Cone says the Wray fray is the reason the reason why the long knives are out for Mitchell Johnson over the Willow Oaks business. That’s probably true more so for Troublemaker, whose beat has primarily been cops, than the Rhino, which, we all know, has been digging dirt on the city for quite some time now.
With that in mind, John Hammer makes an interesting point in this week’s print edition:
Another question the council might want to ask is why the city manager, with a budget of over $386 million, is so involved in a $30,000 demolition project. Can’t the city staff be trusted to take care of a shopping center being torn down without the direct intervention of the manager?
Evidently not. At the very least, we have an admitted case of lack of documentation on the city’s part and confusion over the nature of the transaction with United Maintenance Group. Again, the point that’s being understated is the fact that UMG is part of the city’s MWBE program. So the way I see it, fear of a discrimination lawsuit, along with the resultant bad publicity, is what prompted Johnson to bend over backward to please UMG:
“While I certainly would not and did not pay a contractor for work they didn’t do or should have done as base bid, I also wonder what the criticism would be of the City of Greensboro is we were to tell this contractor we are not going to pay you because we are going to interpret the contract to mean anything under the slab no matter how much, how big or if no one knew it was there, unless you can hire a lawyer and sue us.”
So what can be done? Again, my recommendation would be to scrap the talk of a full-time mayor and make city manager an elected position.
