Today’s N&R lead editorial totally misses the point regarding the efforts of some Greensboro City Council members to relieve City Manager Mitchell Johnson of his duties at Tuesday night’s meeting. If you needed proof of the N&R’s bias toward Johnson and his supporters, this is it.

The editorial says:

Observers might have thought they were watching the Guilford County commissioners of days gone by. But then, a couple of former commissioners were driving the action.

Some council members aren’t happy with the manager, as separate motions by Mary Rakestraw and Trudy Wade demonstrated. One would have dismissed Johnson, the other demoted him. Neither led to a public discussion, although the manager bravely passed a note to Mayor Yvonne Johnson waiving his right to privacy and granting permission for the council to talk about him in open session.

It would have been useful for critics to lay their case on the table. If the manager isn’t performing his duties properly, citizens ought to know where he comes up short. Earlier this year, the council gave him some directives and ought to tell the public how it thinks he’s doing. If Mitchell Johnson was OK with that, the council should have gone ahead. Instead, it retreated behind closed doors to continue its discussion but didn’t reach a conclusion.

For starters, which council member was trying to stifle debate on Johnson? None other than council member Dianne Bellamy-Small, who made the substitute motion to stifle Rakestraw’s motion, claiming the matter had not been thoroughly discussed in closed session. (Note that Bellamy-Small’s name doesn’t appear in the editorial.)

As for Mitchell Johnson bravely passing a note to Mayor Yvonne Johnson “waiving his right to privacy” and giving council permission to discussion the matter in open session, it was council member Mike Barber who noted that the council would still be restricted by personnel laws, Mitchell Johnson’s permission not withstanding. Barber’s the lawyer among the group and surely knows what can and cannot be discussed in open session. It’s also hard to believe that Mitchell Johnson, a strong defender of personnel privacy laws with matters regarding the Greensboro Police Department, would think that he can simply waive his right to privacy by passing a note to the mayor. If I’m worng, let me know.

This editorial is a perfect example of the strategy Guarino exposed earlier as “an attempt to frame the discussion to make it appear that Rakestraw, Wade and to a lesser extent Barber were acting irresponsibly,” but instead is a “process about the character of the machine politicians opposing them.” Not to mention our local paper of record.