From an e-mail sent to me today by James Lamar Gibson:
"Alston's Group Calls City's Bluff
5/23/2013
Skip Alston's investor group has effectively thumbed its nose to a request by city staff for specific information needed to vet the feasibility of their business plans. Alston's investors were asked for 10-year financial projections for a shopping center that provided certain kinds of businesses and to specify the financials of each business they would operate. Instead they provided only a general list of restaurant, laundromat, beauty supply store, and walk-in health clinic.
Rather than providing the ten year projected financials, they submitted a three-page document that explicitly refuses to supply the required data until after the city agrees to negotiate the deal that will grant them ownership of the city-owned property.
The main part of their submission is a general restatement of a proposal mentioned by Dr. Goldie Wells when she expressed her clear preference for continued city ownership but said that in the case that the city would give it away that the community should get a portion of it. This "60/40" plan requires the creation of a new nonprofit organization that would own and collect rent on about 40% of the center.
Community members who have met with Cone Health Foundation have been told that health clinics cannot be profitable given the current medical cost and insurance compensation realities. It is not clear, for instance if the health clinic Alston's group is proposing will be staffed by qualified doctors or nurses or whether it would be able to accept Medicare or Medicaid.
Financial information that would demonstrate the real ability of the investors to put up the private capital they have said that they would invest in the community was flatly refused.
The ball is now in the city's court to decide if it will support the coop group's request for a small economic development grant ($100,000) and an economic development loan ($600,000). Then the decision must be made to transfer the property or retain it. The Alston group has refused to comply with their requirements. They are staring down the city, to see who will blink first.
Links:
What the City Requested
http://www.scribd.com/doc/143242002/What-the-City-Requested
Skip's Incredible Response
http://www.scribd.com/doc/143242003/Skip-s-Incredible-Response "
This is going to look really good in front of the national media spotlight and with the help of my many readers the RCC story will forever break the back of Greensboro's corrupted leadership. Remember: Win, loose or draw we still push the story into the national media. Only by killing the messenger that delivers the lie can we ever win the war.
