EDITORIAL: Spilling it about the Greensboro mayor’s race

Now that the primary is done with, our one-man editorial board (that’s me!) has a brief window in which he can write in this space about the Greensboro municipal election before resuming ad sales in time for the general, which he’d like to remind you is on July 26, with early voting starting a couple weeks before that.

Though each is not without some baggage, this is the best slate of mayoral candidates we’ve had in Greensboro in at least 20 years. And as of this writing, the author has no idea who got through the primary.

The incumbent has a solid record upon which to hang her hat — lots of development and big-ticket job creation. She’s also a policy wonk who understands the mechanics of getting things done. Justin Outling is a spectacular candidate for any office: he’s whip smart, with a lawyer’s sense of aggression and caution. And he always does the reading. Despite his past, Mark Cummings deserves a second look because we know how often Black men get removed from positions of power under false pretenses. And Eric Robert has moved this election’s Overton Window away from the subjects the seasoned candidates want to talk about, forcing them to defend accusations of corruption and impropriety.

We’re interested in Robert’s latest accusation — that the city improperly shut down the gun show at the city-owned Greensboro Coliseum and then covered it up.

For the record: We don’t think the city should be in the business of selling guns. Not then, shortly after 43 guns were stolen from this same gun show, including several AR-style auto-loading rifles, and not now, amid a serious wave of gun violence in the city.

And let us never forget that the city’s handling of the gun show was what prompted Foot Locker employee Mark Robinson to speak out at a Greensboro City Council meeting in an appearance that quickly went viral, fueling to his election as lieutenant governor of the state.

Note, too, that this glance against the Second Amendment could do for Robert what it did for Robinson. Remember, the city election is nonpartisan, and Republicans will show up in droves because of the Senate race. In a 4-way race, all he needs is more than 25 percent of the vote to push him through the primary.