Lots of reaction to Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan’s motion that the city take over operation of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum during a testy museum board meeting on Monday.
No surprise that Vaughan and board member Earl Jones have differing views of the museum’s financials:
In fact, Jones said, the museum staff told board members Monday that it had raised $540,000 toward the $1.5 million forgivable loan.
When asked Monday if the museum is in good shape financially, Vaughan said: “Not by any accounting standard I’m aware of.”
Personally I think it’s great to see Vaughan call out Jones and his buddies Skip Alston and Deena Hayes-Greene. It will also be interesting to see how Vaughan reacts to the racial politics considering the sensitivity she showed to the LGBT community following the alleged murder of a gay male by a city employee, which many were quick to speculate was a hate crime. She’s obviously concerned about “inclusivity,” but she’ll where that gets her when takes on Jones, Alston and company.
There are indeed many important questions for the mayor–the museum’s financials are complicated —including staggering debt.
N&R letters to the editor lately have been running hard against more taxpayer money for the museum —and guess what —taking over operation would mean more taxpayer money, with a downtown performing arts center coming on line in a couple of years. I’m not sure the average voter wants to take out Jones and Alston that bad.
