More trash company campaign contribution stink

GREENSBORO, NC -- (Hat tip: Triadwatch) I like Greensboro city council representative Mary Rakestraw. She has always been thoughtfully interested in issues of concern to me even though I do not live in her district. She leans conservative but, as an unaffiliated moderate, I can appreciate her presence on council as part of a good mix that keeps the ship from listing too far in either direction. She isn't a slave to ideology. She'll think for herself as evidenced by her break with the conservative block last year in voting for the sensible approach to handling the "porn problem" on library computers. While she was wrong to give us the runaround about where her redistricting proposal came from, overall, she does a good job worthy of respect.

But this stinks:

Rakestraw received a $500 campaign contribution from D.H. Griffin while city council was in the process of considering Griffin's company for the city's trash disposal contract.

Rakestraw did not report the contribution of August 24th on her campaign report for the reporting period ending August 30th where it would have been known to the public as council headed into the final stretch of awarding the trash contract. Instead, she reported the contribution on her next campaign report, filed on October 3rd, after the landfill issue had been decided.

There were a few other inconsequential contributions to Rakestraw's campaign around the time of the Griffin contribution that were also not reported with the first report, so I don't think this was an intentional effort to hide anything; slow communications with her campaign treasurer at the tail end of the reporting period is plausible.

Even unintentionally, though, the public was denied full transparency on a rather important issue. One way to avoid this kind of stink would be for council members to exercise a little common sense and just not take contributions from people who have business before the city council.

RELATED: Rakestraw's pre-election finance report was due October 31st. As of 11:00 A.M. yesterday it had still not been received by the Board of Elections. It is not online this morning; more lack of transparency through neglect, unfortunately.