May. 20, 2008 at 06:23
by BrendaBee
JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS
The following is a Quote taken from blog “Greensborpolitics.com” by Ryan Shell
Topic: Zack Matheny District 3 City Council representative Community meeting:
"A question from a resident that drew applause was “What does a city manager have to do to be considered incompetent?” Matheny answered by saying, “To lie. I need to have proof that the manager has lied.”
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I don’t shock that easily having been around a number of years and heard disingenuous statements galore from politicians, but this one surely has to get a gold medal for ……well, something. My first question to Mr. Matheny (my representative on City Council) was an appalled and shouted, “Where in Hell have you been all these months?”
Of course no answers are going to be forth coming from Mr. Matheny because he isn’t speaking to me, or at least not answering my e-mails so I can only assume I have ticked him off so badly that he is now refusing to acknowledge that I am in his district and he has some sort of an obligation to me. However, being as I am a slow learner perhaps a few instances where Mitch Johnson has lied to this particular Council, and not the lies he has been telling all along in case Mr. Matheny had been visiting planet Zenia before taking his seat on this Council.
1) The Black Book. Remember Mr. Matheny that when it was shown to you in closed meeting you said, “It made me feel kinda dirty.”? The note book with pictures of 100+ Black men including 19 Black Police Officers shown to you is called a Photo Array Book. A photo array is used for the purposes of having a crime victim identify his/her victimizer. In this case a prostitute claimed a Black Police Officer sexually assaulted her. The 19 Black Police Officer’s whose pictures were in the book were those who were on duty at the time the alleged crime took place. Now ALWAYS included in an array book is an explanation of why the array book was put together including all circumstances known concerning the allegation and information on the victim and of course a list of and pictures and information concerning the suspects. This information is as I said always included in the array and is usually place in a secured folder in the front or back of the array book. Without this information the array means nothing and is useless.
Mitch lied and/or is incompetent because he showed you just the pictures with no explanatory materials which MUST be included when the Array Book is shown or used. Mitch lied because he wanted you to come to your own conclusions that this was evidence of discrimination.
Question: There are now 60+ Black Greensboro Police Office suing the city for discrimination so why were there only 19 pictured in this book? Why these 19 who must happened to be working the same shift the same day as a Black Police Officer was reported to have assaulted a prostitute?
Mitch is incompetent to manage a police department and have control over professional well educated police officers if he claims he was not aware of the explanatory materials that MUST accompany every array book.
2) Mitch Johnson advised the current City Council to negotiate with the 60+ Black Police Officers claiming discrimination.
Fact: The EEOC does not investigate cases of discrimination. They merely review material sent to them by those claiming discrimination and advise whether a suit might be possible in a court of law based solely on the information they were given.
Fact: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after a one year investigation did not find any evidence of discrimination. (Since David Wray was forced to resign and all investigations have been concluded he has been given a very high security clearance position with the Federal Government.)
Fact: The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) after over a year and a half investigation found no evidence of discrimination. They indicted two lower level police officers. One for hacking into a so-called “privately owned” computer. The other for telling a police officer from another city to not inform a GPD officer of any information gathered in a certain case as he was untrustworthy. This officer has been found to be suspected of lying and put under internal investigation several times. Most recently he claimed the GPD destroyed 50 boxes of documents pertaining to the 1979 incident between the Communist Party, the Klan and the Nazis costing the city months and a great deal of money to investigate the matter. Chief Bellamy after all these months of investigation revealed there were only 5 to 10 boxes of newspaper clippings destroyed which was perfectly legal and could have been done as early as 1999.
Question: Was the GPD officer not acting reasonably to warn an officer from another city that this particular officer might not be trustworthy in the serious federal/local investigation taking place when the investigators were aware of there being a “leak” in the department?
Question: Why has the City Manager Mitchell Johnson advised the City Council to negotiate with Black Police Officers and planning to pay them damages when the FBI and the SBI found no evidence of discrimination against these or any other officers?
