Feb. 29, 2008 – Will Saner Heads Prevail Eventually? Let us pray.
• Feb. 26, 2008 – Another Snipe Hunt and Greensboro as Usual Hot on the Trail.
• Feb. 20, 2008 – The Four ” The Public Doesn’t Have a Right to Know” Group tries to circumvent Sunshine Laws.
• Feb. 15, 2008 – City Council Still Deaf to People’s Concerns
• Feb. 13, 2008 – Mayor Johnson Nicely, Calmly and Politely Prevaricates
• Feb. 11, 2008 – Busy, Busy Week leads to Busy Flappin’ Weekend
• Feb. 8, 2008 – Oh! you mean THAT two page memo.
• Feb. 8, 2008 – Southern White Guilt Frauds and Others in Denial
• Jan. 31, 2008 – “Greensboro’s shame”
• Jan. 17, 2008 – I can’t believe I listened to the WHOLE THING!
• Jan. 17, 2008 – I am so tired of the City Council going into “Closed Session”! Are you?
• Jan. 14, 2008 – You should e-mail City Council today telling them what you want done
• Jan. 10, 2008 – Lessons in Journalistic Shenanigans from Jordan Green
• Dec. 31, 2007 – City Council Needs to Take Charge of Greensboro
• Dec. 31, 2007 – Another Call for a Police Review Board
• Dec. 29, 2007 – Law Enforcement in Greensboro Easily Squashed
Dec. 28, 2007 – New City Council Needs to Make Some Changes and Take Control
Dec. 28, 2007 – Again Stupidity Rules. Is it in the water?
• Dec. 12, 2007 – I Hope this was Just the First Meeting and Not the Last, but …..
• Dec. 12, 2007 – Perkins “Just Throw Money At It” Rides Again
• Dec. 11, 2007 – So in Need of Just One Ordinary Honorable Man
• Dec. 9, 2007 – Y. Johnson Dreaming.
Dec. 2, 2007 – Government Employee Promotion System Worked Well for Johnson and Miles
• Dec. 7, 2007 – Hinson Wisely Refused to Sign Off on His on Recorded Responses
• Nov. 22, 2007 – Greensbore City Council Steals from the Poor with Impunity
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dearth of Applause for Mitch Johnson DEAFENING!
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Mayor Happy Sooooooo Put Upon. Boo Hoo
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dear Linda Jumps Ship before the newly Elected City Council Members can get to her.
Nov. 17, 2007 -Follow the Money
• Nov. 16, 2007 – Greensboro Politics Report on Gang Forum is Must Reading
• Nov. 16, 2007 – Making My POLITE Message to Sandy Clear.
• Nov. 11, 2007 – As Mayors Races Go this one was a Mind Twister
• Nov. 8, 2007 – Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny are King of Sprawl and Desecration
• Nov. 8, 2007 – Mayor Johnson Looks to the Future But Had Better Look to the Past.
• Nov. 3, 2007 – Election Rhetoric so Low the Status Quo are Digging the Bottom of the Barrel.
• Nov. 3, 2007 – Bill Knight Outlines Duties of New City Council, I Suggest How This Should Be Done.
• Oct. 26, 2007 – Nick! Nick! Who are you Nick?
• Oct. 25, 2007 – Question: Who HAS Seen the Infamous Black Book?
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• Feb. 29, 2008 – Will Saner Heads Prevail Eventually? Let us pray.
These men had devoted their lives and entire careers to Greensboro and now that retirement with the benefits they had earned was so near and they were really too old to start over they were being bombarded with lies and betrayal from their superiors for no reason that they could fathom.
Not knowing where I wanted to go from this point I broke to read some blogs. It was Joe who set the next course for me when he stated, “
Most of us have had the experience of being betrayed. It is an awful thing to go through. But a betrayal this public, at this high a level, and at this degree of inappropriateness could only be made possible by very weak political leadership. And unfortunately, that is what we have had in Greensboro; and that is why the GPD fiasco occurred.”• Feb. 26, 2008 – Another Snipe Hunt and Greensboro as Usual Hot on the Trail.
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• Feb. 26, 2008 – Another Snipe Hunt and Greensboro as Usual Hot on the Trail.
My thought is that now that the demonizing of David Wray seems to be coming to an end and not one allegation made against him has been proven true (in fact all so far have been proven false) then something else has to be thrown into the pot. Having seen their first attempts failed all concerned were clever enough to make sure this next charge was invulnerable to attack. BB
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I made the above comment first on David Hoggard’s site and he questioned me on my comment. It seems David is willing to agree that nothing has been proven true he contends that by the same token the allegation that David Wray was less than forthcoming with the City Manager and the City Council has not been proven false.
Alright David here we go, listen closely now as being an old broad I sometimes get forgetful and may not be able to repeat this message verbatim: First, nothing that is verifiable by factual data, or even remotely verifiable by the preponderance of coincidental evidence has been proven against David Wray. For instance the charge of racism. No instances of racism were proven (or found) when investigated by the FBI and the SBI. In point of fact the FBI specifically cleared him of this charge. The coincidental evidence was also rather over whelming in the number of people who spoke for David Wray’s total lack of racist actions or apparently thoughts, as compared to those making the allegations.
Second, the charge that David Wray was less than forthcoming to the City Manager we have only Mitch Johnson’s word and/or perception. This is based on the so called “Black Book” which Johnson claims Wray would not produce and lied about having. However we have the word of Wray that he did tell Johnson of the array book when he and his staff concluded must be what Johnson was speaking of and they couldn’t find anything else even remotely like what Johnson wanted. This photo array later turned out to be the famous “Black Book” and that Johnson hadn’t been interested in seeing. This was probably because Mitch was looking for something more sinister than a photo array. However when he couldn’t find anything more sinister he latched onto the line up book as being the final proof of racism and showed this to the City Council. He, Mitch Johnson or someone else who wanted to accuse Wray, had however carefully removed the documentation that must accompany all line up books when they are first produced and must stay with them as long as they are on file. This documentation must always be kept as part of the package to explain the reason for the array, how it was initially used and so that it may possibly be used in the future if the situation arises again. Without the documentation the array is useless.
It is my thought that Mitch Johnson himself removed the supporting documentation since he claims to know so much about police work. At any rate the book as presented was of no value except to those who were willing to be lead by Johnson and not ask any questions. As for Wray deceiving the City Council, I am not aware of him speaking to, or being invited to speak to, the City Council at any time before or since his forced resignation.
So what we have here today is another red herring tossed out by the bumbling group who wanted to remove David Wray from any position of power where it was possible for him to perhaps interfere with any of their activities. They succeeded in removing him with a bunch of lies. Lies that will continue to plague him because they will be remembered and believed for the rest of his life no matter how much evidence is produced to prove them false. So in effect they did get rid of David Wray. But, darn and dam the man will not go away! His supporters who are people in the main who don’t even know Wray but who do know a ridiculous lie when presented with it, will not allow the story to rest. Now if his accusers were the least bit intelligent they would just lie low and let the story grind to a slow but steady halt. But they have to keep it alive by from time to time tossing in “evidence” that simply will not hold up, thus showing those who are able to see what is in front of them that they are on the right track and the allegations were in fact fabrications from the get go.
The dear ministers of the religious/political (Anthony’s Church and State) The Pulpit Forum joined Mitch this time by throwing the latest bit of smelly fish to Greensboro’s public. A public that at least in the local blogosphere eagerly latches on to and debates to death. (some people really need to get a life! and I confess I am one of them.) I can say however that David Wray’s accusers are getting more clever in their fabrications. It is impossible to disprove something that very possibly did not exist in the first place. BB
• Feb. 20, 2008 – The Four ” The Public Doesn’t Have a Right to Know” Group tries to circumvent Sunhine Laws.
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• Feb. 20, 2008 – The Four ” The Public Doesn’t Have a Right to Know” Group tries to circumvent Sunhine Laws.
The usual suspects Diane Bellamy-Small, Goldie Wells, Yvonne Johnson and Robbie Perkins tried to talk the rest of the group into making the small group gatherings of council members legal. They made a motion to permit the small group meetings with department heads and then pressed hard for it’s passage. It failed on a 5 to 4 vote. Voting against it were the Gang of Four+ who are trying to make changes to the way things have been done in the past: Trudy Wade, Mary Rakestraw, Sandra Anderson-Groat and Mike Barber. Zack Matheny (the wild card, or in my tag the +) hung with this group last night.
These small group gatherings because they are not a quorum do not constitute an official meeting and therefore the public does not have to be notified. It is just another way to conduct city business behind closed doors. The last council had a nasty habit of doing this and have been called on it. The last council also had a nastier habit of taking things into “closed session”. This council has not been meeting in small groups yet, but certainly make heavy use of the closed sessions.
Bellamy-Small is being relatively civil this year so I suppose the special recall election had it’s desired effect even if she did win. She was required to do some heavy campaigning to bring in the voters to her side for both the special recall election and the regular election. It seems rather apparent she doesn’t want to have to expend that much energy again and has determined that behaving like an adult is easier.
Goldie Wells however is alienating all the other council members with her overbearing “lectures” on how they should vote and how they should act. The woman did not impress me last year and really showed her intelligence during the budget process when she stated that most of her constituents were renters and therefore did not pay property taxes. I am a renter and I assure “Doctor” Wells that my landlord does not suck up the increases in his property taxes. He passes them on to me!
Mayor Yvonne (double talking) Johnson stuck with her side of the aisle on this one. I never cared for Yvonne Johnson’s voting record but now that she is Mayor of Greensboro I am actually appalled at her many misstatements. The Mayor can’t seem to make a straight out statement about anything. She hedges and dodges and implies. And the other night she told a group that she hopes the new superintendent has classes in sensitivity training and racism. Racism has nothing at all to do with the problems the schools are having. The out of control Black students are having a problem it is true but not due to racism. The problems stem from homes and communities where gangs and guns and drugs and illegitimacy are tolerated and even accepted. No amount of sensitivity training for White students will help with these problems. But the old bugaboo racism has played so long in Greensboro that the Mayor just can’t seem to understand that you can cry wolf only so many times and people stop listening and then after awhile actually begin the resent the accusation.
Now we come to Mr. Sleaze Bag himself, Robbie Perkins. What can one say? If it is illegal, wrong, nasty and monetarily benefits Robbie himself and his “handlers” then he does it regardless of it’s legality or decency. I truly hope those who voted for him see what he really is during the next two years.
• Feb. 15, 2008 – City Council Still Deaf to People’s Concerns
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• Feb. 15, 2008 – City Council Still Deaf to People’s Concerns
Mayor Yvonne was woefully ignorant of the facts of the Wray case if her answers at the Town Hall Meeting are to be an indication of her grasp of the facts. The members of the audience knew more of the answers than she did. And yet this woman has been sitting on the City Council for 14 years now. If this is the case for a relatively intelligent person such as Yvonne Johnson then might it also be the case with the other five members who have been so involved with this case during the past two years? This case and Mitch Johnson’s deplorable actions towards David Wray has taken hours and hours of the Council’s time in damage control. This item that was discussed at every candidate forum held before the elections, caused the Council members to receive a bushel full of e-mails and burned up the phone lines with phone calls. This topic that caused one council person of long standing to lose her seat in the election. This subject which made this special meeting necessary when the City Manager was caught once more trying to withhold public documents concerning the subject from the public in order for the truth of his culpability to remain at the very least an undocumented belief of the greater part of Greensboro’s population and not a fact worthy of the court room. And yet they remain clueless.
We must remember that five of the current Council members were on the previous council and very much involved in lending support to Mitchell Johnson as he first blundered badly in his handling of the Wray case, and then during the past two years has cost the City tax payers a huge if yet unknown amount of money trying to justify his actions. Mayor Yvonne Johnson, Diane Bellamy-Small, Goldie Wells, Sandra Anderson Groat and Mike Barber at least should be very well informed on the topic. Yet it seems that they are not and know only what the City Manager has told them. The key words here is “told them” because it is obvious they did not bother to read any of the limited documentation which he allowed them to see. It is also obvious they as a group never thought to ask a question concerning what they were shown or what they were told. One wonders why this was, and apparently still is, the case.
Two new members won their seats by campaigning loudly to “ask hard questions about the David Wray case”. So far Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw have been careful about pushing this agenda, but at Thursday’s special meeting that was called specifically to discuss Mitch Johnson miserable record as a City Manager they did speak up and demand that he be fired . The vote as 7 to 2 against this action. Robbie (sneak thief and liar) Perkins vehemently offered the motion to keep Mitch Johnson and ignore the public’s demands for action. And, Mike Barber and Sandra Anderson-Groat did not stand with Wade and Rakestraw as expected. Instead Mike Barber offered the compromise of retaining Johnson on probation for one month and giving him specific goals to achieve during that time. There must have been some heated debate because it took the Council two hours to finally agree on the compromise motion.
After coming out of closed session and making this announcement the Council went back into closed session for another apparently heated and grueling six hours. It was during this time that Mike Barber told the press that “surprisingly little” time was spent discussing David Wray. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in that conference room because when the Council came back into open session to adjourn the meeting not everyone was a happy camper. The camera only gave a close up of Mayor Yvonne, but body language indicated the lady was not at all happy with what had taken place. It can only be hoped that she is at least a bit better informed of the David Wray fray and the problems his and his entire command staff’s Mitch Johnson generated forced leaving the GPD has contributed to the complete demolition of the Greensboro Police Department.
Yesterday’s vote by Council was a big disappointment, but not unexpected since Big Bobble-head Melvin spoke up and brought his bought and paid for minions into line against any meaningful action against Johnson. It now behooves the citizenry of Greensboro to speak up a bit louder and let our officials know that the times have changed and we will not stand for the kind of government we have had under Mitch Johnson’s direction. Whether the people will stand up or merely shrug and walk away is yet to be seen. There are times when only a shout will get thru to the deaf. BB
• Feb. 13, 2008 – Mayor Johnson Nicely, Calmly and Politely Prevaricates
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• Feb. 13, 2008 – Mayor Johnson Nicely, Calmly and Politely Prevaricates
The following link is to mayor Johnson’s answer concerning the “black book” during her recent Town Hall Meeting.
Mayor Yvonne Johnson
It must be in the water of Greensboro. This thing that causes our city officials to stand up in front of us and treat us as fools. This calm assumption on their part that they can boldly lie to us and have us believe their outrageous lies. I don’t know how any of you may feel after hearing the mayor’s answer, but mine was total disbelief. I was dumbfounded! Her answer made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
First she states that the book was offered with no explanations as to what it was or anything , it was just presented as is. She emphasizes that there was NEVER any mention that it had a connection to racism. Then she goes on and contradicts this by giving her impression when she saw it . She felt if it was done then it should be done for everyone. She reminds us that she has fought for justice since she was in college. What does she mean by that? It can only be interpreted to mean she took the book of pictures of almost one hundred Black men as unfair and racist. However this is the city’s new mantra since the racism accusation fell apart and suits are being brought against the city by Black police officers that they were discriminated against due to race.
