A Tangled Web: Why Beard's City Council Bid is Legally and Ethically Unsustainable
A Double Burden: Beard’s Tax Plan Asks Greensboro’s Poor to Subsidize His Nonprofit’s Goals
GREENSBORO, N.C.; Richard Beard, an influential figure in Greensboro’s development and sports circles, is pitching himself as a candidate of vision for the City Council. His central plank: a 1% prepared food tax to fund community amenities and sports facilities. But a closer examination reveals that Beard’s platform is built on a foundation of profound and unavoidable conflicts of interest, ones that state law suggests would render him unable to effectively serve on the very issues he cares about most.
The conflict is a rooted in Beard’s role as President and CEO of the Greensboro Sports Foundation (GSF). The GSF’s funding sources create a direct financial dependency on multiple entities controlled or significantly influenced by the very council on which he seeks to sit.
The Web of Taxpayer Funding
The Greensboro Sports Foundation’s operations are funded through a network of organizations that draw their lifeblood from public taxes:
The Greensboro Coliseum; A city department, making its payments to the GSF a direct transfer of taxpayer dollars.
The Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB)/Tourism Development Authority (TDA); The CVB/TDA is primarily funded by hotel/motel occupancy taxes levied by the City of Greensboro and Guilford County. By state law, a large majority of these tax proceeds must be used to promote travel and tourism. The GSF is a direct recipient of these funds.
This means the GSF is funded by two separate streams of city-controlled revenue; the Coliseum’s operational budget and the city’s allocation of occupancy tax revenue to the CVB/TDA.
The Legal Violation; A Statute with No Wiggle Room
This funding web places Beard in immediate conflict with North Carolina law the moment he would take office. North Carolina General Statute § 14-234.3 is unequivocal: “No public official shall knowingly participate in making or administering a contract… including the award of money… with any nonprofit with which that public official is associated.”
As CEO of the GSF, Beard is unquestionably “associated” with the nonprofit. Therefore, as a city council member, he would be legally prohibited from any participation in matters concerning:
The Coliseum’s budget (which funds his organization).
The city’s policy on occupancy taxes (which fund the CVB/TDA, which in turn funds his organization).
Oversight of the CVB/TDA itself, an entity created by city and county government to distribute public taxes.
“Recusal in this case isn’t just an ethical choice; it’s a legal mandate,” a government ethics expert explained. “The statute is designed to prevent an official from being on both sides of a transaction involving public money.”
The Ultimate Conflict; The Proposed Food Tax
The proposed 1% prepared food tax would create a third major stream of public revenue intended for the same ecosystem. Beard would be advocating for and voting on the creation of a massive new revenue stream for facilities and events that directly benefit the GSF, which is already funded by two other City funded sources.
This creates an inescapable “appearance of impropriety,” a standard emphasized in North Carolina’s ethics guidelines. Every major decision on tourism, sports, and quality-of-life infrastructure would be shadowed by the question of whether it benefits the city as a whole or the organization Beard leads.
A Council Member Silenced on Key Issues
The practical outcome is Richard Beard would be effectively muzzled on the most significant issues of his platform; the food tax, Coliseum improvements, tourism funding and parks and recreation.
He could not represent his constituents in debates on how to allocate occupancy tax revenue. He would have to abstain from shaping the policy for the very food tax he champions. His promise to be a proactive leader on quality of life infrastructure is fundamentally incompatible with the legal restraints of his other job.
Beard frames his dual roles as a synergy of passion for the community. But state law sees it as a textbook conflict. The purpose of these statutes is to ensure that public officials act solely in the interest of the taxpayers, without even the perception that their decisions are influenced by personal or organizational gain.
