“He not busy being born is busy dying”…Bob Dylan 1965
More to come on this soon.
Delayed High Point Road project is funded and Furniture Connection is forced to vacate. Liquidation in progress. I hope I don’t cave in to one of those fictitious 80-90% off sales. I did once hold a legitimate “up to 107% off sale” sarcastically making fun of the industry’s norm. Figure that one out.
Jordan Green covers in Yes Weekly and Ogi Overman covers in The Jamestown News.
I was able to chat with RNC Chairman Michael Steele after the press conference on Monday.
I asked “Why Greensboro?” in reference to Greensboro being chosen as one of five cities to begin airing RNC ads. Steele stated Greensboro was chosen as a battleground to get North Carolina back in the GOP column. I explained the recent municipal election results after the local GOP became more involved and he said, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about”.
Tom Fetzer, NC GOP Chairman, aroused laughter from the crowd as he introduced Trudy Wade as “the candidate that scared Katie Dorsett off the ballot”. On a side note: at a candidate’s forum in High Point Monday night another candidate dropped out of the race after hearing Wade’s three minute opening introduction to the crowd.
More photos of the press conference should be on my facebook page on Tuesday.
Rename High Point Road “Google Boulevard” if they come.
Why do we continue to promote our step sister city an estimated 17,000 times a day when we could promote within?
It’s long overdue to change the name and should be a part of the revitilization.
I took a paperwork shortcut at one of my suppliers in Thomasville that determined the split second that my wheels would touch the highway from the on ramp heading back home to Greensboro. I didn’t know at the time that would affect my life forever.
As I merged into a conglomerate of vehicles traveling at 70 miles per hour I quickly became uncomfortable. Upon merging to center to attempt to get around the vehicles a large brown explosion came from the left. At the very split second the vehicles I was attempting to get past began spinning like toys. With both hands on the wheel I fishtailed, bounced off the other vehicles and spun time after time until I landed on the right of the highway at the ditch heading north, the same direction I had started in. I looked around the vehicle for blood and found none. A vehicle flipping down the embankment behind me exposed four bodies flopping that looked like they had been choreographed. All four would live.
The smell of oil and metal permeated the air.
In shock the seconds unfolded and I found myself wandering in the median. A vehicle had been nudged in the southbound lane and had shot across the median like a rocket hitting almost head on an SUV to my left. The brown explosion was the landscaped area that was being tunneled through by the vehicle.
A large bearded man was ejected from the southbound vehicle and lay mangled on the highway with a pool of blood forming under him. A man in business attire was attempting CPR. I wondered why but admired him for trying. He was dead. He had a wife and two children and I assume he was on his way home from work.
The destroyed SUV revealed a lifeless arm. In that vehicle a couple in their early 60’s were dead. They were on their way to see their son get married.
My chest began to ache. I remember wondering if God had a sense of humor. Would he let me live through this accident and take me with a heart attack in the median?
A large young man with a red bandanna wondered toward me and asked if all the people in the SUV were dead. Still in shock I mumbled something to the effect that I didn’t think it was even known yet how many were in the vehicle.
In wasn’t until the evening news that I found out this young man was charged with causing the accident. He later retreated to a relative’s house and committed suicide.
Four people dead.
One second and one lane made a difference in my outcome.
The years I spent training in the fire department and all the accident calls I responded to could not have prepared me for the real time experience. I had some perception, perhaps from tv, that you would have time to respond in an accident situation. You do not. I can’t convey how quickly this unfolded.
I went back the next day and sat on the side of the road trying to put into perspective the events from the previous evening. I had not bounced off the other cars. My truck was bouncing on the highway during spinning. I have to assume this might occur when a vehicle is about to flip.
The accident is difficult to discuss. The post may serve as some type of therapy.
On birthdays, holidays, special occasions, and on days when the sun rises in the east the video plays over and over without the benefit of an erase or delete button.
The event in the post headline is notable. Perkins, Bellamy-Small, and Matheny attended the War Memorial Commission meeting yesterday.
Robbie reiterates the point I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to make recently. Either city residents should get some sort of discount at the facility or others benefiting should share the costs. Note the sentence in bold print in this recent e-mail:
Subject: Greensboro Coliseum
Rashad and Matt,
I am very concerned about Council trying to tell Matt Brown how to run the Coliseum. He is one of the top managers in the business. The business model for a facility this size in a middle market is tough. We need to consistently make improvements to the facility or we will not be competitive in luring events like the ACC. Matt and his outstanding staff have lowered costs and increased revenue through innovation and plain tough negotiation. The ideal solution for the Coliseum is to form an authority and get the politics out of what is a complex, entrepreneurial business. The facility is not a recreation center, and city government doesn’t understand how to run it.
The Coliseum’s public purpose has an effect on its bottom line.
In addition, the benefits of the facility are far beyond the city limits, and the burden of its operation should be shared by those who benefit.
