Troublemaker wants action on local sex trade

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Troublemaker is weary of delay in action on Greensboro's sex trade:

Bottom line is this, people are being left at risk.  That trumps the big trophy mentality the local authorities have.  Are the girls working at these places by choice or force?  They certainly have huge signs of human trafficking.  Are the people living next to the brothels in any danger? Would you be okay with your daughter getting off the school bus in the same parking lot as a brothel?

Emails: WFMY scripted Greensboro Police 'interview'; submitted for police approval

GREENSBORO, NC -- Emails recently obtained by this blogger show a local TV station submitting a script to a Greensboro police officer in advance of an upcoming live interview about door-to-door solicitors and the script getting forwarded to the police public affairs liaison for approval. The email, from WFMY anchor Tanya Rivera, includes what she calls a "working script" for the police officer's review. It includes Rivera's questions and suggested answers for the officer. "Anything you say is in the <…>," Rivera writes.

Although the anchor says the scripted answers are "examples" and "placeholders," the script reveals that, rather than probing the police for information, the anchor had already formed an opinion of the subject and was suggesting answers to the police officer that would conform to her narrative.

Excerpt (emphasis added):

Tanya: and usually... if it's in one neighborhood...it makes the rounds. 

<your answer: example-- right. so while it just happened in the north part of the city-- these people don't stay in one place. they move around, trying to get the most victims possible. they use everything from magazine sales to ****. and just because they have a nice sounding or charity sounding name...don't let that fool you.>

The email was subsequently forwarded to the Police Department's public affairs liaison for approval:

"I need your approval of this script Tanya Rivera of News 2 has prepared for an interview this evening."

Here are the emails in their entirety:

---

From: Uehlein, Pat C
To: Danielsen, Susan
Subject: FW: WFMY script for Wednesday 5:30pm
Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 8:41:34 AM

Susan,
I need your approval of this script Tanya Rivera of News 2 has prepared for an interview this evening
with Officer Eric Rasecke.

Pat

P. C. Uehlein, Sergeant
Western Community Resource Team
Greensboro Police Department
City of Greensboro
Phone: (336) 412-3910; Fax: (336) 373-4663
PO Box 3136, Greensboro, NC 27402-3136
www.greensboro-nc.gov

---

From: Rivera, Tanya [mailto:trivera@wfmy.gannett.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 7:02 PM
To: Rasecke, Eric H
Subject: WFMY script for Wednesday 5:30pm

Hey Eric—thanks again for being available for a live interview tomorrow. The newscast is at
5:30pm…please be here by 5:15pm and you will be done by 5:45pm. Here is the working
script. Anything you say is in the <…> You can see I put in examples…these are just
placeholders. Please email me back your answers so we can make sure we are on the right
track. I’m thinking of adding one or two tidbits of the code enforcement information at the end of
your interview and then putting the other code enforcement info in the web story. Would you
please pick out the number 1 or 1&2 points you think viewers need to know & then email me the
entire list.

Thanks again! –tanya

Tanya: On this neighborhood alert email--it says.. contact police if a solicitor shows up at your
door...
chances are... the solicitors won't show up in the this neighborhood again...but they could
show up in yours.

{***TANYA & GUEST***}
Officer Eric Rasecke with the Greensboro Police Department has seen his share of door-to-door
calls.

<your answer: example-- door-to-door scams happen in every neighborhood-- and it doesn't
seem there is a season without them.>

Tanya: and usually... if it's in one neighborhood...it makes the rounds.

<your answer: example-- right. so while it just happened in the north part of the city-- these
people don't stay in one place. they move around, trying to get the most victims possible. they
use everything from magazine sales to ****. and just because they have a nice sounding or
charity sounding name...don't let that fool you.>

Tanya : i imagine tracking down the people going door to door isn't all that easy unless a
neighbor calls you right then and there.

<your answer: example -- most of the time people call 20 minutes later when they get to thinking
about it. its usually too late. etc>

Tanya : and getting your money back from these people....

<your answer: example -- it's just as hard.....etc >

Tanya: the one thing we can count on...is if it's making the rounds in one neighborhood...there is
a good chance this could be in your neighborhood next.

(possible points 1 or 2 of the code enforcement—what every solicitor should have on their
person when they come to your door…..)

{full screen}

Tanya Rivera
2 Wants To Know
Office 336.379.5685
Twitter: @TanyaRiveraOn2

An open letter to mayor-elect Nancy Vaughan

Dear Mayor-elect Vaughan,

Congratulations on your victory. On the campaign trail, you emphasized job creation as one of your priorities—a priority consistently shared by your predecessors since we started bleeding our traditional manufacturing jobs some fifteen years or so ago. Unfortunately, our economic exsanguination has continued despite the sincere desires of mayors before you to find some antidote.

Each of your predecessors, however, took essentially the same approach to job creation, manifesting their hope in the capabilities of others, primarily various "economic development" officials and organizations. While the mayors pitched in with efforts to make land "shovel ready" or to make us an attractive place by improving our quality of life, those efforts, while not unimportant and not unappreciated, essentially consigned the mayors to an ancillary role. I think you should do things differently.

I suggest that you take the lead as a corporate recruiter for Greensboro. Cooperate with and utilize the expertise of the professional "economic developers," but take the lead. What would that look like? A job. Each day, you would do some research into business and industry trends. You'd read. A lot. Then, act. Each day, you would make some calls and send some emails or letters to companies that might be expanding or relocating.

Start with this: Foxconn, the mammoth Chinese manufacturer of iPhones and iPads is looking to establish manufacturing plants in the United Sates; one on the west coast, one on the east. You and I know that with our three-runway airport, confluence of highways, ground and air shipping companies, mobile chip maker RFMicro, and our tech colleges training potential workers in modern manufacturing, Foxconn should know about us. We could be the perfect fit.

Put yourself forward for us. On our behalf, begin to navigate your way to the people who will be deciding where the east coast Foxconn plant will be, introduce yourself to them, identify their needs and offer to personally help them consider Greensboro. Be their problem solver and our ambassador.

There will be, I'm sure, people who will tell you "that's not the way it's done." Tell them you want their help, but you'd like to do it a little differently this time, that you think we'll have more success if companies get the personal attention, and persistence, of Greensboro's mayor. Say that, then take charge. That's my advice.

Best of luck!

Yours,
Roch

Five years without a cigarette

It was five years ago yesterday that I quit smoking for good. I haven't had a single cigarette or cigar, not a puff, since. I'm done. I'm sure.

If you are a smoker, here's some friendly advice.

1. Don't give up. I went through periods of "light" smoking and heavier smoking and always thought to myself, "I can quit when I'm ready." I even quit for as much as a couple of years at a time. Even though I would start again, I kept making efforts to quit and I eventually won. Don't resign yourself to being a smoker just because your attempts to quit thus far haven't lasted, if you keep trying, you'll eventually win too.

2. Try anything, try everything. My eventual permanent success came about through the use of the prescription drug Chantix. It worked like a charm for me. No side effects -- no effects at all except that, after a little while, I simply did not desire a cigarette. It kept the desire at bay long enough for me to physically and mentally free myself from my need for cigarettes. There is plenty of good advice out there for techniques and steps that can increase your chances of successfully quitting. Don't be afraid to try them, even if you have before or even if they seem foreign to you.

3. Believe in your unseen reward. If you smoke, you are oblivious to just how much better your body and mind can feel without cigarettes. Trust me on this. One thing I can guarantee you is that, if you quit, you will reap an eventual but obvious improvement in your sense of wellbeing. "Healthy" will manifest itself in a physical way with you that you will feel viscerally. You can only appreciate how vastly superior this condition is to that while you were a smoker by experiencing it, but it's real, substantial and very positive. This is not to say that you may not have some significant, maybe even tortuous suffering as you try to quit, but that will go away if you can outlast it and your rewards are some very good feelings you cannot even imagine yet, but they are there, waiting for you.

