Super Fast Greensboro Police Response -- A Community Watch Success

A few months ago, our neighborhood started experiencing some daytime burglaries -- kick in the door, quickly grab jewelry, guns and computers. Neighbors started talking to neighbors, a neighborhood blog facilitated communications and, after a few meetings, we formed a Community Watch. A Greensboro Police Department Community Watch liaison came to an organizational meeting and gave us some ideas for what to look for and how to respond. Today we put one of the suggestions to use with pleasing results.

For years, we have had shady door-to-door solicitors. Many of us, me included, have stories of "college kids" selling [magazines, books, mugs] to pay for [a trip, tuition, books] to whom we gave money (me, $42) only to never receive what we thought we bought. That's bad enough, but we had started to suspect that some of these "solicitors" might actually just be scoping the neighborhood, seeing what houses are empty during the day, who looks vulnerable, what items of value might be within easy reach. The GPD Community Watch liaison told us when these people come around to ask for a city-issued solicitor's license and, if they didn't have one, tell them to leave the neighborhood then call the cops if they don't.

Today, a very pleasant-mannered young lady showed up on our doorstep. Without introducing herself, she started asking questions of me: Am I a father? Is the education of my children my purview or my wife's? I interrupted and told her, "Before I give you any information, you will tell me who you are and why you are here."

She answered with "I'm a student at the University of Arizona and I've been talking to some of your neighbors..." followed by more questions for me. I interrupted again, "Are you selling something?" She answered yes, but didn't offer any more information. "Do you have a solicitor's license?" I asked. She did not. I politely, but directly told her, that we have had a problem with scammers in our neighborhood, that the City of Greensboro required her to have a license and since she did not, she must leave our neighborhood or I would call the cops.

She shrugged an "OK," got in her car and drove further into the neighborhood. I got in my car and found her knocking on another door and started video taping. When my neighbor answered the door for the solicitor and saw my camera, she came over to talk to me. I introduced myself and mentioned that this was one of the things we were supposed to be on the lookout for as part of the Community Watch. She told me their block captain lives across the street and I should go get her. The block captain turned out to be someone I know, so when she answered the door, she didn't hesitate to spring into action. She called the non-emergency number of the GPD and with cool precision described the situation: described the person, gave the make and model of the car, even rattled off the license plate number, "Arizona plate, Alpha, Alpha, Alpha..."

By now, the solicitor was getting back into her car and driving away. The neighbor she had approached had provided her with requested directions to a nearby gas station. After a few pleasantries with the neighbors, I got in my car and headed back home. Two blocks away, I saw a police car ahead of me make a u-turn and head in the direction of the block captain's house. It couldn't have been more than five minutes since our call to the non-emergency number.

I guess my point of this little tale is two-fold. One, despite my general attitude of live and let live, it is good to know that, when warranted, nosy neighbors can help protect their community; and, two, despite the sometimes negative perceptions of GPD response times, statistics don't always tell the story. A cop on the scene in a few minutes is superb police service. I'll eventually get the details of how it all ended, but for now I know this: Our community watch worked and the GPD worked.

Get well soon Sandra Anderson-Groat

The Troublemaker is reporting that Greensboro City Council person Sandra Anderson-Groat is in the hospital, this on the heels of a report in the News & Record yesterday that her home-building company is going out of business.

I first met Sandra when she hired me to build a web site for her city council campaign. She is a warm, thoughtful person who genuinely is interested in putting what's good for Greensboro ahead of her personal interests. She is a great asset to our city and I wish her a full and speedy recovery. We need her.

Another plagiarized letter to the editor

Today, the News & Record (Greensboro, NC) published this letter from Anthony Belli of Greensboro. Belli plagiarizes from this article by National Rifle Association president, John C. Sigler. Belli's letter is below. The plagiarized portions are in red.
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Barack Obama has claimed that he does not take donations from special-interest groups or lobbyists. True, but he has accepted donations from their spouses, relatives and friends (source: Fox News).

Obama has no respect for the Second Amendment. He has voiced support or voted to ban all handguns, ban the right to carry in every state, and to ban firearms in the home, even for self-protection.

