Brenda Bowers commends Mike Barber. Thank you Sir.
Posted in Greensboro City Council
Apr. 2, 2008 at 11:30
by BrendaBee
I was quite hard on Mr. Barber in my previous post and though I will not apologize for anything I wrote I must commend him for his actions on behalf of all the residents of Greensboro in the open meeting of the Greensboro City Council Tuesday evening April 1, 2008. He along with Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw were the only three voices on the City Council speaking for reasonableness, common sense and true leadership. These three did not ask that the White Street Landfill be reopened! I ask for it in my message to Mr. Barber, but he and the others showed themselves to be worthy of the trust and confidence of the people of Greensboro by merely asking that the issue of what to do with our solid waste be revisited in an effort to see if there is not a better and less costly solution to the problem a previous council faced and made a disastrous decision.The others on the City Council showed themselves to be the closed minded, uncaring for the burden of increased taxes on the residents, indifferent to the many more important needs in our city like better police protection and thinking merely of their own or their groups best interest over the entire city.
As could be expected Mayor Johnson, Dr. Goldie Wells and Diane Bellamy-Small were adamant that the decision was made and they were against going back and reconsidering this situation for any reason. Again the accusation of “environmental racism” was made along with the erroneous statement that the area of the White Street Landfill was a “poor Black area” before the landfill was put in. This is an outright lie! The area was chosen because it was on the very outskirts of the city and there were no homes near it. Maps of the city in 1940 show this. The N&R even admits to this fact. And still Diane Bellamy-Small made the statement and Dr. Goldie Wells nodded her head several times in agreement. I could almost hear her saying “Amen”.
Robbie Perkins, being the liar and manipulator that he has always been from my study of his record, defended the actions of the City Council in 2001 of which he was a member, and when not actually stating erroneous “facts” then he twisted the record to make it appear that the decision was made after a great deal of study by the City Council. The facts are that the City Council ordered studies to be made and the city staff to make recommendations and then without so much as a discussion of alternatives voted to close White Street Landfill and they chose the most costly and just plain stupid alternative. The studies that were ordered recommended against closing the landfill. The studies also gave alternatives, and the City staff members who did study the problem also recommended not closing the White Street Landfill. They instead recommended proceeding to study alternatives as new technology for dealing with solid waste was forthcoming. They felt sure that from these alternatives a way to solve the problem of the household waste odor would be found that would benefit all of Greensboro residents.
As stated, Robbie Perkins who was on the City Council in 2001 misstated and twisted these facts. (Mr. Barber tried to correct these misstatements with factual information as best he could as a gentleman while he was being rudely interrupted by Perkins). We should remember that Perkins first interest is development and laying down as much blacktop and concrete as possible. Billy Jones who lives in the area told us that the developers are already in the area preparing to build more homes and it is obvious where Perkins loyalties lie. He also made the same demand he always makes to “get over things and move on“. By “things” he means any problems that are still with us due to bad decisions or actions taken in the past since any time one of these problems is brought up he says the same thing. “Let‘s move on!” I sincerely hope at the next election the people of Greensboro will see that he moves on.
As for the statement by Billy Jones that the developers were already in the area, well our dear Mayor Johnson confirmed this inadvertently by stressing several times how the need for housing in Greensboro was imperative. Of course at this time there certainly is no need for housing and in fact houses now on the market can not sell, many are in foreclosure and there is a glut of rental units, condos and townhouses in the Greensboro area.
A person ( I didn’t get her name) who had worked on the original city staff studies came to the podium to clarify what some of the actions taken by the staff. She admitted that she had voted against closure of the White Street Landfill when pressed. She did however try to present facts without being judgmental, to her credit.
I am not sure why Ms. Anderson-Groat voted against putting off the vote. I know I was disappointed with her. And I somehow got the impression she was disappointed with herself as she seemed to be apologizing to the people whose taxes will most certainly have to take a big jump this year to pay this extra $20 million dollars that the hauling of our trash out of the county is going to cost. We can make this determination by the 10 months we have already been doing it. (Of course, if its left to Mitch Johnson to provide these figures the difference will only be “no more than $3 million”!)
And again my own representative on the City Council, Zack Matheny showed himself to be unaware of the facts, but not willing to hear them since he had already been instructed by his handlers (the developers) to vote against doing anything that would hinder their having this land to build on. I know some refer to his youth and blame that on his lack, but let us face it, some people are just plain ill equipped to think for themselves or to allow their minds to be infiltrated with a thought beyond what they have already been told for fear of becoming confused.
Mr. Barber, Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw did all they possibly could to convince the Council just to put off a vote and just study the issue. Just until the next council work session a mere three weeks. Then with the facts and figures at hand they can make a decision. There was 3 votes for that motion and 6 against.
Goldie Wells was finally persuaded to change her motion to read something like: “We will not reopen the White Street Landfill, but we will study some alternatives.” This was totally silly as a viable option had been taken out of the equation. And an alternative would require the reopening of the landfill in order to do something else with it! This motion passed 6 to 3. Mike, Trudy and Mary voted No since they were required to vote and would not be sucked into this ruse.
Again, I sincerely thank you Mr. Barber for your well thought out and vehement struggle to bring some sanity to an ill conceived action of a previous council, and the disregard the rest of the City Council shows in a willingness to heap a greater and greater burden on the tax papers.
Sincerely, Brenda Bowers
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Apr. 3, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Bubba"I know some refer to his youth and blame that on his lack, but let us face it, some people are just plain ill equipped to think for themselves or to allow their minds to be infiltrated with a thought beyond what they have already been told for fear of becoming confused. "
Ah, but "all that money" just fell out of the sky, into his campaign account last year.
That was his obvious qualification for being elected over Joe Wilson, right?
Posted by Bubba
