Not exactly music to their ears

Check out the reaction from readers to the news that the Greensboro Symphony is getting $50,000 in federal stimulus money. Not a lot of sympathy for symphony there.

I did think the guy who was boasting about the two jobs saved here in Greensboro was serious until I read the punchline where Obama throws money from the Goodyear blimp.

Converge Right 2009

We hatched a conspiracy to storm the aggregator at 11:00 tonight, but some of the guys went ahead and posted.

Let me just say that communicating with real human beings instead of Web “personalities” is always best, no matter the political persuasion. I’ll assure anyone concerned that there was absolutely no groupthink going on. The wide variety of backgrounds and experiences didn’t allow it.

A fine example of nowhere

Locker Room’s Joe Coletti takes note of the NYT story reporting that fed transportation dollars are basically going nowhere.

Well, not nowhere:

Commuters in High Point and visitors to the city for the furniture market will have another option for ground transportation when a new park-and-ride lot opens in northwest High Point.

The board of trustees for the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation on Wednesday agreed to develop a new lot at N. Main Street and Old Plank Road near the interchange at U.S. 311.

The city of High Point granted PART $500,000 in federal stimulus funding to develop the lot on property owned by the N.C. Department of Transportation.

Mmmm….half a million for a park and ride lot? In High Point? OK, nowhere.

Northwest coach disciplined…for what?

OK, we know for what– Manny Bloom didn’t come clean with his Guilford County Schools superiors about his questionable activities while he was coaching down in Florida.

But I find it incredible that details of the discipline are unclear, including —- as the N&R reports —whether or not Bloom is still Northwest’s basketball coach.

GCS conveniently hides behind state personnel laws, but –in my mind —- this is yet another reason they get a ‘D’ in transparency. Makes you wonder what they will—or won’t —-tell us when they rap up their recruiting investigation.

Joines’ inherent conflict of interest

Interesting Winston-Salem Journal editorial on the 11-member review committee to oversee construction of the taxpayer-financed downtown stadium.

For starters, the Journal sees a rosy future for downtown W-S, once the stadium is built:

the completed downtown ballpark with its newly minted team, the Winston-Salem Dash, in place will enliven not only the western edge of the business district, but all of downtown, and serve — once the economy heats back up — to ignite a new wave of economic development. We can hear the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd drifting from the park and across town on warm summer nights.

Then the Journal —-rightly —- suggests that someone other than Mayor Allen Joines should oversee committee applications. Their reasoning is interesting — that Joines, as president of the Winston-Salem Alliance, has an inherent conflict of interest, considering the fact that the Millenium Fund contributed $1.3 million to the project.

But they continue:

We believe Mayor Joines to be a loyal and dedicated public servant who cares deeply about Winston-Salem. And we believe him to be a man of integrity. But the perception that his role as a paid economic development advocate is in conflict with his service as an elected representative of the city and guardian of its finances is in the air.

Sounds to me like Joines’ role as head of the Alliance should disqualify him from serving as mayor,period. Which is why change is desperately needed in Winston-Salem and hopefully someone will step up and challenge Joines in the upcoming mayor’s race.

We don’t have that problem here in Greensboro. Imagine if Mayor Yvonne Johnson were also president of the Community Foundation. No conflict there — just private plane rides with Walker Sanders in search of fed stimulus money.