Council votes to accept petition

By a vote of 7-2, the Greensboro City Council has accepted our petition to raise the minimum wage in Greensboro. In spite of the legal department's recommendation that the nearly 7,000 signatures collected should be tossed out because of confusing/conflicting language in the city's charter and other ordinances, the majority of the city council agreed that it should, in Mayor Johnson's words "do the right thing" and allow the petition to move through the regular channels.

This was a major hurdle for the campaign, but there is still a long way to go. The ordinance to raise the minimum wage was not accepted tonight (and wasn't intended to be accepted or rejected tonight). From here, as I understand it (please let me know if I have gotten anything wrong), the City Clerk will review the signatures for legitimacy, then the board of elections will review the signatures to make sure all who signed were registered voters. If all of that goes through (meaning that we still have in excess of 4,900 valid signatures after these reviews), the city council will then have the opportunity to vote on the ordinance itself - which raises the minimum wage in the city of Greensboro to $9.36. If the city council rejects the ordinance, it will be placed on the ballot in the next local election for the voters to decide. One of the city attorneys (Terry Wood) cautioned council tonight that there would likely be legal action taken at some point against the city for what he anticipated were legal problems with the wording of the petition.

We'll see how it unfolds. For now, I am re-energized by council's decision tonight in favor of a reasonable, democratic process designed to let citizens more directly engage in local government.