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Thursday, January 24, 2013
HIGH POINT
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HIGH POINT
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The Rhinoceros Times Greensboro HIGH POINT
HIGH POINT
HIGH POINT
Council Considers Doubling Their Terms by paul C. clark Staff Writer
The High Point City Council spent much of it’s “Finance Committee of the Whole” meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 22 in a furball of an argument over how, if at all, High Point should change its City Council election system. The Finance Committee of the Whole is the last traditional City Council committee meeting left after High Point Mayor Bernita Sims abolished the others – only it is now run by the mayor, instead of another councilmember, and all councilmembers are expected to attend. High Point now holds City Council elections on even-numbered years, unlike other North Carolina cities, and has nonpartisan elections with no primaries, meaning councilmembers, including the mayor, can be elected with only a plurality of votes. Councilmembers serve concurrent two-year terms. Sims owes her election at least partly to the no-primary system. She went into the November 2012 election running against two white, Republican candidates – Councilmember Chris Whitley and developer Coy Williard – and they split the white Republican vote, leaving Sims, a black Democrat, with a clear path to the mayor’s chair with a plurality but nowhere
near a majority of the vote. No one on the City Council can remember exactly when High Point switched to fouryear terms, or to plurality elections. The councilmembers spent a good amount of time arguing the point. High Point legal consultant and former City Attorney Fred Baggett said that switching elections back to odd-numbered years would require a local act of the North Carolina General Assembly, which he said wouldn’t be complicated or difficult. Baggett said that, unless the City Council requests a local act moving elections back to odd-numbered years, it can’t go back to having primaries because the Guilford County Board of Elections doesn’t have time to process municipal absentee ballots on even-numbered years. “If you want to stay with even-numbered years, you’re stuck with pluralities,” Baggett said. “If you go to odd-numbered years, you have to have primaries, or you can have elections and run-offs.” According to Baggett, if the legislature moves High Point City Council elections back to odd-numbered years and the City Council adds primaries, it would have to have partisan elections. Councilmember Becky Smothers quoted Councilmember Judy Mendenhall as
having said, “There ain’t nothing partisan about water, sewer, law enforcement or garbage.” Maybe, and maybe not. Even Smothers acknowledged that “some years are more partisan than others,” and Sims came out of the gate after her election talking like a hardcore Democrat. There’s no way that the City Council’s choice of election methods won’t have partisan effects. One thing most councilmembers agree on is four-year terms. Incumbents tend to favor longer terms for the obvious reason that it gives them longer in power before they have to defend their seats. If the City Council will be able to agree on any electoral change, it will be switching to four-year terms, which the council can do. Beyond that, the consensus seems to break down. Anything but switching elections to odd-numbered years can be done by the City Council. But the councilmembers may not want to take the heat for giving themselves longer terms. Smothers said that, if the City Council is interested in “major surgery” like four-year terms, it could place a referendum on the issue on the fall county election ballot. Baggett said, “All these options can be put to a vote, or not.” Whether or not High Point goes back to having partisan primaries may determine the future control of the mayor’s chair. The lack of a primary allows anyone with the $96 filing fee to get on the general election ballot. In November, that resulted in five mayoral candidates on the ballot, only three of whom were actually campaigning: Sims, Williard and Whitley. If any electoral changes the City Council decides to make aren’t made quickly, they will inevitably be drawn into the political calculations over control of the mayor’s chair and the City Council in the next election. During the 2012 election, Sims opposed switching to a primary system. It was in her interest to do so. Williard supported reinstating primaries. It was in his interest to do so. In the near term, the lack of a primary is likely to give Democrats an advantage in running for mayor – and to work in Sims’ favor in future elections. Hanging over all the calculations over partisan primaries is the almost inevitable return of District 2 Guilford County Commissioner Bill Bencini to run for mayor. Bencini has two more years left in his first term as a commissioner and he may not run again for his commissioner’s seat. He is expected to run for mayor of High Point eventually. A one-on-one race between Bencini and Sims, with Sims holding the incumbent’s advantage, would be worth watching. Bencini said he didn’t run for mayor because he wanted to finish his term as commissioner, because he agreed not to run against his friend Whitley and because
he is still active in his business. Whitley took his shot first, leaving Bencini to run later. Those calculations were made before Williard ran and polled surprisingly well for a first-time candidate, beating Whitley, who had been a councilmember for 19 years. Sims got 33 percent of the vote, Williard got 27 percent and Whitley got 18 percent. That makes Williard a credible future mayoral candidate, along with Bencini. As long as the two didn’t run at the same time, either would have a good chance against Sims. Both are from Emerywood, so there’s a chance a deal would be worked out for one or the other to run. Political calculations may come into play in the term-length debate too. The longer Sims stays in office before defending her seat, the longer she has to build a power base. Williard’s chances would be better two years after his second-place finish than four years. Lengthening council terms to four years might time the next mayoral race better for Bencini. The City Council changed elections to even-numbered years in an effort to increase voter turnout. That has worked to some extent – but it has also left city councilmembers at the bottom of a long ballot, below national and state candidates. The councilmembers spent much of Tuesday’s meeting arguing whether or not, and to what extent, the change had drawn more High Pointers to vote in City Council races. They couldn’t agree, and Baggett didn’t know. Several councilmembers suggested getting voting statistics from the Guilford County Board of Elections before continuing to debate the issue.
Rumors
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for those who get in because not everyone does. But the joy that kids have on a snow day I find contagious. I did stop on my way to work Friday to take a few photos, and borrowed a saucer sled to go down the hill once. Then I resisted further temptation and managed to quit while I was still in one piece. --We will continue to have drawings through our website for tickets for Greensboro Coliseum events. You have to check rhinotimes.com to see what is available. --It is unbelievable to me that the News & Record editors would decide to put a modern day panhandler on the front page of its paper on Tuesday. The city just passed a more stringent panhandling law because the people in Greensboro have gotten tired of being accosted at every street corner by (Continued on page 23)