Guarino

In Greensboro, This Cop Would Have Probably Been Promoted

But he chose to work in Charlotte instead, and he got charged.  Imagine that.

North Carolina Taxes

Civitas advises us of a recent Tax Foundation analysis, which indicates the state of North Carolina led the southeastern United States this year both in the number of different types of tax hikes, and the amount taxes were raised.  North Carolina raised five different types of taxes, unlike other states in the region.

In addition, Michael Barone writes about the states that led most in population growth over the last couple of years.  This is a proxy indicator of economic strength.  North Carolina was not among those states mentioned.

Which states were the winners, according to Barone?  Wyoming, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Dakota. Wyoming and Utah tend to be conservative states.  Texas and South Dakota have no state income tax; and Tennessee has no income tax on wages.

Is there a lesson, somewhere amidst all this data, to be learned?

Hmmm...

City Libraries, Hotels, Power Groups and Points in Between

We learn in today's News and Record that Guilford County is threatening to cut off its library funding previously provided to the city of Greensboro.

If this happens, it would not hurt my feelings if the city were to begin charging for use of the libraries for any person who lives outside the city limits.  While it would be somewhat of an administrative challenge for library staff, it would be eminently justified.

The county has a financial mess on its hands waiting to happen; and the mess is entirely of its own doing.  Most of our county commissioners voted to place all those expensive bonds on the 2008 primary ballot-- especially the $400 million school bonds.  All that bond debt is now the commissioners' headache.

Similarly, we have been aware for years of the profligate manner in which the county schools administration was expending bond monies on school construction; but the school board and the county board of commissioners did almost nothing to stop it.  The fiscal problems they are facing will be their own fault. 

We have had local units of government attempting to divest themselves of certain parks.  But meanwhile, the usual forces continue to fan the flames of bond spending and annexation, even when we seemingly cannot handle what we already have.

One of those "usual forces" is the Greensboro Partnership, of which the local chamber of commerce and Action Greensboro are part.  Action Greensboro has been helping fund and promote the various bond campaigns, and even broke the law last year to help get the bonds passed.  The taxpayer is left holding the bag.

Bubba posted an interesting item about a group in Arizona that is taking the local Chamber of Commerce to task for having become part of the problem.  We could use that type of effort in Greensboro.

In any event, the latest product of the various wrongheaded forces in the city of Greensboro is the downtown hotel project.  Here are some important pieces of information and questions to keep in mind:

1. As I have noted previously, if Skip Alston is the broker for the land transaction, then the matter is a major conflict of interest for all the Simkins endorsees on the city council-- Perkins, Vaughan, Kee, Matheny and Wade. 

2. The Ole Asheboro Association would continue to be a major player, and hold equity in the hotel, even though it would no longer be located in Ole Asheboro.  Does this mean we have to give the Fisher Park, College Hill and Westerwood associations, or other east Greensboro associations, an equity position in the hotel also, as a matter of basic fairness?  Depending on how the deal is done, there is a possibility that one or more owners may not have any real equity at risk in the project.  Why should the Ole Asheboro association have stock in the project if it is not to be located in its neighborhood, and it is to be 100% public funded? 

3. There is no credible research demonstrating how much business this hotel would attract, and how viable it would be.

4. Oodles of taxpayer money are being used to build a hotel that would be competing with other hotels in Greensboro.  The hotel association made a pathetic plea before the city council in support of the aquatic center recently.  Its representative claimed local hotels are losing business because of the contracting local economy; and suggested there are too many new hotels in the area now.

5. The hotel is planned in conjunction with a parking deck that would be paid for by taxpayers.  But we need to know whether a deck in this location would pay for itself with parking fees.

6. The hotel at the "old" location would enjoy a five-year tax exemption estimated at more than $300,000 per year.  The new location would apparently not enjoy this benefit, therefore making its path to profitability more steep.

7. Projects funded with federal stimulus funds are supposed to be "shovel ready".  It is difficult to argue that a project is shovel-ready when the planned location is changed at the drop of a hat.

8. City staff apparently opposes the project, which suggests to me it must be pretty risky.

9. Is there somehow a desire to have the hotel be close in proximity to Skip and Earl's new museum?

10. I am told that Nettie Coad is a leader in the Ole Asheboro group, but also serves on the Redevelopment Commission which voted in favor of the project.  If that is true, would it represent a conflict?

