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?