RECENT POSTSI do not believe there has been any attempt to cover up or keep the public from knowing the truth about the police scandal of 2005 or any other situation within the city. The police issue is and has been a very complicated situation that has required responsible actions by all involved. Having been a Greensboro Police Officer, I know first hand some of the harmful behaviors that can happen in a police department. I do, however, feel that our police department is doing a good job for the citizens and is now being appropriately run by Chief Bellamy and his staff.
It is totally unfair for council members who have only been on the council for 2 months to decide that the manager's job performance is unacceptable especially since they came in with preconceived attitudes. And if all you are looking for are mistakes, you will find them or create them. When someone does not want to learn and listen, you will go off on the least little thing which is part of what has been going on with this current council. It is also a sad commentary for imperfect people to require total perfection from others.
If we think about it for a moment, some of the situations the current management for the city is dealing with were brewing during past administrations. At least this administration has taken the leadership to deal with issues that were not of their doing. And there is an attitude that exists with most people that change is good as long as they don't have to change. In order for the city of
I believe this manager and his entire staff have made every effort to do the will of council which sometimes has shifted faster than a flag's directions in a wind storm. They have tried to be responsive to request even if it meant working late nights, weekends and through personal tragedies. Some of the time and money has not been used for the best purposes in the budget times we are in just to meet the demands of council members who take the position that staff is trying to hide something. The ongoing situations that the police scandal has caused are now going into the third year with no reasonable end in sight with all of the legal pieces to still be dealt with. We must be careful not to let the total operation of the city suffer because of a heavy preoccupation with this one issue because of malicious and erroneous accounts in some media outlets.
If we are to get through this with reasonable and fair outcomes, we must not kill the messenger. As we know, armchair quarterbacking is a no risk sport. Many people do not know the depth that; Mitch Johnson and his staff and the former council went to, to resolve this very unpleasant chapter in city history. There will be no quick fix for this problem and changing leadership at this critical point is not the answer.
Mitchell Johnson is a bright, creative, can do young man. He may not have been completely ready for the kind of challenge he has had to deal with for the past 2 years, but he has tried to make the best of a bad situation for us all. And in fairness to him, I do not think any city manager would have dealt any better with the issues the city is facing. The council's job is not to run or micro manage the city. We set policy. And we have an entire city to be responsive to not just one issue that is consuming a tremendous amount of all kinds of resources.
There obviously is no quick fix to the issues facing the city and I believe we should step back, stop being inflamed by extreme allegations in some of the entities calling themselves newspapers or media and let our professional staff do their jobs. I think the new council members need to show some respect and give themselves time to learn what city government is about and be apart of a total team instead of running rough shot over people because of campaign promises just for the sake of saying I did something.
The city can not work efficiently if it is micro managed by some council members and the media. As for our city manager and administrative staff - Never judge a man until you have walked in his shoes. Even a former mayor said we need to get off of this stage of pettiness and get on about the business of running good city government for the good of ALL of its citizens.