Turns out Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston has more than one conspiracy theory about the county budget. In addition to the Lucky 32 conspiracy, Alston also conjured up the CVB theory at Thursday night’s meeting.
Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau president Henri Fourrier came to the meeting expecting commissioners to rubber-stamp his budget, as they have for the past 20 years.
But Commissioner Kirk Perkins wasn’t impressed with Fourrier’s spreadsheet and made a motion to table the issue until he could get some more numbers. That was enough to get Alston going. He not only had a few choice words for Perkins, but for —-you guessed it —-fellow Commissioner Billy Yow:
Some people on this board don’t understand that this is not taxpayers’ money, as relates to our budget, that is. I don’t know if Mr. Perkins understood that or not…..In situations like this that come before the board, Mr. Perkins or Mr. Yow could have asked for this information. I’m quite sure it’s satisfactory,they probably wouldn’t know what they’re looking at anyway. Billy’s a part of this group that’s going to be passing a budget, and they have their agenda and I don’t know what it is, a lot of us don’t know what it is. What their alternative motive is, I don’t know. Mr. Perkins is a part of this group……I think we’re getting caught up, Henri, in some political play for the budget. Billy, for the first time, is going to vote for a tax increase for at least three cents and he’s reducing it to try to justify that and reduce that as much as possible……That’s why they’re looking for pennies in order to decrease that tax increase that he’s already promised to vote for.”
Perkins won out, though, and the issue was tabled, with Chairman Paul Gibson providing the swing vote, something that only fuels Alston’s conspiracy theories.
Mind you, Greensboro City Councilman Tom Phillips had some questions for Fourrier about the budget, expressing his concern about the CVB’s fund balance getting drained over the course of the year. Fair enough, the CVB is funded through the occupancy tax, but it is tax money nonetheless and has still has to be approved by both the city council and the county commissioners. The way I see it, Fourrier should get used to increased scrutiny (we hope) from those bodies as it gears for the high-profile move to the Canada Dry property. If the city has its way, that is.