Grand advice for the GOP

Tom Ridge, Republican, former Governor of Pennsylvania and the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, offers some sage advice to the Republican party, including this:

"In order to govern, we must win national elections. To do so the narcissists and ideologues within our party need to understand that Americans are, more conservative than liberal, but are more practical than ideological and more tolerant and open minded than judgmental. They are also looking for real not rhetorical solutions.

"They are not attracted to a party that imposes an even more severe litmus tests on its own members, projects an unacceptable rigidity and self-righteousness on social issues, and spends more time and energy objecting to bad law rather than proposing alternatives."

Read the rest.

Jim Kee campaign finance discrepancies

GREENSBORO, NC -- How much money has district 2 City Council representative Jim Kee received from William M. Kotis of Kotis Properties? There are discrepancies in Kee's campaign finance reports that raise questions.

According to Kee's latest filing, he has received an aggregated total of $4,000 in contributions from Kotis for this election, the legal allowable maximum. But only a single $500 contribution in September of this year is itemized in any of Kee's reports for this election cycle. When and for how much were the other contributions and do they, in fact, add up to only $4,000?

I emailed Kee yesterday morning to ask for clarification. He has not replied. Should I get a response, I will post an update here.

For my reporter and editor friends: The future of news

Glen Greenwald, journalist, blogger and lawyer, and Bill Keller, columnist and former executive editor of the News York Times, engage in an exchange about the recent past, current state and future of journalism. While they discuss matters in a global context, there is plenty to chew on for local reporters too.

An excerpt from Greenwald that resonated with me as relevant to national and local reporting:

"In essence, I see the value of journalism as resting in a twofold mission: informing the public of accurate and vital information, and its unique ability to provide a truly adversarial check on those in power." 

The unbelievable depravity of the News & Record

GREENSBORO, NC -- For all the things to which the News & Record could turn their attention; things for which the public begs and pleads for them to step up and do in the name of journalism—to do some investigation, fact checking and original reporting instead of just regurgitating press releases or acting as stenographers of differing opinions—with so much room for improvement, where does the News & Record go?

To the depraved depths of "reporting" on the mental health of a political consultant under the guise of  "election coverage."

What is wrong with that enterprise that it remains forever incompetent?

New Rhino sends Bledsoe down memory hole

GREENSBORO, NC -- Jerry Bledsoe is back. Jerry, as anybody who pays attention to Greensboro government will know, has the great distinction of doing the very heavy lifting of Greensboro's story from the muck and mire of lies and misinformation a lazy press and gullible elected officials almost left enshrined in history.

Jerry's series, "Cops in Black and White," was an account of the circumstances surrounding former police chief David Wray being forced from his position amid claims of racial motivations. It appeared in over ninety issues of the Rhinoceros Times newspaper and on the Rhino's website.

While the Rhino disappeared for a few months this summer because of financial troubles, it is back today with new financial backing and with Jerry Bledsoe as a contributing writer. Unfortunately, while the website is back too, it is without the archives of "Cops in Black and White". Search results for articles from the series link to "page not found" errors.

Bledsoe's series is an important resource—a touchstone for historical truth. The Rhino should restore its online presence.

Rhino returns, website stumbles

GREENSBORO, NC -- The local conservative weekly the Rhino Times is back. Having shuttered operations for financial difficulties five months ago, it has returned with the financial backing of local developer Roy Carrol. Reprising his role of editor is the Rhino's previous editor and former owner, John Hammer. Reg Freemyer, previously advertising director for The Courier Times of Asheboro, is the General Manager.

In introducing the new enterprise, publisher Carrol writes:

 "The key to the survival of any print publication today is interconnectivity with a web-based publication. We at the Rhino Times understand this and believe our readers will appreciate the new interactive format."

In this regard, the new Rhino stumbles. In addition to the awkward format and design of the website (no line breaks between paragraphs, garish colors, antiquated photo "galleries"), there are no obvious opportunities for the interactivity Carrol rightly identifies as as key and says we'll appreciate.

The most basic and nearly ubiquitous commenting features found across the web are missing here, there is no discoverable RSS feed and no integration with Twitter or Facebook. As former publisher and current search engine expert Willy Hammer is sure to recognize, the new site is also woefully short of search engine-friendly code.

Indeed, the only thing that appears different than the previous one-way, static website is the addition of an embedded video on the main page.

Most problematic though, and the matter to which the Rhino should first turn their attention is the awful inability of the site to display properly on mobile devices. Here's a screen shot:

As you can see, the content doesn't adapt to the size of the screen, portions of the page disappear and the navigation isn't mobile friendly.

If Carrol is serious about an interactive "web-based publication," there is a lot of work yet to be done.

Carrol also says, now that he is the publisher of a newspaper, he will refrain from making campaign contributions. That will be bad news for some candidates, but its a good move by Carrol; one that sets a respectable ethical bar and avoids tarnishing the Rhino's credibility.

Another WGHP bald faced lie

GREENSBORO, NC -- From a WGHP story about a robbery:

"The suspects were described as 6-8 males all in their teens or early 20s. No other information was provided." 

That's a bald faced lie.

From the Greensboro Police Department press release the story cites:

"The suspects are described as six to eight black males, all in their teens or early twenties." 

It's one thing if WGHP wants to, for whatever reasons it may have, withhold the race of criminal suspects, but to tell its audience flatly that no other information was provided when, in fact, other information was provided, is an inexcusable deception for an organization that pretends to be reporting news.

From beyond the grave: Dead people accessing city surveillance network

GREENSBORO, NC -- I spoke at last night's Greensboro City Council meeting about city records that appear to show large numbers of unauthorized accesses to city surveillance cameras, including by a couple of people identified by the City as former employees long retired and now deceased.

Here is the text of my remarks and the video, which includes commentary by city council and the City Manager.

Tonight, I am here to bring to your attention an example of the harmful consequences of the city of Greensboro's climate of obfuscation and hostility towards transparency.

In July of last year, I requested all records documenting access by anybody to city surveillance cameras for a one-week period. 

Rather than receiving copies of any kind of contemporaneous original records, I received a document obviously created in response to my request. A fake.

Although my request was officially closed, I reminded city staff that I had requested all records of anybody accessing surveillance cameras and requesting an explanation for why I had been provided a manufactured record. I had to ask three times. After my third request, I received a reply.

"The information listed is the names of the security guards who have access to view live and archive video from surveillance cameras thru out the city facilities."

For the sake of time, I must quickly summarize what happened over the next several months. My pursuit of the records I had originally requested was stonewalled at every turn. At various times, I was mislead, intimidated and ignored.

It became very frustrating.

For months on end, the City stood by their story, insisting that only security guards were authorized to access surveillance cameras and that I had been provided an accurate record of surveillance camera access.

I was even given this list, presented to me as those people authorized to access surveillance cameras. As you can see, it is a list of fourteen people. 

After seven months of city stonewalling, six months after my request was officially closed, I finally received a copy of an original record recording access to surveillance cameras.

It did not match the manufactured record I originally received, the one that was described as recording access by security guards because only security guards had access to surveillance cameras, supposedly. Instead, the real record showed people other than security guards accessing surveillance cameras.

So I asked for the log files for a longer period of time for a better idea of the extent to which City staff were watching surveillance cameras. What I found was shockingly different from what the City had said for month about who was accessing surveillance cameras.