The composition of the Greensboro Sports Foundation’s board itself starkly contradicts Richard Beard’s message of inclusive, community wide governance. With a 27-member board that includes sitting City Council Member Marikay Abuzuaiter, notably the only woman listed, and is dominated by wealthy developers, business executives, hoteliers, sports team owners and managers, the GSF exemplifies the very “pockets” of influence Beard claims to oppose. This insider network, where a current council member helps steer an organization that receives city-affiliated funding, creates an undeniable perception of cronyism and raises serious questions about who truly benefits from the proposed tax and any other development issues Richard raises, debates or votes for. While Beard speaks of a city “for everybody,” the boardroom of his own organization tells a different story; one of exclusive access where public policy and private interest are already deeply intertwined, undermining any claim that his platform is solely for the public good.
The tangled web of money between the city, the Coliseum, the tourism authority, the Greensboro Sports Foundation and its board suggests that Richard Beard cannot serve three or more masters. The law is clear that the public’s interest must come first.
The staggering gender imbalance on the Greensboro Sports Foundation’s board, with only one woman among 27 members, not only highlights a profound failure of inclusion but also undercuts the very mission of promoting youth sports for all. If the goal is to inspire and represent the entire community, including the countless young girls who participate in athletics, this lopsided composition sends a damaging message that leadership and decision making power are fundamentally male domains. This lack of diversity is not just a matter of optics; it risks creating blind spots in programming and outreach, ensuring that the GSF’s vision for sports in Greensboro is shaped without the essential input of half the population it claims to serve.
The Ultimate Conflict: Asking the Poor to Pay for the Privilege
A deeper analysis of a 1% prepared food tax reveals a deeply problematic proposal; a regressive tax that would disproportionately burden mostly female led low income families, all while creating an untenable web of legal conflicts of interest that would benefit the very male dominated nonprofit organization Beard leads.
The proposed 1% food tax brings these two issues together in a perfect storm. The tax revenue would be earmarked for facilities like the Coliseum, which in turn funds Beard’s GSF. This creates a circular and troubling equation:
Low-income families would pay a higher percentage of their income through a tax on prepared food.
That revenue would flow to city controlled tourism and sports facilities.
Those facilities would then enrich the organization Beard leads.
In essence, the plan would ask Greensboro’s poorest residents to shoulder a disproportionate share of the cost for a sports tourism system that directly benefits Richard Beard and his board’s professional interests.
The proposal is not just fiscally questionable; it is ethically fraught, asking the city’s most vulnerable residents to pay for amenities that would primarily serve outside tourists and the sports ecosystem Beard is paid to promote.
A Regressive Tax on Necessity, Not Luxury
When confronted with this reality, Beard’s response was telling. He acknowledged that his critics point out “their constituents eat fast food twice a day.” But instead of expressing concern about the financial burden of his tax, he pivoted: “My first reaction was, ‘Boy, that bothers me more than a one-percent prepared food tax.’ They’re not eating healthy.”
This response highlights a fundamental disconnect. It dismisses the economic hardship of a new tax on food and reframes a crisis of poverty as a problem of personal nutrition. For a family budgeting for every dollar, an extra 1% on their food bill is a real strain. To suggest the primary issue is their dietary choices, rather than the added financial pressure of his policy, reveals a priorities problem that overlooks the realities of many Greensboro residents.
A Vision for Whom?
Beard speaks of spreading prosperity “throughout the whole city,” yet his signature policy would place a new burden on those least able to bear it to subsidize a system that already benefits from significant public funding. His vision for a “vibrant community” seems to hinge on attracting outside visitors, while ignoring the financial strain on existing residents.
The question for the public is not whether they support sports or economic growth, but what kind of growth they want. Do they want a city that funds its amenities by taxing the meals of its most vulnerable citizens, all while allowing a council member to navigate a minefield of legal conflicts? Or do they want public officials who serve only the public interest, not the interests of their other paycheck.
If elected, Beard would be legally barred from participating in decisions on the Coliseum’s budget, city tourism policy, and the allocation of occupancy tax revenue, all matters that directly impact his nonprofit’s funding. His promise to recuse himself from direct GSF funding votes is a minimal gesture that fails to address this broader, inescapable conflict.
