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?