Instead of the fourteen authorized users, log files showed well over fifty people accessing city surveillance cameras. Who?

According to the City's human resources department, those included not only security guards, but laborers, mechanics, and tax collectors -- over 50 people with various positions other than security guards.

It gets worse:

The City could not identify 21 of the people who the log files showed accessing surveillance cameras.

That's bad. But incredibly...

Two of the people recorded as having accessed city surveillance cameras are identified by the City's Human Resources as having long since retired and being deceased.

Questions:

- Why was I provided a manufactured record instead of a copy of an actual record?

- Why are people not authorized to do so, logging into surveillance cameras?

- Who are the people logging in that the city could not identify?

- Who was logging in using the names of deceased city employees?

- When is city council going to get serious about changing the culture of secrecy and hostility towards transparency that exists in city government?

Matt Brown's conflict of interest

GREENSBORO, NC -- Getting the City Council to approve the new 3,000-seat (give or take) downtown performing arts center involved financial projections based on booking 189 events a year. This was substantially more than the 149 estimated by the citizens committee and professional consultant hired to evaluate the center's prospects, but City staff decided to go with 189—what they called a "blend" of the consultant's estimations and ethereal "staff projections," which was really another way of saying, "the numbers don't work unless we say we'll book 189 events so we're going to pretend we thoughtfully estimated we can book 189 events."

Now comes word that the man whose team is to be charged with meeting that lofty projection has also been tapped, without City Council approval, apparently, to book events for the Lawrence Joel Coliseum in neighboring Winston-Salem.

That's right, City of Greensboro employee Coliseum Director Matt Brown, who, in addition to overseeing the coliseum arena, also overseas Greensboro's other public performance and exhibition spaces including the War Memorial Auditorium, the White Oak Amphitheater, the Special Events Center, the Pavillion and the Odeon theater, representing capacities from 300 to 24,000, has made himself and his employees contractually obligated to booking and supporting events at similar-sized Wake Forest University-owned facilities in neighboring Winston-Salem, including the 15,000 seat Lawrence Joel Coliseum.

How is that not an obvious conflict of interest? Dumb question. It is an obvious conflict of interest. The real question is, how can it be tolerated by those charged with looking out for the interests of Greensboro taxpayers; specifically, city council? How can city council possibly think it is a good idea to have the professional allegiances and obligations of city employees contractually divided between Greensboro's public facilities and competing facilities just down the road, especially since we are soon to encounter the challenge of filling the City's expanded entertainment capacity of the performing arts center?

FedEx hub and logistics jobs may never materialize

GREENSBORO, NC -- When Greensboro was debating the merits of spending what has become nearly half a billion dollars on tax incentives and capital outlays of public funds to accommodate the FedEx "regional overnight cargo sorting hub," the invincible gorilla in the discussion was the promise of hundreds and hundreds of jobs. 600 new jobs were to be filled when the hub opened, 750 new jobs would be created in its first two years of operations, 1,500 new jobs a few years after that... we were told. The mantra was repeated by op-ed writers, reporters, economic developers and every elected official in the county. It became indisputable gospel.

While the new hub opened in 2009, the number employed by FedEx four years later remains nearly the same as before the new facility opened. The new jobs did not materialize. The promises were hot air.

Undeterred by such evidence to the contrary, the region's economic developers and elected officials continue to push—as they have for the past 15 years—the idea of Greensboro as a "logistics" hub to drive job growth. Now, a new study out of Oxford University (article, study) shows that, even if good airport capacity and a confluence of highways distinguishes a city enough to give it a competitive advantage in logistics, it may not bring jobs with it; or, the jobs it brings may be outpaced by technology in short order—possibly bringing about a repeat of this region's turn of the century economic wounding when tobacco, textiles and furniture jobs evaporated.

"The study, based on 702 detailed job listings, found that computers could already replace many workers in transportation and logistics, production labor and administrative support." 

To the extent that Greensboro's decision-makers continue to stake our economic future to the dubious notion of us as a "logistics hub," they would do well to recognize that such industry is not likely to provide significant numbers of jobs for package handlers, laborers and sorters as was once predicted. Educating people to invent, design, build and program the machines that will do those jobs instead might make more sense.

All arrested for curfew violations were African-American

GREENSBORO, NC -- Following up on a Greensboro Police Department summary of the 60-day emergency downtown youth curfew, I asked the the city for the ages and races of the four individuals arrested for curfew violations. A police spokesperson reports they were sixteen and seventeen year-olds, all African-American.

The paid media might follow-up further and compare the demographics of those arrested with those who were ticketed and those who received warnings.

Criminalizing youth: temporary curfew nets four arrests, costs $81,800

GREENSBORO, NC -- Twenty-one children as young as eleven were ensnared by the city of Greensboro's emergency 60-day downtown youth curfew according to a letter from Chief of Police Ken Miller. Nine warnings, eight citations and four arrests were effected, eight of which involved youths sixteen or younger. The estimated cost of enforcing the curfew was, according to the letter, $81,800 and required a deployment of an additional 107 officers representing an extra 2,046 personnel hours.

The letter did not specify the ages or races of those who were arrested. This blogger has asked the city of Greensboro for that information.

The curfew was put into place on July 3rd during an emergency city council meeting called by Mayor Robbie Perkins following wildly inaccurate media reports, primarily from local TV stations WGHP and WFMY, of "hundreds" of teens brawling in the streets of downtown—reports refuted by the Greensboro Police Department, which the TV stations never substantiated and which brought world-wide disgrace to Greensboro including a permanent ignominious addition to Greensboro's Wikipedia entry.  Mayor Perkins twice declined to correct the misinformation when given the opportunity. No other council members took the initiative to publicly correct the erroneous reports either.

Council representatives who voted in favor of the curfew were: Mayor Robbie Perkins, Marikay Abuzuaiter, Nancy Hoffman, Yvonne Johnson, Jim Kee, Zack Matheny, Nancy Vaughan and Tony Wilkins. T. Dianne Bellamy-Small was the lone no vote.

UPDATE: A police spokesperson reports that those arrested for violating the curfew were sixteen and seventeen years-old; all were African-American.

[This post corrected at 5:08 P.M.]

Tony Wilkins, man of the people

GREENSBORO, NC -- Watch as district 5 City Council representative Tony Wilkins stands up for Greensboro against the doings of the local oligarchy. Also instructive is what passes for transparency in the mind of our Mayor, Robbie Perkins.

Superb

GREENSBORO, NC -- This is what passes for campaign coverage at the News & Record. Amanda Lehmert on mayoral candidate George Hartzman:

"He wrote two self-published books of meandering musings, some of which were wrote from his backyard hot tub. (“Think: What to do Now,” by George Hartzman. Chapter 4: 'There are no straight lines. Stability destabilizes. Non-random events cause random effects.') He drives a Jeep without a race car engine and is a regular at the Bench Tavern on Lawndale Drive." 

Screenshot:

News & Record: Duped or shillin'?

GREENSBORO, NC -- In her article of August 18th, "Here's what you need to know about GPAC," News & Record reporter Amanda Lehmert told her readers:

"Cost to buy the land: Up to $7.6 million."

"Up to...", she wrote.

From Richard Barron on the News & Record website yesterday:

"The city would borrow $3.9 million to buy the parcels — at 300 and 332 N. Elm St. — that would push the original $7.6 million land acquisition budget to $11.5 million."

The "original" $7.6 million was never real. It was a canard,  a charade, and reporting it as such illustrates the problem with regurgitating the pronouncements of authorities as facts, as the News & Record—Lehmert especially—routinely do in covering city government.

City Council and City staff knew land acquisition was going to cost significantly more than $7.6 million well before Lehmert reported $7.6 million as a limit.