Note of Advice: If you want to see documentation of this or any other instance where Mitchell Johnson has lied to the public and City Council please see Ben Holder as I am sure he would talk to you and show you the documentation he has. Or, go to Ben Holder’s blog site
http://thetroublemaker.blogspot.com
and by checking his archives see all the documentation and information there. But what ever you do don't bother asking Mitch Johnson to provide the documentation for you. The city is now being sued for information three bloggers requested months ago and finally had to resort to suing for it. This even after Council Member Mike Barber gave specific instructions that the material be given as required by state law to those who requested the documentation.
Sincerely, Brenda Bowers
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May. 17, 2008 at 13:08
by BrendaBee
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
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May. 16, 2008 at 10:30
by BrendaBee
I suggested over a year ago on this site that a sure sign of inadequate policing is to have the police chief answerable to anyone but the people. In Greensboro our Police Chief is answerable to the City Manager, and is in truth the employee of the City Manager. ( ALL city employees are the employees of the City Manager. The City Council only employs the City Manager.) With this situation the police chief who is we hope someone who is trained in police procedures and crime investigation and prevention must report to and justify his actions to someone who doesn't have this training. Police work requires a great deal of specialized training and if a person doesn't have this training they should never be given the power to direct police procedures because if bad decisions are made the safety of the people is at stake.
Some say this is no problem, but I disagree. The police department isn't like any other department within the city government. In fact, police departments and fire departments are set up as quasi-military organizations for a very good reason. These departments require that members follow a chain of command immediately and without question much like the military. There is no time in an emergency situation to explain orders to underlings or to discuss the situation and take a consensus of all opinions before making a decision. If there are questions about an action there will be a time and a procedure for reviewing the action after the emergency is handled.
Because of the City Manager type of government we in Greensboro have ( one of only two in the entire state), an inept City Manager has single handedly destroyed what was once a top notch police department. We know now that he did this with lies and distortions. We haven't yet heard the truth for his doing what he did.
In order to avoid the kind of disaster we have been experiencing within the police department for the past two years my solution would be to make the police chief an elective office. So I read with interest the articled in this week's The Rhino where Sheriff Barnes (Guilford County,NC) was interviewed by John Hammer and compared his situation with that of the Greensboro Chief of Police. In effect Barnes stated that it was an impossible situation. He said they haven't the problems in their organization the GPD has because he answers to the people every 4 years and everyone in the organization answers to him. He has full authority given to him by the people to hire, fire and take any action in between. There is none of the going to the press by police officers as Hinson got away with or unions pressuring the sheriff to change policies he feels are best for the county. And neither does the sheriff's office have 12 deputies on paid administrative leave with pay while investigations take months and months to conclude such as the three police officers assaulting one other female police officer. This incident took place in December and just this week we heard the first decision when the DA said he did not have enough evidence to take the case to court. Now it is back in the hands of the police department internal investigations to determine what to do with these officers. Police Chief Bellamy said he should have a decision within a month. Six months to resolve this issue! Sheriff Barnes said it would have taken less than a week for this case to become past history in the Sheriff's Office because the decision would have been his to make after reviewing all the evidence. And it certainly should have been this way in the Greensboro Police Department.
One other point Barnes made: other than when an officer is involved in a shooting which the law requires that he be place on desk duty or leave while the case is being investigated, Sheriff Barnes said he has never had a deputy on administrative leave with or without pay. Greensboro currently has 12 officers on administrative leave and most with pay. The problem here as Sheriff Barnes sees it is that Police Chief Bellamy has no authority to fire as this is the decision of the City Manager. And for some reason Greensboro's current City Manager is protecting Black Officers.
The real irony here is that the Black officers now on administrative leave for some infraction of the rules or breaking of a law are also among those 60 + Black officers suing the city for discrimination. So these Black Officers are not only on paid vacation and being protected from any consequences for wrong doing but the City Council is now negotiating to pay them for alleged discrimination which neither the FBI nor the SBI could find any trace.
