[Durham INC] BOCC votes Linda Huff-Smith off Planning Commission :(

[Melissa Rooney]

Yet another consideration to add to the 'list of things to remember' at the next BOCC election (3 years from now)...

The Board of County Commissioners did NOT reappoint Linda Huff-Smith to the Planning Commission (PC), despite citizen pleas (including Mayor Bell, I'm told). The PC has lost a really good commissioner who was always prepared, visited the sites and studied the ordinances. 

Huff-Smith's replacement is a Republican Party Activist who has bad-mouthed our president (Obama) -- see below. It is a shame that our current county commissioners consider race (under the guise of 'diversity') of higher importance than actual credentials and informed recommendations (from citizens who have taken the time to be informed, to discuss, and to vote for such recommendations). 

Commissioner Bowser actually voiced his opinion that "we need to take the recommendations out of it" (presumably referring to those of the Joint City County Planning Commission).

Sounds like the PC will soon be even more pro-development :(

More details in the HS article cut and pasted below.

--Melissa (Rooney)

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Huff-Smith ousted, Kimball joins board
14 hrs ago | 196 views | 2  | 9  |  |    
By Ray Gronberg

gronberg at heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM
-- County Commissioners on Monday sacked a member of the Durham
Planning Commission, giving her seat to a Republican Party activist who
in 2008 called future President Barack Obama "the most Marxist
candidate ever" for the country's highest office.

The 3-2 vote
for Teiji Kimball denied a second three-year term on the Planning
Commission to Rougemont-area resident and Democratic Party activist
Linda Huff-Smith. 

Kimball, a Bahama resident, will replace
Huff-Smith as the representative of Mangum Township, the northernmost
section of Durham County.

By another 3-2 vote, commissioners
also appointed to a vacant seat on the Planning Commission convicted
felon and former City Council candidate Darius Little. 

He will represent Oak Grove Township, which covers a slice of east Durham that includes the Bethesda area.

The
commissioners voted unanimously to give Planning Commission members Ted
Womack a second term. He represents Lebanon Township, which covers the
section of north Durham that's south of Little River and north of the
Eno River.

The vote splits on Kimball and Little were identical
and fell on racial lines. Commissioners Michael Page, Joe Bowser and
Brenda Howerton supported the winning candidates. 

Commissioners
Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron favored Huff-Smith for the Mangum
Township seat and N.C. Central University student Antonio Jones for the
Oak Grove seat.

A joint panel that includes commissioners and City Council members had endorsed Huff-Smith and Jones for those seats. 

But
Howerton at the time signaled that she favored appointing Kimball to
expand the Planning Commission's diversity. Kimball is Asian-America;
Huff-Smith is white.

Little and Jones - who on his application
described himself as a full-time student and "laid-off retail worker
specializing in inventory management" - are black. 

Little rose
to prominence last year when he challenged longtime City Councilman
Howard Clement for the Ward 2 seat. He lost in the primary after
acknowledging at the start of the race that he has a criminal record
that includes prison time and convictions for floating worthless
checks, larceny, obtaining property by false pretenses and obstruction
of justice.

Despite Howerton's previous statements, the vote for
Kimball was a bit of an upset. All five of the commissioners are
Democrats who shared the ballot with Obama in the 2008 election cycle.

Bowser said afterwards that he'd pledged going in to vote for Huff-Smith.

"I
had promised Ms. Smith I was going to support her," Bowser said. "I had
promised [county Planning Commission delegate and longtime political
activist] Jackie Brown I would support her. But things went on this
morning that I don't believe in, and we need to change the process by
which these people are appointed. Specifically, we need to take the
recommendations out of it."

Bowser wouldn't elaborate, but he
appeared to be alluding to a parallel dispute over an appointment to
Durham's Workforce Development Board.

He's been urging
colleagues to support a recent college graduate, Donald Hughes, for
that seat instead of a candidate backed by the city's Office of
Economic and Workforce Development.

Commissioners postponed a
vote on the workforce board seat after voicing unhappiness with the
city department's handling of the matter. 



      
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