Our new slogan: "Greensboro: A Bigger Gastonia"

Ed Cone coined the phrase "Greensboro Disease." Its onset is brought about by the presence of some largely good opportunity for Greensboro and manifests in symptoms of hand wringing, finger pointing, confusion and paranoia.

The local spin doctors' immediate treatment is a large dose of boosterism. It is rarely effective in treating the stricken and is resulting in unwanted side effects. Just as the overuse of antibiotics results in new resistant bacterial strains, Greensboro's liberal applications of boosterim are having the unintended consequence of spreading G.L.U.M.M. -- Greensboro Leaders Unresponsive to Mediocrity and Mendacity.

GLUMM is caused when the boosterism antibodies mistake real and urgent infections for Greensboro Disease and launch their suppressive actions on any target that has negative implications for Greensboro. It manifests in symptoms of blindness, deafness, dumbness, paralysis, coddling the incompetent and a fear of being impolite. Mediocrity and mendacity flourish unabated as a result.

City Councilor Zack Matheny was kind enough to have a cup of coffee with me this week. He asked me how I thought we can rise above the mediocrity and mendacity. For people in positions of leadership, check yourselves for GLUMM. If you think you might be infected, daily affirmations are the first order of business: "I will not tolerate mediocrity. Greensboro deserves better. I will not tolerate mendacity. Greensboro deserves better."

Unless and until Greensboro begins to address the outbreak of GLUMM, I fear I must agree with a commentator at Joe Guarino's blog who suggests that we, as a city, are headed on a path to being Gastonia, only bigger.

Will work for a donut... Not

Arbitron just called. The caller said I had been selected to keep a diary of my radio listening for a week in February. He said I would receive a small financial token of thanks for participating. When I asked how much, the caller said "Enough to buy a coffee or a donut." A donut? (Such a small unit of value that my spell checker is telling me it should be plural as I type this.) Very politely, I told the caller, "You are working for more than a donut. Your bosses are earning more than a donut. I'll pass."

Sorry Brad and Britt.

Former Mayor Keith Holliday, Pat Danahy, Rev. Nelson Johnson, Goldie Wells, Ben Holder: Truth about survelince must be known

Last week, Ben Holder of The Troublemaker blog, went before city council to complain that the completed investigation of secret recordings of citizens by the Greensboro Police Department is being withheld by Chief Bellamy. Ben has posted a video that remind us that former mayor Keith Holiday, Pat Danahy, CEO of the Greensboro Partnership, the Reverend Nelson Johnson and City Councilor Goldie Wells have all stated their expectations that the public would know what happened when the investigation was complete:

Patrick Danahy have you met Ben Holder?

When information first came to light about citizens having been secretly recorded by a police informant, Patrick Danahy, President and CEO of the Greensboro Partnership, went before Greensboro City Council on behalf of the Greensboro Partnership and said:

"We understand the need for limited public information to protect the investigation, but at the appropriate time (we) expect full transparency of what has happened and what will be done about it."

The investigation is now complete. Ben Holder, who blogs at The Troublemaker, requested the results. He says Police Chief Tim Bellamy won't give him the report because it is an "administrative report." Ben brought this to the City Council's attention this week.

I hope Mr. Danahy will be at the next City Council meeting to reiterate the Greensboro Partnership's original expectation of full transparency on this issue and to support Ben's request for the report.

Can Obama's new spirit of openness trickle down to Greensboro City Council? Troublemaker gives them a chance

President Obama signed an executive order today instructing government agencies to handle Freedom of Information requests "with an eye toward disclosure, not refusal." He said that angencies should err on the side of releasing information and not withhold it just because the law may give them a reason not to release it.

What a breath of fresh air. Greensboro should take note and get a clue.

The Troublemaker, Ben Holder, spoke to council last night on a matter that demonstrates the city's current problem: Some incident comes to light (in Ben's case it was undercover recordings made by the police), city staff make some initial characterizations and promise that information will be forthcoming when the facts are compiled then, when the facts have been compiled, they are denied to the public (in Ben's case GPD Police Chief refuses to give the public findings about the recordings because they are an "administrative report.")

Too often, the result is that misinformation and suspicion are allowed to fester. And why? Didn't we learn a lesson from the decades of suspicion that plagued Greensboro as a result of information being withheld about the Klan/Nazi shootings? Has our current generation of leaders learned nothing about what the scourge of secrecy can do to a community?

