New Greensboro film festival calls for submissions, volunteers

GREENSBORO, NC -- There is a new film festival coming to Greensboro this summer. It's the Barefoot Bijou Summer Film Festival and they are calling for submissions.

From the press release:

The inaugural Barefoot Bijou Summer Film Festival invites North Carolina filmmakers to submit their short films. The fest is seeking short films produced in the last ten years, either: 1) films made by a North Carolina resident, or 2) films made within the state. There is no submission fee. Selected films will be screened at the 2015 festival, running June 3-28, 2015. To submit your film, email a link to your screener to submit@barefootbijou.com.

There is also a planning meeting next week for people interested in chipping in and helping out:

Barefoot Bijou Planning Meeting
Thursday April 30
6-7pm
The Forge, 115 West Lewis Street

For more information, contact April Harris: aharris@newcityventures.net

Civil Rights Museum response a warning on performing arts center

GREENSBORO, NC -- Although she gets some of her facts and nomenclature grossly wrong, the director of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, Deena Hayes-Greene, is right about the inequality of the current city council's expectations of the non-profits it funds and her reactions foreshadow problems with the city's expectations of the performing arts center.

In an answer to the city's request for more information about the museum's operations, Hayes-Greene writes this about the city making the museum's responses public:

"[A]ny time Sit-In Movement, Inc., a non-profit, but a private corporation*, answers in this format its personal confidential and financial information will be published on a City website. [snip] [W]e decline to have our private information published on the City web page unless other recipients of City Money [sic] do also."

The City of Greensboro is currently formulating a contract that will set the stage for governance of the performing arts center. It anticipates the formation of a non-profit corporation to operate the facility. For weeks I have been pleading with city council to include language that would obligate the non-profit to make its records public. Instead of enshrining that in the agreement, what was added was language that limits public access only to "audited financial statements" and "board meeting minutes" and even then those limited records, according to the current text, can be inspected only "to the extent the functioning of the non-profit is not compromised."

Council has been resistant to changing this language and actually obligating the performing arts center governing non-profit to public transparency, insisting that the city's co-ownership of the building will somehow magically compel the independent non-profit corporation to make its records public and that obligating the non-profit to public transparency in the contract is unnecessary. Seeing Hayes-Greene's objection to public transparency prompted me to write the following to city council.

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 Dear City Council,

I have previously expressed my concerns with you that the portion of the performing arts center agreement regarding public access to the governing non-profit's records is inadequate and an invitation to secrecy, obfuscation and mistrust. Lest you may have doubted the potential for an uncooperative future board to take an adversarial posture towards transparency under the current terms of the agreement, I invite you to see Deena Hayes-Greene's latest response to the City's inquiry regarding the finances and operations of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.

I encourage you, again, to consider the implications of the performing arts center contract on situations just such as this and to enshrine in the agreement, in no uncertain terms, public access to the performing arts center's board's records. Not only will you be shirking your duties to protect the interests of Greensboro's public if you do not more strongly mandate public access to the performing arts center governing board's records in the agreement, but you will put truth to Ms. Hayes-Greene's assertions that the International Civil Rights Center and Museum is being treated differently than the performing arts center.

Cordially,

Roch Smith, Jr.

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The City of Greensboro is committed to providing $30 million in public financing to the performing arts center (compared to $1.5 million for the museum) and, by design, will be the financial backstop for operational shortfalls. It is simply irresponsible for the city not to obligate to public transparency the entity that will be governing an operation vested with so much public support. Simply saying that the governing non-profit probably will be transparent or that one could make the argument that their records should be public is not enough. It gives the board room to raise the kinds of objections raised by Ms. Hayes-Greene.

If this council actually expects the records of the performing arts center governing non-profit to be public, they should put that obligation in the contract. Anything less is a wink and a nod that this council is prepared to allow the governing board to operate with a degree of secrecy.

* This is exactly the same type of organization proposed to govern the performing arts center -- a non-profit LLC.

Update: Edited for clarity.

On closer inspection, PAC scheme worse than thought

GREENSBORO, NC -- After posting yesterday's open letter to Greensboro's City Council, I have come to better understand the financing scheme being put together for the performing arts center. It's worse than I thought for the people of Greensboro. In a nutshell, rather than the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (CFGG) or donors putting put up a portion of their own assets to guarantee their $35 million in pledges towards the project's $65 projected costs, a separate non-profit will be created that will own the center for the first ten years and put it up as collateral for the donor pledges.

That inspired another letter to city council:
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Hello Folks,

Since writing to you yesterday with some questions about the memorandum of understanding on the performing arts center, I have come to better understand the ownership issue and it is even more discomforting.

