This trip by Mecklenburg County leaders to Mexico next month is getting strange.
To recap, WBT’s Keith Larson has been having fun the past few mornings with an odd little item in a CMS newsletter announcing that CMS board chairman Joe White and CMS exec Mo Green are heading to Mexico in March. To what end was not immediately clear.
Then it turned out that the trip was part of the UNC Center for International Understanding’s Latino Initiative. And what’s that? An ongoing effort by the UNC system to ship state and local leaders South of the Border (no, not down I-95) to “experience” Latino culture. I’d say a trip down Central Ave. would be quicker and easier, but OK — whatever.
Here’s the really interesting part. Waaay back in March 2005 some 27 “leaders” from Mecklenburg made the same trip. CMPD Chief Darrel Stephens, City councilman Pat Mumford, state Sen. Dan Clodfelter, DA Peter Gilchrist, Michael Marsicano of the Foundation for the Carolinas, Gene Buccelli of the Urban League, and Kim Lewis of the United Way were among them.
According to the Uptown paper of record’s March 3, 2005 account by Cristina Bolling, the trip was paid for “through grants and from contributions from local businesses.”
Fast forward to 2007. Now, in just two short years, the public is footing the bill for the trip. Almost $20,000 in fact. This includes paying for as yet unnamed members of city government and CMPD, as well as for CMS’ Green. Marsicano’s Foundation for the Carolinas is helping to pay for White’s trip and, to White’s eternal credit, he is picking up the balance himself.
Here’s the big question. What, exactly, has changed in the past two years that made it OK to spend public money on this little junket? Who decided this trip was essential to doing the public’s business?
Isn’t it very interesting that in the Uptown echo chamber, a trip of questionable value to begin with very quickly morphs into a must-have element of public policy. It is this very same defective feedback-loop mechanism that ensures that city and county budgets will continue to spiral out-of-control. When everything is “vital” and “important” everything gets funded — even junkets to Mexico.
Now here’s the deal: Bring me back some vital and important tequila, the anejo stuff, and I’ll shut up. Otherwise*, it’s on.
*Truth is, after some good tequila, it’ll probably be right back on.
