City acts in interest of drug-dealing market

GREENSBORO, NC -- Two weeks ago, Ben "The Troublemaker" Holder went before Greensboro's city council to bring to their attention the criminal activities at a market in his neighborhood. As Holder noted, the market, within a stone's throw of a public library, city recreation center, elementary school and the Greensboro Aquatics Center, was recently raided for trafficking in methamphetamine. As Holder has documented on his blog, this is the same market that has been previously busted for illegal gambling, cocaine and weapons, including the raid where an innocent bystander was handcuffed and claimed injury by police resulting in a $15,000 payout settlement by the City of Greensboro. (Continued after video)



After Holder spoke, the city manager started to explain that the city is working with the business but was interrupted by councilors Yvonne Johnson and Sharon Hightower who objected to the notion that the city would work with the business instead of shutting it down. After some discussion, the city manager said he got the message.

Apparently word did not spread. Police Attorney Jim Clark crafted the city's official response. It is a letter to the market owner requesting that he contact Clark to discuss "corrective action." Clark describes this invitation to have a talk as "entirely in your own interest" leaving one to wonder why the neighborhood's interests have been ignored in favor of action entirely in the interest of the market owner.

Clark's letter also says that if the market's "problems cannot be addressed by you" the only remaining option is for the city to seek "assistance" from a court of law. That is not the City's only option. As Ben Holder prodded the city to do recently with an illegally operating massage parlor, the city can revoke the business license of a business conducting illegal activities (city ordinance 13-48). It is unclear why the city has ignored this immediately available option (and councilors Johnson's and Hightower's preference) in favor of action that is "entirely" in the interest of accused drug dealers, but Holder says he is going to tomorrow's city council meeting to find out why those take precedence over the health and safety of his community.

Hartzman's mean potshots

GREENSBORO, NC -- Local blogger, Yes!Weekly contributor and former mayoral candidate George Hartzman is a prolific writer. Line after line, paragraph after paragraph, post after post of what appear to be meaningful data and information, often seeming to explain some dire accusation of wrong-doing or malfeasance.

It's all really just so much camouflage, though — textual cover for the unfair and mean-spirited potshots Hartzman launches from behind his deliberately constructed blind of inexactness and misdirection. As local blogger Jeff Martin has rightly said, it's McCarthyism; only the targets are not Communists, but rather anybody simply unlucky enough to find themselves in Hartzman's cross-eyed cross hairs.

Here's how it works. Hartzman beings with some unflattering innuendo or incriminating accusation. Then he sets about creating an illusion that his attacks are founded in reason and supported by facts when, in reality, they are built on rhetorical slights of hand and intentional confusion. Here are some of his common techniques:

Interpretive Grammar : The basics matter. Subject, verb, object. Punctuation. Who did what to whom? The basics are requisite for a reasonable evaluation of the soundness of an assertion. Hartzman will often avoid grammatical precision precisely where it is needed the most, where his attacks meet the facts, in order to slither away from accountability. It is enough for Hartzman that it sounds like he could be saying what you think he might be saying. Clarity, however, means accountability, and that is to be avoided.  

Hartzman Example: "I believe Yvonne voted to enrich Skip Alston and Earl Jones, who she has a financial interest via the Simkins Pac, and Skip and Earl stand to profit from the museum after the debt is paid off via the City of Greensboro's bailout, which Yvonne voted for;"

The Mirage: Instead of a statement of fact, he paints an accusation as an appearance. He often deploys this technique with the words "looks like," — an illusion; an unsubstantiated impression as solid as any fact.

Hartzman Example: "Zack Matheny doing what Roy Carroll told him to on economic incentives after what looks like selling taxpayer money to fund his Congressional campaign?" 

The Ghost: To professionals, this is known as the passive voice, a sentence with no subject, where something happens on its own, unattributed to any earthly actor. "The economic benefits were estimated at $12 million," or "Pollution was released into the river," are examples. Who made the estimate? Who released the pollution? A ghost. This is a journalistic no-no for a reason: It's sneaky. It's a linguistic magic trick;  a misdirection. Without knowing to whom we can  attribute the action we cannot evaluate motives or expertise or know where to look for verification or responsibility. Nobody is accountable. With the passive voice, actions are made by invisible ghosts. Hartzman is fond of ghosts.