Obama’s attitude toward armed, violent criminals has been one of benign neglect at best. When the Illinois Senate wanted to try gang-bangers as adults when they fired a gun on or near a school ground (1999) or when they committed murder to help their gang, and when the Senate wanted to make them eligible for the death penalty (2001), Obama voted no in both cases. Obama said he believed federal mandatory-sentencing laws used to put armed and violent predators behind bars should be abolished (source: Chicago Tribune).

When Illinois lawmakers introduced a bill that would exonerate citizens for violating local gun bans if they used a gun to defend themselves in their homes, Obama voted no. Obama would disarm the public and allow the criminals to run free.

Letter to the editor writer plagarizes

If your grandma or grandpa are fond of writing letters to the editor of their local paper, do them a favor and tell them about this thing called the Internet. Tell them that their letter will be posted online and that it is all too easy to determine if gramps wrote his own letter or copied it.

A June 30, 2008 letter to the editor in the News & Record (Greensboro, NC) from Warren Nash is identical in its majority to one from a different author published five days prior in the Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL).

Given the delay in getting a letter to print, it is possible, I suppose, that Mr. Nash wrote his letter first, shared it privately with a friend in Florida who copied it and had hers published first. Clearly though, one copied the other and if you sign your name to someone else's writings, you have plagiarized.

Of course, the letters editor at the N&R could have caught this and saved her paper and Mr. Nash this embarrassment, but, sadly, there appears to be little regard for fact-checking by the N&R on the letters they publish as noted here and here,

Records request shows responsible city staff

One of the obligations of being a some-time critic of City government is, I believe, to also write about things that go right. I still have an outstanding disagreement with the City over the release of public records, but a request for records I submitted this week was answered with impressive swiftness and the documents reassuringly demonstrate a city department being careful about spending taxpayer money.

This week's City Council meeting included on the agenda a request to approve payment of $728,229.90 to trash hauler Republic of NC for economic loss, a result of the City annexing areas where Republic currently collects trash from paying customers. State law allows garbage collectors to receive compensation for this kind of loss as a cash payment equivalent to 15 months of lost income from the affected areas. The payment was approved by city council.

Part of my interest was inspired by a misreading of the agenda item. It describes the annexation as "12 areas." I mistakenly read that as "12 acres" which had me wondering how 15 months of revenue for a mere 12 acres of homes could result in a payment of $728,229.90. In fact, the 12 areas accounted for thousands of customers.

Companies seeking compensation for this kind of economic loss are required to submit detailed documentation to substantiate their claim of loss. I submitted a request for this documentation to Pat Boswell, Director of Public Affairs. Within 10 minutes, she replied that she had received my request. In less than 24 hours, I had the information I had requested forwarded to me by Pat's assistant, Cindy Briggs, and Field Operations Communications Manager Nancy Lindemeyer. Nancy also promptly replied to my follow up questions.

Here is the bottom line: Republic of NC complied with the documentation requirements and the staff of Field Operations verified it through a variety of means. One may not like that these annexations carried this kind of expense, but it was required by law and the amount was carefully substantiated by city staff. Kudos to Pat, Cindy and Nancy for a swift and thorough response to a records request. It allowed this citizen to report good things about the city.

Are there any responsive roofers in Greensboro?

Over two weeks ago, our house sustained some roof damage from a hail storm. Although the insurance adjuster showed up within 48 hours and cut us a check, getting a roofer to do the repairs has been another matter entirely.

We have contacted five different roofers. The results have ranged from multiple messages not being returned to promises of a return call to schedule an estimate not being fulfilled. What a joke. Not one of the five has even given themselves a chance at our business. I would never conduct my business with such disregard for potential customers. Are roofers so damn busy that they just don't care about tarnishing their reputations or are they just slack asses when it comes to conducting business?

Two weeks after the storm we are still trying to find a reliable roofer. If you know of one who wants some business, please let me know in the comments.

Greensboro may adopt some funky vendor pushcart regulations

Sigh.

City Council agenda item #29 would change the ordinance governing push carts. I suspect it is a lack of attention to detail that has the proposed changes eliminating the requirement that push carts cannot exceed 40 inches in width OR 75 inches in length to a requirement that they not exceed 42 inches in width AND 77 inches in length -- a change that could allow for a really, really long push cart.