The city officials in an attempt to fight and win the law suits have reversed themselves and are claiming loud and clear and often that racism was never an accusation against Wray and his command staff, and never figured at all in his forced resignation. Of course this is so much stuff and nonsense, but the FBI and SBI has cleared Wray and his staff of racism so this shot all kinds of holes in the city’s case against Wray. It also contradicted the main thrust of the RMA report and the City Attorney’s report that concentrated heavily on the racism theme.
(Do any of you recalled the televised statement of former mayor Happy Holliday when he cried that : okay the RMA report was wrong about racism, but that didn’t mean it was wrong about every thing? Well Mayor Johnson’s answer to the “black book” question brought that laughable situation to mind.)
If there are any of you out there who are buying into this new mantra because your memory of the early stages are a bit hazy then please go to Dr. Joe Guarino’s blog archives for January and February 2006. I don’t believe there is anyone who will dispute that Joe is the most respected blogger in Greensboro and his January and February 2006 blogging was all about racism and the accusation that Wray was forced to resign because he was a racist. Nothing else was mentioned; it was all about race and the Black police officers were talking to the press and hiring their attorney’s to start suits against the city. While people were arguing back and forth about whether or not David Wray was a racist.
It was along about this time that I got involved in this dog fight that I didn’t have a dog in. As I have said many times. I didn’t know David Wray from Mitch Johnson from Joe Blow. I did however know that no human being can work with Blacks on a daily basis for twenty three years and rise thru the ranks to Police Chief and never show any racist tendencies until becoming Police Chief. No one is that good an actor!
So for anyone to make such an accusation to me was outrageous. I didn’t know if Wray was forced to resign for any other reason but the one given I did adamantly refuse to believe and said so long and loud on Joe’s site and my own.
Now we have this woman who is now Mayor but who was then a council woman stating that race was never mentioned by anyone. Did Joe just pick the topic out of thin air? If you question Joe’s blogs then go to the archives of the N&R and The Rhino Times. I promise you racism, the ‘black book” and “secret police” were the by words of the day.
And what is this “if it was going to be done then do it for everyone”? Dear Lord, I feel I am on very sound ground here when I state that there are line up books “for everyone” in any police office archives. Anyone from any background who is accused of a crime can and is made a part of a line up book of people with similar backgrounds and looks. If there is a fat old lady rabbit owner who is accused of a crime then I might even become a mug in a line up book! Look for me on the post office walls. “BB the most wanted Old Broad Rabbit lover on the loose. Reward for any information leading to her capture while loving and petting a rabbit. ” Now I know this is silliness, but I submit that it makes as much sense as Mayor Johnson’s, “it should be made for everyone”. Is she this stupid? Has she not been listening when the line up book and photos arrays and the so called “black book” have been explained? Was she out of town this entire past week when the flap was made over the two page document that explained why and how that particular book was put together?
I was dressed and ready to go to the Town Hall meeting Monday. Then I thought again about the format of having a moderator read questions that were submitted by the audience and the Mayor giving her answers with no give and take or follow up if her answers were unclear and decided I would become upset with the entire procedure and not get any answers that I could consider worth my time and effort. So I undressed and put on my house coat and got a good book to hunker down with on that cold winter evening instead.
I also considered the moderator who had been chosen. This attorney with his associations with the city, the school board and several prominent citizens could hardly be considered neutral. Would he ask hard ball questions? Would he ask a variety of question? Well it turns out the questions were a mix of hard and soft. The problem was the answers and the lack of follow up and clarification of the Mayor’s answers. Also there is a little side note here: The moderator claimed to have asked “all” of the questions submitted but Sam Spagnola’s question wasn’t answered. When Sam confronted the moderator about this he was ignored and brushed off.
So in the final analysis I was happy that I had decided to stay home because it was reported that the meeting was “respectful” and if I had been there for this particular answer at least I am afraid I would have lost my cookies. BB
• Feb. 11, 2008 – Busy ,Busy Week leads to Buzy Flappin’ Weekend
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• Feb. 11, 2008 – Busy ,Busy Week leads to Busy Flappin’ Weekend
So seeing this wasn’t going to wash Mitch Johnson made a bad tactical error in meeting with David Hoggard. From my interpretation of David’s words he will write his last article for the N&R this next Wednesday and Mitch wanted him to use that space to pitch for Mitch so to speak. Mitch’s handlers have thrown him to the dogs at long last. Stupidity is necessary in a person in order for them to be bought and therefore handled in the first place. It is this same lack of intelligence that causes them to panic and at that point the powers behind them loses control of their puppet and are forced to make other arrangements. Mitch made a bad mistake because he still believes David to have some influence and he is wrong about that. Then again smarts was never something we could credit Johnson with. I only hope David is wise enough to understand Mitch is trying to use him. It will only be to David’s detriment to continue supporting Johnson against all odds. Somehow I think David is more of a survivor than to allow this. Although letting the story out that he met with Mitch in the first place and asking advise on his blog was not the best course for him to have followed either. Seemed to me his only motive there was to say, “Hey look at me. I’m a big man around town because even the City Manager comes to me when he nneds help,”
Oh well, we shall all see. This is just a very small side drama at any rate. I do tho wonder if the “handlers” have a replacement ready for Mitch. I would advise them to choose someone who is not yet on the scenes when choosing a replacement because all of the current players are suspect.
Update: I was wrong about David’s instinct for survival. He actually bought into Mitch Johnson’s bumbling explanation and was so…well, whatever…as to come back to his site and reverse his opinion from just a couple days before. Now he is in Johnson’s camp just as strongly as he was previously out of it. Waffling, or Kerryesque Behaviour, is David’s downfall. Has been as long as I have read his blog. The man just can not decide what he believes from moment to moment, and changes his mind with every new breeze. It is amazing to watch him in action. It reminds me of those wooden clown figures where if you pull down on a string hanging from their bottom their arms and legs jump up. Let go of the string and the arms and legs hand go down again.
Oh well, as I said above it is a minor drama in the scheme of things and what David does with the last of his articles for the N&R is certainly his business and not my concern. Mitch made a mistake calling on David and David made a mistake in believing Mitch. After all this finally comes down I can envision the two of them going out and tying a big one on, then stumbling with arms wrapped over each others shoulders down Main Street singing at the top of their voices “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”. (That should please the Pulpit Forum who were without a doubt one of Mitch’s handlers.)
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A Town Hall Meeting is to be held by the Mayor Yvonne Johnson today. In reality Mayor Yvonne is running for her next term in office rather than keeping a campaign promise to restore transparency to the City Council dealings. She is more concerned after making it as the first woman and the first black to serve as Greensboro’s mayor. She certainly doesn’t wish to suffer the ignominy of being voted out after only one term. However, no questions or give and take from the floor will be permitted at this so-called Town Hall meeting. Instead a moderator in a friendly attorney will ask question submitted by the audience in advance of the meeting, A moderator for a town meeting is quite a departure for that format I would say. It will be interesting to see just what the moderator thinks are “hard questions” since we all know what the real “hard questions” would be if they were allowed to come from the floor.
Bill Knight gave some wise and relevant advice to the current City Council in his blog. It is a shame Bill did not win a seat on the Council this past election because we surely need someone of his abilities and intelligence and basic sense of fairness. I hope the City Council does as Bill suggests they do. The people Johnson and Miles destroyed deserve to be vindicated. The next big problem for the City Council will be in helping a new City Manager choose a replacement Police Chief since it is obvious that Bellamy is not up to the job. The way I see it bringing in an outsider who is not familiar with the various factions operating in Greensboro will just be a band aid and do nothing to stem the tide of crime. Only someone local who is in the “know” can do what needs done. IMO And the only QUALIFIED local people who are in the “know” are the very people Mitch Johnson forced to resign or retire which is David Wray and his command staff (Tim Bellamy was the last man standing of this group after the dust settled), And neither do I trust the City Council to make good choices as to replacements for Mitch who will in turn have to make the changes necessary to clean up the GPD.
I guess I keep coming back to making the Police Chief an elective office. That way the voters can toss an incompetent out every 4 years. As for the City Manager’s total and complete controller of the city’s business, well some things have got to change.
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Finally the weekend ended and we were given a beautiful and profound summation of just where exactly we as human beings should put the problems of city government. Not that we should forget them or put them aside, but simply where they should lie in the scheme of things.
This is a comment made by Ben Holder to David Hoggard on David’s site. I am copying the entire comment rather than providing a link because I want you all to read it and because I need to remember it and make it a part of my life and learning.
Ben Holder said,
“Hogg,
Who said anything about your conversation w Goldie? Post your conversation w Mitch big boy. I was being reasonable and nice in my comments and I get snide passive aggressive statements from you? What am I worried about? Right now, my biggest concern is I am steadily approaching the part of your comment section that disappears. Your comment section color/disappear thing sucks. Let’s see, I am worried about my kids, their future, not too worried about Cameron but always worried about Graham. Graham is so smart and in touch with his feelings and he knew his mother well. He misses his mother more than I miss my wife. That my is a hard thing to haul around. Especially for a 7 year old. Graham is an amazing kid. Not because of me. But because of Donna. I worry that the pain of missing Donna never going away. Never ever going away.
I worry about Cameron. She already has a a free ride to Salem Academy and Salem College. However, I still worry about her. I worry about someone hurting my kids. It happens, people are crazy.
I am worried about cancer, heart attacks, dying at home alone w my kids and them not knowing what to do. Graham can dial 911. We practice at my house cuz death comes quick. You wouldn’t know about that though.
I am worried about our country’s future. I bet we are at war w Iran by June. I am worried now cuz what I am writing cannot be seen because your blog comment section sucks. I am worried about death mostly. I mean, if I were to die, Cameron and Graham would be without me and that my friend would suck. I know your readers may hate me. But, my kids love me. I give Cameron five hugs everyday before she goes to school. Who could possibly take my place? I am all they have. I am worried about socks, shoes, shirts and pants for my kids. I worry about the clothes in the dryer right now and if they are gonna have lint all over them. We can’t have that. School starts again on Monday and church is tomorrow. I worry about all of my family. I got a cousin in the war and think of him getting killed.
I am worried about my future. Will I ever find love again? I doubt it. You seen pictures of my wife? I hate you didn’t get to meet her. I worry about the woman at Fox 8 that I just met and wonder if she is gonna call me back. I worry about the lack of communication between me and Donna’s family. It is hard! I worry about the Redskins some. They should have hired Russ Grimm. He woulda been my choice. I also worry about the Knicks. I worry about the burning desire that is still in me to coach football again. I worry about Bailey, Donna’s dog. She has a skin condition.
Sometimes I worry about Piedmont Natural Gas, my mortgage, Bell South, Direct TV and so on. I worry about my father and how much longer I have him. He is one cool dude. I worry about Grahams odd bumps on his leg. I took him to the Doctor and was told not to worry. However, I still do. I worry about my neighborhood. We got gang issues around me. I worry about my neighborhood in general. I worry about the Kilimanjaro’s and wonder if their efforts will ever be recognized.
I am worried about my car some, I hope it lasts and everything goes well. I worry about my heart too. Sometimes, I lay in bed, well the couch actually, I don’t sleep in me and Donna’s bed, and count my heart beats and wonder how many I have left.
You seem to think I am worried about you and Mitch? That is silly. You and Mitch whispering secrets is comical. Maybe you should have asked Mitch what he was worried about.”
Thank you Ben for bringing a little reality to the situation,
Sincerely, BB
• Feb. 8, 2008 – Oh! you mean THAT two page memo.
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• Feb. 8, 2008 – Oh! you mean THAT two page memo.
This so-called newspaper has been most instrumental in the destruction of the careers of several good men who served this city well for years as officers in the Greensboro Police Department. This newspaper gave birth to the “secret police” and the use of a “black book” and it’s being proof of vile racial profiling by the entire command staff of the GPD under David Wray. They held to this position for almost two years until the weight of evidence would no longer allow them to continue to slander these good men, and continue to support and facilitate the slimy attempts of our City Manager Mitch Johnson to justify his blundering.
The N&R has reluctantly backed off of their original stance in the David Wray fiasco, and even make the attempt from time to time to relate a story accurately. They do however never miss an opportunity to spin or slant the story against the former GPD officers and police chief. Today’s story was an example of this. The story as reported has accuracies in it, but with the judicious word-smithing they were still able to put David Wray and his officers in a poor light while allowing, and therefore lending credence to, Mitch Johnson’s ingenious justifications of his actions and/or incredibly naive explanations of the most recent buffoonery.
Take for instance the misleading use of the word tactic to add a sinister note to a common and time honored police investigative practice in the following quote. “The memo discusses the “black book”, a lineup of photos that police used to investigate a fellow officer. The tactic has been the subject of several investigations and has divided the community.” They also manage to indicate that the use of this particular methodology by the former officers in this case was the sole cause of the scandal now brewing for the better part of two years.
A tactic is a planned strategic move. So by using the word the N&R suggests that Wray and his command staff were deliberately trying to ensnare and gain some type of false testimony against one or more of 19 GPD Black police officers pictured in the book. However the use of photo arrays is a common method used to help the victim of a crime possibly identify the criminal. They are used in well over 90% of the investigations performed on a daily basis. As for being made up solely of Black men I would venture to say that since more crimes are committed by Black men there are far more photo arrays prepared of Black men. And since the crime committed for which this array was created was an accusation against a Black police officer then naturally the pictures used were of almost 100 Black men including the 19 Black officers who were in uniform and on duty at the time the crime was claimed by the victim to have taken place. Nothing sinister and certainly not a strategic move on the part of the GPD officers in this case. But of course as journalists the N&R staff deal with words and their meaning, and just how to use or not use the common and obscure and misleading meaning of words. I blogged on this awhile back in a post about an article by Jordan Green of YES!WEEKLY.
After doing as much damage as possible with the one misused word “tactic” the N&R goes on to report the story fairly accurately. This I suppose we must give them some credit for, although I am not sure why since it is a common belief that the journalists who write newspapers are using the utmost care to be accurate and non-judgmental at all times as a matter of ethics. One should not feel the need to give credit therefore for ethical behavior on the part of journalists.
Now we come to the disingenuous and laughable mumbling and stumbling of City Manager Mitchell Johnson in excusing the lies told by city staff. Lies told when demanded by him that they do so, I have no doubt. Mitch Johnson has again and again forced city staff to lie or take the blame for his “Mitchmanagement”.
After having a city attorney lie to a staff member of the N&R claiming there is no such two page memo as the N&R had requested which was later published on Ben Holder’s blog and in the Rhino Mitch said, “The truth of the matter is, until it got published, we didn’t know that’s what you were asking for.”
