Pinehurst 2011: VAT-PAC ticket getting split?
A political action committee called The Village Action Team (VAT) has been getting a lot of buzz lately for its ad buys in The Pilot and in Pine Straw touting three candidates for Pinehurst municipal races: mayoral candidate and incumbent council member Nancy Roy Fiorillo, incumbent council member Mark Parson, and council candidate John Cashion.
One could get the impression — from attending their events and reading their ads — that this trio is running as a team. If you dig deeper — as I have — you’ll find THAT is far from being the case.
I had the chance recently to speak candidly with two old local political hands, each of whom is deeply involved with Pinehurst council candidates who have not been endorsed by The Village Action Team.
“Oh, we’re all supporting Nancy,” said one of my sources, who is very close to a council candidate not endorsed by the VAT.
I asked both veteran politicos how that is going to work, since there are only two seats on the council up for election, and FIVE candidates. Fiorillo is on the VAT-endorsed ticket, which includes council candidates Parson and Cashion.
“We think Nancy is wonderful. She’ll be a great mayor,” my other source, a close adviser to another council candidate not endorsed by the VAT, said. ” We don’t have to take all three of the Village Action Team candidates. And neither does Nancy.”
(Aaaahh. Fall. You can smell the burning leaves, the political intrigue, and the ticket-splitting in the air. )
Excellent reporting on the Concerned Citizens Committee forum at the Village Hall in Pinehurst. Typically in Pinehurst we have a League of Women Voters forum (the term debate would not be an accurate description) but with 8 candidates on the stage the amount of give and take is negligible and the redundant answers is deadening. Thus it was refreshing to see the Concerned Citizens organization hold a forum open to all Mayoral candidates. Unfortunately for the two candidates who refused to appear with John Marcum that left the stage to John Marcum and he did a fine job carefully and dispassionately outlining his vision for Pinehurst and his critique of the current village government. He was particularly telling in describing the village council’s failure to fight the closing of the village post office. It is ironic that the council is appointing two town officials to work with village businesses to hype business while neglecting to do all it could to save the post office,which brings almost a thousand people into the village each week for mail box and other post office services. Keep up your excellent reporting. paul dunn