11. What is the Ole Asheboro neighborhood now supposed to gain from this project, and how is that supposed to happen?

Even if the usual power groups align in favor of this project, it would not make it right.  Look at what their efforts did to Guilford County, which now seems unable to pay even its share of library expenses.

GPD Officer Compares Situation to That Facing Roman Centurions

A GPD officer forwarded me the following essay.  The Centurions were the professional officers in ancient Rome's army.  The GPD officer did some comparing and contrasting:

As An Empire Crumbles

I have often wondered how the Roman Centurions felt when Rome was falling . Did they notice the lack of respect for authority? Did they wonder why so few people no longer showed respect to leaders, families and various institutions? After all, the Legions were being called in day in and day out to fix many problems they could not fix. There were too many problems and too few Centurions. But many days the problem might not have been the lack of man power.  Instead, it might have been a failure to use properly the resources at their disposal.

Nobody seemed to care anyway. After all, the Coliseum had three shows a day; and there were parties to attend in the center of the forum. People prayed to their various gods; and the plebes and slaves took care of most of the day-to-day work.

Since all roads led to Rome, did the streets begin to need repair?  I wonder if the Centurions ever noticed the pot holes in the road. I wonder if the Centurions ever thought to themselves, “How are people going to pay all these taxes the Empire has imposed?  It should not be a problem. After all, we are the greatest empire known to man."  Maybe the Centurions thought that Caesar would do what he always did to fix the problem-- raise taxes on the rich. The rich always had enough money to pay for new things, and when that did not work, Caesar would just seize someone’s land and property to pay off the debt.

I wonder if the Centurions noticed the crumbling of buildings not in the center of town, but all around town.  I imagine the Centurions had a few things on their mind each day.  Maybe there were food shortages, problems with gangs, those darn vandals and a crime or two to deal with. Even with a crucifixion or two of certain robbers, enemies of the state it still did not stop the rampant crime that seemed to grow with each and every day.

Why were the Centurions confused?  Maybe it was because the rules applied to some and not to others. It may have seemed some days that anyone could become a Centurion. The standards had slipped and even barbarians and people who were not citizens were being admitted to the Centurion and Legion ranks. The calls for service never seemed to end with the commanders and leaders saying, “Can you put down this dispute” and “Can you do something about that riot over there?” 

I can just envision two Roman Centurions complaining about the price of grain, and how it affected transportation; then again the horses they were using had been rode hard and put up wet so many times that the poor creatures were now practically useless. They were still using low grade metal swords and the Legions never seemed to have the money to upgrade the equipment they needed.  But they had a really neat bath house that had just been built for the privileged few.

Did the town criers' news always harp on how bad the Centurions were and how they violated some poor citizens rights?  Whenever you heard the latest news, it seemed the barbarians were just misunderstood.  And besides, the barbarians were more of a social group anyway. I wonder if the Centurions asked themselves, "How do we defend a country without having to use force sometimes?"  Do we shout nice Latin phrases at the barbarians?  After all defending an empire can be a brutal business, and sometimes someone has to make the tough decisions because they sure were not getting any direction from the government. The leaders and commanders were inefficient, and only looked after their own self-interests.  No one cared about the troops,and that was evident by the attitude of WIFMY (What’s In It For Me).  Did the centurions look over the vast landscape of the empire at the barbarian hordes approaching the city gates, and say to themselves "Today, we are going to die"?

Caesar and the Senate were fighting and scheming all the time; and the Centurions had to contend with corruption, and a society in decline. Maybe they were just looking for that day when they could retire to a farm somewhere, and not have to deal with the problems of the empire. Then again, maybe they were worried that they would not live that long-- and even if they did, the empire's treasures would be empty just like the many promises made each day by the Senate and by Caesar himself. 

Reason for AMA Support of Obamacare Exposed

We had posted about this issue earlier this year; but now the MSM is slowly catching on to the charade orchestrated by the AMA on Obamacare.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the reason the AMA has supported "health care reform" may be because of the organization's monopoly on medical billing codes.  The AMA only represents about 18% of the nation's physicians.

The AMA happens to be based in Chicago.