It is certainly hard to believe Johnson would have no idea that that particular two page memo was the one in question when it states exactly what it is and to which array book in a black three ring binder it refers. It is also hard to believe that one who feels he is so familiar with police operations wouldn’t know that it is common practice to always enclose an explanation of why the array was composed in with the line up book itself. The books are then stored for future reference. If the books were kept with no explanation of why and when they were composed they would have no meaning or use if needed in future investigations. This then goes to the question of why the two page memo of explanation was not used in the original investigation of the Wray and his command staff when it was referred to by the City Attorney’s report and the RMA report as the “black book”. If these investigators were as qualified as their price tag to tax payers indicated they are surely they too would have known that the book in a black binder and composed of almost one hundred faces of Black men was incomplete. That the City Councils (the last and current) did not understand the book without an explanation memo was incomplete can perhaps be forgiven. What can not be forgiven is that they didn’t even ask for solid proof that the book was used for the purpose as both the reports and Johnson told them it was. For people who are supposed to be relatively intelligent they sure have been putting on a good act of stupidity!
Then Johnson claims, “I’ve got to say, it kind of proves what I’ve been talking about all along.” He was referring to Wray and his command staff knowing what the “black book”, or book made up of pictures of all Black men, was when asked about it initially. Given that there are probably several hundred arrays of all Black men’s photos on file and that Wray and his staff had to study and figure out just what and which one Johnson was asking for is not too hard to understand. That Johnson and City Attorneys and RMA investigators and City Council members would latch onto a book made up of pictures of all Black men some of whom were police officers (which really isn’t uncommon to use anyhow in arrays) as proof of discrimination does indeed boggle the mind of any sane individual. Now we are to believe his euphoria over finally having “proof” of what he has been telling us all along? Not on your life Mitch Darlin’.
Given that Mitch Johnson expects us to believe he and his staff had no idea what two page memo was requested until seeing it published in a weekly newspaper, and even though the memo states exactly what it is, one would think he would have been willing to give Wray and his staff the benefit of the doubt when asked to produce a “black book” with no further details. Of course he wasn’t because he had his mission statement before him and was bound to perform as he was being told to perform (this is of course “my crazy assed conspiracy theory”.)
Now we come to the current City Council. Let me state this emphatically: ROBBIE PERKINS IS A THIEF, A CROOK, A LIAR AND A CHEAT! And ladies and gentlemen those are the good things I can say about him. BB
• Feb. 8, 2008 – Southern White Guilt Frauds and Others in Denial
Ed has it occurred to you that David Wray was cautioned by the federal officials to keep certain things from city of Greensboro officialdom? It should have because it certainly occurred to me. And if that thought hadn’t crossed your mind before it certainly should have after what Jerry Bledsoe reported about his personal experiences, and the fact that the current GPD was kept in the dark about this latest round of arrests. You really are not so naive as to believe the dirt and corruption that we are now seeing spewing forth from City Hall is a recent happening are you?
Mitch Johnson is a petty little overbearing tyrant who knows in his black heart he is vastly under-qualified for his job and is trying to hide that fact by micromanaging every department and every employee. He has forced his employees to lie for him again and again. ( people who we have learned to our and city council’s surprise are in fact HIS employees and answerable ONLY to him.) Many are getting off of the city payroll as fast as they can get another job elsewhere, and who would blame them.
However this whole thing will not end by just getting rid of Mitch Johnson. He is simply the henchman, and a very inept one at that. Perhaps David Wray was getting too close to cleaning up Greensboro’s drug culture that we now have no doubt whatsoever is being protected by some of Greensboro’s men in blue. These dirty cops are being protected by someone, or a group of someones, and I have a sad feeling you of the old guard will be shocked when you learn who these people are. I suspect there are some buildings and parks named for them or by them.
Ed, this all happened on your watch! Please remember this when you feel called upon to refute Joe’s or anyone of our assertions. Crawl back in your cozy little “Greensboro, how great we are!” cocoon with you cohorts. The filth was so blatantly visible that a beat up old broad who has been here only since October 2004, and who rarely leaves her home, was able to detect it! Dear Lord, where in Hell were all you “bright” people while your home was being violated and corrupted? Were you all as jw is fond of telling me so busy “bringing people together” that you actually could not see what was happening?
Or, is it as I suspect a heavy case of White Southern Guilt that seems to be rather unique to Greensboro? I have spent the better part of my adult life living in the southeast and never found so much of this hypocrisy. And Ed, that is exactly what Southern White Guilt is: hypocrisy! It seems to afflict middle class, college educated?, bigoted frauds who present themselves as liberal thinkers and who believe they are more intelligent than they actually are. When deep in their hearts they hate Blacks and the Whites who refuse to pander to Blacks as one would spoiled children and certainly do not feel superior to them either. Whites who accept Black men and women as human beings who are expected to be responsible for their own actions and thoughts, and if they (Blacks) try to push or commit a crime then like any other human of whatever color they can expect to be held accountable. Shelby Steele writes of this far more eloquently than anything I can present; you may want to read a Black man who unlike White middle class liberal Whites is truly educated. BB
• Jan. 31, 2008 – “Greensboro’s shame”
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• Jan. 31, 2008 – “Greensboro’s shame”
We still feel this way. Greensboro is a jewel that formed over two and a half centuries into a metropolitan area that reminds one of a series of smaller towns all linked together by long stretches of glorious trees. We are blessed with a variety of parks within the city, but because of it’s green canopy Greensboro itself seems to be a very special large parkland full of everything one would want to sustain a healthy and happy and fulfilling life.
This is why it is so heartbreaking to know the depth to which our city officials and those who have been charged with protecting us have fallen. How they have allowed by their ugly racial politics the criminals not only to flourish here, but to actually penetrate and establish themselves in our institutions. And once they have gotten in the criminals are protected and granted immunity from bearing any blame or punishment for their crimes. This is not because their identity is unknown; no, because they are quite brazen and flaunt their criminal activity fore they know we haven’t the leadership in our elected officials to do anything about them. Yes, so heartbreaking and shameful to see and know and understand and be able to do nothing but type my puny little words and send them out on a blog that probably only a few faithful friends will read.
I have over the past two years learned what many have long suspected: Greensboro has a shady underbelly. It was exposed fully only after The Rhinoceros Times began printing the scandalous account of how a petty little vastly under qualified man became City Manager, who under the city charter is granted almost unlimited power, and a vindictive and hateful City Attorney set out to destroy a man, and in so doing destroyed a fine police department. A police department that is now on it’s knees governed by criminals within and without, and having at the upper level of command people who are at best qualified to be given no higher authority than perhaps low mid-level responsibility.
Many of us have blogged on this topic and these people. Just last Fall we had an city wide election for a mayor and city council members where these issues were discussed and those running for office promised to ask the hard questions that should have been asked from the very beginning of this current crisis and to bring back the trust of the public. Well, a lot of words have been spoken and special meetings held, but nothing of substance has been done. The same people who brought about this calamity are still very much in charge and making the decisions.
The elected City Council decided that the police department needed to be thoroughly investigated and the problems pinpointed so corrections could be made. But then they charged the corrupted City Manger Mitch Johnson and the tremendously unqualified Police Chief Tim Bellamy with appointing an outside agency to do this investigation! It boggles the mind. The two most responsible for the degradation to which the Greensboro Police Department has fallen are to be the very one’s to lead the investigation. An investigation expected to cost the dumbfounded tax payers over $200,000.
The title of this post are the last words written by Jerry Bledsoe in an article this week where he relates the details of the threat to his life by the drug lords who control a large and thriving drug operation centered in this paradise of a city. I won’t go into repeating his words or offering my own analysis as the story stands alone stark and real and damning. If you haven’t yet then you really must read the account of this man’s ordeal and the players in it now that he has been allowed by the FBI to speak of the details. Some of the criminals involved have been arrested. The evidence against them was gathered and they were arrested finally because the Greensboro Police Department was kept totally out of the operation. “The investigation was conducted by the DEA, FBI, ATF, and the Guilford County Sheriffs Department.” Before this any investigation made of these people was always foiled by the criminals within the GPD itself.
I will however end with Jerry Bledsoe’s own indictment of really all of us; the elected officials as well as the people who have tolerated for so long this filth and corruption. Bledsoe said, “That anybody other than criminals have to fear the city’s police should be Greensboro’s shame.” Brenda Bowers
• Jan. 17, 2008 – I can’t believe I listened to the WHOLE THING!
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• Jan. 17, 2008 – I can’t believe I listened to the WHOLE THING!
The one most egregious claim which Mitch Johnson even began the interview with, and reiterated thru out the interview was that he did not interfere with the running of any of the departments. He did not tell his department heads what to do. He never interfered with hiring and firing or decisions that the department heads have made if they truly believe they have made the right decision. I wish I had a dollar for every time he made that statement.
This of course explains why Mitch Johnson, City Manager took it upon himself to rescind Police Chief David Wray’s decision to fire a police officer (Stacy Morton) who slugged a handcuffed prisoner. I am of course referring to the very first thing Johnson did to undermine Wray’s authority and send the signal that the dirty cops were still in charge of the GPD. This of course was only the first action that we know of where Mitch Johnson did indeed interfere with the police department.
Johnson also explained that he felt qualified to make decisions for the police department because he had work “extensively” with the police. Makes me wonder if when he has an operation he would agree that the operating room nurse can perform the actual surgery since she has worked extensively with the surgeon. And, I am sure if Bellamy were to be asked and be willing to answer honestly he would dispute the accuracy of Mitch’s assertion as he is probably getting more interference than even David Wray got.
To see thru the lying done on this tape put on the YES!WEEKLY site in order to justify Jordan Green’s attack on The Rhino and Jerry Bledsoe we really don’t even have to have read one of the 47 segments of “Cops in Black and White.”. No, even the biased accounts in the News & Record would give you all the information you would need to refute Mitch and Linda and their explanations and excuses in this interview. BB
Oh, and another thing: I finally figured out YES!WEEKLY’s motive. If your paper is in the toilet and no one is picking it up even tho it is free then how do you get the public’s attention? You attack the big newspaper in the county even if you need to fabricate a story out of whole cloth and break every journalistic rule in the book. And the BIG GUY is THE RHINO! BB
• Jan. 17, 2008 – I am so tired of the City Council going into “Closed Session”! Are you?
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• Jan. 17, 2008 – I am so tired of the City Council going into “Closed Session”! Are you?
The public has been treated to: 1) seeing a City Council member being angered because the city attorney would not answer his questions and nothing being done about it. 2) City Manager Mitch Johnson still sitting on the dais although no one elected him, 3) the “Retired” City Attorney writing and then being offered her very own sweetheart deal whereby she will make $92,000 for 1000 hours of work (25 weeks). 4) the City Council convinced by the City Attorney and city Manager that public records could be withheld from the public under the erroneous excuse that these public records were actually personnel records. (alleged sexual assault of police officer by police officer 5) the GPD being given $500,000 to clean up the streets of Greensboro by paying officers overtime. This followed by reading of 3 city GPD vehicles and 7 officers arriving at one location when only a weak expectation of trouble call came in while calls for help go waiting. 6) No information yet from the GPD on problems in the department that are still “under investigation”. Like how hard is it to determine if Hinson and his cohort reported that they were operating a business to Chief Bellamy as is required? 7) a Council member who is going to bring up the issue of hiring a new city Attorney rather than paying an exorbitant fee for the consultation of the old retired one. Then nothing was done. 8) the City still refusing to turn over public records even when being threatened with a law suit. 9) an outside attorney hired by the city telling them that it was not illegal to release personnel records of an opposition attorney who by the way is suing the city for releasing his records from when he was previously employed by the City. 10) Ben Holder going before the “City Council and being warned that employing Linda Miles is breaking the law as she is under investigation by the NC Bar Association. 11) and so many more issues.
Still the City Council is called into closed session by the most secretive of City Manager’s Mitch Johnson. Of course Johnson has reasons to keep secrets because he can control the City Council but he can not lie to the public.
Well, so much for transparency and trust. BB
• Jan. 14, 2008 – You should e-mail City Council today telling them what you want done
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• Jan. 14, 2008 – You should e-mail City Council today telling them what you want done
You read about it in the N&R. Zack Matheny said he was going to bring it up in council for a vote. Robbie Perkins said it was not an issue for public discussion but should be done behind closed doors. (If you will recalled Robbie Perkins is a big player behind doors. He was one of the four people who went to the City Manager and stopped the auditing of Project Homestead books and cost the tax Payers big bucks. He is at it again in handi9ng out favors with the tax payers dollars!)
to e-mail City Council go to the Greensboro Government site and fill in the e-mail form. It’s easy and if enough people do it we may get this ity Copuncil to start taking responsibility.
Below is a copy of my e-mail. BB
Dear City Council Members,
I am very much against the city hiring Linda Miles, retired City Attorney, back to work for the city on a contactual basis. This is wrong and it is a huge expense that the city of Greensboro doesn’t need. Especially after all the law suits that Linda Miles in her incompetence has caused which will cost the tax payers dearly. Money that should have gone towards making Greensboro a better place to live will be going to pay for blunders. Now the Sweetheart contract she wrote for herself will make her richer at the rate of $92. an hour if you allows this to happen.
Zack Matheny, my council member was right to question this and is right to bring it to council for a vote.
It is long past time for the elected City Council to take charge of the governance of the City of Greensboro. City Manager Mitchell Johnson has proven his incompetence again and again to the cost of the tax payers.
Sincerely. Brenda Bowers (resident of District 3 and active blogger)
• Jan. 10, 2008 – Lessons in Journalistic Shenanigans from Jordan Green
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• Jan. 10, 2008 – Lessons in Journalistic Shenanigans from Jordan Green
This is what Jordan Green of YES! WEEKLY did in his article supposedly refuting Jerry Bledsoe’s “Cops in Black and White”. Ben Holder on his site makes a point by point refutation of Jordan Green’s smear. I want only to point out one of the most egregious journalistic shenanigans that Mr. Green employed.
In the segment on Officer Stacy Morton. Green uses two phases that sound correct and sincere and gives the impression of his trying very carefully to be exact in representing both sides of the story while refuting one side. He even uses direct quotes, even accurate quotes. The phrases are “Initial Account” and “Retraction”.
The “Initial Account” is accurately labeled and quoted. It was indeed the Initial account written by Jerry Bledsoe which appeared in the Rhino Times.
But, this accurate paragraph is followed by the misleading and therefore inaccurate Paragraph. This paragraph begins with the seemingly correct but really misleading phrase of “Retraction”. Followed again by an accurate quote. Any unaware reader would then assume that the “Initial Account” was therefore wrong and the account labeled “Retraction” is a correction and therefore the truth and made by the original author.
The truth in this case however is that the so called “retraction” is not, was not and never will be a retraction made by Jerry Bledsoe the original author! The so called “retraction” is a quoted accounting of the event made by Stacey Morton’s own defense attorney Walt Jones.
