Nancy Vaughan (born Nancy Barakat, and formerly Nancy Mincello) is the 48th

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...

. Mayor Nancy Vaughan was born and raised in New Jersey and recently divorced Don Vaughan. Having previously served on the city council in district 4 and

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, she was elected mayor on November 5, 2013, with 59% of the vote. Vaughan was sworn in on December 3, 2013. She was reelected in 2015 and

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. She is the daughter of

Fred Barakat Fred Barakat (from Union City, New Jersey, April 8, 1939 – June 21, 2010) was an American college basketball coach and Assistant Commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Barakat was a 1961 graduate of Assumption College in Worcester, MA w ...

. Vaughan served as the executive director of the Guilford Green Foundation, an

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advocacy group, from February 2016 until January 2018.

Political career

Greensboro first elected Nancy Vaughan to city council in 1997 in council district 4. She served two terms before leaving to raise her daughter, Catherine. Before her first council run, she had become known for leading a fight against the city's plans for a tract of land formerly owned by

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. She was petitioning to stop them from re-zoning for higher density. Her talking points during her first run included expanding the city's landfill and water capacity, and increasing Greensboro's size through annexation. She ran again at-large in 2007, where she served as

Mayor Pro tem ''Pro tempore'' (), abbreviated ''pro tem'' or ''p.t.'', is a Latin phrase which best translates to "for the time being" in English. This phrase is often used to describe a person who acts as a ''locum tenens'' (placeholder) in the absence of ...

until becoming mayor in 2013.

Tenure as Mayor

Vaughan has come under criticism for enforcing an arbitrary

code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization. Companies' codes of conduct A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...

at city council meetings. These rules prohibit members of the public from speaking on matters "in litigation" or speaking in a way that Vaughan "deem to be an 'attack'" on any city employee during meetings. This move was criticized by citizens, watch groups, and multiple members of city council who say they were not informed of the code of conduct before Vaughan began enforcing it at the October 2 city council meeting. On March 13, 2020, Vaughan declared a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. On March 27, she issued a

stay-at-home order A stay-at-home order, safer-at-home order, movement control order (more common in Southeast Asia), or lockdown restrictions (in the United Kingdom) – also referred to by loose use of the terms (self-) quarantine, (self-) isolation, or lockdow ...

for the city of Greensboro, which expired April 16, after which Greensboro fell under the jurisdiction of the state's stay-at-home order. On June 23, she issued an emergency order requiring all people to wear face coverings in public within Greensboro city limits in order to curb the spread of the pandemic. In response to protests stemming from the 2020 George Floyd protests, the mayor ordered a city-wide

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

. The ACLU of North Carolina called the order unconstitutional and " overbroad", saying it "gives police too much discretion over whom to arrest and will likely lead to selective law enforcement against communities of color." Local news media drew attention to the contrast in enforcement. The Greensboro Police Department arrested and charged several black men for protesting while carrying firearms, while white men associated with the white supremacist

Stokes County Stokes County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 44,520. Its county seat is Danbury, North Carolina, Danbury. Stokes County is in ...

Militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non- professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

group carrying guns and paramilitary gear were not approached by police.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaughan, Nancy Greensboro, North Carolina City Council members Living people North Carolina Democrats Women mayors of places in North Carolina Fairfield University alumni 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians 1961 births Mayors of Greensboro, North Carolina