"Or" means a cart is in violation if either measurement is exceeded, "and" means a cart is in violation only if both measurements are exceeded. So, under the proposed change, a push cart could be 42 inches wide and 100 yards long and would not violate the proposed new ordinance because it does not exceed 42 inches in width AND 77 inches in length. Cool.

Greensboro to pay waste hauler $728,229.90 to not collect trash

Another cost of annexation: Agenda item number 31 for tonight's city council meeting requests that council approve a payment of $728,229.90 to garbage collector Republic Services of NC for "loss of business," a consequence of the City annexing 12 acres of Republic's customers for whom the city will now collect garbage.

It has long seemed to me that annexation decisions by the city of Greensboro lack a bottom-line cost/benefit analysis. I've never seen city staff say, "On the plus side, the additional property taxes will bring in x dollars and in the minus column, the cost of the annexation and providing services will be y dollars." It seems to me that kind of comparison would simply be prudent. It seems to me that a city council person who votes in favor of an annexation without that information is being irresponsible.

Oh, Hail!

We got hammered with a mighty hail storm this afternoon. It was only about nickel-sized, but there was a lot of it, driven hard by wind. It crushed our previouly healthy tomato plants (you'll see them on the patio) and punched a dozen holes in our sunroom skylights, allowing the rain to pour in. There wasn't anything I could do while it was happening, so I just shot some video. Here it is.

Hammer Watch: Rhino Times editor puts on his tinfoil hat

In his Under The Hammer column in this week's Rhinoceros Times (a Greensboro, NC weekly newspaper, article not online), editor John Hammer regurgitates as serious the intellectually bankrupt idea that "[P]eople who might cause problems for the Clintons have had a habit of dying in unusual circumstances."

Hammer proceeds to offer his "evidence." It requires his readers to suspend their good judgment and abandon all reason. Why Hammer perpetually expects his readers to be so naive, I don't know. It seems rather contemptuous of his audience, as if he must be thinking to himself, "My readers are dumb enough to buy this crap."

First on Hammer's list is the suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster. Hammer writes "[W]hen a top White House official dies of a gunshot wound, you would expect there to be a full autopsy and there was not." Hammer is quite simply wrong about this. A full autopsy was performed. Doubt it? Read this exhaustive investigation into Foster's death. The investigation was conducted by Kenneth Starr, yes that Ken Starr. It concludes that Foster's death was a suicide. To believe otherwise, is to ignore the empirical evidence and assume that Clinton nemesis Starr was in on "it."

Next up, Hammer turns to the plane crash in which former Secretary of Commerce Ron Borwn died along with 34 other people. Hammer describes the crash as "bizarre," although he doesn't explain why the crash was bizarre. In truth, although Hammer incorrectly writes that the crash occurred on a "relatively clear day," the cause of the crash was an improperly executed instrument landing -- tragic, but not bizarre. Hammer reminds us that Brown had a wound in his head that looked like a gunshot wound. He fails to tell us that an examination of Brown's skull by military officials "revealed no bullet, no bone fragments, no metal fragments and, even more telling, no exit wound."

Finally, Hammer offers former White House intern Mary Mahoney who was murdered in a botched robbery. The perpetrator, who was also "accused in the shooting homicide of a security guard in 1993, the attempted murder of a police officer, and four armed robberies" confessed to Mahoney's murder, plead guilty and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole while not once attempting to mitigate his punishment by claiming to be a Clinton operative.

Hammer also incorrectly asserts that victim Mahoney was "going to go public with her story of sexual harassment at the White House." There is zero substantiation of this. Prior to the Monica Lewinsky scandal breaking, Newsweek writer Mike Isikoff hinted that a White House staffer with the initial "M" was about to talk about her affair with Clinton. The "M" was Monica, not Mahoney. Doubt it? Ask Hammer how he "knows" that Mahoney was about to go public.

Snopes has a thorough examination of the distortions, misdirection, fabrications and just plain wrong assertions that people must resort to in order to put forth, as Hammer did, these tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

If you suspect that your readers are unwilling or incapable of critical thinking, you may think you have an audience for these kinds of conspiracies. Since that seems to be where Hammer is coming from, maybe next week he will write about People With Connections To The Bush Dynasty Who Met With Suspicious And Untimely Deaths.