The Relationship Between the YWCA Purchase and the Aquatic Center

A couple of weeks ago we had posted about a deal that may be brewing between T. Diane Bellamy-Small and Robbie Perkins regarding a possible purchase of the old downtown YWCA by the city of Greensboro.  The original Yes!Weekly post suggested Bellamy-Small may be seeking this project in exchange for her vote in favor of the aquatic center.

There may be reason to believe this proposal is attracting more support among council members who belong to the Melderec con Simkins faction headed by Perkins.

Purchasing the old  YWCA to convert it to a recreation center would be a horrible idea.  Yes, it has a swimming pool; but we need to remember that we just bought an enormously expensive swimming pool complex at the Coliseum.

This is a time of recession.  This is not a time we are likely to see tax revenues expanding prolifically.  We just heard from our police chief that there may be a need to add many new police officers and a new police district, with all the associated new capital and operational expense that would entail.  We still have not gotten a handle on what we really need to do to enhance crime control in our city; and this remains a top agenda item.  If it will require additional money, it has to come from somewhere. 

But there are many currently funded projects and programs, as well as new wish-list items like the YWCA, that compete for city tax dollars.  We cannot harbor the illusion that tax revenues are infinite.  They are not.

We cannot look at every proposal for new spending and say, "Wouldn't it be nice to have that?"  

The fact is that responsible households, businesses and governmental entities make discerning choices about the money they spend.  It is a matter of fiduciary responsibility.  We need to be concerned about the expenses we are passing along to those who do not have much, and indeed, to future generations.

Sure, in the eyes of some, the YWCA building would be "nice to have".  Among the members of this group, it always seems to be "more, more, more".

But is the YWCA purchase really necessary?

We need to consider the dimensions of the latest boondoggle the city bought.

The aquatic center is now estimated to cost close to $19 million dollars.  We do not know what future cost overruns might be.

Let us assume the debt is being repaid at 4% interest over a period of 20 years.  Let us further assume that the aquatic center requires $600,000 per year in operational expenses.

That means, in total, the aquatic center would cost us upwards of $41 million over a 20 year period.  But remember that lots of folks were willing to step up, and say how nice it would be to have the aquatic center.  The problem is that we have to pay for it during a period of economic contraction and intense competition for new jobs.

Sometimes I think that some council members would be very happy to increase our taxes by 30% or more to pay for all their spending schemes-- once all the fiscal realities become painfully clear.  But raising taxes to accommodate the spending frenzy will chase many of those new jobs away that we claim to be seeking.

A Letter to Mayor Knight on Textgate

Councilman Danny Thompson has sent the following letter to Mayor Bill Knight:

December 28, 2009

The Honorable William Knight
Mayor
City of Greensboro
One Governmental Plaza
PO Box 3136
Greensboro, NC 27402-3136

Dear Mayor Knight,

I am writing to express my concern regarding the practice or occasional times of Council members communicating with other parties while speakers from the floor are addressing Council.

It has come to our attention that while a representative of a local developer was addressing Council on a disputed matter requiring our deliberation, one Council member was, by his own admission, communicating openly with the opposing developer via email.

This revelation is troubling on several fronts, not the least of which is the breakdown of public trust in our elected body.  All citizens of Greensboro have the right to come before Council and receive a fair and impartial hearing of their issues or grievances and to expect our undivided attention.  When we fail to provide that, it demeans our Chamber and shows a lack of respect toward the citizens of Greensboro.

Therefore, I am respectfully requesting:

That you, as Presiding Chair of the Council, prohibit the use of personal electronic device instruments of all Council members during Council sessions, just as we require of all citizens, and
That this matter be part of the Agenda for the Meeting on January 5th, 2010.

I thank you for your kind consideration into this matter and look forward to receiving your reply.

Sincerest regards,



Danny L. Thompson
Greensboro City Councilman At-Large

Simkins Endorsees Need to Recuse Themselves on Hotel Project Vote

Now we learn that the downtown hotel project-- apparently to be subsidized with federal stimulus funds-- might relocate closer to the center of downtown.  And guess who would be the broker on the sale of the land for this project?  Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston, who also has been a principal in the Simkins PAC.

The city council might need to vote on this matter; and also might need to decide if local tax dollars will help build a parking deck for this hotel. 