Hartzman Example: "City staff and council were informed before the vote that some money the museum was to receive did not look like it was merely meant to pay off loans tied to saving the facility..." [This is actually a two-for-one: the passive voice (who informed?) and another "looks like."]

Befuddle: Like Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny, Hartzman's readers will find themselves just as befuddled wondering "Which way did he go?" when confronted with Hartzman's intentionally confusing formatting. His inconsistent use of quotations marks, sprinkled with ellipses and a mix of right and left justified paragraphs leave one wondering if one is reading Hartzman's words or something written by someone else. The jumbled mess may make sense to Hartzman, but it's cryptic to the rest of us, which is is part and parcel of Hartzmans intentional obfuscation. The harder for us to follow, the better. No need for full comprehension, he'd rather we just get the gist of his innuendo.

Hartzman Example: Here's a good one.

The Sesame Street Game: Do you remember "One of these things doesn't belong here," the Sesame Street song challenging children to identify a thing that did not belong with the others? It is a good song to keep in your head when reading Hartzman, as you will find him slipping in unrelated items to his lists of particulars to bulk up an assertion light on facts. Here he is explaining how former Mayor Robbie Perkins worked to "enrich" Skip Alston:

Harztman Example: "Robbie Perkins, reported to have personally identified and advocated for Mujeeb Shah-Khan to be hired as Greensboro’s City Attorney, was an honorary Chair of the ICRCM/Simkins 2013 golf tournament. Perkins advocated for the museum bailout, employed Alston’s former campaign manager, voted for what appears to have been an unnecessary police settlement, a television show and Skip Alston’s $150,000 commission via the Bessemer Shopping Center deal." 

Can you guess which does not belong? Here's a hint, they all relate to Skip Alston, however tangentially, except for one — unless Hartzman was just associating it with Alston because it also involved black people. (Answer below.)

The Link Dump: Make a post seem well researched and substantiated with a bunch of links to seemingly supporting sources. Hartzman offers no explanation of why the links matter. Click through and one becomes bewildered as to their relevance but, to the uninitiated, the pile of links looks like solid substantiation.

Hartzman Example: This one will do.

Channel Rube Goldberg: Like the convoluted Rube Golderg contraptions where mechanical events cascade crazily from one to another ultimately to perform some incredibly simple task, Hartzman will send his readers down a chute of incomprehensible logorrhoea  instead of just  being concise and clear. Why? Because to be direct and concise would rob Hartzman of the opportunity to deploy his deplorable rhetorical techniques. There is no room for grammatical obfuscation, mirages, ghosts and irrelevancies in directness.

Example at the end of this post.

All of this would not matter if Hartzman were just amusing himself, but Hartzman deploys these techniques in unscrupulous attacks on people. It's malice in a thin disguise.

Sure, many of Hartzman's targets are public officials (but not always) and they are vulnerable to the slings and arrows of any opinion, but that doesn't make what Hartzman does any less malicious. In fact, under the guise of, as he says about himself, wanting to "leave others better off for his having existed," his practices are especially insidious. To the extent they enter the public discourse (and thanks to Yes!Weekly, that is more frequent now) they impede, convolute and distract. They foment fear, mistrust and inspire suspicion. Yes, once in a while, he digs up some nugget of importance, but far too often he is the wolf who cried boy. He's not leaving others better off. He's tearing us down with his malevolent snarling.

---

Answer to the Sesame Street Game: The police settlement. It had nothing to do with Skip Alston. (The television show may also be an acceptable answer. I thought I remembered an association between it and one of Alston's children, but I cannot find anything on the web to substantiate that memory.) Bonus points if you also noticed that the example included a mirage: " voted for what appears to have been..."