If I have this right, the City will not own the center for the first ten years while it is used as collateral for the bank backing of the donor contributions. Then, after ten years, even if all has gone according to plan and ownership successfully transfers to the city, the city can only further transfer the center by giving it away to the non-profit; no other options.

I hope it is as obvious to you, as it is to me, the kind of financial jeopardy to which that scheme exposes the citizens of Greensboro. Should something go awry in the first ten years -- cost overruns, donor contributions fall short, loan default by the non-profit or some other fiscal speed bump -- the people of Greensboro will be over a barrel: Either come up with more money to ameliorate whatever problem may have arisen, even if it was the responsibility of other parties, or lose ownership of the center and our tens of millions put in it. Even if we successfully pass the ten year mark and the center transfers to the city, the center would be encumbered in a way unlike any other city property: ours, but not to do with what we will.

This alternative strikes me as simpler and more fair: Have the CFGG and the PAC donors, especially those whose names will supplant Greensboro in the naming of the facility (even though we are its largest financial contributor), have them get a bank letter underwritten by their assets instead of "borrowing" public property to underwrite their financial promises. The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro has $146 million in assets, why must it put public property at risk to back its donor pledges instead of using its own massive assets? If that is a risk they are unwilling to take, we should ask why.

Yours,

Roch

Correction: This post has been updated with the correct amount of the donor pledges.

Letter to city council on performing arts center agreement

GREENSBORO, NC -- The City of Greensboro has released a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the terms by which the city and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (CFGG) propose to proceed with the performing arts center (PAC).

Reading it prompted me to send this to City Council:
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 Hi Folks,

 Regarding the PAC MOU:

 1. How about memorializing some transparency? Specifically: agreeing that all records pertaining to the operation and governance of the facility, including those generated by the non-profit entity, shall be publicly available in conformity with North Carolina public records law.

 2. Where is it specified who will own the center? Although one of the final paragraphs refers to the possibility of what happens if the CIty no longer desires to own the PAC, nowhere do I see where it is specified that the city will own it to begin with.

 3. It seems a really bad idea that, if the city no longer wants to own the PAC, CFGG will assume ownership. That is ripe, in my opinion, for trouble. A future council could decide that they don't want the PAC and, instead of selling it to the benefit of taxpayers, they would have no option but to give it to CFGG. Shoot, they could decide not to own it just to make that happen.

 4. The donor's bank loan will be collateralize by the facility? Has anyone thought about the implications if they should default? How does that then work with a bank owning half the facility or eventually selling it to a private entity? Do the donors remain in the governing body if they default?

 5. It seems unwise to exempt certain board members from term limits.

Yours,

Roch

Triad Stage triumphs with "Anna Christie"

GREENSBORO, NC -- I went to see Triad Stage's production of Eugene O'Neil's Anna Christie on Saturday.

O'Neil's plays famously give actors and audiences plenty to chew on. With Anna Christie he takes us on a soul wrenching exploration of failed people certain they are beyond redemption and what they discover about the restorative power of forgiveness, both extended to others and given to ourselves.

It would be easy to take the serious themes of Anna Chrsitie and sink a production into one-dimensional gloom. Under Preston Lane's able direction, however, the play succeeds brilliantly at reaching the depths of existential angst while bobbing back up to moments of glimmering hope and twinkles of love. This beautiful interplay has us wondering until the very end if we are in for a tragic or uplifting story.

The play's real triumph is the acting. It is not easy to draw characters who are, in many ways, repugnant and yet have us pulling for them. To be at once convincingly decayed and yet inspire affection and hope, as does this cast, requires a complexity that is often out of reach for all but the best of professionals. Gardner Reed as the prodigal Anna and Gordon Joseph Weiss as Chris, her drunken barge captain father, craft such overwhelmingly complete and robust characters that they manage the rare feat of being more real than real whilst maintaining believability and credibility. Truly, these are awe inspiring performances.

Supporting actors Christine Morris, a professor at UNC-Greensboro, as Chris' crusty drinking buddy and Matthew Bellows as Anna's hothead suitor deliver compelling performances. Morris also was the production's vocal coach. Weiss and Reed's characters were enthralling in no small part because of their voices. From Weiss' wonderfully authentic Norwegian accent and Anna's perfectly blended Norwegian-born/Minnesota-raised dialect, to Weiss' snorts and chortles and Anna's breathy sobs, to the extent these perfected vocals were fostered by Morris' coaching, her greatest contribution may have been off stage.

Anna Christie runs through March 2nd. Tickets may be purchased online. The play is presented in three-quarter round which might tempt one to avoid seats on the sides, but the production was blocked (staged) so well that sight lines were never a problem from our seats stage right and, since this is where one is closest to the stage, you may find you enjoy, as did I, the more intimate proximity of section 101 (or section 211, stage left). No matter where you sit, Anna Christie is a great story with stellar performances. You should not miss it.

