts regarding the landfill be revealed in detail” during the RFP process for the White Street landfill. But I was having trouble figuring out Perkins’ possible motive, as did Barber, who later said he knew neither what Perkins “was afraid of” nor “what he’s thinking right now.”
This is issue will come up again at the council meeting, but a first glance suggest that Perkins is somehow trying to sabotage whatever deal will be in the works, although he’s come out strongly against reopening the landfill to solid waste. A couple of possibilities exist —– Perkins favors either Cico or Ulturnagen, as did his political ally Mayor Yvonne Johnson. But with Johnson gone and a new city manager who seems to be on the up-and up (at least so far), it could be a tougher road for either of those two companies.
We also know that Perkins is Mr. Regionalization and wants such a solution for waste disposal, although Barber argued that regionalization won’t work because other cities had expanded capacity at their landfills instead of shutting them down.
So —with all this in mind — one can’t help but think that Perkins stood to benefit from a regional solution to solid waste. Imagine that.