Our City Council needs to very seriously consider this option of making the Police Chief an elective office. It would be the best thing for the protection of the people since decisions can be made without all the fuss and thus more police time can be saved from these investigations to actually doing police work. Barring having the Police Chief elected by the people like the tax assessor and others the City Council should place the Police Chief directly under their control and answerable only to them. BB
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May. 16, 2008 at 07:20
by BrendaBee
Greensboro's City Council voted 5 to 4 to place the City Attorney directly under their jurisdiction. We need to commend Trudy Wade for making the motion to do this and Council members Zack Matheny, Mike Barber, Sandra Anderson-Groat and Mary Rakestraw for joining Ms. Wade to make this much needed improvement to the efficiency of City government happen.
In my opinion all of the heads of departments should be directly under the authority of the City Council with the City Manager acting in the capacity of a foreman. When this City Manager/City Council form of government was set up in Greensboro a great injustice was done the people. It put too much, in fact all the power in the hands of one person. Even the elected officials have come to realize how llittle influence they have under this system altho the the impression is given that the elected City council is really in charge because the City Manager reports to the City council for their vote.
All the information the City Council requests however must be gotten from the City Manager. A situation that allows the City Manager to filter the information then given the City Council to his own desired outcome. This is wrong. The people elected the City Council members to govern the city and this is how it should be.
Mike Barber pointed out that only one other city in North Carolina operates under this system that puts so much power in the hands of one person. A person who is not even elected by the people. He went on to point out that the state legislature by statute allows city councils to directly control up to 8 employees and the budget director is one of these eight. I have previously blogged on this issue and it is my opinion that all heads of departments should be directly under the direction of the City Council with the role of the city Manager being that of a foreman to see that the Council's wishes are carried out.
Zack Matheny pointed out The Institute of Government at UNC/Chapel Hill informed him when he contacted them for advice that their research shows "that city managers have a tendency to filter the reports of city attorneys". And as we have seen the filtering applies to everything else with disastrous results. The current City Manager Mitchell Johnson has lied and manipulated information to single handedly take down a police chief and his entire command staff minus one and all but destroy the GPD. If the Police Chief had been under the direct control of the City Council the City Manger would have had to bring his complains before these 9 people thus giving David Wray and the other officers a forum to state their side of the story. Then the City Council would have made the decision to retain or force Wray to resign. Since this didn't happen the tax payers are going to be paying thru the nose for years for the blunders made by this one man and the City Council that followed him blindly.
The City Council is directly responsible for deciding on the City Budget so it only makes sense that the Budget Director be under their direct control. The system of having the City Manager pass on the recommendations of the Budget Director with only the facts he sees fit is ludicrous at best.
It is clear to me that when this type of government was set up it was done with the clear purpose of putting the power in the hands of a few power brokers in the city. And by some of the things that have been done in Greensboro not only in the recent past with the current City Manager, but further back many decisions made were to benefit a few to the detriment and costs of the people. It is high time this system be overhauled to reflect American values.
One other thing that greatly upsets me is the Protest Petition having been taken from the people of Greensboro when every other city in NC has it. This is the right of the people concerned to petition the City Council when they feel strongly about a zoning issue. And when this is done and has the signatures of a majority of the people in the affected area then any zoning changes must have a super majority vote from the City Council rather than a simple majority.
This was another shady shenanigan obviously pulled off by power brokers and I think the seriously flawed way some of the city has been developed is proof that more control needs to be placed in the people's hands where zoning is concerned. The City Council will still make the ultimate decisions concerning zoning as they should, but when the people see a problem serious enough to petition then the need for a super majority vote of City Council should not be difficult to obtain if the decision is a good one.
The way things are now there is a definite bias in the voting. I will be blogging on one such instance of this bias in zoning after this last decision the City council made not to allow an apartment building built adjacent to a residential area after the residents complained and comparing it to another decision the Council made. BB
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May. 1, 2008 at 07:20
by BrendaBee
Zack Matheny has come up short again with his idea to move all speakers from the floor to the end of the meeting unless they are speaking on "city business". There is nothing I would like better than to go after Matheny again just because he is soooo obtuse and easy. Unfortunately I am in agreement with the D-Jerk on this issue.
