TriadWatch provides video of the interesting little debate between Greensboro City Council members Danny Thompson and Zack Matheny over the proposed Google deal and the “right people” to grease the skids.
Keith Brown notes in the comments that Matheny “was chomping at the bit to talk about who are the right people in Greensboro.” I give Matheny credit for calling out the ‘usual suspects,’ and I also give him credit for at least asking questions before the infamous Dec. 15 vote approving federal recovery zone bonds. Still, think about the taxpayer-funded aquatic center and you realize that Matheny evidently believes Greensboro Coliseum director Matt Brown is of the “right people” in Greensboro, and that comforts me not.
John Hammer reports “that by ordinance the city charges $1.75 a foot for use of the right-of-way, and if the city waived the fee for Google there is little doubt the city would be sued by some of the other users of the right-of-way, such as Duke Energy and Bell South.”
Now back to Dec. 15, the same meeting that sparked Textgate, when Robbie Perkins was e-mailing high-powered developer Roy Carroll as the council discussed the lawsuit the city was involved with Carroll against fellow high-powered developer Marty Kotis.
Following the debate, Matheny requested that City Manager Rashad Young work to keep the city out of such legal troubles in the future. Good luck with that — cities invite legal troubles, and the Google deal sure looks like it’s litigation waiting to happen — if it goes down. You know the city wants it to go down.
