Agreeing with John Hammer on Danny Thompson

GREENSBORO, NC -- Rhinoceros Times editor John Hammer, in explaining why he is not endorsing incumbent city council representative Danny Thompson for city council.

[S]ome things are more important than a candidate's political stance, and for me one of those is honesty. 

I agree. To Hammer's list of particulars for Danny Thompson's dishonesty, I would add a few of my own.

Porn Hype Part I

Thompson misrepresents the content of documents.

At an August, 2010 council meeting Danny waived a thick stack of papers he said were six months of incident reports from the central library. He falsely claimed that the "great majority of them" were reports of "indecent behavior to looking at inappropriate websites."

Thompson used this "information" to justify making a motion: that "We institute blocking software devices on our public library computers whereby access is denied and not able to be accessed." (sic) (video, 01:48:50)

A subsequent records request and examination by this blogger revealed that of the 190 reports Thompson was waiving around, only 21 were for viewing inappropriate websites. Nonetheless, Thompson's stunt kicked off months of time-wasting hullabaloo over a problem that wasn't a problem.

Bonus for lack of accountability
I sent Thompson an email asking him to clarify what he had represented the documents to be. Receiving no reply, I sent it again, twice to his personal email address and twice to his city email address. He never answered.

Lowest Cost Trash Provider

Thompson misrepresents vendor bids

Thompson promoted council's selection of Gate City Waste Services to collect the city's trash saying, on multiple occasions, that the company was the lowest cost provider. It was not. Thompson even said as much immediately prior to voting to award the contract to what he acknowledged, in his own words, was the second-lowest bidder. Thompson subsequently tried to reconcile his self-contradictions by "explaining" that the company would have been the lowest bidder under a low-trash-volume scenario—one that did not conform to the city's needs. For the job of actually disposing of the city's trash, the company selected was the second-lowest bidder.
 
Bonus for lack of common sense
Six days before the final vote to award the trash disposal contract to the second-lowest bidder, Thompson accepted a $2,500 campaign contribution from one of the company's partners.

Quoting The Rhino Times out of Context

Thompson misrepresents the meaning of a John Hammer report

On his campaign website, under the title of "What others are saying," Thompson offers a two-word snippet from the Rhino Times:

"...refreshingly honest." -Rhino Times, August 4, 2011

Here's it is in context:

As Thompson kept saying, it is an election year. But it is still rare for a politician to admit that they cast a vote mainly because they thought it would help their campaign. One way to look at it is that Thompson is refreshingly honest. He kept repeating that he had received lots of emails from Greensboro residents and the farmers who were upset about the farmers' market all lived outside the city.

Bonus for prevarication by neglect
Also on Thompson's "What others are saying" web page is a quote from David Hoggard praising Danny for his position on which management group to select for the Farmer's Market. This week, Thompson did an about face and officially voted against Hoggard's position, but David's quote remains as if it still applies.

Porn Hype Part II

Thompson misrepresents this blogger's research.

Trying to bring some clarity to the library computer porn scare, I wrote a blog post explaining why a single web page will generate multiple "hits" in computer log files and that such hits do not equal websites. After explaining the terminology, I referred to the 500 hits flagged as porn in a sample library log file and wrote: 

"It should be comprehensible to the rational mind that these are not 500 'visits' or even 'pages.'...It shows why it is disingenuous to report these items as counting 'porn site visits.'"

At the next council meeting, Thompson referred to this blogger's research and, in characterizing it,  announced:

"I understand there were about 500 inappropriate or pornographic websites..."

...the very misrepresentation I specifically advised against. I've got to hand it to Danny, citing someone as an authority for the opposite of what they really said is very clever. Political judo—if you think it's all a game.

Like Jeff Martin, I'm not sure if Thompson is dishonest because he's not too smart or if he thinks he's smarter than the rest of us. The reason doesn't matter, he is incapable of meeting one of the most important obligations of his office and should be turned out.