Here is what Mayor Robbie Perkins said in a closed session meeting on August 5th, in which all City Council members, the City Manager, the City Attorney and Walker Sanders, president of the Community Foundation, discussed having the City spend $7.6 million to purchase seven of the nine needed parcels:

Perkins: "The other thing we need to... the other thing that we need to make real sure of is that we've got one piece of.. [cross talk] Walker, Walker you mind? We need to make real sure... Mr Attorney, we need to make real sure that everybody in this room doesn't talk about anything that we just happened [uninteligible] because we've got one person that's already jacked his price up a couple, three hundred thousand dollars, it's not under contract, and if it comes out that all of this is glued together except for him, you don't know where he's gonna go. And, and, and, I mean, if we start reading about this in the newspaper, this whole project would come unglued. So, y'all don't say anything." 

Yvonne Johnson: "I won't".

So there is the real news hook: somehow, either having been deceived by or cooperating with a deception, Lehmert reported the $7.6 million as a maximum—in a front page story of the most-widely circulated Sunday edition of Greensboro's paper. City staff and City Council knew thirteen days prior to the publication of Lehmert's article that land purchases would exceed $7.6 million, possibly significantly. They knew the $7.6 million they were seeking to spend was only for seven of nine needed parcels and that the mayor was worried about the possibility of the holdout landowner jacking up his price even further. Yet, Lehmert reported $7.6 million as a maximum.

$7.6 million was never the total for land purchases, it was only ever for a portion of the land, so how and why did it get reported as such? Dupe or shill?

WFMY: judge, jury and executioner

GREENSBORO, NC -- Journalism 101: You don't report something as fact just because someone in a position of authority says it is so. That is especially true of criminal allegations. WFMY flunks:

"After an investigation, Winston-Salem police determined Melvin Paul was responsbile [sic] for three other robberies, including an armed robbery prior to the one in High Point on Saturday."  

What do we expect though from a station that sill continues to leave gross errors of historical fact uncorrected?

WGHP MyFox8: who needs the facts when you have us?

GREENSBORO, NC -- From a Greensboro Police Department press release describing the suspects in an armed robbery:

Suspect #1 (Driver) is described as a dark skinned black male, 6’, short hair, in his 20’s, tattoo, last seen wearing blue jeans.

Suspect #2 (Passenger) is described as a dark skinned black male, 6’2”, 210 pounds, short hair with waves on top, last seen wearing a white shirt and khaki pants.

Suspect #3 (Passenger) is described as a dark skinned black male, medium build, 5’10”, last seen wearing a red shirt and blue jeans.

From WGHP's regurgitation of the press release:

Ample suspect descriptions were not available.

I ask again, when we can subscribe by email, feeds and social media to official government announcements, what value do news outlets add when they regurgitate press releases but filter details?

Local media: the less you know, the better

GREENSBORO, NC -- It puzzles me when the local media assume their job includes keeping information from their audience.

Here is how a police press release described a suspect in a downtown stabbing this morning:

"The suspect is described as a black male, approximately 5’9, medium build and wearing a white tank top shirt."

Here is how WGHP MyFox8 reported the suspect's description:

"An ample suspect description was not available."

And the News & Record:

"According to the victim, he was involved in a fight with a man near Washington and Elm streets and the other man assaulted him with a knife, police said."

So tell me, when we can subscribe by email, feeds and social media to official government announcements, what value do news outlets add when they regurgitate press releases but filter details?

WGHP MyFox8, who needs reality when you have us?

The News & Record, the most trusted source for newsish morsels.

Greensboro City Council's unequal treatment

GREENSBORO, NC -- Billy Jones on Mayor Robbie Perkins insisting that speakers from the floor at city council meeting provide their home addresses:

"To add insult to injury, Mayor Perkins often exempts friends, high rollers and connected elites from having to state their home addresses. Others openly use their office addresses."

That's true. The Mayor cut the mic and had city council candidate Ben Holder escorted  from the chambers for giving his address as "blah, blah, blah lane" (to make the same point) yet, as Billy rightly notes, certain insiders and city staff are allowed to speak without giving their addresses.

This kind of preferential treatment extends to the City's practice of reporting the public records requests of certain individuals while giving an unspoken exemption to insiders, the connected and former employees. Oh, yeah, the exemption extends to city council people too, who, of all people—with their obligation to public accountability—should have their interactions with city government transparent and open and, instead, get a comfy cloak of secrecy bestowed by city staff who never, ever include their records requests with the regularly published list of requests. Never.

This is not just the mayor's doing though, none of the incumbent councilors have lifted a finger to make any changes. It's going to be really hard to vote to re-elect any of them.

Yes! misses the point on Holder/Abuzuaiter confrontations

GREENSBORO, NC -- With the Rhino Times gone (although rumored to be coming back on October 3rd), the remaining local weekly has a real opportunity to fill the vacuum on election coverage. It looks like they are not going to take it.

In addition to the silly mistake of identifying Greensboro's mayor as "Robbie Knight" (a concatenation of the current and previous mayors) today, a (justifiably) unsigned editorial completely misses the point of at-large city council candidate Ben Holder's recent attention to at-large incumbent Marikay Abuzuaiter.

While Yes!'s editorial reminds us of their stories last winter (here and here) about emails that revealed Greensboro Police identifying Abuzuaiter as a confidential informant and appearing to show Abuzuaiter sending information to the police, that has not been the meat of Ben Holder's gripe. As Holder has made clear in his two recent appearances before City Council to speak to the issue, his interest is in having Abuzuater reconcile her statements of denial surrounding those emails with the facts.

When confronted with emails appearing to be sent from her AOL account to the police reporting on the activities of groups such as Occupy Greensboro and the local Tea Party, Abuzuaiter denied sending them, according to Yes! Weekly reporter Eric Ginsburg. This incongruence prompted people to wonder if there shouldn't then be an investigation into how emails could be sent to the police from a council person's email account without her sending them.

Respected local attorney Lewis Pitts even went to a city council meeting to demand an investigation.



Abuzuaiter's "explanations" have thus far included protestations that she couldn't have taken the pictures included with some of the emails because her only camera was on a cell phone that she says was broken at the time; that she couldn't have accessed her AOL account at the time of the emails because her computer suffered a "blue screen of death;" that someone must have impersonated her because she doesn't sign her name the way it appeared on the emails in question; and that she wasn't even a council person when the emails in question were sent (not accurate).

When confronted with the possibility that the police may have "framed" her, she said "time will tell."

But time will not tell. Not on its own. Not without an investigation that Abuzuatier has not called for and which, although requested by citizens, the city has declined to undertake.

Abuzuaiter now says the issue has been "resolved," but the public remains as much in the dark as when Yes! first reported the story. It is this failure of a sitting council person to explain herself to the public that Holder is insisting be addressed. It is not the matter of her being identified as a police informant or her sending information about peaceful assemblies to the police. Although those matter, the Yes! editorial misses Holder's larger point, that Abuzuaiter is avoiding giving the public a straight answer.

The issue is one of honesty, public accountability and can be illustrated in this question I emailed to Abuzuaiter eight days ago and to which she has not replied:

Did you send the emails you told Eric Ginsberg you did not send?  

Yes! Weekly weakly

GREENSBORO, NC -- From Yes! Weekly's election coverage:

 "Tanya Wiley is managing Mayor Robbie Knight's reelection effort."

Greensboro's mayor is, of course, Robbie Perkins. Our previous mayor was Bill Knight. Yes!

Zombies or Naive?