I watch all the televised meetings and since I don't want to stay up until the wee hours either I would rather the speakers only address city issues at the first 30 minute forum. The only thing I would fault him on is that to my mind it is a superfluous motion because I have only heard maybe a half dozen people speak on other than city business in my four years of watching these meetings. ( The "monkey whale" thing was in it's way about city business if you want to stretch things a bit as it was advertising a city event. And it was soooooo funny!)
I guess since it is really a non-issue and so typical of Zack "One beer short of a six pack" Matheny's abilities that one could write a hilarious put down, but I think I want to save my little "digs" for something more important. And I am sure there will be much that is more important since his voting record is sure to be anything but sane and considerate of the residents of Greensboro.
In my April 2 blog post I went member by member and hit them on the White Street Landfill vote. Then being so angry I e-mailed ZM the portion about him. ( 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.)
He fired an irate e-mail back at me telling me how he had done "considerable research on the issue before the meeting". LOL So I mailed off another missile all but calling him a liar and pointing out a few more of his asininities from previous meetings verbatim. After listing these quotes I ask him if he would claim to have done considerable research on these issues also. And if so then he really did need to work on his study skills. I suggested the American Heritage Dictionary and Britannica Junior as probably within his capabilities.
Bless his heart, it is so comforting to know just how well we in District 3 are being represented on Greensboro City Council. BB
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Apr. 17, 2008 at 16:32
by BrendaBee
Before reading this blog allow me to apologize for a mistake that I have since corrected. I referred to Peterson-Buie as Anderson-Buie. That comes from doing a blog at 3 am then reading it over at 4:30 pm and being embarrassed. BB
Greensboro City Council Meeting April 15th.
If you haven’t found it yet you might want to check out the City of Greensboro’s website. A lot of good information there. Of particular interest is the media page.
http://greensboro.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2
where you will find the videos along with the written minutes of the meeting. I have come to hate the actual city council meetings as being boring affairs so it is nice to have the videos where I can fast forward past the unimportant stuff and get right to what I am, interested in. (This is especially the case when the council meets and then adjourns to one of the famous closed sessions.)
This week’s meeting had one interesting spots in its nonsense that I thought you might want to hear about. So here is a blow by blow. The red are points the council members made that I just wanted to point out. That's me in the purple.
Bomb: Mary Rakestraw made a motion that Mitch Johnson be relieved of his position. She stated that the residents of the city still had little or no confidence in the city manager and neither did she.
Along comes dear Goldie Wells popping up to indignantly deny that the topic had been discussed and she felt that the motion should not be recognized. ( Note: the council had come in at 4:00 pm specifically to discuss the topic) Then she went into her finger waving and admonishing with the long, long nails that she obviously is most proud of since she shows them off at every opportunity. She shook her finger and stated vehemently that she was “tired of people just coming in with motions that the council had not previously discussed and agreed on". She couldn’t possibly have said any plainer that she wants to conduct the city’s business behind closed doors and that the people have no right to hear any of these discussions. The council members were elected to take care of things without the input or interference of any peons !
Mike Barber addressed the issue and stated that he would vote in accordance with his comment in closed session. He made an excellent point when he went on to say he felt Greensboro was poised to grow significantly in the next decade and he feels strongly that the city needs someone who has led a city thru a period of rapid growth. (In other words, I want to ditch Mitch too!) He also called for closure so that the council and the city can moved forward.
City Management is a professional degree program and it is time for Greensboro to get away from the good old boy promoting from within and hire a professional city manager. this would also eliminate the political maneuvering that is the way things are done now. The Superintendent of Schools is hired from outside and is a profession trained specifically to do the job he is hired for. I don't believe I have noticed the Superintendent catering to any special interest groups as does the City Manager.
Bellamy-Small called the motion an “ambush” and like Wells wanted no motions or discussions of the city manager unless it was discussed in closed session first. Then she made a substitute motion that the council not consider the motion. Goldie Wells self-righteously and smugly seconded the motion. It is so much fun to watch these people!
The Mayor got the City Attorney’s advice on the allow ability of a substitute motion which Peterson-Buie stated was allowable. Strange than that when Trudy Wade spoke next and made a second substitute motion Peterson-Buie was poised to deny it’s legality but Trudy was having none of that nonsense and made it clear, then went on with her motion.