Channel Rube Goldberg example: Hartzman writes this as an "explanation" for his claim that Greensboro City Council representative Yvonne Johnson has a financial conflict of interest in the International Civil Rights Center and Museum:

My understanding is if the property pays off the tax credits and debt with the bailout money, the for profit entities go away and the owners of the Sit in Movement non profit own the property, and the exhibits, and won't have property tax obligations.

If the project goes cash flow positive, Skip and Earl can start taking salaries.

The non-profit could sell the property.

The non-profit could become a for profit.

It will be theirs to do what they want with it, after mismanaging the museum.

City Council will have bailed out members of the Simkins PAC, and the Simkins PAC helped put some of the Council in their seats.

Yvonne is in the Simkins PAC. Skip is the Treasurer of the PAC.

Both look like have paid family members from the PAC's assets.

If money changed hands to their kin while the PAC was under their control, Yvonne and Skip have a financial interest in each other.

Yvonne untied herself to the museum to advocate and vote for the museum bailout, which could enrich Skip.

Yvonne was endorsed by the Simkins PAC, whose Treasurer is Skip.

Skip stands to benefit from the museum via Yvonne's actions.

Yvonne stands to benefit from Skip's actions via the Simpkins PAC.

It's a conflict of interest.

According to the city charter, the vote/contract should be nullified by a Council vote.

Dang right!

GREENSBORO, NC -- Blogger Dang (Eric Robert) recently joined the board of tax-payer funded Downtown Greensboro Incorporated (DGI). Although having only attended two meetings so far, he is bothered by the board's lack of transparency, tight-fisted rule and self-dealings. He has some excellent suggestions for improving public trust in DGI that should apply to all non-profits that receive public funding.

He suggests:

• Record board meetings electronically. 
• Respond to requests for information about the organization in accordance with public records law.
• Structure organizations so the operations are transparent and understood without multiple layers of foundations, shelters and holding companies.
• Don't use P.R. consultants as a means to avoid being honest and forthcoming.
• Diversify boards so that the members reflect the community at-large.

Some of these recommendations can only serve as guideposts at best. Only records of government business are subject to North Carolina public records law, for example, but that doesn't mean that non-profit boards receiving public largess cannot strive to be more open.

Also, when elected officials and public staff who sit on non-profit boards in their official capacities receive records from the non-profit, such as meeting minutes and audits, they should, as a matter of course, make those publicly available as the City of Greensboro refreshingly did last week, posting online minutes and audits from board meetings of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. In the possession of government officials serving on boards because of their official capacities, such documents become public records (see Greensboro Attorney's opinion, page 2).

Robert was a long-time critic of Downtown Greensboro Incorporated. I was rather surprised when I heard he got a seat on their board. They must have thought he could bring something to the table. Now, he has. These are good ideas not just for DGI, but for all non-profits that benefit from public financing. The City of Greensboro should consider making them mandatory conditions for receiving public funds.

Blind spots

There sure seem to be some big ol' blind spots among those trying to get a performing arts center built in downtown Greensboro. If you aren't in that echo chamber, you'll find this take by Billy Jones an accurate view:

"For those who might not be aware of what is going on or those who might not be local, the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro is attempting to coerce the Greensboro City Council into spending $50.8 Million dollars plus commit to maintaining for as long as it remains standing, a downtown performing arts center that will be majority owned by the Community Foundation even though the Community Foundation is the smaller investor, claiming to have $35 Million in pledges but unwilling to share with the City any documents to prove the money is actually there to cover their part." 

Failure of leadership

GREENSBORO, NC -- The negative fallout for Greensboro continues on the heels of WGHP's and WFMY's fabrications regarding downtown fights and Mayor Robbie Perkins' and his colleagues on council unwillingness to stand up for the truth on behalf of the city they claim to serve.

Local blogger Kristen Jeffers and News & Record reporter Joe Killian discuss the issue on Huff Post Live. Killian, especially, does a superb job of explaining the facts and context. Would that the TV's talking heads or any of our city council people were as informed and articulate.



(Hat tip: Billy Jones)

Under cover brother

GREENSBORO, NC --

"Only two people are certified to work at this location and one of them is a man. I was given the choice of three different ladies."

