Stacking The Deck With Developers on Boards and Commissions Greensboro City Council Style, Video Embedded

UPDATE: ROCH101 has a new post titled "Too Cozy: Board Appointee's Company Lobbying City for Trash Business" CLICKHERE  on top of what is written in this post.



During the Greensboro City Council meeting on November 16, 2010 councilman Jim Kee at the end of the meeting when each council person gets to speak on matters important to them decided to reappoint local realtor Paul Gilmer to the zoning commission. Why is this appointment so significant ? Who knows but in the embedded video above we have fellow councilman Zack Matheny really taking to task this appointment from Jim Kee.

There has been a little history with Paul Gilmer on the Greensboro Zoning Commission with this post at TRIADWATCH back on September 20, 2008 with a title "Greensboro Zoning Commission is in a mess and needs fixing, memo from city attorney:, CLICKHERE .

Also we need to remember that Paul Gilmer is a part of the group called CICO where we have Jordan Green from Yes Weekly have this to say in a article on opening up the white street landfill,

"The politically connected enterprise has retained lawyer Cameron Cooke, also a former councilman, and Paul Gilmer, a realtor and area resident who formerly served on the zoning commission. Cico touts its private waste disposal project as a boon to economic development in the area and its plan as “the most important element for the revival of the area.”

 You can see from the embedded video at around the 1 minute and 40 seconds it seems like Zack Matheny said something that really ticked off fellow councilwomen TDB Small who was pointing her finger at Zack Matheny, then we see the mayor bang his gavel and sternly say that Zack Matheny has the floor and enough with the rest. Just another day in the life of a Greensboro City Council meeting.

Something that needs to get explained from the embedded video above and am sure is what is at the heart of this problem comes at the 2 minute mark of this embedded video. Zack Matheny had this to say

" When you tell me your gonna "

Then Zack Matheny catches himself mid sentence after this quote above then he mumbles

 "i just this is a tough one for me out of the blue"

It would be great to know what more Zack Matheny wanted to say about the appointment of Paul Gilmer back on the zoning commission where in the past week he had talked with Zack and was interested in the planning board not the zoning commission. There must have been something worked out between Zack and Jim on something and him appointing Paul Gilmer to the zoning commission was a total blindside to Zack.

There has been a lot of controversy over how the Greensboro City Council appoints it's members to certain boards and commissions. Back in around July of 2009 we had the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress address the Greensboro City Council on the need for a change in how the council appoints people to boards and commissions. Here is what was stated in the scuttlebutt section of the weekly paper called Yes Weekly!

"Call for more diversity on Greensboro boards made The Greensboro Neighborhood Congress presented a proposal to the Greensboro City Council on July 21 to reform the process of appointing citizens to city boards and commissions. The congress’ recommendations include making boards and commissions more representative by gender, district, ethnicity and profession, conducting an annual analysis of the demographic composition of the citizen boards and requiring that applicants provide relevant personal information. One oft-made criticism of city boards and commissions is that they’re stacked with real estate professionals. District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade suggested that the city consider moving meeting times later in the day that would accommodate more citizens’ schedules, and speculated that “people in real estate and development may have more flexible schedules that allow them to serve on boards.” — JG "

As we have seen with this appointment of Paul Gilmer a local realtor to return back to the zoning commission, this is just par for the course where we have plenty of instances in the past to show you how the local lobbyist group called TREBIC which stands for the Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition likes to stack the deck on these boards and commissions. Here is a few post on TRIADWATCH from the past on this subject.

Marlene Sanford, Greensboro Partnership, TREBIC = Stacking The Deck on Boards and Commissions


CLICKHERE


Here Is What Stack The Deck with TREBIC Developers Looks Like in Greensboro N.C. on CAT Team
CLICKHERE

TREBIC + RUCO = Fox Guarding The Hen House
CLICKHERE

It is amazing how someone like realtor Paul Gilmer gets to jump all the people who are waiting in the databank line to serve on a board or commission and he has already served his time a few years ago but gets to be reappointed to the zoning commission. This appointment is just one instance of how certain council members want to stack the deck in the favor of TREBIC and we haven't even talked about mary skenes, betty smith, gary wolf, russ parmele, rick pinto, de sean alston, chuck truby might be on 2 boards, and  plenty of commissions who were completely tilted to the real estate lobbyist group called TREBIC. It is time for everyone to be aware of what is going on and there needs to be a complete analysis of just how many people are waiting in the databank to serve Greensboro city council on a board or commission but to see someone like Paul Gilmer jump everyone in line is not fair to the other people and the process. Time for a complete overhaul and a fair process for all the citizens not just the select few with connections.