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.