The Troublemaker is at it again, exposing Greensboro's accommodation of the sex trade.

Our shitty newspaper

GREENSBORO, NC -- I know it's not polite, but polite words don't suffice. Our local newspaper is crap. I mean a real steaming pile of shit with a few decent little nuggets of undigested corn here and there, but who wants to pick through the preponderant feces to find them? Sorry, but it's true.

For the second time in six months, and the third time in five years, the News & Record has made links to their archives—stories, blog posts, letters and comments—permanently inoperable and undiscoverable.

Links to News & Record stories from local blogs, search engines and Wikipedia are now all dead and offer only a "Page not found" error.

Articles linked to by the websites of downtown boosters, economic promoters, the City of Greensboro — all dead.

It makes us look bad — again — as if we are some backwater of ineptitude (We aren't, are we?) And that's without consideration of the News & Record's plethora of uncorrected errors, fabricated quotations, intentional misinformation and character assassination.

Another thing: I'm tired of people saying how much they "looooooove" Greensboro and how this is such a fabulous place while they have nothing to say about the decay of our institutions. If you really LOVE Greensboro, speak up. You don't coddle something you love while it chokes to death on its own vomit.

News & Record editor's deceit

GREENSBORO, NC -- I don't know what else to call it but dishonest. Downright deceitful, actually. After incorrectly writing that the Rockinghan County school board had voted to stop opening their meetings with a prayer and that error being noted on this blog, News & Record editorial editor Allen Johnson quietly rewrites his post, with no acknowledgement of the original error, just a sneaky little change.

Originally:

"I’m guessing the Rockingham County school board’s decision to end the practice of opening meetings with a prayer was a tough call politically."

Today:

"I’m guessing the Rockingham County school board’s decision not to open its meetings with a prayer was a tough call politically."

The school board did not bring an end to prayer at public meetings, as Johnson originally wrote, they voted not to start doing so. Johnson's revision brings his post in line with the facts, but why the secrecy? Don't the most basic standards of journalism dictate an acknowledgement of errors? (Well, we know that's not true at the News & Record, but still.)

Just days ago, Johnson was advising others that one must be "trusted and credible" to succeed. He seems unable to follow his own advice. 

Greensboro deserves better.

Titanic's cozy lifeboats; Rowdy Fort Sumter; President views 'Our American Cousin' and other bad headlines

GREENSBORO, NC -- Following a cryptic George Hartzman blog post on the subject from six days ago, the News & Record runs a story today on the condition of Greensboro's streets under the headline: "City plans repairs to 32 streets."

Well, yes, but talk about missing the importance of the story; talk about spinning. The real matter is that the City has 343 miles of streets in need of immediate repair and the 32 streets it will repair amount to a drop in the bucket—a mere 10.4 miles or 3% of the immediate need.

Monkeywhale Correction

On Friday, I wrote a post in which I said that minutes of a Greensboro city council meeting did not record the appearance of a particular speaker from the floor nor of the vote to edit that speaker's appearance on the official council video.

I was wrong. The minutes did record both the speaker's appearance and noted that Council voted to censor the video record of his appearance. Thanks to the City of Greensboro staff who brought it to my attention. Here is what the minutes have of the speaker:

"Christopher Spence, residing at 1003 Surry Drive, spoke to the extinction of an unknown aquatic mammal. (Note: After Council's first recess, the Mayor and Council voted that due to what appeared to be the inappropriate content of the website referred to by Mr. Spence, that this portion of the meeting should be deleted from the official meeting tape made available to the public.)"

Clueless

From Jeff Martin at his Second Sun blog regarding Greensboro's entrenched old school and downtown:

"These are men used to relying on secretaries to achieve public communication and often falter when left to themselves. They don’t read blogs, text or do Facebook. In short, they don’t really have a clue anymore."

He has a little something for City Council too:

"Here’s an example of the downtown mindset from the city: It wasn’t enough to simply allow street musicians to busk at leisure. No, they had to be treated like homeless people: forced to purchase a license from the city. The last time I was in Seattle, musicians were paid by the city to show up at a pre-ordained place and time to perform for the throngs of people.