Blind spots

There sure seem to be some big ol' blind spots among those trying to get a performing arts center built in downtown Greensboro. If you aren't in that echo chamber, you'll find this take by Billy Jones an accurate view:

"For those who might not be aware of what is going on or those who might not be local, the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro is attempting to coerce the Greensboro City Council into spending $50.8 Million dollars plus commit to maintaining for as long as it remains standing, a downtown performing arts center that will be majority owned by the Community Foundation even though the Community Foundation is the smaller investor, claiming to have $35 Million in pledges but unwilling to share with the City any documents to prove the money is actually there to cover their part." 

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?

The ghost of Martha Long reports on proposed performing arts center

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record, and Greensboro at large, would benefit greatly from putting a reporter on the city government beat who doesn't approach her job as if she's writing a society column. A little skepticism and inquisitiveness is sorely needed and sorely lacking.

From an article today that claims to report "everything you need to know" about the proposed performing arts center:

"The center will be on a block of North Elm Street downtown. City officials determined this spot was better than other options because it allowed for paid parking spaces."

The community went through a long and well publicized process of public meetings, charettes and consultations involving hundreds of volunteers from across the city assembled into a task force to study, evaluate and make recommendations for a proposed arts center. This was done through the Community Foundation of Greensboro at the official charge of and with financial support, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, from the Greensboro City Council.

The task force studied several possible locations including the one now deemed best by—according to the News & Record—unnamed "city staff," and they recommended a different site: The old YWCA location. It was with this imprimatur of an inclusive process and well considered recommendation that City Council approved a pledge of financial support and under which assumption private donors made contributions to the effort and opinion writers gave their support.

Now, without explanation, the conclusions of the community have been tossed by the wayside in favor of the recommendations of anonymous "city staff."

Thus there are thee big gaping holes in the N&R's "everything you need to know" story:

1. What was the genesis for "city staff" ignoring the recommendations of the volunteers of the Community Foundation task force? At whose direction did this effort begin and why?
2. The story mentions speculative expectations for increased revenue from premium parking; what is the very real and empirically measurable loss from taking a block of private property off the tax rolls and the loss of the existing city-owned public parking already on the site?
3. Who owns the property "city staff" is proposing be purchased at this new location? Not just the corporate entities, but the stockholders. 

I have little confidence the local media will answer these questions and every expectation City Council will ignore them too on its way to approving this as they make the year-long process undertaken by community volunteers the butt of a big joke.

Too bad Martha Long won't be around to report on the inaugural gala. We'll have the next best thing though.

Welcome to Greensboro where you can pick up your guitar and jump through this hoop, then this hoop...

GREENSBORO, NC -- Greensboro City Council decides to worry about some really trivial stuff sometimes and overacts in a manner that serves to keep us tethered to mediocrity. Which would make Greensboro a more fun and interesting place? A $26 million sidewalk around downtown or a lively street scene powered for free by the creativity and spontaneity of local talent?

Yesterday, there was a proud announcement from the City that people wishing to play music in public spaces downtown may now apply for a license to do so online. One still has to go downtown to City Hall to complete the paperwork for a police background check however, so the time and effort the City spent putting half of the process online is, frankly, a rather boneheaded waste—but then, so are the onerous requirements to begin with, the blame for which falls squarely on the hand-wringing ninnies, I mean, elected representatives, who voted for this government overreach.

UPDATE: Per the comments, the ordinance requiring buskers to be licensed and get a background check was adopted by a vote of 8 to 1. The lone vote against was cast by councilman Tony Wilkins.

Beauty

Full screen and headphones recommended.


Winds of Autumn from Hervé Demers on Vimeo.

Lack of leadership, Mr. Mayor? Anybody seen my hip boots?

GREENSBORO, NC -- Sam Hieb notices that Mayor Robbie Perkins is wagging his finger at his city council colleagues for what he perceives to be "a lack of leadership" on the proposed performing arts center.

Under the current proposal, $20 million of the $60 million projected total cost of the center is supposed to come from private donations, an amount backers say they have already met in pledges, but which they refuse to document in any fashion, such as the obvious — a list of donors.

The only leadership I've seen from city council on this matter has come from council persons Zack Matheny and Nancy Vaughan who refuse to dance the Ol' Greensboro Okee Doke™ and have insisted on some kind of substantiation or guarantee that the $20 million backers say they have really is in place. That's leadership.

If Mayor Perkins wishes to lead on this issue, as Vaughan and Matheny are, he will persuade the project manager for the performing arts center project, his former campaign manager, to provide some verifiable documentation that the project backers do, in fact, have $20 million lined up for the project. Otherwise, he can dance the Ol' Greensboro Okee Doke™ without us, thank you very much.

