Thursday, March 7, 2013

$25,000 Greensboro Contract with Unofficial now Official Lobbyist Marlene Sanford President of the Most Powerful Lobbyist Group in the Triad. What a Waste of Taxpayers Money!

 
 
During the City of Greensboro meeting on March  5, 2013 at the complete end of the agenda,Greensboro City Manager Denise Turner Roth wanted the council to sign into a contract with the president of the Triad Real Estate Building Industry Coalition(TREBIC) Marlene Sanford for a total waste of taxpayers money for $25,000 you can see the contract at end of blog post. Here is a link to the video of the back and forth on this wasteful government spending CLICKHERE  and thanks to Council member Tony Wilkins at end of discussion to say "WHOA WHOA WHOA" we need to hold off till next meeting. It was also amazing to see in video that Councilwomen Yvonne Johnson with the help of one of the founders of the TREBIC CARTEL Mayor Perkins bring a motion to pass this without even seeing the contract with Marlene Sanford, unbelievable.
 
There is no reason for the City of Greensboro to hire this unofficial now official lobbyist Marlene Sanford for $25,000 because she has been working for years on this issue of Jordan Lake Rules as a unofficial lobbyist for the TREBIC CARTEL. Why would you waste taxpayers monies when she is getting paid handsomely by the most powerful unofficial lobbyist group in Guilford County . Let's not forget that the TREBIC CARTEL was unofficially lobbying the state to deny the citizens of all of Greensboro the right to Protest Petition .
 
Let's do a little timeline on just how long Marlene Sanford has been a official lobbyist at the State of North Carolina for TREBIC. According to the lobbyist web site CLICKHERE , she just filed on February 26, 2013 one week before the Greensboro City Council meeting on March 5, 2013 which came out of left field from the City Manager who wants to pay a person who has been working on this issue already.Who at Greensboro City staff thought this was a brilliant idea?You can also see from the lobbying web site that it has been a very longtime since she has registered with the State of North Carolina as a lobbyist CLICKHERE  which is a total of 13 year break from finally becoming a lobbyist when we have known for a very longtime what she was but has been doing plenty of politicking under the table. Yes! Weekly did a great front page article titled "The Unofficial Lobbyist TREBIC & The Building Industry from October 17, 2012 CLICKHERE
 
You can also see from the picture above that Marlene Sanford was unofficially lobbying the State of North Carolina representatives at the Greensboro delegation forum on Presidents day February 18, 2013 well before she filed as a lobbyist while current session was going on. The picture was on the front page of the Rhino Times that week.
 
Let's not also forget that the Greensboro Partnership has a lobbyist in Jason Cannon who is paid by the chamber but probably with a little digging could find out that the taxpayers of Greensboro with a pass through are footing this bill for a lobbyist at the state level.
 
Doug Clark from the Greensboro News and Record chimed in as well on this issue pointing out two big reasons for not hiring TREBIC as a lobbyist
they are
 
"One is that TREBIC takes positions on city issues, making Sanford an advocate before the council. Her relationship can be adversarial when TREBIC opposes city policies. Adversary sometimes, paid lobbyist sometimes? No, that’s not a good relationship.
 
The second reason is more basic. Greensboro doesn’t need to pay anyone to argue on its behalf regarding the Jordan Lake rules. The legislature is already very friendly toward the city’s position. Phil Berger, the powerful leader of the state Senate, represents Greensboro and has already indicated his support for amending the rules. When you have Phil Berger plus most other Guilford County legislators on your side (Pricey Harrison and Alma Adams excepted), you’re throwing money away to hire a lobbyist."
 
Two very valid points to make and if you see in contract it looks like the they have routine expenses you are going to pay for in transportation, telephone,postage,copies,and meals. It must be nice to have the taxpayers pay for meals to a lobbyist who is probably paid very well by her own non profit in TREBIC CARTEL.
 
If you would like to send a message to the Greensboro City Council to not waste taxpayers money on a lobbyist who is already getting paid to lobby please contact your Greensboro City Council.  CLICKHERE
 
 This message brought to you by the Triad Citizens Against Government Waste.
 
 

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