The propensity to find any reason not to release informatoin to the public is a tiresome and frustrating pattern in City government. Obama is raising the bar. Greensboro can and should follow his lead.

Zack Matheny's email address?

Does anybody have city councilor Zack Matheny's email address?

Piraino is back with protest petition cartoon

Anthony Piraino used to draw cartoons and post them on his blog. Then the News & Record (Greensboro, NC) hired him, then they un-hired him. Now he is back with a cartoon commentary on the protest petitions:



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Gatten, Carmany, Phillips, Wells, Holliday -- what are they hiding?

Remember the polygraph tests that city council members took in 2006 to prove that they were not responsible for the "leak" of the RMA Report? Eight of nine council persons took the test.

At the time, the eight who were subjected to the polygraph were told their results in private, by the examiner, and allowed to orally report their results to the public -- as if someone determined to be a liar would not also lie about their results.

The whole thing was absurd, a waste of thousands of dollars of public funds, intended to back into a corner the one council person who would not take the test, T. Dianne Bellamy Small -- to make her guiltiy by implication. We were left to deduce that the one who did not take the test, T. Dianne Bellamy Small, was hiding something because she would not take the test.

With their consent, the polygraph examiner has now released a written report for the examinations of Mayor Yvonne Johnson and council persons Mike Barber and Sandra Anderson-Groat. The resutls? Each said they did not leak the report and the examiner reports there was "no deception detected." (Amanda Lehmart at "The Inside Scoop" has more, including the reports.)

Having yet to give their consent for a written report to be prepared of their results are former mayor Keith Holliday, former city council persons Tom Phillips, Sandy Carmany, Florence Gatten and current city council person Goldie Wells. What are they hiding?

Crime in my neighborhood

Neighbor Charlie has posted 2008 crime incidents at the neighborhood blog and compares them to 2007. Crime is up. Larcenies and burglaries up 167% year over year, from 9 to 15.

The cops did help us get a Neighborhood Watch program going last summer. It has resulted in us being more vigilant and willing to check up on each other. Indeed, since forming the CW, I have seen very swift responses by the police to reports of suspicious activity. I don't know what else we can do, but I hope something reverses this trend. This is a decent middle-class neighborhood, the kind that should be safe and stable if this city has anything going for it.

Congratulations Joe Killian and Amanda Lehmert

News & Record higher education reporter Joe Killian and Greensboro reporter Amanda Lehmert are engaged. Sources say the proposal was proffered and accepted on Christmas eve at the Bristol (Connecticut) Press headquarters where the two worked as cub reporters. Congratulations Joe and Amanda.

Bob Kober, Doug Copeland. What are you doing?

Spam from Bob Kober and Doug Copeland. Sue takes note (again):

"It’s local - the Triad Business Journal - and I like Doug Copeland and everyone else there. This isn’t personal. It’s technology and in many cases, it’s the law. Use the right tools for the right job."

I contacted the TriadNewsWirespam's sponsors North State Communications and Environmental Holdings Group. No reply. They must condone.

UPDATE: Doug Copeland called me to inform that the email Sue received was not spam, but a personal email from him. It included "to unsubscribe" instructions, which apparently caused the confusion.

Great deal on corn at Harris Teeter

I wish I had had my camera. At the Harris Teeter on Lawndale tonight, ears of corn were marked with this sale sign: Regularly 2 for $1.00, on sale: 5 for $3.00.

Why is it impossible to find an email address on the City's website?

I'm trying to find the email address for the City of Greensboro's Asst. City Manager for Communications, Denise Turner. I clicked on every promising link on the City's web site and used the search box to search her name. No email address. If anybody has Ms. Turner's email address, please post it in the comments. Thanks!

Environmental Holdings Group: Sponsors of Email Spam

Another day, another unwanted email spam from TriadNewsWire. Today the sponsor is Environmental Holdings Group. As noted previously (here, here, here and here), TriadNewsWire insists on sending spam to people who never asked to receive it. Their tactics even generated a complaint to the FCC. Is EHG aware of this?

North State Communications: Sponsors Local Spam

North State Communications, I don't know how much you paid for your ad in the TriadNewsWire's email "newsletter," but you have attached your good name to a despised spammer. As noted previously (here, here and here), TriadNewsWire insists on sending spam to people who never asked to receive it. Their tactics even generated a complaint to the FCC. Yet they continue and now have people paying for their annoyance.