"For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user's behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords." -- Der Spiegel 

On the heels of public revelations that the United States National Security Agency has the capabilities of collecting "a broad spectrum of user data from smart phones," comes Apple's announcement that its new phone will now also collect fingerprints.

 "Who knew in 1984... that [Steve Jobs] would be big brother... and the zombies would be paying customers?" -- NSA presentation 

Was the N.S.A. right, are smartphone users zombies or just confident in the perpetual good intentions of government?

Local oligarchy to name performance center after largest donor

By what authority did Greensboro's oligarchs decide what to name the city-owned performing arts center? The way I see it, the citizens of Greensboro are the largest contributor to the project, which we have been promised we will own, why weren't we consulted?

An apology

When Marty Kotis started accusing me of having a "reckless disregard for the truth" in regard to a discussion we were having about him donating billboard space to three city council candidates, I saw warning signs. That is the kind of phrase that has some legal significance. It is the kind of phrase one might use to suggest they think they've been libeled or defamed.

Whether Kotis was using that phrase innocently or to intimidate, I cannot say. I know that there are a number of factors that would make an accusation of defamation hard to stick: I was relying on the records and reporting of public offices and a news outlet; my assertions were opinionated characterizations; supposed facts that would contradict my opinion where not known to me; Kotis suffered no damages because of what I wrote; Kotis has become a figure of public interest because of him seeking (and being awarded) over a million dollars in public largess from the City of Greensboro in the past year alone; and I have already changed the unsubstantiated portions of my post.

Nonetheless, an apology to Mr. Kotis might calm him down and avoid trouble.

To heck with that.

I'm apologizing to Mr. Kotis, not because he has taken to using language that might suggest he is contemplating legal action, I'm apologizing because it's the right thing to do to live up to the standards I've set for myself.

When the News & Record published a story in which they allowed a public official to make a false allegation of criminality against me, without comparing it to the facts and without giving me the opportunity to comment, I came to know what it is like to feel like you've not been given a fair shake. To have something published about you that you think is unfair is dehumanizing.

I cannot be like them.

When an editor at the News & Record (who happened to also be an acquaintance) told the reporter of the story not to talk to me about it and the reporter complied; when the editor in chief refused to respond to my concerns and the publisher told me what happened was "standard operating procedure," it was all very frustrating.

I cannot be like them.

When I see local government officials hem and haw, equivocate and dissemble for the sake of avoiding accountability; when truth and accuracy are buried under  mountains of mendacious malarkey by people supposedly working in the public interest, I find it pathetic.

I cannot be like them.

When I see, over and over again, local media jumping to conclusions, sensationalizing, getting the facts wrong and making unsubstantiated assertions without acknowledging or correcting them even when brought to their attention—a consistent theme of this blog— it disgusts me.

I cannot be like them.

I'll keep my opinions about the propriety of elected officials deciding the fate of hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds while accepting campaign donations from the recipient of those public monies and the record remains incomplete to document the nature of Kotis' contributions, but the portions of my post where I characterized matters in a manner that made unfounded assumptions, that was not giving Mr. Kotis a fair shake. For that, I apologize.

Getting it right

GREENSBORO, NC -- Earlier today I wrote a post about in-kind campaign contributions made to some city council candidates by Marti Kotis who owns a billboard company. The contributions were of ads on billboard's owned by Kotis's company.

It was hasty to label those contributions as illegal, as I did in my headline. "Questionable" would have been a better word. Questions remain about why two of the three candidates did not report the contributions on their latest financial reports; about why Kotis is saying that invoices are only generated after 30 days, yet one candidate listed the donation and two did not; and it is unclear to me how someone can donate the resources of their company to a candidate but claim it was from them personally.

Nonetheless, unanswered questions are not evidence and, until those questions are answered, I should not have jumped to the conclusion that the lack of documentation substantiates illegality.

Johnson, Vaughan, WIlkins should demand end to questionable corporate contributions

GREENSBORO, NC -- Local developer Marty Kotis is at it again, his political enthusiasm leading him to run afoul of elections laws. Last fall, he adorned some properties he owns with giant Mitt Romney signs in violation of Greensboro's sign ordinance limiting the size of campaign signs. Now, according to the News & Record's Travis Fain he is providing free advertising on an electronic billboard promoting the re-election of City Council candidates Yvonne Johnson, Nancy Vaughan and Tony Wilkins.

As Fain reports these "in-kind" contributions do not appear on any of the candidates' campaign financial reports, as all contributions, in-kind or cash, are supposed to. That's only part of the problem though. In North Carolina, it is against the law for corporations to make a donation, in-kind or otherwise, to a candidate.

Form the North Carolina Board of Elections Campaign Finance Manual:

"It is unlawful for any corporation, business entity, labor union, professional association, or insurance company to directly or indirectly contribute to a candidate."

While Kotis' may not be aware of this provision of campaign law, the candidates surely are. They should immediately ask Kotis to stop displaying ads they have no intention of paying for and they should pay Kotis for the ill-gotten publicity they've already received.

UPDATE: To be clear, Tony Wilkin's campaign report does list receipt of a "Donation of digital billboard-partial month" which is good for Wilkins. It still leaves me wondering why Kotis is explaining that there have been no invoices because customers are billed only after their ads have run for thirty days and wondering how billboard space is Kotis's to donate if it is corporate-owned.

The headline of this post has been edited from its original.

Arrogant or complacent? Incumbents blow off Conservatives' forum

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Conservatives for Guilford County (C4GC) held a candidates forum last night for those running for Greensboro City Council. According to the News & Record:

"Only eight of the 26 people seeking council seats — and none of the incumbents — turned out for Conservatives for Guilford County’s forum."

C4GC is being underestimated. They put people to work in last year's Guilford County Commissioners race and, in my opinion as a voter in the district, made the difference in Jeff Phillip's defeat of incumbent Paul Gibson. They will only have learned and improved since then and, I suspect, will be even more effective in council races of more concentrated geographic area where shoe leather and word-of-mouth make a difference.

Dismissing them out of hand reflects poorly on candidates—especially incumbents. Even to those not in sync with their political alignment, it says of the candidates who won't engage them that those candidates are insulated and narrow minded. It wasn't just the 60 people in attendance who will form an opinion of the candidates who ignored the forum, but those of us reading and hearing about it are taking note too.

As it turns out, lack of transparency by city government emerged as a theme at last night's forum. That is a problem—one that is not ideological, that interests a wide swath of voters and that this current council has been completely unwilling to address. Too bad they avoided the subject yet again.

There is plenty of time left in this election and the spending hasn't begun yet, but it seems as if some candidates are complacent, maybe even cocky, about their prospects. I will not be surprised if there are some "shockers" to come.

Those who attended C4GC's forum were:

George Hartzman (mayor)
Marlando Pridgen (at-large)
Chris Lawyer (at-large)
Jean Brown (at-large)
Tigress McDaniel (district 1)
Wendell Roth (district 3)
John Alexander Underwood (district 4)
Alex Seymour (district 5)

Learn more about the candidates on GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

Rumor: City to settle black officers' discrimination suit

GREENSBORO, NC -- Greensboro mayor Robbie Perkins has called a special closed session meeting of the City Council for tomorrow. It is to discuss the discrimination lawsuits filed against the city by 39 current and former black police officers and another discrimination lawsuit filed by the former chief of police, David Wray, who is white.

Knowledgeable sources anticipate city council will agree to settle the suit brought by the 39 officers, but not Wray's.

UPDATE: According to WFMY, the city council decided not to settle the lawsuits and to proceed to trial.

Statue of WFMY reporter to be erected at Guilford Battleground Park

GREENSBORO, NC -- In a fascinating testament to the good things that can come from ignoring mistakes, the National Park Service has decided to honor a WFMY reporter with a statue in the Guilford Battleground Military Park.

