I just now caught up with John Hammer’s analysis of Greensboro’s federal bond fiasco. The focus has now changed to Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston and school board member Deena Hayes, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the city started it all.

Hammer says the miscommunication between staff and the City Council over the bonds shows –heaven help us — that “Mitch-management” is alive and well in city government:

It was a classic example of what used to be called “Mitch-management.” Former City Manager Mitch Johnson, for whom the technique was named, was fired last year. However, his management style lives on. This was a classic case, because the council was misled, took action and then found out the truth too late to do anything but make the situation worse.

City Manager Rashad Young seems like a nice guy. He definitely doesn’t have Johnson’s smugness, and in the meetings I’ve watched he seems to answer the council’s questions in a straightforward manner, although at the January briefing session, Hammer says Young “continued to dodge the big question, which was what did the council do on Dec. 15” at the council briefing session.

It’s important, however, to remember that Young is a career city bureaucrat, and —generally speaking, mind you —– bureaucrats have their agenda. They believe in bowing before the federal government for pots of money in exchange for helping them dictate how we live our lives. People should ride buses and trains to work, they should live in high-density developments, they should have at least one tree planted in their yard, they should help build hotels in order to benefit a particular neighborhood.

They constantly wield this agenda before unsuspecting city councils. It’s the wise council that figures it out.