Trudy Wades second substitute motion was that the City Manager be offered another position within the city with that position’s appropriate compensation, and immediately place Bob Morgan the Assistant City Manager in the position of Acting City Manager and start an immediate search for a new Greensboro City manager. The motion failed 6 to 3. The three being Trudy Wade, Mike Barber and Mary Rakestraw.
Bellamy-Small restated her motion. She wanted the motion not to be recognized and that the City Manger not be fired and that the council continue as they have been doing discussing the issue in closed session and no vote be taken until all council member shave been fully briefed and all had their say. “AND that it not be done as it was done here which was an ambush!”
Mayor Yvonne politely asked her if she would consider removing the word "ambush" from her motion, which she did but not willingly.
Mary Rakestraw then asked if every motion that comes before this board must be discussed previously. She pointed out that they had had the discussion in closed session to discuss the City Manager. In fact they had started the meeting at 4:00 pm specifically to discuss Mitch Johnson and this had been planned at the council meeting in March because they ran out of time before getting to it.
Diane and Goldie went on for some time about how indignant they were and how the discussion wasn’t finished and not everyone was heard and so on and so on. Goldie
Dear Robbie Perkin came in with his bit. He had the gall to point out that when he got into the council. In 1993 it was because he felt the city’s business should be handled in a more statesman like manner. He further stated that he is sad to see the City Council of the City of Greensboro going in this direction and feels it is a sad reflection on how the board does business. He then called on the people of Greensboro to speak up about these showing of poor conduct.
Now I will remind you that Robbie Perkins is the all time sleazy back room operator. He was very instrumental in stopping any audit of Project Homestead books that then cost the tax payers of Greensboro millions of dollars.
Trudy Wade then spoke up and said she feels any council person has a right to make any motion they want. She then went on to say that she felt that no amount of discussion was going to resolve this issue and it would benefit all to just make the motion and vote on it and then accept what ever the vote is and go on with the business at hand.
Goldie and her finger and long, long finger nail got into the act again. She put everyone in their place by telling them they should concentrate on doing their jobs and let the City Manager do his. Now I wonder where I got the weird idea that one job of the City Council was to hire and to fire the City Manager?
Mayor Johnson called for a vote but wasn't sure what they were voting on and neither was I at that point.
Mary came on one last time and pointed out that there were no discussions in the back room there was just people ridiculing anyone who did not agree with them. Then there is no discussion out in front of the community either because any motion made had to be discussed and agreed on in the back room. Watching Wells’ and Bellemy-Small’s behavior in open meeting I can just imagine their abusive behavior behind closed doors. Mary went on to point out that to Robbie Perkin that she too was doing the people’s business according to what she was hearing from her constituents and even staff members and no matter how the vote went whether more back room discussion was approved or whether they moved on to her motion this discussion was indeed going to come up again and again.
Mike Barber and the City Attorney Peterson-Buie got into it over the motion by Bellemy Small to “call the question”. Barber pointed out that the Call the Question (which means end of discussion, shut up and vote) requires a second to the motion and a two thirds majority. Peterson-Buie disagreed and Barber said that the sheet on Parliamentary Procedure given to the council members by the Attorney’s office needed to be corrected then. And at this point the two were talking over each other Peterson-Buie than put Mike Barber and attorney in real life in his place by stating “ …..as the City Attorney it is my understanding that a Call the Question does not need a second and it ends all discussion and you are supposed to vote.” Barber again pointed out that the sheet of instructions needed to be revised and corrected. Peterson-Buie kept going with “If you want me to discuss that with you later I’ll be glad to do so (Barber said “I don’t need to!) but I have given my opinion as to the appropriate actions and there’s been a Call the Question” .
At this point every one got into the fray with the three (you know who I mean) accusing Barber of just causing a diversion.
They did finally vote and Diane’s motion carried 7 to 2 with Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw voting against.
Don’t you just love it?!? Hurray for Mary Rakestraw!
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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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