John Graybeal posted some excerpts from a 2012 “voting scorecard” to try to denigrate Mike Cross as a Democrat

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In: Politics

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 17:56:47 -0500
From: Mike Fox
Subject: Mike Cross is a full-time Democrat

Yesterday John Graybeal posted some excerpts from a 2012 “voting scorecard” to try to denigrate Mike Cross as a Democrat.  Cross has posted extensive responses to this already on his blog, which you can read here: http://cross4chatham.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-2011-chatham-county-democratic.html

I’ll just respond to the first two issues that John listed, so as not to fill up the chatlist, but many more  details are available at the link above.

John claims:  (Cross voted to) Remove the Environmental Review Board from the major subdivision planning process;

Mike Cross’s website says:   Sally motioned and I seconded to keep the ERB review and were out voted 3-2. It will still go to a  staff/peer review.BOC Discussion http://chathamnc.org – 2-8-11 Retreat Minutes and 3-7-11 Work Minutes.

So this claim is simply incorrect. John will you correct your error?

John Claims: (Mike voted to) Favor action by the Sheriff in assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

As explained at his website link above, Mike Cross voted with the Democratic majority for the 2009 resolution expressing strong opposition to local government agencies contracting with ICE to enforce federal immigration laws.  When the Republican majority came along in 2010 they wanted to create a new resolution revoking that one and telling the Sheriff to do everything possible to cooperate with ICE. After much discussion Mike Cross convinced them not to do a resolution at all, and none was done.

While I’m not sure how John reads that as Mike Cross favoring the sheriff assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration law when in fact he used reasoned discussion to stop a resolution requesting that, this is also an example of working together to get the best outcome for the county.  The minutes of the 6/6/11 regular meeting have the details.

These are just the first two.  You can see more at Mike’s website link above.

I’ll also just add that I do find the assertion that one has to be in complete lock-step to be a “full-time Democrat” offensive.  The Democratic party I belong to encourages diversity, negotiation and compromise.  The “my way or the highway” approach that Mike Dasher’s PAC supporters are demanding reminds me of the other party, especially in Washington, rather than the Democratic party I belong to.

Mike