LOL LOL Jordan Green is good. He is real good as can be seen in the comments concerning his article on Ed Cone’s site. No one; not one person who commented had picked up on (comprehended) the one inaccuracy that changed truth to fiction. That one little word “retraction” that made all the difference.
And what makes this so frightening for the average reader is that all thru the quotes of the “Retraction” the reader is told that the speaker is Walt Jones. And yet because the quote is labeled “Retraction” the reader misreads “said Jones” and accepts what Jordan Green wants the reader to accept and that is that Jerry Bledsoe is speaking.
In truth, Jerry Bledsoe made only one retraction. He had stated in his account that the case was thrown out by the court when in fact Stacey Morton was acquitted. Bledsoe explains this in detail and apologizes for not double checking his sources by seeing the actual records himself but taking the word of a clerk.
The final assault on the truth is well understood by Jordan Green also, and that is that the average reader having failed to comprehend what was written will continue to believe the last version they read which is Mr. Green’s. It won’t matter that Ben Holder gives an accurate and point by point refutation of Jordan Green’s article. It won’t matter that I ( with a specialty in Reading Education by the way) am pointing out just what exactly was done to mislead the reader. The lie will stand as truth. And if Jordan Green is forced to admit his misleading journalistic endeavor he can simply apologize for mis-using one little word. No big deal to misuse one little word in the whole long article is there? BB
• Dec. 31, 2007 – City Council Needs to Take Charge of Greensboro
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• Dec. 31, 2007 – City Council Needs to Take Charge of Greensboro
1) The City Council needs to take control and make several changes. Among them are firing Johnson with the same consideration he gave David Wray which of course will never happen. No, the SOB will get a big pot of tax payer goodwill money and a great recommendation.
2) they need to get the City Manager out of the City Council and in the cheap seats where he belongs.
3) they need to put the entire Legal Department and the Police Department directly under the control of the City Council. Both departments are to be available to “advise” the City Manager in areas where they can help with city management.
4) for good measure, although I don’t see this happening either, they should put all department heads directly under the control of the City Council. Department Heads are to take direction from the City Manager on a day to day basis, but when there is a dispute they have the right to come to the City Council for advice. And the City Manager can not fire department heads. If there is a dispute serious enough to need addressed by someone leaving then the City Manager must bring his case to the City Council.
5) Last, they should rehire David Wray and give him total control to clean up the GPD. The Black officers will scream and charge racism and the FBI will come in and investigate. I frankly think that all law suits against Wray would go away if all of the facts were allowed to come out and the blame for all that has happened is place on Mitch Johnson and Linda Miles. Then the city will just have to deal with the suits against those two. With any luck the police officers who were harmed by Miles and Johnson will drop their suits if they get their jobs and reputations back. BB
• Dec. 31, 2007 – Another Call for a Police Review Board
Having too many people over the Police Chief and playing policeman in Greensboro is what started this whole problem we are now having. Greensboro’s Chief of Police has over him: 1) the City Council, 2) the City Manager and 3.) the City Legal Department. What that means is that 12 or 13 people who have no training at all in law enforcement can decide they don’t care for something the Police Chief is doing and stop an investigation or change a decision the Police Chief has made.
Linda Miles, City Attorney didn’t want David Wray to do any more investigation of the Project Homestead case even when he showed her that he had evidence that needed further investigation so she demanded he send all of his records to the City Legal Department and stop the investigation.
Mitch Johnson who has a degree in Physical Science and a couple seminars in management training which makes him a very under qualified city manager felt he knew more than David Wray about law enforcement and over rode David Wray’s decisions again and again. Then made bogus charges against Wray and destroyed his career and his life as well as the entire upper command staff thus leaving the incompetents and criminals in charge. Charges which the FBI and the State Bureau of Investigation cleared Wray of.
The City Council sat on their hands and let all of this happen. The newly elected City Council found out at the special meeting they had December 26 that the City Council has control of no one but the City Manager. When Barber asked the attorney from the City Legal Department a question she informed him that the City Manager would answer his question. He then asked her who she answered to and she told him she answered to the City Manager AND IMPLIED SHE DID NOT ANSWER TO THE CITY COUNCIL WHOM THE PEOPLE HAVE ELECTED.
Now you want to put another layer of civilians with no law enforcement knowledge over the Police Chief too? Too many would be Chiefs is what got Greensboro in the mess it is in today not too few.
You might notice that Sheriff Barnes is elected by and answers only to the people. You aren’t reading of scandals in the sheriffs office nor is the Guilford crime rate anything like Greensboro’s.
• Dec. 29, 2007 – Law Enforcement in Greensboro Easily Squashed
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• Dec. 29, 2007 – Law Enforcement in Greensboro Easily Squashed
Well, it wasn’t enough. I have been reading other blogs and the consensus seems to be that “someone” needs to enforce the law. That “someone” in Greensboro should be the Police Chief as he/she should be the highest and best trained law enforcement entity. But he is not! Over him is: 1) City Council, 2) City Manager and 3) City Legal Department.
Is it then any wonder that when any criminal activity takes place that might be an embarrassment to or expose possible involvement of any one of the above, the enforcement of the law can be, and in Greensboro is, squashed?
We as a city have gotten exactly the government we deserve by giving these people the power they now have to commit just about any crime short of murder and get away with it. From all the reports of scandals I have read in past issues of the N&R, The Rhino and even in the city’s own records, a good many of the people holding office in the past and even now holding these offices have committed crimes that could have and should have been prosecuted. Be the crimes against state or local laws they were nonetheless crimes. And as crimes deserved at the very least censure and exposure. B
ut this isn’t done because there is no one in authority to see that the law is enforced.I have blogged often that the Police Chief should be an elected office and therefore answerable to the people only. This would be the ideal situation. However, failing that then at the very least the Police Chief and Legal Department should be directly under the control of the City Council. The Police Chief should NEVER have call to meet with the City Manager unless a crime has been committed by someone employed by and answerable to the City Manager. And then only to receive the City Manager’s full cooperation in seeing that justice is done.
Now as the City of Greensboro is set up the City Manager is all but an emperor with his own little fiefdom and answerable to no one. Even the City Council to whom he is ostensibly answerable gets only the information from other city departments that the City Manager deems appropriate. We, and to the dismay of some on the City Council, heard this from the Legal Department representative this past Thursday.
Unless and until we the people take things into our own hands and change how the city operates the incident now concerning citizens where three on duty police officers allegedly sexually assaulted another off duty police officer and the details of which are being primarily withheld by the city, will continue to happen in Greensboro. BB
• Dec. 28, 2007 – New City Council Needs to Make Some Changes and Take Control
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• Dec. 28, 2007 – New City Council Needs to Make Some Changes and Take Control
To that response Mike Barber showing dismay suggested that some changes be made to put the Legal Department directly under the control of the City Council. Yes, this is certainly how it should be. Somehow the City Manager of Greensboro was given entirely too much power and control. This person controls every city employee and any information given to the City Council or anyone else must be cleared thru him first. This is the case even when a City Council member who has been elected to represent the ultimate employers, the people of the city, asked a direct question of the employee. This even applies to heads of departments. This being the case the City manager whom no one elected and who was merely hired by the City Council decides just what the City Council will be told on any given topic.
It is never a good situation when a person who is really not answerable to anyone can manipulate information to his own ends. Or, in Greensboro’s case the City Manager is answerable to the very people who are dependent on him/her for information. When this is the case it is easy also to see how such things as the David Wray forced resignation could take place. It is also easy to see how over payments by hundreds of thousands of dollars can be made with nothing but this person’s say so. And, since the city employees including the department heads are employed by and therefore controlled by the City Manager it behooves them to say and do as the City Manager designates regardless of the legality. It also behooves them to take the blame for incidents of wrong doing even when they are not to blame. This happened when the engineering Department head took the blame for an over payment made to the Brown and Company for work done on the Willow Oaks Shopping Center.
I certainly hope that the City Council takes note of the dangerous situation here and makes the necessary changes. In fact, it would to my mind make more sense for all department heads to be directly answerable to the City Council with the designation that the City Manager is the next in the line of command. The Department Heads would in this case be able if needed to come directly to the City Council with a problem. The hiring and firing could still be done by the City Manager with the City Council’s approval. This last seems to be the case anyhow since the City Council appeared to have had to approve of the City manager’s action with regard to the late GPD Police Chief David Wray. Then again maybe it isn’t the normal case when department heads are fired and in the David Wray case Mitch Johnson knew he was on real shaky ground and just wanted the City Council’s backing.
At any rate it is something this City Council should look into and make the appropriate changes. If it comes up The Four, Mike Barber, Sandra Anderson-Groat, Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw, need one more member to join them. This would be either Robbie Perkins or Zack Matheny.
I must admit I have no liking or trust for Robbie Perkins. He was one of the four who went to the City Manager and got the city auditor investigated when she wanted to do an audit of the city’s money that had been given to Project Homestead thus allowing criminals to steal tens of thousands of the city’s money. Remember there was $18 million donated by the city of your tax dollars. Robbie Perkins is also directly responsible for several atrocities around our city. The total clearing of old oaks at Battleground and Old Battleground for a Shopping Center is one. He was also involved with the assinine attempt to build a Walgreens Drug Store at Lawndale and Cornwallis which is an intersection nightmare already.
Zack Matheny then is the best choice for a possible fifth member that may present the city’s best hope for positive changes in the city government and restoring the GPD. He too is very much involved with the builders and developer’s who have been raping the city landscape when they can get away with it, but it behooves these people to give support to having a stable well run city and a functioning police department. So who knows what is in store for 2008. We can only hope for the best.
One more thing the New City Council may consider and that is having the Police Chief also directly under their control and guidance. A very highly qualified police officer with years of experience was rail roaded by a City Manager who has no training in managing the city let alone the police force and a vindictive attorney. This should never be allowed to happen again.
The much better course for the New City Council to take is to have the Police Chief directly elected by and answerable to the people in the city. That would give the GPD the autonomy to go after criminals where ever they find them. As it stands the City Manager and the City Legal Department are over the Police and are in effect immune to any criminal charges no matter what they do short of murder it seems. BB
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• Dec. 28, 2007 – Again Stupidity Rules. Is it in the water?
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Dec. 28, 2007 – Again Stupidity Rules. Is it in the water?
Phone: (336) 373-2450
Update: Three Police Officers Suspended
GREENSBORO (December 27, 2007) Per Council’s decision today, we are releasing the following information.
On December 18, 2007, the Criminal Investigation Division was notified by the Internal Affairs Section of an allegation of a sexual assault that occurred sometime between 11 pm on December 14, 2007 and 1 am on December 15, 2007. The complainant is a Greensboro Police Officer who was off-duty at the time of the reported incident. The suspects are Greensboro Police Officers assigned to the Tactical Special Enforcement Team.
The victim alleges that she and a friend were leaving the area of Four Seasons Town Center when they encountered the three on-duty officers who offered to give them a ride home. The victim and her companion accepted the ride. It was during the time that they were in transit that the victim alleges the assault occurred.
The case was assigned to a detective in the Criminal Investigations Division who is currently conducting a follow up investigation.
The investigation is continuing. An administrative investigation will also be conducted by the Internal Affairs Section.”
“The off-duty officer told the Internal Affairs Section that she and a friend were leaving the area of Four Seasons Town Centre when they encountered the three on-duty officers who offered to give them a ride home, Hastings said.
The woman told investigators she was sexually assaulted while in the vehicle, Hastings said.
It is the police department’s policy not to release the names of anyone who reports being sexually assaulted.
Sgt. A.S. Wallace, 43; Officer J.O. LeGrand, 37; and Officer C.S. Stevens, 42 were suspended on Dec. 18 in connection with this investigation. “
“The police department initially refused to release the time, date, location, and reported violation of the law, claiming that because the suspects are city employees, the information was protected by personnel laws.
The City Council invoked its authority to release confidential personnel information if its release is in the best interest of the public.”
Ben Holder’s account
“You see, the alleged assault case began with a phone call made from Fifth Season, a cheesy club on High Point Road, to Greensboro Police Officers. The call to the Greensboro Police Officers was allegedly made by two females, one of which is a Greensboro Police Officer. Allegedly, the females were out drinking and dancing and called the police that were ON DUTY when they got bored or were ready to go. Then, it has been alleged that the three ON DUTY Officers drove a city vehicle to Fifth Seasons to meet the two females that called them. The three ON DUTY Officers invited the females into the city owned vehicle. Now, let’s just stop right there for now.
Three alleged Police Officers were on duty driving a city vehicle around and decided they had time to go to Fifth Season to pick up two females. All of the officers suspended are on T-SET, which is a team of officers that work to suppress street level drug related crimes. They also help with man hunts and search warrants. They do some very serious stuff. But, last weekend (wink) a Sgt and two officers from T-Set took time to go visit two females at a club. Somehow, after the females entered the police van, a sexual assault took place.”
I have found Ben’s reporting to ALWAYS be more accurate than any we get from other sources so I am going to believe his to be the most accurate considering there are several conflicting items in all the accounts.
There is, or should also always be, some doubt about a charge of sexual assault. In recent years after it became permissible for women to lodge sexual assault claims men were more often than not unfairly assumed guilty. (I might point out here that thru out history to this point women were blamed for any sexual assault committed in case any of you out there have forgotten. It was assumed the woman had “asked to be raped” by her actions or dress or just because she was in a place she should not have been in.)
Now I go back to what I have said all along, this is another example of utter stupidity! If the information had been reported in the beginning as it is with any other person so accused then it would have been fish wrap the next day.
The charge of sexual assault is a criminal act if true. It was not an internal police matter even tho those involved were all police officers. Police officers and other city employees who are charged with criminal actions are not allowed to be afforded special treatment because of their position. So once again the City Manager. with the aid of the city Legal Department, has blundered the City of Greensboro into a fiasco.
Mitchell Johnson is so under qualified for the position of City Manager, and I would have to say several other positions that he held, that it boggles the mind to understand how he was promoted all along. Was it friendly faces in high places or was it a city employee bought and paid for by special interests with the power to dictate? Whatever, it certainly was not competence.
Tim Bellamy is in far over his head and ability, but unfortunately for the citizens of Greensboro he was the last man standing after Mitch and Linda took a hatchet to the GPD command staff. I highly suspect he was the “leak” within the command staff that David Wray was aware of having. He may not have been one of the “dirty cops” but he certainly knew who they were and he did nothing to curb their behavior even when they were under his command even before becoming the Police Chief. So one could say he too is bought and paid for by the powers and special interest who are protecting the “dirty cops”. I have been put down for my so called “conspiracy theories”, but it is impossible not to know there are forces behind the actions of all of these visible people even if you are not following the Jerry Bledsoe series “Cops in Black and White”. So many incompetents do not work towards the same goals by accident.