"So, shake up DGI, but let’s not forget that city staff and council have behaved like a bunch of jerks."

UPDATE: A commenter asks if an ordinance was passed requiring street musicians to get a permit. It was. It requires a fee and a background check. Here's an excerpt from the minutes of the council meeting:

Police Attorney Jim Clark summarized the ordinance amendment; and made the following PowerPoint presentation:

• Limited to certain locations within City
– Elm Street- from Lee Street to W. Lindsay Street
– Greene Street- from Smothers Place to W. Lindsay Street
– Davie Street- from Washington Street to W. Lindsay Street
– Church Street- from Washington Street to W. Lindsay Street
– Washington Street- from Edgeworth Street to Church Street
– Commerce Place
• Listing will be available in the Clerk’s Office and online
• Require a permit and background check
• Payment of an annual $10.00 tax- privilege license
• Licenses are available for individuals or groups
• Limit the number of performers to no more than 5 performers at one location
• Must stay at least 100 feet from outdoor seating or dining areas and at least 75 feet from all other street performers
• Not allow for performance on residential property, or private property without the owner’s consent
• Not remain at one location for a total duration of no more than four hours during a single day
• Limit the hours between 11am and 11pm
• Special Events are exempted from this ordinance
• Provide regulations for
– No blocking of sidewalks or entrances
– No selling of goods or other services
– No use of fire, sharp instruments, aerosols, firearms, dangerous weapons or harmful chemicals
– Adhere to City’s noise ordinance
– May use small self-powered amplifier
– No obscene language or gestures
– Cannot incite a riot
– Cannot interfere with special events
– Cannot connect to electrical or water for performance
– Incorporates focus group changes from public

And here is how the vote went down:

Councilmember Vaughan made a motion to adopt the ordinance. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Kee; the ordinance was adopted on the following roll call vote: Ayes: Abuzuaiter, Bellamy-Small, Hoffmann, Johnson, Kee, Matheny, Perkins and Vaughan. Noes: Wilkins.

The surveillance story: The rest of us

Please provide me all records of any communications in any form from January 23, 2013 through today, inclusive, regarding Yes!Weekly, including but not limited to any records documenting discussing options for or attempts to restrain the paper's distribution. 
-- Records request made of the City of Greensboro yesterday by this blogger

Last September, I met with Yes!Weekly publisher Brian Clarey and reporter Eric Ginsburg to discuss my interest in writing a story about the extent and means by which the City of Greensboro conducts surveillance on its citizens. My interest in writing about the subject was inspired by the slow walk and outright denials that met my requests for records about the subject from the City last summer. It is documented that the City responds to records requests faster for employees of the media than for other citizens and I thought Yes!'s additional resources might add some muscle to my efforts. While we couldn't work out a suitable arrangement, I'm glad that Yes! decided to pursue the story on their own.

Reporter Eric Ginsburg has discovered some important and disturbing information about how the police monitor certain groups, including a rather astonishing email in which a police sergeant identifies City Councilor Marikay Abujuatier as a confidential informant. Ginsburg's story is a must read, deploying the kind of fearless skepticism Greensboro counts on from its alternate weeklies and opening our eyes to the unseen activities of our local government.

The Rest of Us

There is another question, however, that remains unanswered: To what extent are rest of us—the public at large—being monitored while we go about our business under the impression that we are doing so in obscurity.

Since July of last year, I have been trying to get an answer to that question through public records requests. It began simply enough, with a request for records documenting the number and location of surveillance cameras. Some cameras are in public view, on streets and in parking decks, but what, I wondered, is the full extent of this watching?

How many cameras does the City deploy that are less obvious than those you'll see at some intersections, if you look; cameras like those in and pointing out from City buses? What about cameras intentionally hidden? (Ginsburg reports of a cop in disguise, riding on a float in the Fourth of July Parade and recording video from a camera hidden in the horn of a trumpet.) Does the city deploy cameras that track and pan to follow people? Are they also recording sound? Who is watching what they record?