Two weeks ago WFMY reporter Michael Radostits posted an erroneous story to the station's website in which he identified General Nathanael Greene as the victor over the British Redcoats at the Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Courthouse in contradiction to actual events. Radostits wrote:

"On Saturday, people came out to celebrate General Greene's 271st birthday at Guilford Courthouse National Battlefield in Greensboro. It's the same sight [sic] where Greene earned his victory over the British."

Although it had been previously heretofore known that Greene actually lost the battle, the National Parks Service has decided to honor Radostits with a statue in the park for singlehandedly changing history. Park spokesperson Martha Lighthorse explained:

"We contacted WFMY about the error. We called them, facebooked them, tweeted them and texted them, but the story remained uncorrected. We tried to get creative and sent a General Greene impersonator to the station, but they mistook him for a Good Morning Show guest and he ended up featured on a segment about back-to-school fashion."

Lighthorse described a subsequent meeting with park staff:

"We started thinking, this may not be so bad. After all, Greene already has the largest statue in the park and it really does sound more exciting to say that Greensboro was named after a winner instead of a loser, so we thought, what the hey? Let's do this thing and honor Michael for making history better."

The Park Service announced yesterday that they will erect a statue of Radostits in the park. A press release explained:

"With history no longer subject to facts, we felt free to take some liberties with the design of the statue and had it fashioned in the "Modern Colonial Greek" style. (Pictured below).

The press release went on to explain:

We will celebrate the erecting of the Radostits monument with a reenactment of the battle of Guilford Courthouse, with General Greene's army joined by a battalion of Jedi Knights as they take on the Redcoats and the WWE All Stars on horse-drawn chariots. The battle will conclude with Radostits himself riding to the rescue in an authentic replica of a solar-powered M4 Sherman Tank."

Radostits could not be reached for comment, but he Tweeted:

omg! icymi #guilfordpark 2 erect (LOL) fab statue of @radostits cuz i da man. deets on fb. YW #greensboro #generalgreen #corporalklinger #majornelson #mrhand

HORNSWAGGLED!

GREENSBORO, NC -- In a stunning display of willful ignorance, the Greensboro City Council danced around a $10 million black hole in the room last night and approved the purchase of land to accommodate a downtown performing arts center.

Mark my words, it won't be long before the City will be trying to round up another $10 million to cover what they will surely describe, and the brain dead local media will dutifully report, as an "unexpected" shortfall. Here's why.

In 2012, when the idea of a possible performing arts center downtown was taking shape, the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro came to City Council and asked for $200,000 for a study to determine, among other things, what it would cost to build such a facility. The City provided the money, the task force hired a consultant and, in January of this year, they produced a master plan. You can see it here.

It was very thorough in estimating the facility's cost, including estimations for everything from the building, to heating and air, to electrical—twenty-seven pages of the kind of professional evaluation that would inspire confidence that the resulting cost would be reasonably reliable. The conclusion?

"The estimated total Project Cost for the Greensboro Performing Arts Center in mid-2012 dollars is $60.5 million."

After a lot of twists and turns, $60 million is exactly what the City of Greensboro and the Community Foundation have now come up with to spend through usage fees, hotel/motel tax and private contributions. $60 million is the "total" budget everyone was discussing at the meeting last night when debating whether or not to buy privately owned land for an arts center at the Bellmeade site.

Just one problem though—one $10 million problem. The twenty-seven page itemized professional cost estimation to which the City contributed $200,000 determined the cost of the facility at $60.5 million in mid-2012 dollars if it was built on property the city already owned. It did not include land acquisition costs or demolition costs.

The projected $60.5 million did not include land acquisition costs or demolition costs. Yet, somehow, as if by magic, City Council last night determined that they could take $10 million out of a $60 million budget to buy some land and still have enough money remaining to pay for a facility that was projected to cost $60.5 million in mid-2012 dollars without land acquisition or demolition costs.

There was a single slide in a GPAC task force presentation that considered the possibility of acquiring the land at the Bellmeade site. It anticipated shaving $5 million off the cost of constructing the facility and using $5 million to purchase land. Of course, that anticipated a lesser facility and only $5 million to purchase land the city council is now hoping to buy for $10 million and for which they've already spent, as of last night, $7.6 million.

It gets worse. While the city was setting aside their subtraction-immune $10 million to purchase a downtown block, their vote last night was actually to buy only seven of the nine needed properties. For those seven properties, Council agreed to spend $7.6 million. The owners of the other two properties have not yet been willing to agree to sell. They've been holding out and now they have the City over a barrel. The sky is the limit for what those owners can demand now.

A breath of fresh air

GREENSBORO, NC -- Kudos to News & Record reporter Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane.

For some reason, it has been extremely difficult for local media to report accurately on the nature of downtown teen violence. A single attack by one person on another became a wilding flash mob organized by social media; a series of small fights over a seven hour period became a 400-teen brawl as local TV news people insisted we disbelieve our lying eyes and described video of crowded streets as showing throngs of people fighting.

It is a sad state of affairs that has earned us a permanent but unwarranted black mark on our Wikipedia entry and ill repute world wide.

Today, DeCwikiel-Kane just raised the bar. In a story about the Community Theatre of Greensboro wanting to start some teen activity nights, DeCwikiel-Kane described some of the downtown crimes in a straight-forward stick-to-the-facts way. That might seem unremarkable—that it is what reporters are supposed to do—but it is head and shoulders above the sensationalism and breathless hyperbolic misinformation of other local media and it stands out as notable*.

Thank you, Ms. DeCwikiel-Kane.


[* It should be remembered that  DeCwikiel-Kane's colleague Joe Gamm, in writing about one night in particular, also managed to stick to the facts.]

Just plain dishonest

GREENSBORO, NC -- I like the idea of a performing arts center downtown, I don't like that the location at the top of the list of the citizens' task force (the YWCA site) is being rejected in favor of another location and justified with suspect explanations.

Start with the math: The City says the proposed site, while $10 million more costly than the YWCA site, will offer more income from 250 VIP parking spaces. Their published projections assumed those would be 100% occupied at each event and that there would be 180 events per year -- a figure they originally attributed to a consultant's study. That was false. The consultant's study, as the City now admits, anticipated 149 events per year. The City explains the "error" by saying they "blended" (their word) the consultant's number with a projection of 220 events made by city staff. That 220, however, includes 50 rehearsal and load-in days, events for which there will be no audiences to pay for VIP parking.

Can we not, as a City, approach this decision with honesty? If this parking revenue falls short, taxpayers will be on the hook to make up the shortfall.

That's not all. Not included in the City's calculations of "increased" parking revenue at the proposed site are things that will deduct from that revenue:

1. Loss of revenues from the property taxes currently collected on those properties when they become public property.
2. Loss of revenues from the city-owned parking spaces currently on that block.
3. I'm not sure, but I can't seem to find that their calculations include demolition of the buildings on the property.
4. The cost of tearing down the War Memorial Stadium (which the City relies on in their projections to force events to the new GPAC).

Finally,  who are the stockholders of the corporate entities from which the City will be buying the properties? Council agenda items often include detail about the people behind the corporations with whom the City is being asked to do business. There is no such list attached to the proposal to purchase the corporate-owned properties at the proposed location.

The fantastical imaginings of the Triad Conservative

GREENSBORO, NC -- If one has an interest in influencing local elections, as Conservatives for Guilford County's Dr. Joe Guarino does, it helps to know the electorate. That's best done by leaving behind ideological assumptions and getting in touch with, well, the facts.