Linda Miles had a vendetta against Wray for some reason and was (according to the attorney for the Black police officers making charges against Wray stated in his letter to the City Council) looking for “dirt” on Wray. She and Mitch had a very unusual relationship which she claimed was almost like a “marriage”. No city manager of competence would need to rely so much on the city attorney. Key word “competence”.
The city legal department now is simply a joke. BB
• Dec. 12, 2007 – I Hope this was Just the First Meeting and Not the Last, but …..
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• Dec. 12, 2007 – I Hope this was Just the First Meeting and Not the Last, but …..
I was happy MathenyMatheny speak up and suggest an outside observer look at the efficiency in the police department, and Chief Bellamy was not happy. I also noticed how the proposal just lay there until someone quietly and quickly kicked it under the table. I am sorry to say that I bMathenyMatheny is the type of person who won’t make that kind of mistake again. The “old gang” set him straight on its goal to keep hands off the police department now that it is in the hands of the criminals and incompetents.
Again Mike Barber called for some sanity in 1) having the City Manager identify where he was going to get $500,000 when the city has been crying poor mouth and tight budget, and 2) have the police department identify exactly what they would do with the money if they got it. So I was sorry to see the funding voted for and approved right now on the spot. Robbie Perkins in his insistence on this seems to be right at the top of his form and in conformance with what I have read about him. Spend the money and to Hell with the tax payers.
It was a good BEGINNING meeting on the issue of crime and I hope the council treats it as a beginning only. I somehow think however that there are too many who feel the money has been passed out so now let’s get on with the rape of the rest of Greensboro.
There were several questions that were not asked and I had hoped they would be as I consider them vital to the question of crime and crime prevention in our city. Perhaps this is only the first meeting and they will be asked later. The pertinent questions in my opinion had to do with use of available personnel in the prevention of crime.
It is pretty evident that if we had a police officer on every corner 24/7 then we wouldn’t have the crime that we have. But we don’t have anywhere near the number of police we need for a city of this size. Wray said in 2003 that 200 more police officers were needed than the city had or that it appeared the city was going to provide the funding to hire, and therefore he was forced to implement programs that would make the best use of the police officers and resources available. That was the primary reason he felt he had to set up the rotating shift program that was so unpopular. A program I feel very important to the overall efficiency and ability to fight crime in the city. Because the rotation shifts scheduling forces the older more experienced police officers to take their turn working evenings and nights when the crimes are likely to happen.
Cara Michele disagrees with me and my outcome on my previous blog post when she pointed out some pertinent facts on her blog. I agreed with her and realize the federal government was involved in Greensboro in 2004, at Wray’s request I might add, and that might have had something to do with the very dramatic drop in homicides (15). However I believe even without the feds there would have been a significant drop due to better use of the personnel available. I mean the feds were here but not out on the streets and the drop was from an average yearly rate of 30+ to just 15 in one year. That is a huge jump down to give credit to just one small factor like an FBI office in town investigating drugs and nothing else.
The reason for the big drop in crime in 2003 was the experienced officers on the streets when crimes are more likely to take place. And I still maintain that only the rookies are assigned evening and night shifts and that is when the experienced older officers are needed on the streets. I was hoping someone on the city council would bring this up today and ask for a roll of those who were on duty when the crimes took place and their time in service. But no one mentioned this.
Wray went in as Chief of Police in the summer of 2003 and started new programs to better use the personnel including rotating shifts; 2004 saw a drop in crime and a dramatic drop in homicides up to the fall of 2005 when the most homicides for that year took place and at a time when Wray was being harassed and undermined from the Black police officers union as well as Mitch Johnson at every turn and every move he made.
I quite agree that steady shifts are much preferable working conditions for people, but as hospitals have proven they can only get good experienced people to work the later shifts by enforcing the rotation system. I sincerely hope someone on our council does a comparison of just who worked with how much experience during these times when people were shooting each other down in our streets these past two week ends.
It is not my idea to make life hard for policemen because Lord knows they need every break they can get, it is just that since the GPD is undermanned it is necessary to make the best possible use of personnel and I don’t think this is being done and it shows up in the crime rate rising. This is what I believe Matheny was alluding too and wanted to look into, but the council is just so set in gulping what they are told as gospel. Mike Barber also tried to put the brakes on and get a few more specific answers from both the city manager and the police chief but again the city council mowed him down.
I can only hope some of the more sane council members Rakestraw. Wade and Matheny, possibly Anderson-Groat and Barber) get together before a meeting and get set in their heads what they as a group want to accomplish before they get mowed down by Perkins and the PAC again. I don’t think tax payers are going to be happy about this meeting and the outcome. As it turned out to be just another, “well let’s throw money at it” deal.
The officers who spoke yesterday mentioned many different programs and initiatives they were using to fight crime. A significant number of these programs were started by David Wray. Several stated “were begun in 2004″ so I went back and looked them up. And if they were not initiated by Wray then he expanded the programs.
Capt. Hastings was no help at all with his, ‘well you know we can’t really do a whole lot about crime.’ I wonder why this man is in law enforcement in the first place , and now holds such a high position on the GPD. This is probably what you get when you have to scrap the bottom, but even then it is scary to have a high ranking police officer admit the police are helpless. Makes one wonder how pervasive this attitude is in the department.
(I apologize I made a mistake here: it is not Cuthbertson but Capt. John Wolfe who spoke on gangs and several of you have corrected me. Cuthbertson does have much to do with gangs and I had forgotten that he is black so this could not possibly be Cuthbertson. I was rather angry at the end of the video when I was writing this.)
Capt. John Wolfe was the most knowledgeable speaker I felt. He points out that many gangs are migrating to North Carolina and to Greensboro in particular because we are one of the states which doesn’t have strong gang laws.
Bellamy-Small as usual brought up racial profiling. And wanted to know just what is being done not to profile minorities. Tho it is admitted that 90% of gang membership are minorities. Wolfe, a White officer pointed out that the main thrust is gang membership prevention or intervention so it shouldn’t matter what race they are. It was Chief Bellamy a Black man who pointed out that the facts are 90% of gang members are minorities and the sooner the community accepts that fact the sooner something can be done to help these minority kids. But as long as we refuse to see the issue clearly then we were not going to make progress and any minority kids arrested for gang activity is going to bring out the cries of “racial profiling”.
Chief Bellamy also made clear that juvenile laws in North Carolina need worked on: Juveniles are not held. Regional Juvenile Detection Center has only 48 beds. They are caught and released back to their family. Police are therefore stymied in what they can do about juvenile crime; gang crime is mostly juvenile crime. The fact is 90% of gang members are minorities but Chief Bellamy claims that when the police arrest them the community claims it is racial profiling. Mike Barber wants to know who is saying this and how we can let them know that it is not racial profiling, but we have an obligation to get the juvenile criminals out of the schools and off of the streets.
As I said, I hope sincerely this is just a beginning and not an end but am not holding my breath. BB
• Dec. 12, 2007 – Perkins “Just Throw Money At It” Rides Again
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• Dec. 12, 2007 – Perkins “Just Throw Money At It” Rides Again
Well, Number One, don’t look now people but 32 homicides in Greensboro is the norm and not in any way an emergency or crime wave. Google “Crime Stats Greensboro NC” and you will see that Greensboro has always had high crime rates, especially homicide. I can only see the public becoming upset with this because of the overall distrust of and lack of confidence in the GPD to protect the public brought on by the dismantling of the GPD and general bungling of the previous city government..
But, we do indeed have a growing gang problem. Although the gang problem is somehow being portrayed as just coming upon us when actually it too has been around for years. The drug trafficking thru Greensboro is what is growing and the gangs are therefore growing in proportion because the gangs are the main purveyors of drugs on the streets.
Anyhow, we have a new city council and a police department that the last city council and the city manager with the help of the city attorney totally dismantled since David Wray was forced to resign in January 2007. And we have a public perception of a massive crime build up so a special meeting is called to address this issue. I thought it was a fact finding meeting. The police officers told the council what they were doing to combat crime and the city council asked the police officers questions and specifically what they as the city council could do to help.
There were some good questions: Robbie Perkins asked about nuisance abatement. That is getting rid of clubs and areas that are hot beds of trouble. They didn’t seem to know who was responsible for taking care of these places. In fact, both Perkins and the Chief Bellamy seemed to believe it was the District Attorney’ province and Perkins was irate that Henderson wasn’t doing something about these places. Well, as it turns out our own Ben Holder informed us that the City Attorney has the power to move against theses places. And the District Attorney claims they have their hands full with criminal matters and nuisance abatement is a civil matter that the City Attorney is best suited to handle. Since the last council on their way out the door put Linda Miles under contract to work for $91.50 per hour for the city it is probably a good idea to set her to work closing down some of these clubs and joints and other hot spots and start earning her fee.
Perkins then spoke up with another good idea. He wants the Police Chief to make a list of what specifically the Greensboro City Council can do about gangs and other crimes. He feels each group ( businesses, churches, non profits) needs a specific list of what they should do and the police department must start and coordinate this effort since they are the most knowledgeable and involved. This way everyone will know their role and will be able to get on with it working together and not stumbling over each other.
It was only when Mayor Johnson asked Chief Bellamy what he felt the City Council could do to most help the GPD and of course the Chief called for more money that Perkins got way off track. He immediately proposed that the police department be given $500,000 to fight crime. No strings attached, no specifics as to its use and no analysis as to the exact needs of the GPD. I could not believe my ears! I did not want to believe my ears!
Mike Barber spoke up then and suggested that before we do that we need to identify just what needs done. After that is done he said “We hold the City Manager responsible, and he holds the Chief responsible for showing a decrease in crime. And in the mean time put a freeze on hiring until they can evaluate what exactly is required of the entire community.” Also, “We show the public where the money is coming from and just not have the money magically appear.”
Perkins took issue with this and immediately accused Barber of holding up proceedings by saying they had called the special meeting “to do something so it was time to do something and the Chief said he needed money.”
Barber fumbled on some more, but it was apparent that the three who never-saw-a-spending-motion-they-didn’t-like (Johnson, Bellamy-Small and Wells) were all for an immediate vote. So after a bit more wrangling it was decided that the City Manager has one week to come up with $500,000 for the police department.
I could spit! I wasn’t here when Robbie Perkins was on the board before, but if this is any indication of the unthinking throw money at it attitude he is going to have towards every problem then this city is truly in trouble unless a few saner heads on the council can somehow stymie him. Maybe by next week at the regular City Council meeting the other council members will have had time to reconsider and even if Mitch Johnson is able to let go of some of the money that he “had earmarked for other things” in the 2007 budget the council still does not have to just pass it on to the police department with no accountability. I think a few e-mails to city council members are a good idea. Just a suggestion that starting out with a bit of fiscal responsibility would probably be a good beginning.
• Dec. 11, 2007 – So in Need of Just One Ordinary Honorable Man
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• Dec. 11, 2007 – So in Need of Just One Ordinary Honorable Man
Cara Michele created a graph of homicides by year, and I did all crime from 1998 to 2007 under three police chiefs. In 2004, the first full year under Wray homicides actually dropped to an unheard of low of 15. This was also a full year of the newly implemented by Wray revolving shifts where experienced police officers were on the streets at night when violent crimes are much more likely to take place. Then in 2005, the year Johnson was on Wray’s back at every turn, crime started back up.
Actually if you look at the numbers crime is not as rampant as some would like us to believe. Greensboro has long been a lovely cover over an ugly underbelly. Our fair city has for many years ranked well above the national norms in crime and I suspect, though I didn’t look it up, that we rank very high among cities of our size. That it is now getting far out of control however is no exaggeration. I might also note here that our city and county governments have for many years been controlled by a group that was more interested in lining their own pockets than in any good they might do as leaders. That Greensboro has come as far as it has is due to the business community and not to the elected leadership who have been controlled by these factions. Another dirty little secret no one wants to admit however.
Another dirty, sad and of course not to be mentioned at all truth concerning crime in Greensboro is our large minority community. There is a map on the police site showing where crimes take place. The majority and the most violent are in those areas predominantly minority in makeup. Which goes to the much greater problem we have with the disintegrating lower class Black community that Sen. Patrick Moynahan warned us of in the 1960’s. Crime is merely the most visible manifestation of this disintegration. And again, our Black leadership instead of fostering a “we can better ourselves” attitude among the minorities have instead chose to cast them in the role of passive victims.
I have always felt sorry for Tim Bellamy. He was probably a fairly decent police officer and a fairly decent command officer, but he was never meant to be Chief of Police. Now he will go down in history as a miserable chief when he should never have been put in that position in the first place. He walks and looks like a bent and beaten man and I suspect strongly this is not a matter of poor posture but this is exactly how he feels. I would so admire him if for once he has the guts to stand up in the special meeting on crime the council has called and tell them exactly what happened and why Greensboro is where it is. Of course this will never happen because it would take a big man to do this and sadly we don’t seem to have any of these left in Greensboro. I suspect the last one we had was locked out of his office.
It will be interesting to see if the council members do their homework and check out the stats before going into this special meeting, or if they just go into the meeting with their heads where their predecessors kept theirs. BB
• Dec. 9, 2007 – Y. Johnson Dreaming.
She plans to revisit the Truth and Reconciliation thing again and said that the new council was reading it. I can not see this council giving that piece of biased racism any more attention than the last council gave it. If anyone needs a better example of divisive messages they need only read that trash. And talking about letting go of issues, well it might help the current mayor and her cohorts to let go of something that happened so long ago that 70% of the current population were not even living in Greensboro when it happened. And this 70% couldn’t care less that two radical groups had a shoot out getting a few of them shot. What is far more important to the current population is that there have been many more murders in the city of Greensboro this year than there were that day. In fact there have been more murders in Greensboro in the past two weeks than there were that day so don’t waste time or effort or any more of the tax payers money on 28 years ago. Okay.
I am sincerely hoping the new council members disabuse Mayor Johnson of her ideas. I can not for the life of me see how town meetings where people are permitted to “vent” will solve one blasted thing. Venting is all that people have been doing for the past two years and to no avail. Of course this is a great ploy with which to then be able to say, “well, we listened to everyone and they had their say so now let’s move on.” And by moving on she of course means going right back to doing nothing to correct the injustice done to David Wray and other decent police officers while the criminals continue to run the show.
No I do not see Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw allowing these things to be swept under the rug. Zack Matheny and Robbie Perkins of course will want to “move on” so they can get down to helping those who have purchased them get on with exploiting Greensboro I have no doubt. Sandra Anderson-Groat won again by getting the most votes at large and I hope she doesn’t let this go to her head and think that people have forgiven her actions in all the troubles we have had this past two years. We of course know where the others will fall.
It was interesting to note in the survey the N&R did that only one person was well satisfied with Mitch Johnson’s place on the dais with the elected city council members. I have no doubt if there was more than one they certainly would have published it. I only hope the council members are reading and taking note.