I would like to look at a designated, county wide source of funding the $2million+/- operating deficit and make the conversion to an authority. Matt Brown and his team should continue to run the facility. I don’t believe privatization or outsourcing is the way to go in this building. The Coliseum is one of our more noteworthy community assets, and turning it over to a private company would compromise what makes our venue special.
Let’s not try to create a problem by trying to solve a problem. Let’s set a goal of making a great facility better, and work toward an equitable and efficient way to share the costs.
Robbie Perkins
Perkins is in favor of the amphitheater being completed and says it will pay for itself in two years.
Matheny says Brown’s passion for his work sometimes causes him to be a “lightning rod”.
That lightning rod is quite an asset to this city and passion for his work is an understatement.
What might be noted is that if Matt Brown acquires responsibility for the Canada Dry Building, or the Aquatic Center, or the Amphitheater, or the ACC Hall of Champions, or whatever he lobbies for…it doesn’t raise his salary one penny. His aggressive style is not self motivated. That aggression is community oriented.
Matt Brown explains that a one cent food tax will raise an estimated $9M for the county and approximately $5.4M will come in from outside the county. I’m not in agreement to pay two cents more for my next Big Mac.
Now go see an ACC game. Pay to park. Buy some extra popcorn and pay it forward down your row.
TRUDY WADE versus Katie Dorsett for NC Senate.
Update: Confirming by phone this morning The Great Race will happen. And as usual “scoop extraordinaire” Jordan Green goes into better detail with actual back up quotes. But hey Jordan, I’ve got a photo of Basnight shaking in his boots.
Update: Dorsett unfiles. Dorsett’s “handing off the torch” strategy doesn’t work. A slap in the face to Bruce Davis. More to come. Joe Killian writes on the subject.
Conceiving ways to put money back into taxpayers pockets is sort of a hobby to me. People sometimes describe me as being conservative.
Some simple math on the Greensboro Coliseum and it’s $1.6M yearly deficit.
The four venues on the coliseum grounds average 850 events, 1.3M visitors, and 200K parked cars annually.
If you applied a $1 surcharge, or “user fee”, to each ticket sold and to each parked car the coliseum would be nearly self sufficient. That would equal $1.5M. Add a quarter or fifty cents to popcorn and you’re closer.
It’s been mentioned that security is billed at about $1175 per hour on big nights. $47 per hour for 25 security folks. I’ve confirmed with Sheriff BJ Barnes that county personnel can offer the same security for $25 per hour. That’s a savings of $550 per hour. I was told it could be a political hot button to mention this. It should be a political hot button not to mention it. The city could easily schedule security at regular pay instead of time and a half for a city facility operating at a loss of taxpayer dollars.
All of a sudden the coliseum is a money maker.
And that couple in their 80’s on a fixed income aren’t paying for me to go see The Eagles. And the animal rights activists aren’t subsidizing circus patrons. And members of one religion aren’t supporting a religious event they may be opposed to with their city taxes, etc., etc.
Of course if it was this simple someone a lot smarter than me would have come up with a solution long ago. The numbers seem to work. With additional revenue needed for the Canada Dry Building and expected losses for the Aquatic Center I would hope we’d be open for suggestions.
My recent proposal to discuss parking discounts for coliseum investors was shot down by the Coliseum Commission and math guru Dave Ribar.
I’m braced for you Dave. What say you on erasing the deficit? And Dave, please don’t go into that return on investment thing. That only affects a very small number of industries like food and lodging.
Disclosure: My high regards for the excellent coliseum staff is not related to my desire to see the coliseum be self sufficient. It’s all about the money.
Update: Amanda Lehmert posts a related story at about the same time.
Update2: Ryan Shell, “it is true that the coliseum has a huge impact on our local economy and that is appreciated, but that does not mean it should be omitted from budget discussions such as this.
Update3: Ed Cone, “The see-through Coliseum“.
Update4: Dr. Joe Guarino posts on the subject.
Conservative video blogger Mary Katherine Ham will visit Greensboro on March 12th to attend the Guilford County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner at George K’s.
Ham is a Fox News contributor and appears on The O’Reilly Factor.
Only 400 tickets are available so please get your reservations in early.
A symbolic slap in the face to the mayor from one previously perceived to be of his own kind.
I’m choosing to copy, paste, and save my comments into Wordpad. I’ll read them tomorrow after my anger subsides and then determine whether or not to share my thoughts.
I’ve matured into a real wuss.
Update: Perkins the Puppetmaster gets the desired front page results. Predictably, the N&R loves the “let’s make the mayor look bad” stories.
Trudy Wade hosted District 5’s community budget meeting Monday night on Groometown Road.
Speaking with City Manager Rashad Young at the end of the meeting I reminded him the first time we met I had introduced myself as “one of those noisy bloggers you don’t have time for”.
He laughed and exclaimed, “I read the blogs now”. He also said he came close to commenting on a blog recently but chose not to. You know I wanted to ask him which one, but I refrained.
That didn’t take long.
Welcome Mr. Young.