At the Greensboro City Council meeting for June 1, 2010 Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan has introduced the idea of discontinuing the use of a paid state lobbyist that is costing the taxpayers of Greensboro $45,772 . The embedded video above will show you what the Mayor Pro Tem is proposing.
On April 18, 2009 Triadwatch had a post titled "Greensboro's paid state lobbyist Cam Cover Bills for the past 2 years", CLICKHERE
Mayor Pro Tem is looking at this years budget and knows that the Greensboro Partnership is getting their budget cut by $20,000 and if they eliminate the paid state lobbyist money that they can bring back the money for the partnership and still be close to a net savings of around $30,000. This is a start to save this money and maybe in the future can eliminate the money to the Greensboro Partnership as well because Jason Allen and Wendy Poteat have combined this year to have a hefty bill for the first quarter of this year for $9.960 for being a lobbyist for the Greensboro Partnership.
It was also interesting to hear her say that we are our best lobbyist being a Greensboro City Council member and our relationship with the Guilford delegation is pretty strong. It also doesn't hurt when you happen to be the wife of a North Carolina State Senator in Don Vaughan you sure do have the ear of what is going on in Raleigh and if he doesn't listen to you then off to the couch he goes.
Also at the council meeting we heard City Council member Trudy Wade mention that the past 2 years Mike Barber and I have been wanting to get rid of this expense of having a paid state lobbyist but nothing has been done about it. This is a tough budget time and everything is on the table and this expense is a no brainer to get rid of Cam Cover as the paid state lobbyist. It makes sense to do so and if it does happen we could give a local award to the City of Greensboro as a recipient of the Citizens Against Government Waste Greensboro edition.
There is probably going to be some opposition from the city attorney's office to not eliminate this money from the budget and keep the taxpayer funded paid lobbyist intact. Brooks Pierce Law Firm is where Cam Cover is a paralegal and a lobbyist and also provides assistance to a local attorney in Jim Phillips who i am sure doesn't want to eliminate this payment to Cam Cover. The Brooks Pierce Law firm does a lot with the City of Greensboro and will probably object to this elimination but hopefully the Greensboro City Council will finally start saving some taxpayer funded money and eliminate Cam Cover as the paid state lobbyist for the City of Greensboro.
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