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.