The N&R isn't telling you about the video and audio recordings that will prove the ICRCM's case:
"The suit alleges defendant knew these statements to be false because museum CEO John Swaine and co-founder Earl Jones explained the tax-credit structures to newspaper staff in recorded and videotaped interviews. Museum staff “explained that they were not debt by any normal understanding of debt, but instead, the money was essentially free and neither principal nor interest were repaid.”
That should make libel pretty easy to prove. And no attorney in his right mind would allege to have evidence he does not have.
If you'll click on the following link you will notice the property taxes on the museum have been paid off. Another nasty rumor put to bed, but not by the paper of record. Yes, they got behind but they caught it up during a time when the N&R was telling us it was impossible for the ICRCM to pay their bills and demanding the board give the museum to the City of Greensboro.
The News & Fishwrap didn't tell you that visitor numbers to the ICRCM were up. In fact, the N&R lied and claimed visitors numbers were down:
"In a Jan. 24, 2015 article the newspaper reported visitation down to 1,958 a month in 2014 when in fact 2014 numbers exceeded 2013, with an average monthly total of 6,000 that year."
Then Councilman Zack Matheny claimed:
“The museum has not been financially sustainable in its entire history,” Councilman Zack Matheny said Friday. “We still can’t get answers about what’s going on — how much they’ve raised, how they spent the city’s money.”
But the fact that the ICRCM has apparently gotten out from under what the News & Record and City Council claimed to be a $26 Million Dollar debt in just 2 years while supposedly loosing money all the while, suggests otherwise.
It also suggests, as many believe, the current Total Appraised Value of the ICRCM building and property at $3,873,000 to be artificially low, that another of Greensboro's infamous land grabs has been in the making all along.
Remember Heritage House? There were volumes the N&R never told you about Heritage House. Remember the 3 failed attempts to take the Old Mill property owned by Eric Robert? (The N&R didn't cover that one either.) Remember the Greene Street eminent domain of the 1990s that took property from local business owners and gave it to other, more prominent, local business owners? It was the property directly across from the Downtown Marriot where Northwestern Mutual is located today. Perhaps the News & Record never covered that story either.
Yes, it's true that Skip Alston and Earl Jones now stand to profit as landlords to the museum. But then Roy Carroll, Marty Kotis and countless other developers profit every time their names are mentioned by the N&R and City Council members. They're picking winners and losers.
An no, I'm not a fan of Skip and Earl and both know it. I see them both as opportunists. I've told Skip personally the things I'm telling you. But like I told Skip, this time he did good. If you are a long time resident of Greensboro as I am then the memories alone make a visit to the ICRCM worth your while even if you don't agree with Skip and Earl's way of thinking. For unlike other museums, our history is there, the history of Greensboro, the good, the bad, and the ugly just exactly as it was.
Not the glazed over version Greensboro's elites present at the Greensboro Historical Museum where everyone is a hero and everybody did good deeds all the time.
