The exalted Greensboro City Council met and discussed the recent rash of murders in the Politically Virtuous City. The police chief was asked to speak and respond.
In typical fashion, nothing of consequence was said or discussed. They avoid the real issues. To reduce murders, you need a police department that will aggressively make arrests and pursue prosecutions for crimes– minor and major. You need a mayor and city council who will support and back the police. You need a district attorney who will initiate and deal with all of these prosecutions. You need judges who will convict criminals and send them to prison for crimes– again, both minor and major crimes. You need to assure that probation and parole are not over-utilized.
Guilford County is a socialist jurisdiction, and thus elects socialist judges and a socialist district attorney. That means the criminal justice system will treat criminals in a lenient manner.
The police need to employ a proactive approach to policing that includes but is not limited to “broken windows” policing. “Community policing” is helpful, but is not sufficient. The city of Greensboro has been talking about community policing for two decades.
One other item that is not discussed is the failure of the black family. That issue needs to be confronted and discussed also. It is an indication of a corrupted culture that utterly rejects God’s plan for sexuality, reproduction and the family. It is the root cause of the crime we are seeing.
On an unrelated matter, the city council discussed the selection of a new Mayor Pro Tem with the passing of Yvonne Johnson. Of course, there was considerable discussion that it had to be a black person. Goldie Wells was floated– and she would have been a horrible choice.
Councilwoman Sharon Hightower stated, “Race influences everything we do, even if we don’t want to acknowledge it.” She was quoted elsewhere as stating that “race is in every element that we do. You cannot step away from race.”
And therein lies the problem.
The city council reminds me of the Circus Maximus during the late days of the Roman republic.
Good analogy, Fred. Of course, the citizens and voters are ultimately at fault.
Here is my road map to make Greensboro Great again!
The first thing that needs to be done with the Greensboro Mayor, City Council, and Department Heads of the City of Greensboro is to establish accountability.
1) No one should serve as our Mayor on our City Council if they or their entity is funded by the City of Greensboro and its taxpayers.
2) Our Chief of Police must immediately fall under a new incentive plan which will be based on his or her performance. The bar will be set by the rate of crime in Greensboro. Other incentives will be based on the number of illegal guns and habitual offenders that are taken off our streets. This compensation plan will penalize the compensation of our Police Chief based on homicides, aggravated assaults, auto crash injuries, and property damages from auto crashes in our city.
3) Millions of dollars will be saved on consultant fees spent by our city by strictly limiting consultants. If a City Department head is not capable of being a leader in his field of expertise, he should be replaced and never be subsidized by consultants.
4) Our City Leaders have chosen to no longer actively manage the Greensboro Coliseum Complex and the Tanger Center. If this represents 20% of our City’s Budgets and Revenues, then all those formerly directly responsible for these operations (including our Mayor and City Council) compensation packages should be reduced 20%.
5) All the wasted funds on special interest projects (Cure the Violence), consultants, and unearned wages would be used to give our entire City of Greensboro Police Department and our First Responders a 20% raise.
6) To further fund these activities the Greensboro Gun Show will return to the Greensboro Coliseum Complex. If you remember our mayor and former Coliseum Manager arbitrarily canceled this event costing us taxpayers close to one million dollars of revenues over a 5-year period. I contend there is as much or more class, character, and education to be learned at the Greensboro Gun Show as there is at the Tanger Center.
7) P.S. If we can’t fund a 20 % raise for our 1st Responders with responsible spending. I propose a one cent tax hike to fund, attract, and retain these brave individuals. Revenue from such a sales tax hike would go directly into a fund to be spent exclusively on 1st Responders and not to a General Fund for our Politicians and City Leaders to waste!
Jim Donaldson
Thanks, Jim. Lots of good ideas, and yes, they do waste the monies in the “General Fund”. I am afraid things will have to get a lot worse before the city of Greensboro is finally forced to reform its wicked ways.