Any council members endorsed by the Simkins PAC during the most recent election cycle should recuse themselves from any vote on this hotel or the parking lot as long as Skip Alston is involved.  That includes Robbie Perkins, Nancy Vaughan, Jim Kee, Zack Matheny and Trudy Wade.  It would be improper to have received an endorsement from this group, and then help shower brokerage fees on Mr. Alston.

Update: Sam Hieb has more.

Update II: Doug Clark has additional concerns about Alston's role, but perhaps for different reasons.

Some on the Left Cheer Attack on the Pope

If it were not so typical, it would hardly seem credible.  Expressing joy over such an incident can be pretty revealing.

The "Moderate" Kay Hagan

Sam Spagnola comments on the attempt in Mark Binker's puff piece to portray unquestioningly Senator Kay Hagan as a moderate.  This, of course, is the latest in a series of attempts to create this appearance.

Binker and Hagan failed to explain how support of the federal government's essentially taking over one-sixth of the nation's economy is a moderate position.

If Kay Hagan is to be regarded as a moderate, then the late Senator Jesse Helms should probably be regarded in that manner also.

Textgate Continues to Simmer

Above is a photograph that I copied from Keith Brown's blog, Triad Watch.

The luxury downtown mixed use/condominium complex, Center Point, is an object of pride for some.  There had been considerable enthusiasm locally for the idea of rehabilitating an old office tower in downtown Greensboro and bringing it back to life.  In general, some people also like the idea of having more people live downtown.

It is well known that Roy Carroll developed this property.  In the past, Carroll had established a PAC that gave generously to certain city council members.  And he was granted a financial incentive of approximately $1 million in local taxpayer dollars by the city council toward this project.  (Update: This vote was taken in May, 2006 when Robbie Perkins was taking a hiatus from serving on the council.  I am told that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners also extended Carroll $1 million in incentives toward this project).

The photo above demonstrates how Councilman Perkins' commercial real estate brokerage firm, NAI Piedmont Triad, was selected to be the broker for this new development.

It was somewhat of a shock when we all learned that Perkins and Carroll had been exchanging text messages during a recent council meeting regarding Carroll's disagreement with Kotis Properties over their respective developments at Horsepen Creek Road..  Thus far, none of the city's print media have covered this matter except in a perfunctory manner. 

There are some overarching considerations for any media organizations that choose to run this story-- the fact that they might otherwise support Perkins and the alliances he maintains; and the clout development-related interests might have with the media organization in question.

Carroll had enough political influence to attract the huge taxpayer incentive for his downtown project in spite of the fact that it will not produce hardly any permanent new jobs.  But we do not know what role his clout played with respect to the manner the city handled the "spite strip" issue at Horsepen Creek Road. 

The many new, pseudonymous commenters that showed up in previous threads tried to make it seem that it was entirely expected that Carroll would seek the assistance of his councilman.  And they tried to make it appear that the issue of the condemnation of Kotis' land was entirely unconnected to the matter of the "spite strip" Carroll had been granted by the city. 

However, if Kotis feels that Carroll's financial demands for access through his four-foot strip of land were extortionary, and that the demands had been aided and abetted by the position the city had taken, then the condemnation by the city-- possibly to provide water and/or sewer for Carroll-- is just one more affront.

Yes, Carroll does have the right to make his case with elected officials.  However, being granted access to an elected official's Blackberry, and using it to communicate with that elected official right in the midst of a council meeting, is a much higher level of access than the average citizen enjoys.  It is Perkins' fault that he granted that kind of access-- particularly to someone with whom he has had a prior business relationship.

Ryan Shell posted about how nice it is that council members embrace new technology.  Of course, this particular episode transcends the nicety or the coolness of elected officials using the technology we might like.  There are ethical questions involved.

One interesting side show to this controversy is the role played by Community Foundation official Walker Sanders in helping arrange the airplane ride that was to carry ex-mayor Yvonne Johnson and other local officials.  This was being arranged to advocate on behalf of federal stimulus money for a county schools headquarters to be located downtown.  That ride was going to be on Carroll's private airplane; and the question was why Carroll might have had an interest in this particular project.

