In a sidebar to today’s black book story, the N&R reports that the Greensboro City Council “ended its meeting early Wednesday without discussing the future of Linda Miles , the retired city attorney who has a contract to work on a contractual basis until June.”

Yet today’s Rhino (unposted) reports:

Perhaps the biggest council accomplishment of the day took place out of sight of the public, and that was the resolution of the situation involving former and acting City Attorney Linda Miles.

…..It’s usually not the motion maker who backs out, but in this case (council member Zack) Matheny got jerked back his handlers and decided to go a different route. The result is that without any vote by the council, Miles’contract was reduced from six months to two months after negotiations between Matheny and Mitch Johnson took place before the meeting.

Very interesting. Even more interesting is that John Hammer missed the black book story, considering the fact that the council viewed the book in closed session during Tuesday night’s meeting. I guess we have to give the two members of the council (my guess is Mike Barber is one of them) who engaged in a “professional and cordial” discussion with Deputy Attorney General Jim Coman in order to get a look at the key piece of evidence. But you have to wonder what they gleaned from photographs with no text or information. Some wonder what kind of case the SBI can build on just a photo lineup.

And you definitely wonder what role Johnson and Miles played in this.