I’m still concerned.
Let’s go back to John Hammer’s analysis of the Greensboro City Council’s weekend retreat. The way Hammer describes it, the retreat was a total joke, right down to the 2k + expenses for a facilitator whose idea of facilitating was to let the most uncivil Dianne Bellamy-Small speak whenever she wanted for as long as she wanted.
A council elected on a conservative platform needs to cut this stuff out. Something else bothered at the end of Tuesday night’s meeting that makes me worry nothing’s gonna change with this council. City housing director Andy Scott asked to sign off on an application for fed stimulus money for various project, including —you guessed it —– the proposed hotel on the corner of S. Elm and Lee streets.
Look, I understand this is a newly elected council, I understand this is free money, and I understand this is just an application. And council members made sure that applying for the money wouldn’t tie the city to any one project. But I would have loved it if just one council member spoke up and said hell no, we don’t want stimulus money, period.
But instead the council approved the application with a 9-0 vote — what I call a ‘city council special.’
Right after that vote, City Manager Rashad Young presented the council with an item to cancel all bids for the city’s new transit maintenance facility because none of the contractors met state and fed standards when their bids. So the process starts over again, and so much for the desperately-needed jobs this project would have created. When you take fed money, you play by fed rules.
Funny thing was that council member Zack Matheny asked Young to make an effort to get the city “out of these messes.” How ironic that Matheny after he helped make a mess that won’t be cleaned up for some time — if ever.
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2009 At 6:23 pm, kachina Said:
The short answer, Sam, is that there is none. Bil Knight is going to have a very long two years as Mayor. Any hope he had for meaningful change is probably gone. Greensboro continues to be ruled by the old power groups.
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2009 At 7:09 am, SamH Said:
You are correct, Kachina. The liberal mindset in entrenched in municipal government.
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2009 At 9:33 am, Piedmont Publius » Blog Archive » Professional messer-uppers Said:
[...] again, I’ll go back to Greensboro City Council member Zack Matheny’s request of City Manager Rashad Young to help get the city out of the type of “messes” in which [...]
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2009 At 7:27 am, Piedmont Publius » Blog Archive » Fed-stimulated hotel moves on to GSO council Said:
[...] the matter at its Jan.5 meeting. It should be interesting. I give some council members credit for at least acknowledging that this is a controversial project before pencil-whipping the application for fed [...]
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2010 At 4:41 pm, Piedmont Publius » Blog Archive » Officially wards of the federal government Said:
[...] Greensboro’s mayor going to Washington to solicit federal funds, and why I was always opposed on principle to the downtown hotel deal funded with federal stimulus [...]
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2010 At 11:44 am, Piedmont Publius » Blog Archive » Look that gift horse in the eye Said:
[...] You know how I feel —- I wish the council would say hell no we don’t want no fed stimulus [...]