News & Record editorial dances the Ol' Greensboro Okee Doke™

GREENSBORO, NC -- Fast on the heels of complimenting the News & Record for not falling for some press release baloney, I am reminded by George Hartzman that the local daily still has a long way to go in tuning their B.S. meter.

George points to this claim from an unsigned (how quaint) editorial at the News & Record regarding funding for a proposed performing arts center in Greensboro:

"They have private pledges totaling $20 million."

That has come nowhere near being substantiated to any thinking person's satisfaction. It is an undocumented assertion.

In fact, the task force pushing the project has refused to identify any donors or otherwise provide any substantiation to their claims that they have $20 million to contribute to this project — as reported in the News & Record.

The anonymous writer(s?) of the editorial are trying to lead Greensboro in a whirl of the Ol' Greensboro Okee Doke™ and we're not going to dance along, thank you.

Tim Minchin's "Storm"

With a million and a half views, you may have already seen it, but it was new to me today: Tim Minchin's poetic monologue puts into words (beautiful and adult) the absurdities of rejecting science and the foolishness of avoiding logic.

Tim Minchin's "Storm:"

Dull? No way.

Rae Alton of Avant Greensboro reviewing a recent showing of the 1924 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc accompanied by a new score by Richard Einhorn performed by musicians from UNCG, the Greensboro Youth Chorus and the Bel Canto Company at Aycock Auditorium:

"Those who think Greensboro is a dull town are just those who are failing [to pay] attention. Not every town, even those larger than us, has an arts community willing to explore the future by remixing classic forms."

The mind of the pragmatic moderate

The occasional portrayal of pragmatic moderates as wish-washy is a gross misunderstanding by people who are usually themselves rigid ideologues.

I read this last night in a book given to me by my sister in-law. I think it goes a long way towards explaining the thinking of the pragmatic moderate, at least this one:

"Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of the harm, but also to the probability of the event."

Indeed, I think that's a wise way to think about public policy. As the author adds:

"Any decision relating to risk involves two distinct and yet inseparable elements: the objective facts and the subjective view about the desirability of what is to be gained, or lost, by the decision. [O]nly the pathologically risk-averse make choices based on the consequences without regard to the probability involved. [O]nly the foolhardy make choices based on the probability of an outcome without regard to its consequences.

Bernstein, Peter L. Against the Gods, the Remarkable Story of Risk

Painfully exquisite

Writing so exquisite it hurts.

Thomas Wolfe in You Can't Go Home Again, describing a face he sees day after day in a window across the street from his apartment:

And now, to his store of treasured trivia was added the memory of this man's face--thick, white, expressionless, set in its stolid and sorrowful stare. Immutable, calm, impassive, it became for him the symbol of a kind of permanence in the rush and sweep of chaos in the city, where all things come and go and pass and are so soon forgotten. For, day after day, as he watched the man and tried to penetrate his mystery, at last it seemed to him that he had found the answer.

And after that, in later years, whenever he remembered the man's face, the time was fixed at the end of a day in late summer. Without-violence or heat, the last rays of the sun fell on the warm brick of the building and painted it with a sad, unearthly light. In the window the man sat, always looking out. He never wavered in his gaze, his eyes were calm and sorrowful, and on his face was legible the exile of an imprisoned spirit.

That man's face became for him the face of. Darkness and of Time. It never spoke, and yet it had a voice--a voice that seemed to have the whole earth in it. It was the voice of evening and of night, and in it were the blended tongues of all those men who have passed through the heat and fury of the day, and who now lean quietly upon the sills of evening. In it was the whole vast hush and weariness that comes upon the city at the hour of dusk, when the chaos of another day is ended, and when everything--streets, buildings, and eight million people--breathe slowly, with a tired and sorrowful joy. And in that single tongueless voice was the knowledge of all their tongues.

"Child, child," it said, "have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul--but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them--but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way--but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savoured all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us--we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.

"We have outlived the shift and glitter of so many fashions, we have seen so many things that come and go, so many words forgotten, so many flames that flared and were destroyed; yet we know now we are strangers whose footfalls have not left a print upon the endless streets of life. We shall not go into the dark again, nor suffer madness, nor admit despair: we have built a wall about us now. We shall not hear the docks of time strike out on foreign air, nor wake at morning in some alien land to think of home: our wandering is over, and our hunger fed. 0 brother, son, and comrade, because we have lived so long and seen so much, we are content to make our own a few things now, letting millions pass."

Project Gutenberg

If you have an eReader, such as a Kindle or a Nook, you might want to take a look at Project Gutenberg. You've probably heard of it—the website that makes available books in the public domain—but if you haven't visited it yet, or lately, you might wanna. They now have over 38,000 free ebooks—classics, science fiction, detective stories, children's literature, philosophy, technology and more.

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