This morning I got an e-mail from Kemp:
"Hi Billy,
Thanks for sending your email on Facebook. So, Garner Economics has produced a “study” for a city/county economic development steering committee (which I was asked to be on as a token environmentalist, and later resigned from due to the obvious sham that I would not allow my name to be associated with). The report was such nonsense that I actually Googled parts of it only to find they were direct quotes from the study GE did in Greensboro. Do you have a copy of the full Greensboro report (I just found parts of it I think)? Have you been able to find any other Garner Economic reports? I plan on sending my resignation letter to the press along with a long list of questions that need to be asked. Just trying to get the real story. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Kemp Burdette
Cape Fear RIVERKEEPER
Cape Fear River Watch
617 Surry Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
910-762-5606
www.capefearriverwatch.org "
My reply:
"Kemp,
I believe what you are referring to is this link: http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2012/02/oops-it-leaked-out.html That was sent to me by George Hartzman who I have included in this e-mail along with Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Greensboro City Councilman Tony Wilkins, Councilwoman Marikay Abuizuater, Conncilman Jamal Fox, Councilman Mike Barber, Mr Hartzman and others including several in Greensboro media who will be interested in your findings. Our Garner Study was commissioned by the Greensboro Partnership, our city funded economic development agency as part of the research into developing the Greensboro Strategic Plan.
As I recall, Mr Hartzman found the Garner Study on the Greensboro Partnership website, copied, pasted and sent it to me. Then, when we went back to the Greensboro Partnership website the plan had been removed from the website and replaced with the Greensboro Strategic Plan. We asked the Partnership to again make the entire Garner Study public as it was financed in-part with public dollars but for over 2 years the Partnership has ignored the requests of Mr Hartzman and myself.
It has been obvious to myself and others here in Greensboro for quite some time that it is common place for our local "economic development groups" to find agencies who will produce the results they want to produce and as demonstrated by my blog post, will hide results that are contrary to their own views. The idea that Garner LLC, after getting burned by the Greensboro Partnership, might resort to reusing their work in Wilmington, is not surprising.
Is Ed Wolverton involved in this project in any way? I hear he's in Wilmington now after he was run out of Greensboro. Ed is a likeable guy but is spineless and will do anything it takes to keep his job even if its wrong.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. Perhaps with the knowledge of what is going on in Wilmington and the fact that I have blogged this e-mail exchange the Greensboro and Wilmington city council's (and perhaps State government) will see fit to look into these issues.
Please, everyone, in the interest of complete transparency, reply all when replying to this e-mail so that the public, or at least my 2000 or so daily readers, might stay informed of what is going on as this issue unfolds.
Thank you all
-Billy Jones, your friendly freelance, neighborhood Tyrannicide, now apparently working state wide."
I believe this is what is known as Karma running over Dogma.
