Downtown Hotel Update

There were some interesting passages in this morning's News and Record.

1. Front page article:

(S)ome — including a few fellow commissioners — said Alston shouldn’t play business hardball while on the job as a county commissioner, period.

“This is Skip’s style,” said Commissioner Paul Gibson, a frequent critic of Alston’s leadership. “He tries to bully you, he tries to intimidate. He’s very competitive and if he can’t convince you, he’ll try to scare you. That’s not the best image for the chairman of the commissioners, and it’s not good for Guilford County.”

I don't always agree with Gibson's political viewpoint, but I do not doubt for a moment what he is saying in this case.

(Councilman Danny) Thompson said he believes Alston’s apology was sincere and he now has a unique opportunity to strike a blow for transparency and ethics in business and local politics.

“I’m hoping Mr. Alston will join with me to set some new guidelines for how elected officials should operate when they find themselves involved in business before their board or their council,” Thompson said. “I’m looking for a silver lining.”

2. Allen Johnson:

Alston recused himself from that vote, but he acknowledges lobbying City Council members on behalf of the $54 million hotel. He denies, however, threatening competing hotel owner Mike Weaver with protests during tomorrow’s opening of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum — and threatening recall elections of Mayor Bill Knight and two council members if they didn’t support the hotel. He contends he was merely saying that other people were making those threats. Uh, right...

(H)ad the city and county established a clearly defined process and guidelines for all of the proposed local stimulus projects, we could have avoided much of this mess.

Other communities have done it, including San Bernardino, Calif., which added rules disqualifying any stimulus bond project from which an elected official stands to gain financially.

That would have nipped the Skip problem in the bud. 

And added a method to all the madness.

Johnson seems skeptical about Alston's claim that he was merely transmitting threats made by others.  He rightfully chastises the lack of a process-- a problem that dates back to the previous city council.  And he says we ought not be approving projects from which elected officials would profit.  I agree.

3. Ed Cone has a piece that suggests Alston ultimately made the right call when he called off the dogs.  I had previously pointed out here this call was apparently made because Alston had learned the city council was not going to revisit its previous approval of the project.

We also learned in an interesting thread last night that Ed does not necessarily oppose the project.  While he has had a series of very good posts and threads that suggest skepticism over the project, he refrains from taking a position that the city council should rescind its previous decision.

I do think the council should rescind; but doubt at this point it will.  Each council member has his or her own reasons for refraining from this action.  Some doubtless support the hotel.  But notwithstanding any of the stated explanations, I think the atmosphere of political correctness and the enshrinement of identity politics in the city of Greensboro are big factors that discourage council members from addressing the issue once again.  The influence of the Simkins PAC, and the fear of losing its endorsement, doubtless loom large in the minds of some council members.  The stated and implied threats also likely have had an effect, because no council member wants to see his or her name dragged through the mud in public.  I suspect some also feel that they do not want a war to erupt over this particular issue; and that they instead want to choose their battles carefully.

But the solution that Allen Johnson and Danny Thompson have begun to elucidate is very necessary.  Our units of local government should not be approving projects or programs when elected officials would profit or derive income from them.

Comments

[Stormy]

We have a long history of elected officials in this county recusing themselves on issues with which they have a financial conflict of interest. Deena Hayes is a prime example. In their minds, if you just recuse yourself from a discussion or vote, then you are in the clear. Actually, that is not the case. They campaign for a project long and hard, so everyone knows where they stand beforehand. Just recusing yourself at the end is not satisfactory. In that case, you have your cake and eat it as well.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

Snowbound yesterday, I perused some of the threads at Word-Up, Joe. Spag and I most assuredly have have our differences (for instance, telling someone - anyone - who does not acquiesce to his "superior" legal acumen to "shut up about it" is almost as smug and condescending as Ed tersely telling people he doesn't read their blog - when you know that he does), but Sam did say it best:

Ed isn't going to commit either way. He never does. It's called "error avoidance" or "hindsight is 20/20."

There's also plausible deniability.