And remember that just a couple of weeks ago, during the very same meeting Perkins was texting with Carroll, that same guy-- Walker Sanders of the Community Foundation-- was giving a dramatic statement during the swim center debate.  He announced that money had been donated at the last minute to provide swim lessons for school kids.  Sanders was facilitating the aquatic center, just as he had been involved with the flight to win stimulus money for the new county schools building.  It is interesting how the same folks resurface on these issues.

Back to the Horsepen Creek matter.  As Ed Cone suggested during one of my previous threads, it is the appearance of a council member texting with a developer during a council meeting that stinks.  The bad appearance alone should be enough to convince an elected official to refrain from this type of behavior. 

We have a right to expect that our council members will conduct themselves in a manner that is ethically unimpeachable.  They should exude honor and integrity.  They should behave like statesmen.  They should avoid even the mere appearance of impropriety.

It is not clear that Mr. Perkins has met these tests.

City Manager Caves on Gang Member Working At Coliseum: Perkins Hears Out Pulpit Forum on Issue

Yes!Weekly reports that an Almighty Latin Kings gang member had been working for a temporary staffing contractor at the Greensboro Coliseum.  This gang member was reportedly banned from working at the Coliseum because of the intevention of the GPD. 

But then-- check this out!-- the gang member filed a complaint with the city's Human Relations department.  And apparently, Deputy City Manager Bob Morgan and City Manager Rashad Young overruled the GPD.

The Pulpit Forum has had an extraordinary level of interest in supporting the grievances of this particular gang.  Part of this is based on race; although the gang member in this case is actually white.  

We learn in the article that city council member at large Robbie Perkins met with the Pulpit Forum on this matter:

The incident has mobilized the Pulpit Forum, a group of African-American pastors who advocate for just and equitable treatment of people of color in the city of Greensboro. The Rev. Cardes Brown, the president of the Greensboro NAACP, and three other pastors from the group met with at-large City Councilman Robbie Perkins to discuss the incident.

“I don’t want to undermine the police department, but I’m not going to discount when citizens come with a concern like this,” Perkins said.

Translation: I want to undermine the police department.

What Perkins, Young and Morgan are demonstrating is the same old pattern of weak-mindedness that succumbs to seemingly every complaint that arises.  It is the same weak-mindedness that led to Morgan's recent reinstatement of AJ Blake, and the overall handling of the GPD fiasco.  It is the same phenomenon that we see on an ongoing basis among key members of our school board  and the county schools administration.

I am beginning to have some concerns about our new city manager.  Previously, he indicated that he wants to give "pastors" input into the selection of our new police chief.

And Robbie is, well, just being Robbie.

A Message to Congress on Health Care

Check out this video, which is good for a laugh, or two, or three: (HT: Wendell)

Textgate: Blackberry Satire

One of those notorious commenters who prefer to remain anonymous provided me with a satirical illustration:

A Special Christmas Card

 

The above images are of a Christmas card.  (Click to enlarge).  More about that later.

Folks who have been reading this blog for a while might recall that I had traveled to Italy about 30 months ago, and visited Amantea, the city from which the American Molinari clan (of which I am part) had come.  Through my visit to Amantea, almost by happenstance, we were reunited with a branch of the family that had migrated to Brazil.  I told that story a couple of months ago.

Many Americans of Italian descent have been cut off from their past.  The older generations-- the grandparents and great-grandparents-- simply did not tend to tell and preserve all that had passed.  But because I had developed contact with our cousin Mario Celso Molinaro in Brazil, who has been a professor of history, we were reconnected with our past in a special way.  He had some documents and photographs and artifacts and information to which none of us had ever been exposed.

When I visited Amantea, I was working with the owner of the pensione at which I was staying to track down any relatives.  We went through the list of surnames in my family tree.  I mentioned the maiden name of my great-great grandmother-- Raffaela Belsito.  The pensione owner gave me a skeptical look, and said, "Belsito is not a name from here".  I would not learn why until much later.

Cousin Mario in Brazil lent additional insight.  Raffaela, who was born around 1855, had been an orphan.  She was raised in an orphanage run by the Catholic church in the larger city of Cosenza, probably about 30 miles from Amantea.  She was 15 years old when my great-great grandfather, Giuseppe Molinaro-- age 25, and a policeman-- decided he wanted a wife.  He visited the orphanage and arranged to bring Raffaela home with him.

