Zack Matheny has never lost a Greensboro City Council race. He doesn’t intend to start this year.
But he’d also like to make the next four-year term his last.
“I think I’ve got one more term,” Matheny said in a recent interview. “Do I see myself past another four years? No.”
Matheny held the council’s District 3 seat from 2007 to 2015.
The year before leaving council, he made a failed bid for the Sixth Congressional District seat being vacated by Howard Coble. He didn’t make it out of that year’s very crowded Republican primary, but the run signaled to many that Matheny was ready to move on from council.
In 2015, he announced he was stepping down from his council seat to lead the non-profit Downtown Greensboro Inc. (DGI). At the time, he said he wanted to avoid any perceived conflict of interest as DGI gets funding from the city, works closely with city leaders and staff, and with local developers.
But Matheny decided to run for council again and was again elected to the District 3 seat in 2022—a reversal that prompted criticism. His loudest and most frequent detractors have been calling for his resignation or ouster since his return to council, leading to a current State Bureau of Investigation probe into potential conflicts between his council and DGI roles.
The SBI has not publicly named Matheny as the subject of the investigation, and he said they still have not contacted him in any way about it. But he remains confident that everything he’s done as both a city council member and president and CEO of DGI has been above board and defensible—something on which he said he’s been supported by two different city attorneys and the entire council.
“When you talk about criticism, you have to look at the source,” Matheny said. “Who are the people criticizing me? You have a small group of loud people, some of them who don’t even live in Greensboro, and most who don’t live in my district. You have people who have run against me in the past and been the loudest voices for years, but they don’t represent the majority in the city or in my district.”
After The Assembly broke the story about the SBI investigation in July and other media picked it up, Matheny said, he immediately began receiving messages of support from constituents, city employees, and their organizations.
“I received a message that day from the Greensboro Police Officers Association,” Matheny said. “It said, ‘We know the truth. You have stood with us. We are standing with you. You have our endorsement.’ So all these personal attacks have taken place, but not only have I received the Greensboro Police Officers Association endorsement, but the Professional Firefighters of Greensboro endorsement, and I’ve received the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association endorsement.”
The success of his non-profit has helped take downtown Greensboro from a struggling comeback to runaway success, Matheny said, with 31 businesses opening there in 2023 — 63 percent women or minority owned. With an estimated 1.8 million visitors downtown, $90 million in economic impact and $800 million in the economic development pipeline, Matheny said he believes the work he’s doing benefits his district and all of Greensboro.
We recently caught up with Matheny to talk about his journey on city council, the criticism he’s received, and what he says will likely be his last council campaign.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
When you decided to run for council again, after stepping down to lead Downtown Greensboro Inc., did you anticipate the criticism you would get or the constant accusations of conflicts?
When I made the decision to step away [in 2015], I was tired. I mean, I’m in my eighth year [on council]. I had small kids. I went from being a bachelor in 2007 to in 2015 being married with three kids. And the politics, as you see today — not only locally, statewide, and federally — it can burn you out. I mean, I was burned out. And then there was the conversation of, ‘Is there a conflict of interest?’ But I didn’t want to do it anymore anyway. I was ready for what’s next.
What was next at that point was leadership of DGI. But what made you determine you wanted to return to council, and did you anticipate there would be criticism and scrutiny over conflicts of interest?
How many people are actually scrutinizing me?
There’s people that have never met me, never had a conversation with me, that go on Facebook and say the awfulest things about me. I was even accused of tearing down [Greensboro Housing Authority community] Smith Holmes, which I have nothing to do with and the city has nothing to do with. That’s a fellow named James Cox, who runs the Greensboro Housing Authority.
But they say whatever they want, and I just let it roll off my back.
There are criticisms over conflicts of interest, but there have also been televised city council meetings where people have called you fat, repeatedly brought up your 2015 DUI arrest, and publicly accused you of having affairs with employees. How much actually rolls off your back?
Yeah, certainly. I have a 13-year-old daughter that has seen the stickers that people have put out. You know, [my kids] don’t watch city council, but they’re on social media. You hate for them to see all of that. I sat down and talked with my daughter a year or a year and a half ago, when I was really struggling on council. My first meeting back, they spent two hours crucifying me.
But [Council Member] Tammi Thurm and everybody on council stood up for me. And that is an incredible thing when the eight other city council members, people who don’t always agree on everything, have got your back. Because they know the things these people are saying simply aren’t true.
More personal criticisms are one thing. The accusations of conflicts of interest, I would imagine, you had to anticipate were coming because you mentioned perceived conflicts when you stepped away from council in 2015.
On conflict of interest, I would argue that, since I was sworn in August of 2022, there’s no proof of any conflict of interest I’ve had.
I wasn’t the first or the last council member who was a leader of a nonprofit that worked with and got funding from the city. There is a proper way to deal with that, and I’ve made sure that I’ve done it properly with every vote. Ask the city attorneys, pick which one. Ask my fellow council members.
