Mayor: No food truck conflict

[UPDATE: It turns out, the mayor's company is leasing some dowtown restaurant space.]

GREENSBORO, NC -- I've come to loath the practice of some bloggers to use their ignorance as grounds to cast aspersions on people. It goes like this:

How many baby seals has the council woman clubbed? You don't know? I don't either, but should we have a baby seal killer on city council?

I despise it because it's lazy, it's dishonest and it makes it very difficult for bloggers who legitimately try to reveal important information to be taken seriously—not to mention being remarkably unfair to the targets of the practice. It also does its practitioners no favors (see boy, wolf).

So when a post at Ed Cone's blog about city council considering allowing food trucks downtown prompted a commenter to speculate that Mayor Robbie Perkins might have a conflict of interest because his real estate company might be the leasing agent for some downtown restaurant properties, I decided to cut to the chase and just ask the mayor about it.

I emailed:

Is NAIPT leasing any restaurant space downtown? If so, do you think you have a conflict of interest voting on something that would control food truck access to downtown?

They mayor replied:

We have a kitchen space at Spring Garden and Edgeworth.  We have several restaurant spaces available in other areas of Greensboro.

No conflict in voting on food trucks.