Spagnola: "It's time for John Robinson to go." He has a point.

From The Spagnola Report:

It was big, bold headlined front page news when Ahearn initially reported the alleged improper use of the “black book”. The fact that Johnson later admitted in his answers to us under penalty of perjury that he had no evidence to support the claim has yet to even be written about in the News and Record even though I have had this document since August and The Rhino made the story front page news after I made a copy available to John Hammer.

There is no excuse for this if the News and Record intends to be considered a credible news source. Just like Mitch Johnson, it is time for John Robinson to go.

Where Sam has a point is the fact that the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record has failed to report, since it first came to light in September of last year, that the City of Greensboro, sworn to by City Manager Mitch Johnson, admits that it has zero evidence of anything indicating any misuse whatsoever of the so-called "black book."

You will recall that the former police chief David Wray was driven from office in large part because of the purported misuse of this book. The News & Record previously reported city manager Mitch Johnson as saying that the former chief of police "knew the book was improper" and that the book was "shown to prostitutes and drug dealers across the county in an effort to get information on any officers who might be engaging in illegal activities."

None of these assertions has ever been substantiated and now that the City, through the sworn statement of the City Manager, says that they have zero indication that the book was improperly used, the best the N&R can muster is "The city manager recently said the city could not prove the black book was used inappropriately." [Emphasis added] Well, no. That misses the point and is journalistic prestidigitation intended to divert readers away from the truth and the News & Record's complicity in obfuscating it.

City Manager Mitch Johnson was not asked if he could prove that the black book was used inappropriately, he was asked to:

"State whehter there are any documents or recordings in the posession of the City that indicate any other use of the 'Black Book' other than to solve or prevent a violation of the law." [Emphasis added] [Source, p13 #10]

To this the City replied, with the notarized signature of City Manager Johnson:

"Based on information and belief, the City of Greensboro is not aware of any documents or recordings in the possession of the City that indicate any other use of the photo array, an original of which is currently in the possession of the State Bureau of Investigations (sic), other than to purportedly solve or prevent an alleged violation of the law." [Emphasis added] [Source, p13 #10]

The city manager was not asked to prove improper use of the line up book, he was asked if the city has anything at all that even indicated improper use. The City and City Manager say no.

This matters greatly. The N&R previously reported the City Manager as saying that the book was used improperly. Now the manager says he has nothing that would indicate that at all. Where did those previous assertions reported in the N&R come from? Was the City Manager lying or being misquoted by the media and why does the N&R seem hellbent on ignoring the now glaring contradictions, much less investigating the reason for the contradiction and setting the record straight?

Sam is right. If the N&R will not explain to the public why it reported the City Manager as saying something for which he now says he has no evidence, then the N&R is not merely tolerating but standing in defense of mendacity -- a stance that should lead to the editor's dismissal if the paper's owners have any concern for its credibility.

UPDATE: Ben Holder (at Guarino's blog) provides another example of the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record reporting City Manager Johnson implicating former Chief Wray with statements about the "Black Book" for which he says he now has no evidence:

"Wray countered in a written statement that the black three-ring binder had only been compiled and used to identify a suspect in a single case: A prostitute's complaint that a police officer groped and sexually assaulted her during a strip search last January.

But City Manager Mitchell Johnson said investigators concluded otherwise - that there were numerous instances of the book being shown to criminal defendants in an attempt to target black officers among the 19 pictured in the book. Defendants were told, in Johnson's words, 'If you ID an officer, we might help you out....' "

UPDATE II: Here's another example of how the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record has left standing inaccurate reporting about the black book:

The book in question includes head shots of 114 black males, including at least 19 city officers. Wray maintains that the photos were assembled for one purpose only: A woman reported that she was sexually assaulted by an unidentified black policeman, and the 19 photos were of the uniformed black officers working that particular shift.

However, Bellamy said Tuesday that he has found no record of such an assault, whether in the form of a police report, a tape of the woman's statement or any previous computer search of the black officers on that shift.

If one were to go by the "official paper of record" for Greensboro, one would believe that there were indications of misuse of the "black book" and no evidence of a legitimate purpose when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. There is only evidence of its proper use and zero indication of its misuse, but the N&R seems unable to make that known for some reason. A newspaper editor content to let such a gross distortion of the facts stand on the record may be acceptable to his corporate bosses, but Greensboro deserves better.