"A group of people have filed to intervene in the lawsuit over a proposed Greensboro City Council redistricting.
Members of the group, which includes former Guilford County Commissioner Melvin “Skip” Alston, former N.C. Rep. Earl Jones and former Greensboro City Councilman Jim Kee, are advocates for the redistricting and restructuring of the council passed by the General Assembly in July.
They are members of the group Concerned Citizens for Fair Elections, which also includes conservative activists and prominent members of the Guilford County Republican Party."
But here's the part Mayor Vaughan wishes I'd not tell you:
I don't know if it is intentional or not but Skip is only helping Nancy Vaughan and the other incumbents stay in power. The last effort rallied support behind incumbents even from people who don't like them and left potential challengers confused as to which district they might be in so they were unable to build campaigns.
Of course the long tern effect of all of this is that most of the incumbents will get reelected with no real opposition, the city will not change for the better and they will become the 9 most hated people in Greensboro-- even more so than Trudy, Skip and Earl.
A straight district plan is what Greensboro's working class and minorities fought to get for years and years but never achieved. The current 5-3-1 plan was designed by Greensboro's Irving Park elites as a means to barely meet Federal guidelines while keeping the status quo empowered-- a plan which has worked amazingly well for decades. Amazing well for Greensboro's elites, that is.
It's true that Trudy's redistricting was handled poorly and Greensboro should have control over our own redistricting but my guess is that before the next city council ends their terms a grass roots movement to convert Greensboro to a straight district system will emerge.
All we need do is look past personality politics and understand that even people we don't like sometimes come up with good ideas.
As the old saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
