BB’s Interpretation of Perkin’s on Importance of the Downtown Greenway

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The following quote is our very own  Robbie Perkins  telling Allen Johnson (N&R  Op-Ed)  just why the tax payers of Greensboro should spend $26 million on a bike and pedestrian path  4.3 miles  long  downtown.    When reading this grandiose “politician speak” please keep in mind that this man is talking about an at most  6 foot wide black top path running across busy streets and thru some neighborhoods controlled by gangs and where people have managed to get in the way of a stray bullet.

“Greensboro needs to dare to be great. The Greenway is an idea will last 100 years and give our community a sense of place. The downtown is the only area where the entire community comes together, and everyone feels that they belong. To unify the downtown and connect it to our close in neighborhoods will create a synergy that will result in significant private investment in our downtown. Developers like cool places and so do the people that purchase or rent from them. One question Allen didn’t ask was how much it will cost Greensboro not to spend the money, to not try to reach beyond traditional bounds, to settle for doing OK. Greensboro has to find ways to get important things done, and the Greenway is one of them.”

“Greensboro needs to dare to be great.”   There are several bike/pedestrian paths throughout Greensboro.  In fact a very nice one runs thru the property of Lake Brandt Apartments where I live.  It starts at the  large cemetery  on Battleground and runs north on Old Battleground thru our historical battleground parks, past my apartment and on to Bur-Mil Park.  As far as I know not one of these “greenways” have added to Greensboro’s “greatness”.  Not once did I hear anyone say or read anywhere in the tourist brochures  that when visiting Greensboro a must see are our “greensways”  No, Mr. Perkins the greensways will not lead Greensboro to greatness.  But schools that are known to turn out students who can read, write and cipher might.  A police department  that is functioning and able to protect the residents and bring the crime rate down so that ours is not comparable to the crime rate of Buffalo New York  might.  And the abundance of trees and beautiful canopy that you and your developer cohorts are destroying as fast as you can  may very well contribute to making Greensboro a city people want to come to and stay.

“The Greenway is an idea will last 100 years and give our community a sense of place. “  A sense of “place”?!  I’m not sure what a “sense of place” is, but  will assume you do.  With that qualifier  this statement might be true because the first time a biker or pedestrian is mugged or shot   while enjoying the  run down buildings and dirty streets the proposed $26 million greenway will pass by I feel confident Greensboro  and the incident will get attention on  national news.  After all we have already  been noticed for our dysfunctional City Hall  and Police Department so this will just add one more dimension to the story.  Is that the “sense of place” you are talking about?

“The downtown is the only area where the entire community comes together, and everyone feels that they belong. ” Well Sir I have lived in Greensboro for 4 years now and managed to avoid downtown except for one time when I needed to see an attorney and her office was downtown.  Downtown is where people who work there or have business at City Hall must go.  Nothing more.  The other reason for going downtown is the  night life which many cities have used to revitalize their down town.  But with any luck at all I and the rest of the  95% of the population who have no business to conduct at City Hall and have long out grown the delights of loud music and drunks  will continue to avoid downtown.

“To unify the downtown and connect it to our close in neighborhoods will create a synergy that will result in significant private investment in our downtown.”   Now that is  a fancy  important sounding word to throw into any comment.  Synergy: “The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.”   You must be a student of  Dale Carnegie’s  “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.  He advised learning a few fancy-smancy key words whose meaning can be broadly interpreted to toss into any comment.  Did you also practice saying the word in front of a mirror until it “rolled naturally” off your lips as old Dale suggested?

“Developers like cool places and so do the people that purchase or rent from them.”    From what I have seen developers like anything they can build upon and make a buck.  They also appear to especially like to develop places when they can get the City Council to chip in some tax payers  dollars that allows them then to develop fancy and expensive homes/condos/ apartments/whatever that the average tax payer can’t afford even after his tax dollars were  used to build the thing.

And when developers  do get tax payer money to build low income housing they like having people like you on the City Council  to sneak behind the scenes  and make sure the city doesn’t interfered by auditing their books and keeping them from ripping off millions for their own entertainment.  You did this quite effectively for the developer of Project Homestead.  In fact so many city/county leaders   benefited from your nefarious activities in that scheme that you have become a favorite among them.  Why even one of our esteemed County Commissioners, Ms. Carolyn Coleman was able to get the property her home is built on for absolutely nothing from the Project Homestead coffers that were tax payer dollars meant to provide homes for the needy low income people of our city.  You Mr.Perkins are a great asset to developers and certain others in Greensboro.  I’m not so sure however that you have ever done anything for the common ordinary people of Greensboro.  If so I haven’t been able to find evidence of it.

“One question Allen didn’t ask was how much it will cost Greensboro not to spend the money, to not try to reach beyond traditional bounds, to settle for doing OK.”   No worry Mr. Perkins with you on the City Council Greensboro most certainly will spend the money!  All $26 million of it.  If not on the Downtown Greenway then on some other equally  frivolous want.  We saw very early in this session of the City Council  how you think when any issues come up that your first action is to just throw money at it.  When Greensboro experienced a group of killings  in a short period and Mayor Yvonne called a special meeting to meet the “crisis”  and brought Chief Bellamy in to tell us all why it happened  he claimed he needed more  money.  You Mr. Perkins spoke right up and  saw to it that the GPD was given $500,000 more than the budget had allowed the department.

You were also adamant that the White Street Landfill not be reopened  and that our trash continue to be hauled to another county at enormous costs to the people.  Or that is,  that 250,000 of us pay for the comfort of 1000 who bought homes near a landfill that was there before the homes.  However since you and your best buddies are developers I am led to believe you didn’t have any thoughts for these 1000 people who had to smell garbage at all, but were looking to your own profit when in the future  the area which was to be an expanded landfill is developed  in ways that best benefit you.  In fact with the equipment seen out there I would say the development has already begun.

And as for “to reach beyond traditional bounds”  perhaps we should try to reach the traditional bounds first before reaching beyond.  Like $26 million would hire a great many police officers and firemen which we desperately need since what we have is woefully inadequate to cover the city.   Or perhaps the tradition bound of repairing the roofs and other areas of public buildings that are deteriorating.  Or improving the streets that are becoming inadequate to  handling the traffic where  your developments are  springing up.  Or perhaps providing some much needed special services like day care centers  in these poor areas the greenway will run thru so as to get welfare mothers  off welfare and into jobs.

“Greensboro has to find ways to get important things done, and the Greenway is one of them.” Mr. Perkins if you think a 6 foot wide path of black top 4.3 miles long is “important”  could you tell me what you find unimportant?  I know you also think that the tax payers spending $3+ million  for the chemically polluted Canada Dry property is important from a recent suggest you made at the last meeting of Council.  I know that expanding the development along Horse Pen Road to match the other obscenities  you and your cohorts have already developed in the too heavily impacted area is important.  I know you feel supporting an inept City Manager who has cost the tax payers millions already with his bungling  is important.   Is there anything at all where spending tax payer money that you feel is unimportant?  BB