It is known that private foundations have purchased surveillance cameras to be trained on public spaces, such as those purchased by Action Greensboro to surveill the Greenway. Who's monitoring those cameras? Who is watching the video recorded by the cameras in the quasi-public space of Center City Park? When and why?

Greensboro has never had a public discussion, much less implemented any policy directives addressing the extent and means by which government or agents acting on its behalf monitor the public at-large. A good place to start, I thought, would be with an understanding of the degree to which such surveillance is underway. Thus I made my request for this information.

Request Denied

My request was denied by the city attorney who maintained that a state law passed after 9/11 and intended to protect infrastructure from terrorists permits cities to keep records about the number and location of surveillance cameras secret. That law does not mandate that the City must keep such information secret, just that, in the city attorney's opinion, it gives them the option of doing so and he chose to exercise that option, denying me records that would report the location and number of surveillance cameras.

I attempted to get Mayor Robbie Perkins and City Manager Denise Turner to intervene but neither took any action of which I'm aware to reverse or challenge the City Attorney's opinion, acquiescing to it through their inaction.

A Different Approach

Confronted with that refusal, I attempted to ascertain the information through requests for records that would be more clearly mandated as public and subject to disclosure, such as purchase records or recordings of video from these cameras. The ensuing slog resulted in an incomplete picture, the city attorney continued to use the anti-terrorism law to withhold records that would provide clear and definitive information. Some records were released; video from the libraries (after hours to protect patron anonymity) was provided, for example, while video from buses (inside or out) was not.

An important component to my requests was for information about who is watching. The response to my request for records documenting that access was suspiciously thin. I received a single record, clearly not a copy of any original record, described as being a redacted compilation of log files of internet access to unspecified cameras by persons described as "security guards."

Are other people monitoring surveillance cameras? Is the City keeping records of who is watching and why? It has been, thus far, impossible to definitively document an answer to either of those questions but the single record of access by security guards does not inspire confidence.

The Next Step

It is incredibly frustrating for an individual citizen to find themselves in an adversarial role against government workers when attempting to find out what our government is up to. City employees get paid whether they provide records or not. Without loud and clear directives to cooperate with citizens or risk losing their jobs, their cooperation is capricious. A recent change in state law allows for the prevailing party in a records lawsuit to collect the cost of suing for records from a municipality found to have improperly kept records secret, but that is an even more time consuming proposition that relies on either the deep pockets this bloggers does not have or an interested attorney this blogger does not know.

The next best thing is a robust press. It is such a worn out refrain to lament the News & Record's lack of initiative on these kinds of stories that it is almost not worth mentioning and yet... and local TV news has a hard time with these kinds of stories, so not much is expected from them. That leaves the alternative weeklies.

Of course, the real responsibility lies with us. It is our government, after all, and we live in a democracy—a representative democracy. Despite keeping city council apprised of my efforts and of the city's responses, our representatives have been ineffective in getting the city to reveal details of its public surveillance. There is an election this fall, however. Until then, Ginsburg is our best hope.

A win for digital due process

It's just one step, but an important one for bringing law enforcement in the digital age back in line with the Fourth Amendment.

In a win for privacy advocates, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday designed to strengthen electronic privacy protections.

Most notably, the bill-called the Leahy Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendment-requires a search warrant before law enforcement can review emails or other electronic communications.

Why is the News & Record not on Greensboro 101?

You may have noticed that the News & Record's blogs and news feeds have disappeared from Greensboro 101. Their new site design broke the connections from which Greensboro 101 collected their excerpts and I don't see any updated links to replace them. I've emailed the editors and publisher to inquire about new links and hope to hear back soon.

In the mean time, I've added local TV stations WGHP and News14. These feeds are less than ideal because their "Greensboro" excerpts include stories from well outside this area, but they are still mostly local. WFMY does not provide a feed that does not also include world news and is not included for that reason.

"To write is to think"

To write is to think.
— Peggy Noonan

It's why I love blogging and bloggers.