September 13, 2011
Contact: Chris Brook (919) 323 – 3380 ext. 113
chrisbrook@southerncoalition.org
SCSJ Encourages City Attorney to Stand By His Ruling Permitting Vaughan to Vote on Landfill
Urges Pollard not to cave to ‘specious legal arguments’
GREENSBORO–Southern Coalition for Social Justice staff attorney Christopher Brook has again encouraged Greensboro City Attorney Tom Pollard to permit City Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan to vote on whether to award a White Street Landfill contract to Gate City Waste Services.
Gate City requested that Pollard reverse his previous ruling that Vaughan must vote on whether to award a landfill contract to its company. This is Gate City’s second effort to exclude Vaughan from voting on their proposed contract. For the first time Gate City now also tries to exclude Councilman Robbie Perkins, while arguing Councilman Zack Matheny should be permitted to vote.
“Having failed to convince Greensboro voters of the wisdom of their plans, Gate City now seeks to make an end run around them a month before they go to the polls using an ever-evolving array of specious legal arguments,” says Brook, referring to the letter sent to City Attorney Tim Pollard last week by Gate City attorneys.
Gate City first objected to Vaughan’s participation in a vote on their contract when she voiced reservations about re-opening the White Street Landfill to municipal solid waste. They had not previously raised issues relating to Councilmen Perkins and Matheny. “Gate City said nothing for months in regards to their current belief that the City Attorney’s office had wrongly excluded Councilman Matheny and wrongly included Councilman Perkins in consideration of the RFP processes. Only when their multi-million dollar contract was imperiled by Greensboro elected representatives did Gate City make their concerns known,” says Brook in his letter to Pollard. Decisions regarding participation by Councilmen Perkins and Matheny were made in May 2011, making Gate City’s new concerns suspicious.
These most recent controversies began on August 16, 2011, when a four-person majority of the Greensboro City Council voted to negotiate with Gate City to operate Phase III of the White Street Landfill without saying a word to explain their selection of Gate City.
The letter is available here: http://bit.ly/qWytVi
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The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in August, 2007 in Durham, North Carolina by a multi-disciplinary group, predominantly people of color, who believe that families and communities engaged in social justice struggles need a team of lawyers, social scientists, community organizers and media specialists to support them in their efforts to dismantle structural racism and oppression.
Attached file/s:
Letter to Pollard re Gate City.pdf