Greensboro City Manager Mitchell Johnson gets Double Secret Super Probation.*
Meanwhile the Wray-Johnson affair appears to be taking its toll on two prominent local bloggers.
But I’m not down with Hoggard’s cryptic statement:
But none of that matters now. Mitchell Johnson has become just so much cannon fodder in Greensboro’s continuing war against itself. Maybe if he were gone, and with no one left standing to blame, we would be forced to take a long look into our communal mirror and recognize the deep-seated distrust we harbor for each other, but always try to either exploit or hide.”
Yesterday, I asked myself what I thought would happen if Mitchell Johnson were removed from office and I told myself I didn’t know. I personally think it would be a positive sign for the council to exercise political will to get rid of Johnson, because it’s all about politics, no matter how many people want to believe they can keep politics out of city government. People worry that the City Council will turn into the Guilford County commissioners. So what? The discussion and debate at commissioners’ meetings are ten times as lively and straightforward as the council’s. There’s some confusion from time to time, but they get things done and you know where they stand.
Even if Johnson goes, I don’t think it becomes all about us. We’re OK. We do trust each other. We work, we earn money, we hang out and drink beer, we pay Mitchell Johnson’s salary. He serves at the pleasure of the City Council, who represent us, so in turn Johnson serves at our pleasure. He placed the chief of police on administrative leave on the basis of a paid consultant’s report that still has not been released to the public. Some of the information he has released before the public and the City Council only served to harass key figures in the Wray case. He helped perpetuate the myth of the “black book,” when it is becoming increasingly questionable whether or not a black book even exists. Johnson and the city are the one who need to look in the mirror, not us.
We’re still OK. Change certainly wouldn’t hurt, in my view. As a citizen of Greensboro, I’m willing to take the risk. And yes, the garbage will still be picked up on time. Even better, my recycling will still picked up once a week.