In arguing against allowing college students to vote where they reside, Dr. Guarino writes on his blog Triad Conservative:

"Here in Greensboro, for instance, students attending local colleges and universities can be extremely disruptive of local elections because they can skew the results against the interests of taxpayers."

Not just "disruptive," Guarino says, but "extremely disruptive;" and by disruptive, one assumes that means that, but for those meddling kids, local elections would have different results.

As is frequently Guarino's pitfall though, he has substituted some phobic assumption for an examination of the facts. Using a voter intelligence web application I'm developing, I took a look at the participation of college-aged voters in the last local election (2011 general).

Here are the facts to which Guarino attributes extreme disruption:

36,387 voters total voted in Greensboro's 2011 municipal election.
135 ( 0.37%) voted on-campus at NCA&T
36 (0.09%) voted on-campus at UNCG

What about off-campus students? That's a little harder to pin down, exactly, but let's use as a proxy voters 18 to 22 years old. Some college students will be older, but not all people 18 to 22 are college students either. How many 18 to 22 year-olds voted in the last local election?

598 (1.6%) voters city-wide ages 18 to 22.

In fact, only one age group voted less than 18 to 22 year-olds in the last local election, those 93 years-old and up.

The interest and passion Conservatives for Guilford County have for local elections is admirable. Representatives like Guarino would better serve the group by engaging the facts rather than attacking a group of people without reason.

GPAC task force for the LULZ! ...and the graft

GREENSBORO, NC -- After a year-long process of meetings, studies, consultations, charettes and community outreach which lead the Performing Arts Center Task Force to recommend a location that has been summarily and inexplicably dismissed by unnamed city staff, it appears the only reason for the effort was for City Council to funnel $145,000 in "salary" to the director of the task force and Mayor Robbie Perkin's former campaign manager.

Brilliant! Diabolical, but brilliant!

The ghost of Martha Long reports on proposed performing arts center

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record, and Greensboro at large, would benefit greatly from putting a reporter on the city government beat who doesn't approach her job as if she's writing a society column. A little skepticism and inquisitiveness is sorely needed and sorely lacking.

From an article today that claims to report "everything you need to know" about the proposed performing arts center:

"The center will be on a block of North Elm Street downtown. City officials determined this spot was better than other options because it allowed for paid parking spaces."

The community went through a long and well publicized process of public meetings, charettes and consultations involving hundreds of volunteers from across the city assembled into a task force to study, evaluate and make recommendations for a proposed arts center. This was done through the Community Foundation of Greensboro at the official charge of and with financial support, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, from the Greensboro City Council.

The task force studied several possible locations including the one now deemed best by—according to the News & Record—unnamed "city staff," and they recommended a different site: The old YWCA location. It was with this imprimatur of an inclusive process and well considered recommendation that City Council approved a pledge of financial support and under which assumption private donors made contributions to the effort and opinion writers gave their support.

Now, without explanation, the conclusions of the community have been tossed by the wayside in favor of the recommendations of anonymous "city staff."

Thus there are thee big gaping holes in the N&R's "everything you need to know" story:

1. What was the genesis for "city staff" ignoring the recommendations of the volunteers of the Community Foundation task force? At whose direction did this effort begin and why?
2. The story mentions speculative expectations for increased revenue from premium parking; what is the very real and empirically measurable loss from taking a block of private property off the tax rolls and the loss of the existing city-owned public parking already on the site?
3. Who owns the property "city staff" is proposing be purchased at this new location? Not just the corporate entities, but the stockholders. 

I have little confidence the local media will answer these questions and every expectation City Council will ignore them too on its way to approving this as they make the year-long process undertaken by community volunteers the butt of a big joke.

Too bad Martha Long won't be around to report on the inaugural gala. We'll have the next best thing though.

Billy proposes a 180

GREENSBORO, NC -- Blogger Billy Jones proposes Greensboro pursue an "open source government." It would be like turning around a battleship, but it's a good idea.

Right on!

From the Huffington Post:

"In the video above, Dax Ewbank of Oklahoma City accuses [Rep. James] Lankford (R-Okla) of misleading people in a recent letter in which he attempted to tamp down fears that NSA programs were being used to target normal U.S. citizens."

Katei Cranford adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

Katei Cranford, candidate for Greensboro City Council at-large, has added her profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Cranford, 28, works as an advocate for the creative community and is registered as unaffiliated. She says her three top issues are embracing innovation for job creation, increase transportation connectivity and develop a cohesive identity for Greensboro.

In answer to what she will do, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, she says, "As a huge proponent of two-way communication, I will ensure a legitimate response to any inquiries or critique with which I'm presented & strive to eliminate the hierarchy between citizens & leaders."

Ben Holder adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GREENSBORO, NC -- Ben Holder, candidate for Greensboro City Council at-large, has added his profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Holder, 42, is a property manager and is registered as Democratic. He says his three top issues are to hire a new police chief, hire a new city manager and hire a new city attorney.

In answer to what he will do, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, he says, "I have been the guiding light for Greensboro for a decade. Nobody in this city, not the media or the government, has fought for transparency and uncovered lies as successfully as I have. I do it."

No objections from Council as City bestows special secrecy on candidates

GREENSBORO, NC -- The City of Greensboro has a public records request tracking system, PIRT, they call it: Public Information Request Tracking. It is supposedly for the purpose of tracking requests for city records.

It's a sham. A costly, time wasting, frustrating sham that has been perverted into a means of delay, bullying and intimidation imposed on a select few members of the public.

Only a small number of certain individuals' requests are entered into the tracking system, those mostly being some local bloggers, labor representatives and reporters from Yes!Weekly—whom the City previously tried to stop from publishing with a secret lawsuit (the City lost).

People who escape the tracking of the PIRT system and have their requests answered without being monitored include:

1. Elected representatives, including members of city council
2. Professional media (excluding Yes!Weekly)
3. Lawyers
4. Engineers and architects  
5. Real estate and business people
6. Former city employees

City Manager Denise Turner-Roth goes one step further and heaps extra scrutiny on the few people entered into the PIRT system by publishing their names and the information they requested in a memo that she sends to city council, city staff, community bigwigs and local media every Friday.

Until recently, the Manager's weekly memo included the requests of challenger city council candidates, people like George Hartzman (mayor), Ben Holder (at-large) and Sal Leone (district 5), but not the requests made by incumbent candidates.

Now, in a mind-numbing exhibition of just how rudderless the City's management is in their approach to transparency, the City Manager has decided that, rather than level the playing field by including the requests made by sitting city council people in her weekly memo along with those made by challenging candidates, no candidate requests—challengers' or incumbents'—will be included in her weekly memo.

Think about that:

People elected to represent us and those seeking to represent us, the very people of whom we should expect the greatest transparency and accountability, are being given special privileges by the City Manager so that they may avoid scrutiny. She is wrapping a special cloak of secrecy around their interactions with city government while continuing to subject a small group of other citizens to extra attention.

As astonishing as all of that is, the real kicker is that all of our elected representatives on city council, every single one of them, is aware of and has voiced no public objection to this practice. Remember that the next time you hear a city council person talk about how important government transparency is to them.

I asked to be afforded the same courtesy the City Manager has provided to candidates: to have my records requests excluded from the Manager's weekly memo, I was told that privilege is only for candidates. Yes, I was specifically told that the special cloak of secrecy is only for those who do or may represent us.

Worth noting is that mayoral candidate George Hartzman expressed his objection to the policy quite vociferously. As he wrote in an email to City Council about his requests being removed from the Manager's weekly memo:

"I most certainly did not ask to have candidate requests hidden, as it would contradict the transparency theme of my campaign. I advocated for all requests, including those from incumbents, be included."