As I was listening to Johnson mutter on about “healing” I wonder if they think we who have been so noisy about the abuses of the last council are now going to go away. I wonder if she and some of the others feel that just because they were elected, her by default and two of the other because of the part of town they live in, that they have a mandate to contiune as is. Well, I know certainly am not going away. I intend to keep blogging and keep sending e-mails to the council. And I am pretty sure the Hammer Brothers have their teeth set in this issue real good so I don’t see them dropping it either.
• Dec. 7, 2007 – Hinson Wisely Refused to Sign Off on His on Recorded Responses
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• Dec. 7, 2007 – Hinson Wisely Refused to Sign Off on His on Recorded Responses
Hinson is by far the most egregious con man I have ever read about. How he gets away with all that he has done is beyond any sane individual’s understanding until they look closely at who is behind Hinson. He has powerful allies in the community and some are closely connected to Greensboro’s growing drug commerce. I once posted an article explaining how Greensboro is ideally situated geographically as a drug supply hub. Just look at a map and the pattern becomes clear that Greensboro is the center for traffic going north and south and west. It is also an easy days drive from the ports where the drugs are brought into the country.
Hinson also has a variety of money making activities besides his police employment. These activities would naturally under normal working conditions be difficult to maintain, but given that Hinson is a free agent in the police department and unlike all others able to set his own hours and even work out of his home when he chooses it is really not difficult to see how he can accomplish these “outside” activities. His latest enterprise of sponsoring a home for wayward girls is to me the most outrageous. This man who is a known womanizer and patron of prostitutes is in charge of wayward girls? More like his own training ground for future prostitutes I would say. What was most upsetting to me was that he received state funds for this enterprise. Who would care to bet me this month pension check that several of our elected officials helped him in this endeavor. I would bet that our Mayor Y. Johnson spoke highly of Hinson. I would also bet that two more elected and enterprising local thieves who are now on the state legislature Ms. Alma Adams and the ever present hand in the piggy bank Earl Jones signed off on and petitioned for the state funding Hinson received. Just shows how it pays to have friends in high places.
My last comment on this segment of the Bledsoe series is the many direct quotes of what Hinson said. Tell me, is there anyone out there who could understand and tell me the meaning of the barrage of words strung together with here and there a $64 one that he had read somewhere and threw in for decoration? Again as with the last installment I had to read the quotes several times to make sure I was reading what was actually there. I did want to give the man the benefit of the doubt after all. Dear Lord, it is no wonder to me that he refused to sign off on this report saying the recorded and directly reported quotes “did not accurately reflect his responses.” I wouldn’t sign off on anything as ludicrous as his own inane mutterings either. So I suppose he has enough intelligence to know he had made a total ass of himself in the interviews, and that is something in his favor at least. BB
• Dec. 2, 2007 – Government Employee Promotion System Worked Well for Johnson and Miles
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• Dec. 2, 2007 – Government Employee Promotion System Worked Well for Johnson and Miles
Why is there a layer of stupidity at every level above the ground floor? Because longevity is rewarded! Just look at the county and especially the city governments and it is easy to see this reward system. Positions are filled from within by moving the assistant up. Or by making a lateral promotion if by some chance it is found that an employee is even more incompetent in any given position than can be covered up by underlings or tolerated by superiors then the person is merely given another position at the same level but in another area or department. Never is a person demoted or fired after giving their loyal service to the community for a given number of years. It just isn’t done.
That is, never is a person fired until they reach a certain level of advancement, usually somewhere near the top of the ladder and have somehow managed to cross someone in a position to fire them. I won’t get into the reasons there may be for “crossings”, but rarely are they for actually not doing a good job in the position because this would be tolerated. No, the “crossings” are more often of a personal nature that then have to be covered up and made to look as if the firing was for incompetence. This is why you have people at the top being fired who have had outstanding evaluations for years and promoted with much applause only to suddenly go brain dead.
Mitch Johnson, Greensboro’s City Manager is a prime example of this government employment longevity promotions system. He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics from UNCG, and beyond that has attended what I would guess were probably seminars since no credit or degree was obtained from UNC at Chapel Hill Institute of Government, School of Government and Public Executive Leadership Academy. These are weekend or summer courses usually no longer than a couple weeks that are at best lax in nature. Everyone knows those attending are there because it is required so no one puts a whole lot of effort in either the teaching or the learning.
He was employed in 1983 right out of college as a Programmer Analyst and promoted to Technical Assistance Management in 1984. Then in 1988 he got his big break when he was promoted to Assistant Director of General Services, and he was on his way. How I wonder did a BS in physics qualify him for these positions? Well, what can I say but that this is typical of government employees. And Mitchell Johnson obviously had someone on his side very early in his career.
Any one of the positions he has held called for someone specifically trained in those areas. And yet, he had a degree in physics. And when it comes to being the manager of a city the size of Greensboro one would at least expect this person to have a degree in Business Management. Mitchell Johnson attended some seminars.
This is the reason we tax payers of Greensboro are facing the huge burden of law suits against the city that we are now facing. Mitchell Johnson was never equipped in either training and certainly did not have the native intelligence to be city manager. He was merely one of the typical government employees that I have watched mismanage tax payers funds over the years.
Now we come to another incompetent city employee who had risen in city government and again thru longevity. She is at least trained in the field for which she is employed however, which is more than can be said for Johnson. Her city biography doesn’t give any dates so I can not determine how extensive her actual experience in the field was before becoming employed as an Assistant City Attorney. It says only that she was employed by two separate law firms and was an instructor at Catawba College and Rowan Technical College.
What I can say is from my observation of her in action at the city council meetings and the events she has been involved in that have been reported, Linda Miles is a charlatan. A charlatan with the appropriate degree but none the less she has the instincts of a quack, fraud and swindler.
Linda Miles is now retiring and doing so with a sweetheart retirement bonus that beats all retirement deals. She of course wrote it herself. Broken down to its essence Miles will be paid $95,000 for the next 6 months as the Chief City Attorney (her old job) but not as an employee but as a contracted attorney. The neat part is that she doesn’t even have to come to work to earn this money. No she can stay at home if she wants , or she may choose to travel a bit on “city business” and at city expense. I’ll bet if she looks real hard she can find some city attorney’s conference taking place in Hawaii or at the very least the Bahamas. Heck if she really puts her mind to it I’ll bet she can even manage a trip to Europe or Asia that can be termed “city business” requiring an attorney of her expertise.
Our only hope here is that this contract does not appear to be a done deal by any means and the new city council may have something to say about it. We know that Mike Barber doesn’t care for the contract idea and can almost bet that Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw will also question the details. Whether they can get two more council members to go along with them and against Mitch Johnson is the question. There are really only three possibilities; Sandra Anderson-Groat, Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny.
So, while Linda is out and about who will be in the office? Well, I don’t know myself since I have only heard of her highness herself and her fall guy, Assistant City Attorney Blair Carr who had to take the blame for Linda’s blunders apparently one too many times because she resigned to take a job for the city of Winston-Salem at a cut in pay of $15,000. That lady wanted out really really bad to take that kind of hit!
According to John Hammer who is in a position to know of the staff remaining there simply isn’t much competence there. This is in keeping with my beginning paragraphs of this post. It appears not much is left since Assistant City Attorneys Blair Carr and Clyde Albright have resigned and Deputy City Attorney Terry Wood recently retired. That leaves Assistant City Attorneys Becky Jo Peterson-Buie and Jerry Kontos both of whom sound rather par for the course where city employees are concern in that they have met and exceeded the Peter Principle somewhere about the level of law clerk.
Which is just jim dandy for the most expensive law firm in the city, Smith Moore because they will be doing a lot of work for the tax payers of Greensboro cleaning up the mess made by Miles and Johnson.
• Nov. 22, 2007 – Greensbore City Council Steals from the Poor with Impunity
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• Nov. 22, 2007 – Greensbore City Council Steals from the Poor with Impunity
Now I for one intend to ride Sandra Anderson-Groat for the next two years. I am just one lonely blogger but Sandra dear I do have a small but growing readership and they are going to hear about every misstep you make. They are going to hear about your greed and pettiness and yes, the butt kissing you do. You may have been able to read some of the wall message, but you failed to remember that the voters voted against the bond issue to fund the Civil Rights Museum. The voters said No to Skip and Earl just as private donors had said no to them. There is plenty of private money for the Civil Rights Museum but the private donors made it known they would not fork over one red cent until Skip Alston and Earl Jones removed themselves from the Board and access to all that free money which they have for 13 years used as their private charity account. You forgot the voters had spoken Sandra.
Well, my dear lady you will not soon forget that you are spending Thanksgiving in your nice home while poor people are on the streets, and will stay on the streets even longer because you were willing to steal money intended to help them to appease the PAC you felt elected you. Bad Move Sandra. Very bad move. BB
For those of you who may not know what the above is concerning it is about the City Council stealing $750,000 from the poor of Greensboro and giving it to Skip Alston’s and Earl Jones’s private piggy bank. These three re-elected members of the council along with the help of outgoing Mayor Happy Holiday and Sandra “Poor Loser” Carmany pulled this fast last minute coup for their friends.
Here is an except from Margaret Bank’s N&R story on the thievery:
“In other business, the council also voted to give $750,000 in federal grants to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. The money will be distributed over three years and won’t be funded by local property tax money.
But there was plenty of debate. Council members Mike Barber, Florence Gatten and Tom Phillips opposed the plan.
The federal money was designated for Willow Oaks, a low- to mixed-income community in east Greensboro, which is why Phillips said he voted against the plan.
Barber cited the 13 years that museum organizers have spent raising money and renovating the old Woolworth’s building on February One Place and South Elm Street. The lack of progress points to larger issues, he said.
“The Empire State Building was built in 18 months,” he said.
Barber said his opposition isn’t an issue of race, but rather an issue of “incompetence, ineptitude and insincere motives” on the part of museum organizers.
But other council members defended the project, saying that it’s important to honor the sit-in movement with a museum.”
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dearth of Applause for Mitch Johnson DEAFENING!
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• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dearth of Applause for Mitch Johnson DEAFENING!
The first item on the agenda was to vote for or against the raise in salary to City Manager Mitchell Johnson. The City Council had decided to give him this raise in a closed session just prior to the open meeting.
First to speak long and lovingly of her relationship with and admiration for Mitchell Johnson was the unelected City Attorney Linda Johnson, who concluded her praise by assuring us all that this raise had her full approval.
Next came the fulsome and hearty praise from Mayor Happy who pointed out that just a mere three months after taking on the job of city manager Mitch Johnson was called upon to cope with having the Police Chief resign. For any who didn’t know the facts of the matter one would be led to believe that the Police Chief was a dastardly fellow who deliberately resigned his job to make life difficult for Mitchell Johnson.
Yvonne Johnson, mayor elect, made her few remarks that were in Yvonne’s usual manner and quite unmemorable.
Goldie Wells enthused. Mike Barber did as he regularly does and pointed out that Greensboro city officials are among the highest paid in the state.
Sandy “Mitch Mouthpiece who lost her election” Carmany told one and all how hard it is to do the right thing and stand against all opponents while doing it. But, Mitch Johnson as a man of honor stood firm for right.
The vote was taken and Mitch Johnson was awarded a 3% raise by the Greensboro City Council operating on behalf of the citizens of Greensboro, only 55% of whom gave this city government their vote of approval. The vote was a surprising 6 for to 2 against (T.D B-S wasn’t in attendance). Surprising because Mike 8 to 1 Barber is normally the only dissenting vote. Tonight Mike was joined in the nay column by Sandra Anderson-Groat.
Here is the good part people. Are you ready for this?
One person clapping for all they were worth
loud and alone
was heard for a count of four
and then there were
a few scattered and quietly hesitant applause
heard from around the room.
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Mayor Happy Sooooooo Put Upon. Boo Hoo
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• Nov. 21, 2007 – Mayor Happy Sooooooo Put Upon. Boo Hoo
He explained this all to us while announcing the city’s latest effort at transparency. A transparency that will be more so than the current MUDDY WATERS we can hope. Anyhow, it seems the city will now be listing on line all the requests for documentation that citizens have been requesting in their probably futile effort to understand the actions taken by the city. Now why posting the list of request for documents rather than just posting the actual documents will add transparency is beyond me, but this is after all Greensboro.
Mayor Happy however assured us this was indeed transparency in government and then went on to berate us for all the extra effort and expense we the citizens were placing on ourselves with this need to know it all. In fact, he seemed to be bemoaning the fact that we residents actually dare to question our betters and just not accept as in the old days that some are better suited to make our decisions for us than we are ourselves. Ahh, the good old days when the elite ruled!
We residents have long appreciated the efforts of the Hammer Brother’s owner of The Rhino and Ben Holder for their tirelessness in keeping fire to city toes. Now, with the blessing of a Higher Being I am sure, we have been given three men of unimpeachable character and intelligence in Joe Guarino, Sam Spagnola and Roch Smith to help us ferret out the truth.
Sam being an attorney tied up all the little loop holes the city attorney’s office has been using to withhold the request for documentation on Project Homestead and the David Wray debacle. And with the honesty and special intelligence of these men when they are able to examine the documentation we can be assured that the truth will come out. I also expect that much of the documentation will find its way on line to back up their analysis. Joe seems especially adept at reading and then explaining in words most can comprehend the contents of any document. Roch will see that it is all published for all to see. Thank goodness for these men, and it is a special treat that we bloggers can call them our own. BB
• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dear Linda Jumps Ship before the newly Elected City Council Members can get to her.
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• Nov. 21, 2007 – Dear Linda Jumps Ship before the newly Elected City Council Members can get to her.
First of course was the announcement that City Attorney Linda Miles is retiring. That is she is jumping ship before she has to answer for her actions concerning the David Wray trashing that she was so instrumental in assuring happened. The newly elected City Council is sure to bring on some heat. So next I see Mitchell Johnson retiring. Then again in his arrogance he just may try to bluff it out. After all $179,000 a year salary is a lot to walk away from.
I hope resigning of dear Linda does not stop David Wray from naming her in the lawsuit I sincerely hope he lodges against the City of Greensboro. Seeing her on the witness stand telling the truth if she dares, but more likely in her stupidity and arrogance taking the chance of perjuring herself, will be a spectacle I for one would love to see. Being a city employee she personally won’t be held to any monetary loses for her part in this unholy outrage, but at the least she can be disbarred and have her reputation destroyed just as she actively sought to destroy David Wray. Perhaps she can even be found guilty of some ethical or moral or whatever code of conduct by the legal profession and find herself in a camp cupcake for a brief but humiliating stay. I certainly hope so. BB
Nov. 17, 2007 -Follow the Money
|
Name |
Total # Votes |
Total Raised This Election Cycle |
Amount Spent This Election Cycle |
Cost Per Vote |
| Johnson |
18,709 |
$71,710.00 |
$56,402.10 |
$3.01 |
| Anderson-Groat |
17,626 |
$42,303.19 |
$25,875.24 |
$1.47 |
| Perkins |
16,201 |
$37,210.00 |
$30,626.84 |
$1.89 |
| Rakestraw |
15,689 |
$10,539.23 |
$4,640.40 |
$0.30 |
| Bellamy-Small |
3,036 |
|||
| Wells |
3,336 |
$5,953.00 |
$5,102.79 |
$1.52 |
| Matheny |
5,201 |
$42,114.96 |
$25,311.99 |
$4.87 |
| Barber |
7,223 |
$8,900.00 |
$419.98 |
$0.05 |
| Wade |
1,904 |
$14,670.00 |
$13,307.82 |
I planned to do a post on following the money and have gotten distracted. You can find all the information at Guilford County board of Elections site.