Last night, WFMY 2 had a detailed piece on the superhuman effort to make the area around the Civil Rights museum appear as if it had never snowed (?!?). As I understand it, city employees in the landscaping department were pulled for that duty . . . lest anyone accuse the city of robbing Peter (i.e. general road-clearing for we lesser beings who will not be attending the galas and celebrations) to pay Paul (Skippy and friends).

Reading the N&R's article today, it was simply amazing to me that Deena Hayes saw no personal conflicts.

It just blows the mind of this booger-eating moron.

[Joe Guarino]

The only explanation, Mary, is that these people are horribly dishonest; or else they operate according to a completely different system of morals and values.

I saw the downtown area on WFMY this morning, Mary, and the same thing crossed my mind. It truly appears as if it had never snowed. I wondered the same thing-- whether they diverted snow removal resources from the rest of the city to accommodate this particular event.

[bob]

The Civil Rights Museum deserves the same resources to make it convenient for their program tomorrow as we would spend for an ACC basketball game or the ACC tournament at the Colisieum....Both costs big bucks but I am happy our city has not stooped to the level of some of the bloggers ..... I am sure a lot of Blacks are not happy with the way Skip and Deena have sullied some of their pride for this historic event.....Hopefully, they will remember this at the polls...

[Doc Alexander]

Joe there is an alarming amount of revisionist history going on right now regarding the museum. Am I the only one who remembers back around 2000 or so when the News & Record (in a rare outburst of journalistic integrity) wrote a series of articles about the Civil Rights Museum?

Those articles focused on two things: A) the inordinate amount of time (remember this was at least 9-10 years ago) it was taking to open the museum and B) the amount of money being spent on salaries, adminstration, in short, everything except construction costs.

Skip Alston responded that the articles were racist in nature and he stated for the record he would no longer speak to "the white media."

Skip Alston gave one interview on this topic at that time, and it was to the female African-American reporter at WFMY. Her name was Tracy...something. She has long since departed.

My memory of the exact dates of these articles may be off. But it was pretty big news for a while.

Funny, all of those stories are being completely ignored, as if they never happened.

Look, tomorrow is a significant event. I believe that. I also believe in holding public officials accountable. Excusing Skip Alston and Deena Hayes for not violating a law is not the same thing as realizing that both pushed their actions to the very limit of what is legally allowed. At the very least, they behaved in very bad and graceless fashion. They should be held accountable for what they did and what they said. Keep the heat on.

Don't let political correctness short-circuit this story.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

Bob, please spare me. I've got NO problem with clearing snow for an event (assuming it's not canceled in the interest the safety of those coming and going).

But what I do not understand is why it's so important to make a couple of city blocks around a new museum "look like it never snowed" (this was a focus of the WFMY story) - just a day after a blizzard.

[Joe Guarino]

Doc, I agree. My own recollection of the controversies about the civil rights museum ten years ago are cloudy, but I appreciate your reminder. I do remember there was definitely some concern about that. As I have indicated, the Melderec people made a decision several years ago to get behind the project, and that was probably the turning point.

Bob, I am not sure what the ACC has to do with this. I was out this evening, and a couple of major roads on which I drove-- Westridge and Dolly Madison-- were in horrible shape. These are not merely streets tucked inside a neighborhood, but are instead major connectors that tend to be fairly heavily used.

Mary, the city obviously made a tactical decision to marshall some major resources downtown to make it seem nearly pristine for tomorrow's event. I wonder if they would have done this if another type of facility had a grand opening.

[Spag]

Joe, Ed will give you his definitive position on the hotel as soon as the end game is clear. If it is killed, he will link back to his posts that indicated it was a bad idea and say "I told you so". If it goes forward and somehow ends up being a success, he will link back and say he was opposed to rescinding the project and say "I told you so".

That's how he operates. The theme being sold is careful deliberation, but in reality it is ego preservation. I'll probably get banned again by him for pointing this out.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

Hey, if you guys are concerned about a short-circuit of Skippy's actions-of-late, some of you need to go drop some comments on the Raleigh N&O's story on the museum.

[Joe Guarino]

Sam, while I was surprised at Ed's position, it made me wonder what might have motivated all of his skeptical/critical posts on the issue.

Thanks for giving readers the heads up, Mary.