From local blog post to national news: Ed Cone on Fox Business

Inspired by his blog post about poor airline service, Fox Business invites Ed Cone to discuss his experience on-air with Neal Cavuto.

Another N&R letter-writer gets his facts wrong and once again, the editors let it ride.

A letter to the editor in today's News & Record by Robert A. Hahn of Greensboro claims that gas prices are going up because Democrats took away subsidies for the oil industry. Specifically, Hahn writes:

"The Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007. At that time, the economy was doing pretty well. One of the first things that the Democratic Congress did was to “punish” big oil by reducing subsidies."

Not true. The House of Representatives approved an energy bill in 2007 that would have reduced subsidies, but those provisions were rejected by the senate and the final bill, with subsidies intact, was signed into law by President Bush.

I don't know why the N&R continues to allow letters that contain factual errors. This is not an isolated incident. These are not matters of opinion that writers should be free to express. These are empirical untruths. One would think the N&R would not publish such inaccuracies, but they seem to have no compunction for doing so.

Site Launch: CobleForCongress.com

[UPDATE: Some visitors may have still been seeing the old site this morning. That problem has been rectified and everybody should see the new site now.]

We launched Congressman Howard Coble's new campaign web site this morning. It was one of the most challenging and most engaging web site design projects I've done. It's a real professional joy when a project requires one to spread the creative wings.

This was the first project for which I shot and edited video (on the home page). Tom Lassiter's and Stewart Pittman's how-to session at ConvergeSouth was a great headstart.

We also incorporated a nifty news management system that allows people to self-subscribe to the campaign's email news announcements. On the back end, the system gives the campaign a one-stop method of sending news to supporters and/or the press and simultaneously publishing the announcement to the web site.

The interface makes good use of the Spry javascript framework, doing the kinds of things that I think good web sites do, like minimizing the need for page reloads to display user selections. I also included a great Google Maps mashup from GovTrack.us that allows people to explore Congressman Coble's district down to the street level. (I knew that I was in the thirteenth congressional district, but I didn't know that my neighbors across the street are in Howard's sixth.)

I thank Howard Coble and his friendly staff for the opportunity to work with them. And thanks to to Bill Knight for the referral.

An Honest Campaign Ad

In response to an on-air caller yesterday, WZTK's Britt Whitmire improvised this "honest campaign commercial" . It's hillarious. (Thanks for the audio file, Britt.)

To "Operation Chaos" morons, uh, I mean "operatives"

Despite my prediction that North Carolina Republicans would be too smart to follow Rush Limbaugh's advice to switch parties in order to vote for Hillary Clinton, some apparently did. I heard one "operative" bragging about doing so on the Brad and Britt show on WZTK (101.1 FM) yesterday.

How did that work out for you, moran? Did your preference for governor win the Republican primary? How about your party's congressional candidates? Did your prefered county commissioner candidate win? Are you glad you left the choosing of the Republican candidates to others so that you could, uh, waste your time and your vote? Mission accomplished?

You are a great American.

I voted

I voted at 10:00 this morning -- was the 179th voter at my precinct.

Obama 58%?

I spent a little time last night looking at North Carolina voter demographics, new registrations, early voting turnout and historical voting patterns. Then I ran some "what-if" scenarios, making assumptions about how the vote might break down tomorrow. I came up with Obama winning 52% to 62% of the vote, with 56% - 58% coming up most often.

TV pundits are speculating this morning that the Clinton's strong presence in the state today might portend an upset. The only way that happens is if Obama gets less than 33% of the white vote or less than 70% of the black vote.

Hillary Clinton: "I was against the Michigan primary before I was for it."

Okay, not a real quote, but it might as well be. More than just a change of position, Clinton broke a signed pledge.

In September of 2007, all of the Democratic presidential candidates signed a pledge promising "I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina..." Here is the pledge. Here is Clinton's press release announcing that she will sign it (which she did).

When Michigan decided to move its primary to January 15th, all of the Democratic presidential candidates honored their signed pledge, kept their word, and had their names removed from the Michigan ballot-- every one of them, except for Hillary Clinton.

