GREENSBORO, NC -- According to the News & Record's Allen Johnson, the revelations that the City of Greensboro made a $750,000 loan to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum without a signed contract and that the city, purportedly, gave the Museum a secret extension of time to provide documents required by the terms of the loan, are being met by some city council members with a desire to claw back the loan.
That's a bad idea.
The circumstances that convinced council to approve the loan in September of last year by a 6 - 3 vote have not changed. The reasons given for supporting the museum have not changed. The reasons for the glowing praise spoken by city councilors when they approved the loan have not changed. No. What has happened are failures of oversight by the City and pushing to get the City's money back is a diversion from holding accountable those responsible for those failures.
We can start with City Council themselves. Councilors who take a hands-off approach to city governance, who see their responsibilities as only to set policy and not to follow up as watchdogs are only doing part of their jobs. These failures fall on them more than anybody. A fully engaged councilor would have had the January 1st date by which the Museum was supposed to have provided an audit on his or her calendar. She would have asked to see it on January 2nd. Apparently, not a single representative had the wherewithal to do that — or, apparently, to even wonder about it for six weeks past the deadline until Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record broke the story that the deadline had been secretly extended and still not met.
Had councilors been more involved, this surprise and embarrassment could have been avoided. Punishing the Museum for the lack of attention of City Council is unfair. Where Council should be directing their attention, in addition to some introspection, is toward city staff.
How does the City cut a $750,000 check without a signed contract (as it did)? Start with the person whose name is on the check. Who told her to cut the check? Follow the trail until you reach the source of the directive. Then let us hear what that person has to say. Do the same with circumstances surrounding the issuance of the extension. Who is responsible for these decisions and why did they make them? Knowing these would be more productive than undertaking the charade of pretending the Musuem is no longer deserving.
Councilors will then have two choices, either they find there are circumstances under which they agree it is acceptable for the City of Greensboro to loan hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds without a signed contract and to offer secret extensions of deadlines or they will decide that the personnel responsible for those things are not meeting the expectations of Council.
What should not happen, cannot happen, is for Council to give cover to themselves and staff by shifting blame to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. These circumstances call for some genuine accountability, not melodramatic diversions.
Amen!... So, who authorized the check? and, when will Mujeeb be terminated?
ReplyDeleteA better question might be when are Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan and others going to tender their resignations as it has become quite obvious they have neither the will nor the ability to lead a city?
ReplyDeleteNot so fast, Roch. The Civil Rights Museum is not without culpability here.
ReplyDeleteThe board of directors knew damn well the new chairman was a short-termer. He was there long enough to sugar the pill, to put a facade of business acumen on a group that up until then had appeared clueless. He was chairman long enough to get the check cut, and then he disappeared. In his place will be (of all Godforsaken people) Deena Hayes, a hard line doctrinaire far left activist very much in the Skip Alston/Earl Jones mold.
You really have to admire the chutzpa of the Civil Rights Museum for this utterly shameless bait and switch.
The City Council and City Staff have been startlingly incompetent, even by City Council and City Staff standards. But museum board members were hardly babes in the woods here. They knew exactly how to game the system.
Anon, you're making assumptions. The board's minutes might shed some light.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I have to agree with Anonymous. The ICRCM, according to its latest audit, is a shell game of five LLCs shuffling money among each other with management fees being siphoned off at every turn.
ReplyDeleteSure city staff and council dropped the ball, but the ICRCM still has lots of blame for all the things which have gone wrong.
I agree that there is a lot about the Museum's operations and governance that needs improvements; my point was, however, that all of that was in place when council approved the loan. For council now, after embarrassments of the City's own making, to say they want the money back is unfair and a diversion from properly directed accountability.
ReplyDeleteWFMY annonced last night that council would not be seeking a clawback.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard that. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt would be pointless to ask for the money back. The City will never see it. The Museum is up to its keister in hock. What's another 3/4 of a million bucks?
ReplyDeleteAnd, according to discussion during tonight's city council meeting, there is only about $200,000 left.
ReplyDelete