The Guilford County/XMG story is all over the place. XMG releases documents relating to their work on the botched Web site, while Chairman Skip Alston continues to deflect attention from his relationship with CEO Calvin Williams by advancing the Billy Yow cow story.
Meanwhile, the N&R’s reporting is getting hammered in local blogosphere. Now I learn that Roch Smith was the passionate caller I heard taking Rush Radio morning host Dmitri to task for saying that Alston “threw some business to his buddy.”
Note comments from county animal shelter director Marsha Williams regarding Yow’s care for stray cows:
“He has been so generous,” Williams said. “We really don’t have a place to keep these animals – sometimes we ship them to the county prison farm or we ask private individuals if they’re willing to keep them until we can locate an owner.”
Williams said Yow has answered that call repeatedly over the years, sometimes in early in the morning or in the middle of the night. He’s come from job sites in the middle of his work day to keep animals from sitting on trailers until they could be transported, Williams said.
“And he’s never asked us for anything, never even asked to be reimbursed for food he feeds them,” Williams said.
Yow and Williams both said the cow incident to which Alston is referring was actually several years ago. Yow helped the county round up three stray cows that were malnourished and kept them at his farm at no charge.
“That was back when the price of hay was so high, and we had people turning animals loose,” Williams said.
Remember Greensboro is hosting the U.S. Figure Skating Championships this week. I’m not all fired up about it, and I question the economic impact local leaders say it will have on the area. I’ve also never been real concerned about our “image” to outsiders, because I think local leaders are too concerned with it.
But today’s letter to the editor from Thomasville’s Scott Nelson has a point:
Just as Greensboro is approaching the national spotlight with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, we have one commissioner accusing another of improprieties with a cow. I would imagine our visitors are quite amused with this. Thank goodness the story went into detail. It’s like a bad episode of “Hee Haw.” Good timing, fellers!
As I said earlier, the wheels seem to be coming off as the county faces its most crucial budget year. Bad timing, on so many levels.