They had eleven children who survived to adulthood.  Four migrated to Brazil, and six migrated to the United States.  Only one remained in Amantea with them. 

At that time, there was severe deprivation in southern Italy.  Young people had no future, and no opportunity.  Raffaela had lost ten of her eleven children to the huge wave of immigration that took so many young men and women away.  And she would likely never see them again.  Her life must have been very melancholy-- having been an orphan child, and then losing nearly all of her children.

Cousin Mario shared with me the above Christmas card.  It had been sent by Raffaela from Italy to Mario's grandfather in Brazil during the year 1905.  It struck me as poignant-- that a woman, then 50 years old, who had experienced so much loss in her own life, would share Christmas joy with her son in Brazil-- one of the ten who had left.

Earlier this morning, I posted a YouTube with a stirring rendition of the traditional Christmas song, "Oh Holy Night".  The lyrics tell of certain contrasts:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Life can be full of adversity and pain and loss that make us weary.  And sometimes everything around us seems to point downward.  But hope remains for believers-- if not in this life, then in another.  That is the message.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve

(HT: Tony Grapes)

Textgate: Why It Represents a Problem, and What It Means for Nancy Vaughan

Sam Hieb provides some further context today about Textgate.

It is important to understand that the city supported Roy Carroll's position on the "reserve strip" or "spite strip", and this led to the lawsuit.  It was subsequent to the filing of the suit that discussion regarding condemnation of Marty Kotis' land began for water and sewer. 

We need to know whether Carroll had access to the decision-making machinery of city government on the "spite strip" issue through the efforts of Robbie Perkins and/or Terry Wood, the city attorney.  I expect we are supposed to believe that the city's support for Carroll's position on the "spite strip", and the lawsuit that ensued, has no relationship to the condemnation of Kotis' property.  But why else would Perkins and Carroll be texting each other like schoolgirls in the midst of a council meeting when the entire topic is being discussed?

It is not unthinkable that Robbie Perkins might have the ability to "make things happen" with city staff.  He was able to do so, for instance, with respect to the Aquatic Center and Project Homestead.  Remember that we have had machine government in the city of Greensboro.

Perkins, of course, has had a reputation for representing development interests on the city council.  For some of us, if Perkins and Carroll are texting each other in the midst of a city council meeting, that raises all kinds of red flags-- particularly when there has been a client/contractor relationship between the two men in the past.

It is interesting that, during the recent council retreat that ended in such a contentious manner, one of the issues under discussion was the policy that mandates staffers can only meet with one council member at a time.  This policy was instituted by the last city council to help prevent various maneuvers in the shadows.  Robbie Perkins wanted to do away with that policy, and Nancy Vaughan seemed sympathetic with his position.

I suppose it is a moot point, because when you have machine government, all it takes is one council member strongly backed by the machine to move city staff toward a desired outcome-- indeed, someone like Perkins.

The Textgate scandal, however, must raise certain dilemmas for Nancy Vaughan.  While it has recently been reported that she is identifying herself with Mr. Perkins' faction on some key issues, we also need to consider the basis for her very political identity.

Ever since the New Garden issue materialized a decade ago, Ms. Vaughan staked out her political reputation as someone who opposes unrestrained development interests.  And yet, we now see her allying herself politically with someone who might be exchanging text messages with Roy Carroll during a council meeting.  That does not entirely mesh with the image of someone who opposes unrestrained development interests, so it creates a major political problem for Vaughan.

Neither the News and Record nor the Rhino have covered this story as of yet.  We are beginning to see some evidence of pushback in a couple of my other threads on this topic.  It will be interesting to see how Textgate unfolds.

Update:  Here is the city's response to Kotis' suit.  Note the extent to which the city is willing to go in order to protect Carroll's "spite strip" and limit Kotis' access.  The reasoning seems a bit strained, but I am not an attorney.  What makes the city feel so strongly about this particular issue?

"Health Care Reform" and the North Carolina Congressional Delegation

Conservative NC says Governor Perdue should call upon the North Carolina congressional delegation to oppose "health care reform", in part because it will increase costs dramatically for state taxpayers.  The "reforms" being planned would increase mandatory spending at the state level primarily through the expansion of Medicaid.

While it is true that Governor Perdue should try to do this, I am not sure what effect it will have.

