news-record.com

You can put at-large candidate Gary Nixon on the list of folks who isn’t pleased with the way the current City Council works.

“What motivated me to run is that our City Council is becoming a laughing stock, almost like the Guilford County Board of Commissioners,” he said in an early August interview.

As the former owner of a large engineering firm that designed wastewater and other projects for cities and towns, Nixon spent much of his career working with municipal leaders, both elected and appointed.

Nixon said good councils form alliances to help the city move forward.

“I don’t think our council has respect for each other,” Nixon said.

Nixon said he has the skills to help the city save money on capital improvements. And he said the City Council should use up its two-thirds bond capacity – a funding mechanism that allows a city to issue new bonds without voter approval – before it asks residents to approve more bonds at the ballot.

Nixon said the city should go back to once-a-week recycling; last year it was changed to every other week to save the Greensboro money. And as for that issue of how Greensboro should be getting rid of its trash, Nixon said the city should try to find a new landfill site closer to the city than the current area it dumps its trash.

A New Irving Park resident who is originally from Akron, Ohio, Nixon is in favor of the city working with the county or other municipalities to save resources.

He said the city should explore how the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police force works. But he said he would not be in favor of putting the city police under the control of an elected sheriff.

News & Record info about Gary Nixon.