Why I Can't Vote for Ben Holder

Man rides into Glenwood and comes to the neighborhood meeting and invites everyone to a fish fry without telling them he is running for City Council. That man is Ben Holder and that is a strange way to introduce yourself to your new neighbors.

Man listens to one resident in Warnersville about alleged problems associated with the brand new public art installed on the Greenway that was over a year in the making with the help of the entire Warnersville community. Gathers 17 signatures to present to City Council as proof the neighborhood wants the benches removed. Then states on his own blog:

I also said moving the benches would NOT solve the problem. Guess what? Keeping them there won't solve it either.

Huh? So he was for the benches after he was against them. The bench was public art belonging to the entire community and city, not just 17 residents. He could've have used his energy and effort to protect the benches and keep a conversation going about the bigger public problem. Instead, legitimate users of the Greenway and the people in the Warnersville community who worked alongside the City and Action Greensboro to find an honorable way to portray the history of the community are left with nothing more than a concrete pad. Worse, in my opinion, he rode into Warnersville and ended up pitting neighbor against neighbor - you're either for the benches or you are against them.

It took work to bring a piece of beautiful piece of public art to a part of town that could desperately use some, and Ben played the starring role in having them removed. Ben may be great at digging up dirt, but I'm more interested in having a representative on council that I can trust. There is more than one way to improve the community and work for its residents and I hope Ben will do that - I just don't think City Council is the right arena for him this time.

Lastly, I want a politician to be "for" something, and not just running because he doesn't like our current representative on council. I get the feeling that he is more interested in defeating Dianne Bellamy-Small than he is in listening to all residents.

As far as being a neighbor, I hope that once the election season is over that Ben will take some time to get to know Glenwood and understand its issues and its character...we can always use volunteers to help improve our neighborhood.