(One disclaimer here: I don’t know the names of Greensboro’s movers and shakers as I have not lived here long enough, and of course I don’t and never have been included in these groups no matter where I have lived.)
There is no doubt that the candidates, or most of them, have been bought and paid for. Mostly by the MELDERAC, or Jim Melvin’s group of movers and shakers made up of developers and builders and Realtors using the company affiliations listed beside their names as my guide.
Robbie Perkins’ list of individual donors is a regular Who’s Who on the local developer scene. These people saw fit to hand over $35210. to Robbie. No doubt for his good looks and so he can continue to get expensive hair cuts Ala Edwards. In an effort to give him the benefit of some doubt I looked hard for a donor outside of this group and did find one auto dealer. Robbie also managed to get $4000 from PACS. (the most after Yvonne Johnson’s $6525) Listed is the NC Realtors PAC at $2000, but the other $2000 is not accounted for.
Zack Matheny claimed $40,249.96 from individual donors. From the listing it appears to be from the same fan club that backed Robbie. There was one whopping $4000. donation from a Mr. Robert Long Jr., 208 Irving Place whose company affiliation is listed as Granville Capital and job title as:Principal. Now folks I wouldn’t mind having a tooth fairy like that! As for PACS Zack listed a measly $1000.. But with friends like my own District 3 Pretty Boy Zack has who in Hell needs PACS?
Trudy Wade pulled in $7850 from what appears to be mostly again the Realtors and construction firms. Also received $500 from NC Realtors PAC and $1000 from North Carolinians for Leadership in Government PAC.
Sandra Anderson-Groats Construction Company seems to have financed her campaign with a loan of $19,000. The rest again came from Realtors and developers and added up to $21,153.19. There came a point when reading the lists of donors to these people’s campaigns that I would have given my Wendy’s lunch special to see a hair dresser listed as a donor!
Mike Barber donors were more of the same with a heavy sprinkling of attorneys thrown in. No doubt fellow golfers.
Mary Rakestraw claims $5925. from individuals. There were quite a few small checks from $15 to $50 that must have come from people like me. An interesting note was a check for $400 from Paul Gibson (County commissioner). Of the PACS $2184.23 donations she only lists the $1500. from NC Realtors. Having not lived here when Rakestraw was on a governing board previously and not wanting to take the time right now to research her, I am going to have wait to see if she keeps her campaign promises to straighten out the mess of city hall and the GPD and get to the truth of David Wray’s forced resignation.
So, there you have a very sketchily put together money trail. And, it seems to me these people one and all need to be watched closely. Is it a coincidence that the planned raping of the corner of Lawndale and Cornwallis by developers will be the first big item on their agenda and they all received so much money from these people. BB
• Nov. 17, 2007 – Follow the Money
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• Nov. 17, 2007 – Follow the Money
|
Name |
Total # Votes |
Total Raised This Election Cycle |
Amount Spent This Election Cycle |
Cost Per Vote |
| Johnson |
18,709 |
$71,710.00 |
$56,402.10 |
$3.01 |
| Anderson-Groat |
17,626 |
$42,303.19 |
$25,875.24 |
$1.47 |
| Perkins |
16,201 |
$37,210.00 |
$30,626.84 |
$1.89 |
| Rakestraw |
15,689 |
$10,539.23 |
$4,640.40 |
$0.30 |
| Bellamy-Small |
3,036 |
|||
| Wells |
3,336 |
$5,953.00 |
$5,102.79 |
$1.52 |
| Matheny |
5,201 |
$42,114.96 |
$25,311.99 |
$4.87 |
| Barber |
7,223 |
$8,900.00 |
$419.98 |
$0.05 |
| Wade |
1,904 |
$14,670.00 |
$13,307.82 |
I planned to do a post on following the money and have gotten distracted. You can find all the information at Guilford County board of Elections site.
(One disclaimer here: I don’t know the names of Greensboro’s movers and shakers as I have not lived here long enough, and of course I don’t and never have been included in these groups no matter where I have lived.)
There is no doubt that the candidates, or most of them, have been bought and paid for. Mostly by the MELDERAC, or Jim Melvin’s group of movers and shakers made up of developers and builders and Realtors using the company affiliations listed beside their names as my guide.
Robbie Perkins’ list of individual donors is a regular Who’s Who on the local developer scene. These people saw fit to hand over $35210. to Robbie. No doubt for his good looks and so he can continue to get expensive hair cuts Ala Edwards. In an effort to give him the benefit of some doubt I looked hard for a donor outside of this group and did find one auto dealer. Robbie also managed to get $4000 from PACS. (the most after Yvonne Johnson’s $6525) Listed is the NC Realtors PAC at $2000, but the other $2000 is not accounted for.
Zack Matheny claimed $40,249.96 from individual donors. From the listing it appears to be from the same fan club that backed Robbie. There was one whopping $4000. donation from a Mr. Robert Long Jr., 208 Irving Place whose company affiliation is listed as Granville Capital and job title as:Principal. Now folks I wouldn’t mind having a tooth fairy like that! As for PACS Zack listed a measly $1000.. But with friends like my own District 3 Pretty Boy Zack has who in Hell needs PACS?
Trudy Wade pulled in $7850 from what appears to be mostly again the Realtors and construction firms. Also received $500 from NC Realtors PAC and $1000 from North Carolinians for Leadership in Government PAC.
Sandra Anderson-Groats Construction Company seems to have financed her campaign with a loan of $19,000. The rest again came from Realtors and developers and added up to $21,153.19. There came a point when reading the lists of donors to these people’s campaigns that I would have given my Wendy’s lunch special to see a hair dresser listed as a donor!
Mike Barber donors were more of the same with a heavy sprinkling of attorneys thrown in. No doubt fellow golfers.
Mary Rakestraw claims $5925. from individuals. There were quite a few small checks from $15 to $50 that must have come from people like me. An interesting note was a check for $400 from Paul Gibson (County commissioner). Of the PACS $2184.23 donations she only lists the $1500. from NC Realtors. Having not lived here when Rakestraw was on a governing board previously and not wanting to take the time right now to research her, I am going to have wait to see if she keeps her campaign promises to straighten out the mess of city hall and the GPD and get to the truth of David Wray’s forced resignation.
So, there you have a very sketchily put together money trail. And, it seems to me these people one and all need to be watched closely. Is it a coincidence that the planned raping of the corner of Lawndale and Cornwallis by developers will be the first big item on their agenda and they all received so much money from these people. BB
• Nov. 16, 2007 – GreensboroPolitics Report on Gang Forum is Must Reading
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• Nov. 16, 2007 – Greensboro Politics Report on Gang Forum is Must Reading
GreensboroPolitics reported on the Forum on Gangs and took some interesting notes and comments of those who spoke. I do hope you all are paying attention to this site and I hope he continues to play it straight and not get biased in his reporting. This is so far proving to be a site we need. Below is the only opinionated comment that he made and for which I personally can not fault him for making it.
“As I was exiting the forum I saw the name badges from individuals that were not in attendance. Name tags not picked up belonged to Goldie Wells, Yvonne Johnson, Zack Matheny, Mary Rakestraw and Sandra Anderson Groat. There were a few other badges but they belonged to media and various other individuals. Robbie Perkins and Trudy Wade were the only City Council members in attendance. “
Gangs and the growing in Gang membership is I believe the largest problem in our society, let alone our city, because it has its roots in all the other social problems we face as a society. And yet, only two of our past and present city leaders felt compelled to attend. Makes a really loud statement wouldn’t you say?
I was also gratified to read from his notes that Cuthbertson has gotten his thinking straight on at least one count “Race, economic status and prejudice must be removed from your mind when thinking about gangs.” The very first statement out of his mouth at the last forum was that “racism” was the first and foremost cause of gangs. Dear Lord, but I was so disgusted and this is soooo Greensboro in thinking. But, if he has indeed changed his tune, if not his thinking, then maybe there is some hope for some progress being made in addressing the real issues. One of which is very much race if not racism and that is Black babies being born to unwed mothers. Unofficially I have heard the figure 83% of Black babies born here in Guilford/Greensboro. You would think with problems like these facing the community the ministers of the Black Pulpit Forum would have their hands full trying to teach some restraint and moral values to their flocks rather than having meetings with tainted city officials in basement rooms.
Forgive me GP. I do get a little upset and angry at where Black leaders place their priorities. I did what I could when I could to make all people equal and to bring Black people up to where they belonged in our society, and now to see where so many of them have fallen…well, I must cry. At least in the days of Jim Crow (pre-1960) the Black illegitimacy rate was at about 25%, gangs weren’t a problem and there was some moral decency and believe it or not, some hope and dignity and love and life. What has happened?? BB
• Nov. 16, 2007 – Making My POLITE Message to Sandy Clear.
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• Nov. 16, 2007 – Making My POLITE Message to Sandy Clear.
I personally as many of you know discounted Sandy as a source of accurate information a long time before the Mitch fiasco. When she did a Rah!rah! rah! for an indoor football team and the grand ceremony staged by the Mr. Supercilious Brown ( the over paid city employee of a coliseum that costs tax payers $2 million a year). Come to find out there was nothing but a contract with a rather nefarious character but not yet a team or even a coach. Well I simply put her down as an over-aged cheerleader and cut her from my blog roll. I make no apologies for having no patience, or time, for fools. I read and enjoy a lot of really good blogs both locally and elsewhere. When I want jokes I go to Maxine, Pickles and Beetle Bailey.
Sandy lost the election because she lost the trust of the voters in her district, and the city at large, with her blind backing and acting as the mouthpiece for Mitch Johnson. During the election campaign I personally never made any comments about the race in district 5 at all that I can recall as I was concerned only with those races for which I had some say. Sandy had a lot of supporters on the local blogosphere both in and out of her district. That was fine with me. Did I have some hopes that she would lose? Yes. My record of disagreement with Mitch Johnson is very well known so to get rid of his mouthpiece on the city council could only be a good thing. Well SANDY LOST THE ELECTION! It is that clear. No problem, people have lost elections before and managed to walk away with some semblance of dignity. Ms. Carmany has not been able to do this. In fact, her attacks on her PAST opponent get more strident by the day. I found my feelings towards her and her reactions ranging from sadness to see her degrade herself so badly to disgust at her out of character rantings. This is what led up to the following comment made to a comment by Roch today. See below:
Roch, You know me and you know me well so to call any of the the “joking” remarks I have made to try to point out to Sandy that she has lost the election as “venom” is just plain stupid on your part and you well know it. I respect you but sometimes you can be such an ass. When I choose to use venom Dear there is never any doubt in anyone’s mind of my intentions! I have been trying to politely ( for me ) say, “Sandy you lost the election so walk away with some dignity and quit making a damned fool of yourself!” I agree she served as well as most and better than a whole lot. That is until she blindly mounted and rode the wrong horse regardless of how often he failed her by feeding her lies and half truths which she refused to believe even when they were thrown back in her face and proven to be false. She lost the race and should have the dignity she has always shown and walk away with her record (until recently) as her banner. She isn’t doing this. She is instead getting more and more strident, vindictive and just plain catty in her attacks. I suspect much of it is due to listening to her “handlers” who have proven themselves over again and again to be asses. She would do better to remember what her mother taught her about being and behaving like a lady. There is much that Sandy Carmany can continue to do for her community if she wants, but not if she continues to destroy the reputation she had before vehemently acting for Mitch Johnson, and now by being a bitch about losing an election. BB
• Nov. 11, 2007 – As Mayors Races Go this one was a Mind Twister
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• Nov. 11, 2007 – As Mayors Races Go this one was a Mind Twister
I’ll take Yvonne Johnson first. Yvonne wanted to be Mayor of Greensboro probably for all of the 14 years or more that she has been both a local politician and a local political operative. She has a lovely smile and a soft voice and she meets and greets well. In fact so well that I don’t suppose there is a soul in Greensboro over the age of 10 years who does not know Yvonne Johnson’s name. If her campaign finance information is correct, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, so many people know and love Yvonne that they were willing to ante up $71,185. in individual donations to see her elected. Her released reports list every single one of these from the smallest $5 donation to the largest which if I remember correctly was in the $300 range. I am not about to go back over all those pages of names and make sure of this figure even if it does give Roch heartburn. Take a Tums and live with it Roch.
All the other candidates had donations of $50 and under sort of lumped together under an “aggregate” where no name or occupation was given. Yvonne wanted to give credit where credit was due. She also wished us all to realize how many and by how much she was loved I would suppose. I couldn’t tell much from her list of donors as far as occupation as they seemed to offer quite a variety, and there were even several from out of state. I understand ” I 
Yvonne” tee shirts were given out to some supporters. In fact there was a lot of lovin’, meeting’ and greetin’ done during her campaign if I have interpreted the disbursements correctly. She and her supporters do enjoy a good party. Yes, Yvonne was the perfect candidate for mayor, and just think, the first woman and the first Black mayor of Greensboro rolled into one.
It was also a fact that the Black leadership in Greensboro wanted a Black for mayor. They believed their time had come. Being men and women of intelligence they also knew there was no way any Black man in their group that is well known for rather nefarious dealings had a snow balls chance in Hell of being elected to anything which required a city wide vote of confidence. Being elected in their own little districts where the minorities are the majority and the residents were not the ones most likely to get out and vote was one thing, but there has been too much dirt swept under Greensboro’s Filthy Political Rug to give any of the known Black male leaders credibility with the larger community.
It has not always been this way in Greensboro. In the beginning there were many Black men of goodwill and integrity who were able to open the city political arena up to Blacks. Dr. Simkins was one of these fine men. But somehow over the years the criminal element took over the Black leadership, Simkins PAC and Pulpit Forum and we have had years of shady dealings, claims of poor and inept bookkeeping which allowed the rip off of perhaps millions of tax payer dollars and back room maneuverings that have had the careers destroyed of anyone who questioned these peoples’ motives.( Ex. Jackie Dowd, City Auditor for daring to question Project Homestead and ask for an audit). Of course this wasn’t done in a vacuum. Oh no, there were many White politicians and officials who aided and abetted these activities, or who stood by and silently allowed them to happen. (In the case of Project Homestead the culprits from the City Council who wanted Dowd’s head and went to City Manager Friendly to make this request were Yvonne Johnson and Burroughs-White both Black women, accompanied by Don Vaughn and Robbie Perkins both White men) So we come to the Black leadership feeling that their time for a Black Mayor of Greensboro had come and no one but a Black woman who had a chance of winning such a post.
