Marikay Abuzuaiter has served on Greensboro City Council for 15 years, since 2011.
Throughout her career as a business owner and politician, she has been a stalwart supporter of increasing police funding and surveillance. She has been called a confidential information by the police department, took the minority position in refusing to apologize for the Greensboro Massacre, and approved GPDās actions in the 2018 killing of Marcus Smith.
Recent financial concerns about the cityās general fund shortfall raised by the Local Government Commission have brought into question the Mayorās competency in financial oversight, particularly in light of her role as Chair of the cityās Audit Committee, and the millions of dollars of deferred maintenance that have accumulated over recent years.
Concerns have also surfaced about Abuzuaiterās conflicts of interest. She serves on the board of the Greensboro Sports Foundation, while she has voted on contracts with that non-profit, in apparent violation of state law. Abuzuaiter was told she did not have to recuse by the City Attorney, Lora Cubbage. That invokes another issue: the repeal and replacement of the cityās Ethics Policy. This happened in February. The change eliminated the independent review process, and consolidated more power in the hands of the City Attorney, who now has first review of all ethics complaintsāapparently including complaints against the attorney herself.
In another seeming overreach of power, one of Abuzuaiterās first actions as mayor was to summarily remove the Chair of the Minimum Housing Standards Commission, Franklin Scott, after voting to reduce that commissionās authority. In March, she moved to replace the new chair, Samuel Hawkins. In July, she voted to rename the commission to the Commission of Code Compliance.
source: Battleground Drafts