Now Clinton is insisting that her broken pledge be used to her political advantage by calling for the Michigan vote to count.

We don't need another candidate of political expediency. We don't need a candidate who will so easily go back on her word when keeping it has a political cost. That's the same ol' same ol' that frustrates Americans of both parties. It's time for something new, something better. Hillary Clinton is not it.

News & Record editors offer misleading look at Congressional 6th district Dem primary

The News & Record opinion editors offered their analysis of the Congressional 6th district Democratic primary yesterday. The winner will go on to face 12-term Republican incumbent Howard Coble. Vying for the chance are Teresa Sue Bratton, Jay Ovittore and Johnny Carter. The editors endorsed Bratton, but then did something very strange. They wrote that Carter "doesn’t offer voters much to distinguish himself from the crowd."

Hardly. On his website, Carter offers some unique propositions, especially for a Democrat. Among them:

• He asserts that a plan is under way to dissolve the sovereignty of the United States and says "Our elected Global elitists will seal this program with a new money called the 'Amero'."
• He proposes a year-round school schedule to allow children to "graduate" by 9th grade.
• He would, "Remove all illegal non-citizens from this country."
• He says we should "Accept no visitors from known terrorist countries"
• He claims that the Pledge of Allegiance has been legislated out of our schools.
• He says that for a church to keep its tax-exempt status, "THE CHURCH MUST NOT CRITICIZE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES OR BUREAUS, THE WHITE HOUSE,NEW WORLD ORDER, CONGRESS, FEDERAL RESERVE, SUPREME COURT, ANY PENDING BILLS OR LEGISLATION, WELL KNOWN PUBLIC FIGURES OR INSTITUTIONS, ORDER OF SKULL AND BONES, OTHER SECRET SOCIETIES, FAITH GROUPS, CULTS OR RELIGIONS, NEW AGE MOVEMENT, UNITED NATIONS OR GLOBALIST GROUPS."
  

Carter also says he would, "Require the U.S. Arab Community to publicly denounce terrorism of any form or else remove their tax-exempt status. It is time to evolve." I wasn't aware that the U.S. Arab community had tax-exempt status, but saying so, and doing it with the implication that Arabs are less evolved, is something that certainly sets Johnny Carter apart from his opponents.

Another thing unique to Carter: According to the NC State Board of Elections, Carter has never voted in an election in this state. The N&R apparently avoided reporting this too, even though it was brought to their attention on at least two occasions.

Why would the N&R avoid giving readers an accurate and complete picture of Carter? I cannot be sure. Comments on the editorial's shortcomings have gone unanswered. I have a theory, though. If the N&R wants Bratton to win the primary, they benefit her by endorsing her then leaving readers to think that, if not her, there are two alternatives. If they had offered an honest assessment of Carter, they would have revealed him as not viable in a Democratic primary, casting the contest as a two-person race, which would make a win harder for Bratton. Either that or they got very lazy on this one. Hard to know.

Why "Operation Chaos" dies in North Carolina

Rush Limbaugh has been encouraging his Republican listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton in their state's primaries. The race for the Republican nomination for governor will keep that from happening in North Carolina.

Our state has a "modified closed primary" which means that voters registered to a party must vote in that party's primary. Unaffiliated voters may choose which party's primary in which to vote. Like other states with closed primaries, Republicans would have to switch their party registrations in order to vote for Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, presumably to later switch back before the general election. North Carolina Republicans won't find that idea appealing because of what they would have to give up--a chance to nominate a candidate for governor with a good chance of winning.

There are four candidates running for the nomination, each has appeal, although it appears as if it will come down to Fred Smith or Pat McCrory. With the Democratic incumbent governor Mike Easley not running for re-election, this will be the best chance in years for Republicans to have a shot at the governorship. North Carolina Republicans are not going to ignore a serious good chance to nominate their best gubernatorial candidate in order to participate in pointless tomfoolery.

There's one more reason why the governor's race will keep Republicans in their primary. It seems possible, if not likely, that none of the Republican candidates will get above the requisite 40% to win the nomination in the first go-round. That would mean a runoff election and in North Carolina, if you vote in one party's primary, you cannot vote in another party's runoff election. North Carolina Republicans just have too much at stake to waste their vote at a time when it really will matter.