At Large Candidate Robbie Perkins Opens Up

After a recent post prompted several people to comment, I made this post. Of course the individuals that commented on the first post had nothing to say about how to get people to vote. Yesterday I decided to email Robbie Perkins, a guy that I know absolutely nothing about, and ask him why individuals in the 25 – 35 demo should vote for him. I also asked him that if he were not in the At Large race who he would vote for. His response can be read below.

"I was elected to City Council in 1993 as a 39 year old business person and served until 2005. During that time, I spearheaded the following efforts:

1. Scenic Corridors for NC 68 and the Outer Loop.

2. Conceived of and implemented the Heart of the Triad project, working with two counties and five cities to create jobs at the center of our region.

3. Continually advocated for higher development standards, maintaining that we needed to have functional, well designed projects in our city.

4. Supported revutilization of downtown Greensboro.

5. Attempted to put a historic designation in place in Westerwood, which was defeated by a 5 to 4 vote of Council. We were able, however, to eliminate many of the high density residential uses within the neighborhood that were causing it to deteriorate.

I can work with the other members of Council to make things happen in our community. I would greatly appreciate your voteIf I only had two votes to cast in this election for at large candidates, they would be for Kevin Green and Sandra Anderson.

Robbie Perkins"

I appreciated the prompt response but have responded to Robbie’s email with the following, “That is what you did. What do you plan on doing.” I am personally interested in what is being done to bring jobs to Greensboro, NC. I also have a separate question about downtown businesses. Does the city review business plans or can anyone just start a business? This may be a dumb question but with so many random businesses opening like the popcorn store, I am curious to know if the city has any type of standards that businesses must meet. The short leg of Elm St btwn Washington St and Natty's now has six retail spaces open. It would be great to see national retail outlets targeted and turn this portion of Elm into "Retail Row."

UPDATE: Additional response from Robbie Perkins below.

"- Continue with regional planning and the Heart of the Triad effort.
- Regain public trust in City hall and the police department
- Strongly support downtown revitalization
- Actively recruit business and industry to the city.
- Create a more business friendly attitude in Greensboro
- Work on development standards that provide incentives for higher quality development.
- Finish the Randleman Dam
- Work to insure that our transportation needs are met in the future."