My [DGI] board was supportive of me running again, my family was supportive. They saw firsthand how much I care about the community.
I’ll tell you one of the main factors was, and you still see it today, leadership. We needed some leadership and some experience, I felt, on city council. In a lot of cases, it seems like we don’t get answers on city council like we deserve, and the community deserves to get answers. In 2007, I was euphoric about our community. In 2021 and 2022, when we ran again and we finally got elected, I was frustrated.
What frustrated you specifically?
I’m frustrated with numerous things, one of them being the lack of support for the unhoused. I get yelled at almost every city council meeting about it, but the funny thing is that just this week I’ve agreed to have [DGI] do a kind of joint downtown hospitality worker program with [The Interactive Resource Center, a day center for the unhoused]. I toured Goodwill, and I met with Scott Jones over there to talk about tiny houses and the things they’re doing with Goodwill to help get people back into the workforce.
Since I was sworn in again in 2022, who has spoken about housing, housing for the unhoused, more than me? No one. Who has spoken about Regency Inn, about John Dimrey Drive, and Summit Executive Center more than me? Nobody.
When people say I’m only focused on downtown, I think if you look at my city council history, there is no doubt in my mind it proves that I have put the city of Greensboro in totality above all.
To me, it’s what are we doing to have vision for the next 15 years? Because I’ll tell you, in my opinion, a lot of what we’re receiving right now—whether it’s Boom Supersonic, Marshall Aerospace, Toyota, JetZero—that was what we set forth 12 to 15 years ago, right? So what are we doing right now to make the next 12 to 15 years a success?
Whether or not you are re-elected, the council that takes up those questions will look very different next year. A lot of the people with whom you’ve served for years aren’t coming back. How do you see a newly constituted council tackling those things?
I think about, how do I continue to serve the community that I love? When I think about the changeover and what can happen, you certainly run scenarios in your mind about who could win, and how that could look, how you work together, what could happen?
I will tell you, in this election, the most disappointing thing that I have seen is the amount of state representatives that are making a non-partisan election partisan.
City council elections are technically non-partisan, but people tend to know who is who. This cycle, I have seen the local parties getting more involved in the city council elections than I’ve seen in a while. The candidates themselves are mentioning partisanship more. I’ve noted some Democrats elected at the state level endorsing or doing events with your opponent, April Parker, who is a fellow Democrat. You are the current council’s only registered Republican, and your district has historically leaned that way. But I would imagine increased partisanship still changes the dynamic of a race.
It’s odd, the fact that it’s gotten so partisan. If you look at me and my experience, I’m as moderate and middle-down-the-road as you can get. I think it’s going to be a real strain, it getting so partisan. It’s going to strain some relationships not just on council, but it’s going to strain some relationships with our local Guilford delegation [who serve in the North Carolina General Assembly].
Given the second election of President Donald Trump and the national political discourse, I certainly think the country is more divided, the state is more divided, and it trickles down. Are you feeling that as the council’s only Republican?
Back in 2006, 2007, when I was first running, someone asked me why I was a Republican. And he showed me some stuff on the national Republican Party website. And I said, “Well, you’ve now been to the national Republican Party website one more time than I have.”
I was born in 1972. In 1980, when I was really forming my first formidable memories, who was elected president? Ronald Reagan—the Great Communicator. “Tear down that wall!” And then of course, 88 to 92, we had George Herbert Walker Bush, who arguably is one of the finer men that ever was elected president. He had experience being involved with the CIA and the FBI, he was always married to the same woman and had a great family, and he really put in the work. That was really what I thought about when I became a Republican.
But ideologically, I’ve always supported everybody equally. I mean, everybody from LGBTQIA people to Cassie Richardson from [DGI] designing the Juneteenth banners for Greensboro. At the Christmas parade we organized last year, who was Santa? It was an African American Santa for the first time in Greensboro’s history.
With the heavy deployment of ICE and the National Guard, even active duty military into some local communities, I think we’re seeing national partisan politics really come home locally in many ways. How are you navigating that, and how do you see a new council navigating that?
I think there have been mistakes, and I want fewer mistakes, not more. Honestly, people who are not from Greensboro, who are not in our community, who are not elected or do not have the relationship with our community and with our [Greensboro Police Department], they don’t know the relationships that exist in our community. I personally don’t want the National Guard and others interrupting what our GPD is doing.
I had to miss a candidate event at Temple Emanuel the other night, and I hated that. But I was committed to going to Charlotte to see someone I’m very close to become an American citizen. And that was important. Incredibly important, to me. We have immigrants in our country, in our community, who are coming here for a better life, and we want them choosing to do that.
You’ve told me you see this term, if you’re re-elected, as your last. What goes into that decision?
You never want to say never, but in four years, my daughter will be 16. I think I’d rather focus on downtown, focus on things strategically for the greater community and for the Triad. I’m doing some of that now, and I hope it comes to fruition. But I think in another four years I probably will begin talking about running with other folks in the district that have the same moderate ideological goals and passion for the city. And then I’ll exit stage right.