Why?  Look at the composition of the North Carolina congressional delegation.  Right here in the Piedmont Triad, we have two members of Congress, Brad Miller and Mel Watt, who are certifiable social democrats in the European tradition.  They love the idea of socialized medicine, and are overjoyed that taxes and premiums will be higher to pay for it.

And then there is our esteemed United States Senator-- Greensboro's own Kay Hagan.

We learn through Doug Clark's blog about Hagan's most recent boast-- that Harry Reid "knows how to get sixty votes".  Never mind the series of corrupt bargains that were struck to get to that point.  According to Hagan, the end justifies the means, and all the corruption does not matter one iota.  We merely need to express admiration for Harry Reid's ability to corral votes.

Meanwhile, certain other states have various financial benefits differentially, amazingly, showered upon them; and North Carolina gets nearly zilch.

North Carolina residents need to remember one thing.  Without Kay Hagan's vote, socialized medicine could not be enacted.  What happened in our state at the ballot box last year may be responsible for the passage of this horrible legislation, and all it will do to the American people.

Elections matter. 

Greensboro Police Officer Speaks Out About Quality of Supervision, Internal Discipline

A couple of weeks ago, I had posted about a plan City Manager Rashad Young has to involve pastors in the selection of the new Greensboro police chief.  This raised the possibility, of course, that members of the Greensboro Pulpit Forum might be granted input in this process. 

That would be a bitter irony, because it has sometimes seemed that the raison d'etre of the Pulpit Forum has been to undermine police.

In any case, I have heard from a Greensboro police officer who has some thoughts about the selection of a new police chief.  This officer expounds upon a problem about which we have written in the past-- the serious problems the department has with respect to the quality of supervising officers, and the kind of job they are doing.  This officer also expressed concern about internal discipline.

I found this officer's comments very interesting, and appreciate the concern expressed for the department:

Much has been written and reported over the past three years concerning the state of the Greensboro Police Department. I believe the cause for the majority of the problems within the Department can be attributed to incompetency, selfishness, entitlement and a hypocritical/ corrupt form of discipline. I'm not here to point fingers or name names. I don't really think I need to in order to present my thoughts and views. There are  some good supervisors in the Department, but unfortunately the bad employees overshadow the good ones.

Incompetency is pretty simple to explain and understand. I believe incompetency involves not having the ability or desire to make the right decisions. There are many within the department, across all levels of staff, which are incompetent and work at a level far exceeding their abilities. Field-level officers who have been investigated for incompetency have been terminated or reclassified to non-sworn positions by the Department, but no one will ever acknowledge the incompetency of supervisors and those supervisors are promoted on. To address the problem would imply the promotional process is flawed and that will never happen.I have witnessed, first hand, supervisors who will avoid altercations or the appearance of confrontations with known criminals. There are also those who will not go after a violent bad guy because it is too dangerous.If not us, who? That's our job.Those supervisors like to assume they were promoted based upon their recognized abilities, when in fact they were promoted merely because they lacked competent competition in the always-flawed promotional process or because of the perceived need for diversity among the ranks.

I have known supervisors who bet they would be promoted due to the number of future vacancies and their odds of being promoted and not based upon their abilities. And there are those who feel they should be promoted because they are black, white, brown, female or male and the last two promotions were the complete opposite of them.

Several levels of supervisors have been known to sign off on administrative investigations that have come across their desk, only to find the investigation had errors and was seriously flawed. Are those supervisors held accountable for their own incompetency in signing off on those investigations? Unfortunately not and they are promoted.

Selfishness is another downfall within the ranks of supervision. There are supervisors who only do it for the money and for no other reason. They believe they can live sufficiently for the reminder of their lives at  the next level's salary. So in order to get to that level of contentment, they need to be promoted. Regrettably, those who are selfish are often times also incompetent. They can never get enough money or status and we have no true leaders. Everyone for themselves.

Entitlements are just as damaging to our department. There are those  who have been in their current level for more than 3 years, think highly of themselves and believe they should be promoted. They feel they are  ready to supervise because they scored high on a test. We used to have "babies training babies." Now we have inexperienced babies supervising babies who are training babies.

The last problem affecting our department is the inability to discipline officers who do wrong. Incompetent officers and supervisors conduct incompetent investigations that are overseen by incompetent and hypocritical commanders. Those supervisors then recommend a level of discipline that they can neither justify nor defend considering their own previous indiscretions.