Nancy Vaughan adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GREENSBORO, NC -- Nancy Vaughan, candidate for Mayor of Greensboro, has added her profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Vaughan, 52, is a community volunteer and currently sits on City Council as an at-large representative. She is registered as Democratic. She says her three top issues are jobs/economic development, neighborhood stabilization and solid waste management.

In answer to what she has done, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, she says, "I think we should revisit the Council Financial Disclosure form. Use a form similar to what is used at the state level, modified for Council business and extended to Board and Commission members."

Marikay Abuzuaiter adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GREENSBORO, NC -- Marikay Abuzuaiter, incumbent candidate for Greensboro City Council at-large, has added her profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Abuzuaiter, 59, is owner of Mahi's restaurant. She is registered as Democratic. She says her three top issues are economic development, infrastructure maintenance and poverty.

In answer to what she has done, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, she says, "When a citizen requests information from me I have supplied it! Many times it has only been an answer to a question or direction on where to find an answer. I have never ignored a citizen request."

Mike Barber adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

[CORRECTION: This post originally misidentified the race in which Mike Barber is running. He is a candidate for an at-large seat. That has been corrected.]

GREENSBORO, NC -- Mike Barber, candidate for Greensboro City Council at-large has added his profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Barber, 51, works as a an attorney and is CEO of The First Tee of The Triad. He is registered as Democratic. He says his three top issues are job growth, community safety and fiscal management.

In answer to what he will do, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, he says, "Recommend utilizing key word software that places most emails on a server and available to the public, which will also reduce the high volume of public record requests and cost. Create a panel to review other correspondence and flagged emails. Create a 3rd public monthly meeting for speakers which actually allows for discussion between council members and public. "

Socially connected and wrong

GREENSBORO, NC -- WFMY has recently taken to promoting themselves as "the source for the socially connected." The source for what, they don't say, but if I had to guess, it would be error-prone information.

It's one thing if the station wants to carve out a nice little sugary space of vapid small talk for themselves—car dealerships seem to think it's the perfect demographic—but please, then, stay away from stories that might involve the conveyance of actual facts. You're not the ones to tell us.

On their website today, WFMY reports of yesterday's celebration of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene:

"On Saturday, people came out to celebrate General Greene's 271st birthday at Guilford Courthouse National Battlefield in Greensboro.  It's the same sight [sic] where Greene earned his victory over the British."

Greene did not win the battle. The British won and took the courthouse. In fact, Greene is perhaps the war's most celebrated loser. That's one of the things that made this battle, and Greene as a military tactician, so remarkable. Outnumbered and poorly equipped, Greene had his Southern army and the Virginia Regulars who joined him in defending the Guilford Courthouse take defensive positions in wooded areas where the usual advantage of British General Charles Cornwallis' tight and disciplined formations was diminished. The British ended up paying a high price in casualties for their victory.

With heavy losses and dwindling supplies, the British were in no condition to continue to fight so far from their supply lines. Three days after the battle, Cornwallis withdrew his troops to Wilmington.

I tried emailing the WFMY news desk about the error, but the message bounced as that mailbox is full.

City Council pulls a fast one, screws working people.

GREENSBORO, NC -- On the last City Council meeting's agenda was a resolution to move the start time of council meetings to 4:00 (they previously started at 5:30), but to keep the public comment period (speakers from the floor) after presentations, which were to begin at 5:30.

Instead, council decided to move the meeting start time to 4:00 and keep the current agenda order without delaying public comment until after 5:30. In practicality, this means that the public comment period will likely begin around 4:30 and that, to assure a spot in line, people will have to arrive and sign up to speak before 4:00.

Obviously, that's hostile towards the schedules of working people.

The motion to make these changes was made by at-large representative and mayoral candidate Nancy Vaughan. It was seconded by district 4 representative Nancy Hoffmann. Voting in favor were Tony Wilkins, Robbie Perkins, Yvonne Johnson, Jim Kee, Vaughan and Hoffmann.

Voting against the change were T. Diane Bellamy-Small, Zack Matheny and Marikay Abuzuaiter.

Too dark?

GREENSBORO, NC -- Dang raises an interesting question. Why is the city contemplating spending $7.8 million for 7 acres or so of land for a possible performing arts center when the City's redevelopment commission already owns 13 undeveloped acres on the south edge of downtown?

Is it because the area is "a little too dark?" he asks.

One wonders. Although the site was once suggested for a new baseball stadium, that idea was shot down with the excuse that the land was a contaminated brownfield. Federal dollars were available to clean it up, but the excuse stuck and the ballpark went to its present location.

Subsequently, federal funds were used to clean up the site, it has been approved for additional federal dollars to subsidize a parking deck there and it has easy access via Lee St. and Elm/Eugene to I-40 and I-85.

As I mentioned, the city already owns the land, so there would be no need to spend millions to buy property from campaign contributors.

It's a very commonsense location for a performing arts center.

What's coming instead?

Dog shit.

That's right, a proposal has surfaced to put a dog park there.

Ah, Greensboro: Spend $8 million dollars to buy and demolish private property that currently generates about $60,000 per year in tax revenue, remove that property from the tax rolls and leave free vacant land 15 years in the longing for development to the dogs.

That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it

GREENSBORO, NC -- From an unsigned editorial at the News & Record regarding teen curfews:

"[S]ometimes the simplest solution isn’t the best one."

It troubles me when I see civic leaders consider policy without consulting the available empirical information. The News & Record editorial brings to bear some findings on the effectiveness of curfews on crime and victimization. City Council should take heed.

Alex Seymour adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GREENSBORO, NC -- Alex Seymour, candidate for Greensboro City Council district 5, has added his profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Seymour, 38, works as a chef and kitchen manager and is registered as unaffiliated. He says his three top issues are freedoms, transparency/accountability and "promoting wonderful Greensboro."

In answer to what he will do specifically, to increase transparency in city government, he says, "I would move to eliminate all small private meetings and press to do all business in public with every speaker being allowed to speak. Demanding accountability from staff and consequneces for incompetence and misleading information. I support a citizens review board. "

The Bencini principle illustrated

THE NEBULOUS TRIAD REGION OF THE PIEDMONT PLATEAU, NC -- Rob Bencini, Economic Futurist and former Economic Development Director for Guilford County, regularly discusses the detrimental effects of "regionalism" on Greensboro, the third largest city in North Carolina. His premise is that the "piedmont triad" marketing comes at the expense of Greensboro's brand. As he put it recently:

"Greensboro, in fact does have many good things going for it, but even our boosters dismiss Greensboro – intentionally –when there is a marketing opportunity."

He's right. The coming Wyndham Championship P.G.A. golf tournament is a good example of just how much Greensboro's identity has been subverted. Local media decline to identify the tournament as taking place in Greensboro, instead giving credit to "the Triad."

Even the naming of the tournament has discarded what was once a proud association with its host city—and not just because of the introduction of a single corporate sponsor. What was once the Greater Greensboro Open morphed into the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic, still preserving Greensboro's identification. Now Greensboro is gone from the name entirely although it's still played in Greensboro.

Even the memory of Greensboro's involvement is vanishing. During last week's Bridgestone Invitational, as Tiger Woods was about to win that tournament for the eighth time, the CBS announcers commented that only Sam Snead has won a single tournament as many times.

"Sam Snead won the Wyndham Championship eight times," they said.

Sam Snead would have to have been close to 100 years-old to have ever won a Wyndham Championship. The fact is, Snead never won the Wyndham Championship. He did win the Greater Greensboro Open eight times.

Comments are welcomed below, or you can send a letter to: P.O. Box 555, The Triad