The question however was,”could Yvonne Johnson win the mayoral race?” In the spring of 2007 after over a year of controversy over the forced resignation of David Wray as Chief of Police of the GPD and less than satisfactory, in fact contradictory, explanations coming out City Hall and damaging stories in The Rhino Times Jerry Bledsoe, “Cops in Black and White” Series there seemed to be a shifting of attitudes towards Blacks in public office by both White voters and young Black voters. I live in a mixed community of middle class people mostly in their 30’s and early 40’s. Discussions around the pool are often concerning city issues and I can say with confidence that young Black professionals are more that embarrassed with Greensboro’s Black leadership. They moved into the northwest portion of the city to get their children into schools like Northwest High and not Dudley. They don’t themselves feel as if they are victims of racism and don’t want their children to associate themselves with this self defeatist attitude. The unprofessional antics often seen in the County commissions meetings by the three Black commissioners do not entertain or justify them as they are seen as merely embarrassing and demeaning to the entire Black community.
Yvonne Johnson has been in the center of these damning and embarrassing situations. Yes, her presence was quiet and dignified, but she was there nonetheless. The releasing of the RMA report which supposedly proved Wray’s racist attitudes and actions, but in actuality was a document put together by so-called professionals that would not have passed as a research paper in any freshman English 101 course for accurate investigative techniques. The public read the report to the extend their stomachs would allow and threw it back in the City Council and City Managers face as a joke at best, but more likely a malicious piece of work that deliberately set out to destroy David Wray’s distinguished career as a police officer.
This was followed by a much publicized and immature attempt to lull the public by the entire City Council signing a statement that they were not responsible for the RMA report leak and following this thru with individual lie detector tests. Again featuring Yvonne Johnson front and center in her quiet righteousness and willingness to “clear her name”. Diane Bellamy-Small refused to be involved with either of these actions and was therefore tacitly branded as guilty. Soon after this the Black Pulpit Forum issued an inflammatory “Declaration of Intolerable Racism” document listing 8 issues as evidence of White racism in Greensboro. The first item on the list was harassment of Diane Bellamy-Small. Yvonne Johnson stood proudly with her fellow Blacks at the news briefing /rally attended by the Black leadership spoken of above, reporters and a very few White college students trying to relive the 1960’s 1970’s liberals civil disobedience movement and a very few opportunists who show up at these affairs regularly to be seen and hopefully remembered when their time to run for office arrives. When Yvonne was asked why she took the lie detector test and signed the affidavit and still could sign her name to a document that claimed because she did not do these things Bellamy-Small was being discriminated against, her answer was that she didn’t necessarily agree with everything in the document. Which of course begged the question of just what Yvonne Johnson does believe and not believe and unless she is willing to stand up and tell the public each time she is found to be in agreement with some accusations of White racism just exactly what it is she believes then it can only be assumed that she believes in all such statement. So you see in the present day climate of distrust and disgust with what has been happening in Greensboro there was some justified concern as to whether Yvonne could be elected. Something had to be done. The Black leadership wanted a Black mayor and the monied developer boys wanted to keep a nice accommodating city council that would quickly dispatch of this distracting GPD matter and get on with the business of making money.
Now we come to her opponent. Milton Kern is a wealthy developer with his hands full of all kinds of money making schemes in downtown Greensboro and elsewhere. But for some odd reason this busy man steps in and tosses his hat in the ring for the mayors race. Now why would he do a purely insane thing like this? Prestige? Hardly! Mayor of New York is prestige, but not Greensboro, NC. Money? Dear Lordy me but that is a laugh. There was no logical reason at all for this man to be willing to take any of his valuable time away from his first occupation and devote himself to overseeing long tedious meeting listening to irate citizen berate him and the other council members, Dr. Goldie Wells making inane statements now and again and T. Diane Bellamy-Small ramble on and on about every meal she was able to sponge off of some one or some group during the past month at the end of each and every meeting. With all her trucking about town using her position as City Council member to cop free meals it is a wonder she had time for handing out “for our eyes only” city documents and temper tantrums concerning the office arrangements. When one lets themselves visualize Milton Kern man of action in this setting it is down right hilarious people! I mean really now, I’m sure this man would choose even death or worse yet, taxes, over this scenario.
Therefore we come to the Election of 2007 and it is not a sure bet that Yvonne Johnson can win as mayor. What is to be done about this situation? We know the Black leadership represented by the Simkins PAC and Pulpit forum want a Black mayor and it soon becomes apparent that the Melvin/developers/Realtors group dubbed MELDEREC also want Yvonne Johnson as mayor since she has a long standing history of giving them what they want in the area of zoning changes, incentives and approvals. So do the two groups allow just anyone to run against Johnson and possibly win? What kind of candidate could they run who would keep other more worthy candidates off the ballot?
Well then it all comes clear: enter Milton Kern. A very wealthy candidate who had almost unlimited funds to throw at the public to buy their votes would most certainly stop most thinking human beings from considering what could only be seen as political suicide. And it worked. Kern threw his hat in the ring and everyone else just faded into the background.
The only reasonable explanation for Milton Kern running for an office he obviously didn’t need and even more obviously didn’t want considering his “Please Do Not Elect Me” campaign, was that he really and truly wanted Yvonne Johnson to win!So we have that mystery solved. Nice and tidy with only one slight catch: it almost didn’t work. Yvonne Johnson with her $71,185 in individual contributions, $6525 in PAC money (not the Simkins PAC however since they don’t give out money to candidates but they do request money from candidates), and disbursements of $56,402.10 garnered only 18,709 votes. Whereas Milton Kern with his $44169 in individual contributions albeit some of them in the thousands per individual; his mere $500 in PAC money and a whooping $30,651 disbursement to one Seattle, Washington firm for running his campaign came in with a vote total of 14,031. Now these were NOT votes FOR Kerns, they were votes AGAINST JOHNSON.
The Simkins PAC/Pulpit Forum/MELDEREC joint venture almost didn’t work! The ordinary man on the street people of Greensboro almost won! It certainly will be interesting to watch these next two years and especially the next few months. Don’t you agree? BB
• Nov. 8, 2007 – Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny are King of Sprawl and Desecration
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• Nov. 8, 2007 – Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny are King of Sprawl and Desecration
Drive thru any part of District 3 and District 4 and you will see these men and their cronies handiwork. (Wendall Sawyer has dubbed this group as the
Jim Melvin/Developers/RealEstate/Chamber of Commerce. or MELDEREC. Of course I have my own term for Jim Melvin: I call him the $6 million bobble head because that is exactly what he sold Greensboro out for and yet he is the God head of Greensboro to hear some people talk.)Anyhow, the development isn’t “planned” at all or if it is planned it is to bring in the heavy equipment and plow down every tree in sight. They destroy what is there because to work around what nature has already provided is just too expensive and may cut into their enormous profit margins. Then to comply with a few limp city requirements they plant a few scrubs and proclaim their concern for the environment and the quality of life.
I live not far from the desecration at Horse Pen, Battleground and Old Battleground. More of the MELDEREC handiwork can be seen on once lovely New Garden. You can understand then how the election of Robbie Perkins and Zack Matheny to the City Council upset me. Joe Wilson and Bill Knight would have been much better choices and would have put a stop to this rape of a city’s canopy.
If this isn’t enough about the two “names” with large campaign war chests that were elected you might remember that Robbie Perkins was one of the four along with Yvonne Johnson, Don Vaugh, and a lady who has since passed away who went to the City Manager Ed Kitchen and had Jackie Dowd (city auditor) investigated for daring to suggest that the city should audit the Project Homestead books and see just where the $17 million of city tax payer money was going. The Simkins PAC operatives simply have to say bend over and old Robbie….well, you get the idea. The Hammer brothers have nothing but praise for Robbie Perkins and they are quick to point out that he had nothing to do with the current state of affairs in Greensboro. I like the Hammers generally, but at times they are simply beyond me with their weird reasoning. As if what is happening now in Greensboro just happened two years ago and does not have its roots in years of bad government that has just come to a head by finally going too far and revolting the public.
Zack Matheny is another bought and pay for political operator. We can however be greatful for one thing: this young man has his eye set on bigger and better things than little ole Greensboro/Guilford and will be moving on to state and federal politics if I am any judge of character. He certainly has the looks and personality for higher politics. And from what I have been able to deduce from his actions with the Planning Commission and Development Companies he also has the correct stance required: his lips are at the right level for kissing the big boys.
Our problem will be to keep a lid on these two men’s hopes and dreams for the next two years. But that shouldn’t be a problem because there are many of us who are not going away, and who will demand change and change for the better in our home town. BB
• Nov. 8, 2007 – Mayor Johnson Looks to the Future But Had Better Look to the Past.
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• Nov. 8, 2007 – Mayor Johnson Looks to the Future But Had Better Look to the Past.
Just for the Hey of it, has anyone ever taken note of how many “non-profits” who have had their fingers in the city and county pockets are Black operated? And just how many of these “non-profit” operators are members of the Simkins PAC and/or the Black Pulpit forum? Look into it and I promise you won’t be surprised if you have been at all aware of what has been happening during the past decades. Well, things have changed!
Yvonne Johnson won because there was no one running against her. The 14,000+ votes that Milton (I’m not really running) Kern got were really votes against Yvonne Johnson. She doesn’t seem to know this yet, but she will get the message. I’m sure the Simkins PAC and Pulpit Forum who are not at all stupid people have seen the hand writing on the wall. So look for the criminals to try to grab as much as they can get their hands on of city, county and state funds before the curtain falls on a sad day for Blacks in politics in Greensboro/Guilford when the scum rose to the top.
I have hopes that a younger group of Black men and women will be coming forward in the future. People who will be more like those who had great moral fiber and started the Simkins PAC in the beginning. Those who perhaps walked with Mr. King and heard his message. It certainly was not to get control and then steal everything in sight that wasn’t nailed down as has been the case for several decades now in Greensboro/Guilford. It is my hope that these young Blacks will understand there is a great deal to do in the Black community and it will not be done by rioting in the streets or writing petitions about “insufferable racism”. It is a time for Black men and women to go into the lower class Black neighborhoods and try to instill some semblance of decency and responsibility into the young Blacks who have grown up in fatherless homes (illegitimacy rate 1965 28% and 2005 78%) and taught that they are victims of White racism with no way out of the ghetto but thru drugs and crime. It is time for Blacks themselves to take a hand in correcting the problems of Blacks at the grassroots. Just as Whites stood with the Blacks and went into the ghettos to teach Blacks to sign their names so they could vote and have their voices heard two generations ago. Just as the Whites and Blacks petitioned their Congressmen and women to write laws guaranteeing the rights of all humans to choose how they want to live and where they want to live. The time of the White activist is over in the ghetto. I would get my lily white buns shot off if I dared to go in as I did 40 years ago. My time and the old guard, the first to stand up and say No to racism is past. The second group to come forward went two ways: the first and largest group made use of what was done and the changes that were made in the laws and the attitudes of the people to better themselves and their families. A smaller group in this second wave chose to follow the Jesse Jacksons, and Al Sharptons and the Julian Bonds and on a smaller scale the Yvonne Johnsons and Skip Alstons and Earl Jones and the rest of their Simkins PAC and Pulpit Forum cohorts into anger and defeatism and victim-hood that these bottom feeders spewed out. Garnering wealth to themselves while the poor Blacks in the ghettos continued a downward path of self destruction.
Yes, Yvonne old girl, it is perhaps time for you to look back at your years of so called “public service” and perhaps actually start doing some public service before you are called upon to stand before God and answer for your contributions to the welfare of your brothers and sisters here on the earthly plain. BB
Zack Matheny is young and from time to time he shows good instincts until his handlers get to him and yank on his chain. He has been bought and paid for and hasn’t yet realized that politics in Greensboro is changing and the old guard is being challenged. If he has hopes for a political future he really should start doing things his way and not as he is told.
Robbie Perkins took an at large seat on name recognition unfortunately. This man is slime personified. He was behind the cover up and costly Project Homestead fiasco. He was behind the blasphemy that is a shopping center at the corner of Old Battleground, Battleground and Horse Pen Road. He was all for the attempt to put a huge drug store in the already traffic jammed Cornwallis and Lawnsdale intersection. He is Mitch Johnson’s cheer leader and takes every opportunity to shout down anyone who questions anything Mitch does. Now he has brought back up the city buying the polluted and over priced Canada Dry property next to the Coliseum. A motion that was approved 7 to 0. He brought this up at the end of the meeting right after the one sane opponent to the purchase, Mike Barber, had left the meeting. (Did I mention slime?)
The one and only thing the last City Council did right was vote not to purchase this property even tho Mitch Johnson has assured the owners that the city would pay their inflated price. Now it is back because of Robbie Perkins and the developers who own him. His idea is to add the property to the Coliseum complex. I might remind you that the Coliseum is costing the tax payers $2 million a year for upkeep. Of which $325,000 of this is given as the salary of Mr. Brown to manage the complex (the highest paid city employee). One would think for this kind of money the city could hire a manager who could at least make the Coliseum pay for itself, if not make a profit.
Oh well here we have a slimy politician pushing the purchase of a polluted over price piece of property to add to a white elephant money hole managed by an incompetent who I am sure couldn’t get a job as dog catcher anywhere but Greensboro.
Dear Lord, but as Joe says we did and do surely have weak leadership in our City Council that allows these things to go down. Now I can’t help but wonder just what is going to happen to Greensboro as a city. Surely no large corporations are going to want to relocate or start up here with the way things are. Companies take a close look at the way cities are run and the nature of the political climate before putting their money on the line I assure you. Our growth and jobs and prosperity will surely suffer. Decent people are getting out of the police force as soon as they can get jobs elsewhere. I know I would be on my way out the door because in that atmosphere lying low just won’t be safe enough. That of course will leave the residents of the city even more at the mercy of criminals.
I know from a couple of my neighbors who are city employees that many in other departments are looking for other jobs, and naturally these are the cream of the crop as the lazy and incompetent have it made with a government job. There seems to be no end to what two slimy little petty people as Mitch Johnson and Linda Miles have been allowed to get away with doing, and only a handful of us even making any noise about it. In fact, even some of whom I consider “good” people are willing to see this injustice prevail and “move on” just to have the outward appearance of peace while the criminals operate under cover and under protection of those who are supposed to be protecting us.
I guess I am now at the point of being with David Wray and his command staff in hoping and wanting to believe that “saner heads will prevail”. But so far there are no saner heads in Greensboro so I can’t see any hope except for the Feds coming in and cleaning out the mess. Will this possibly happen in time? BB