My solution to the mess is simple. When the current chief of police retires, bring in a solid, no-nonsense chief from outside the area with no connects to the Department. Provide him with a 5 year contract and request he bring with him 2 or 3 trusted administrators as newly created deputy chiefs, also with a 5 year contract. Freeze promotions across the board, except for those vacated by retirement of captain level positions and below and allow the current supervisors to mature in grade.

The new chief can begin with an expectation and standard for acceptable conduct, competent investigations and fair, consistent discipline for those who fail to uphold those standards. He also can set standards for discipline of incompetence and cowardice among ALL ranks of the police department and discipline those who fail to meet the standards.  Following the 5 year period, the City can seek a new chief and eliminate the deputy chief positions.

The new City Manager and Council must accept the plan with the full knowledge that additional grievances or lawsuits may follow from those who feel they may have been wronged because Officer A or Supervisor B  weren't treated the same way two years ago. The turmoil needs to stop sometime.  It may be a rough few years, but it needs to happen in order to restore the department's good name and credibility.

Welcome to Greensboro Mr. Young and good luck.

Percolating a New City Scandal, Part 2

Keith Brown fills in some of the blanks with respect to the post I made last night; and provides some of the original documents, including the court filing and the notorious text messages.

In a nutshell, Kotis Properties is alleging that it is being denied reasonable access to a road constructed between its Horsepen Creek Road office park and a mixed use development planned by Roy Carroll and his "Horsepen Village Commercial" entity.  Carroll was demanding what Kotis deemed to be unreasonable amounts for access to the road; and Carroll and the city of Greensboro established what is referred to as a "reserve strip".  Kotis felt this was done in a  manner contrary to the city's own ordinance.

It was alleged that Carroll has engaged in this type of behavior before, and that he has had particular influence with the city of Greensboro.

More recently, the city was in the process of granting a condemnation of Kotis' property allegedly to provide Carroll with access to water and sewer.

Marty Kotis was presenting the issue to the Greensboro City Council last Tuesday night.  Because of a release in connection with the court case, it was discovered that Robbie Perkins allegedly had been exchanging text messages repeatedly with Carroll during the city council meeting.

I think many would feel that this behavior is, at best, highly inappropriate.  Roch says it is OK as long as it is disclosed. But I think the practice of council members making or receiving phone calls, e-mails or text messages during a council meeting raises the prospect of unnecessary distractions and dirty dealing.  It is simply unnecessary.

But in this case, it also potentially represents a breach of ethics.  We need to remember that Perkins was previously the listing broker for properties developed by Carroll, including Center Point.  Let us also recall that Carroll received generous incentive monies from the city for that development.  Finally, Keith points out the episode last summer when Carroll was going to provide airplane rides to Washington, DC for certain council members.

It is a reality that development interests contribute to political campaigns.  In Greensboro, we have had a "pay-to-play" environment. 

But the political contributions are not necessarily the major factor with this episode.  If Perkins' commercial real estate brokerage firm will be the listing agent for Horsepen Village Commercial, as it was for Carroll's Center Point, then the amount to be gained through brokerage fees could potentially dwarf the value of any particular political contribution.

Kotis apparently feels aggrieved that the city made some decisions inappropriately, against his interests. If he is correct, the question is why that may have happened.

To the extent that a perception exists among some Greensboro residents that our local politics is inherently corrupt, even as it masquerades as being enlightened or virtuous, we need to wonder what the source of that perception might be.

But the mental image of a council member texting a developer repeatedly during a council meeting does not provide much reassurance-- especially when that developer is a party to the matter being discussed at the meeting.  In fact, these communications raise all kinds of questions in view of the fact that they had had a mutually beneficial business relationship in the past.

My own opinion is also that Perkins should have recused himself from any consideration of this matter before the city council.

I hope Mayor Knight can find a way to put a stop to this type of behavior.  But more importantly, I hope there can be some type of accountability from the standpoint of ethics.

Update: Amanda Lehmert asks Perkins about the text messages, and she says he responds with a slippery slope argument.  I suppose at this point we are supposed to defer to Robbie's input regarding the need for electronic messaging at council meetings.