By now you've already learned of how the Bessemer Shopping Center and $2 Million Dollars of taxpayer dollars was traded to corrupt developers in a backroom deal for a choice piece of property in Downtown Greensboro upon which to build a privately owned park and the Greensboro Performing Arts Center.
Facebook will no doubt be the end of Councilwoman Vaughan's hopes for becoming Mayor of Greensboro. Problem is: If Nancy gives up Facebook now she's equally doomed. I'll explain.From a Facebook conversation she and I had concerning the failure of the Greensboro City Council and City Staff to properly address the handling of the rennovation of the Renaissance Community Co-op.
"Billy you are wrong! At the May meeting we instructed staff to come back with a price for the City to rehab. We were told it would take six weeks, I asked them to do it in four. If you were watching the meeting last Tuesday you would have seen that there was NO city option offered. I pushed staff on what that number would be and all I got was a bunch of mambo jumbo because they said they didn't have a chance to go out to the job site and review it in depth. But that they were comfortable we could save some money off of the new Bessemer price But they were not willing to give a dollar value."
To which I replied:
"Nancy wrote, "At the May meeting we instructed staff to come back with a price for the City to rehab. We were told it would take six weeks" So City staff completely disregards an order by the Greensboro City Council, brings back 4 proposals from 2 developers http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/index.aspx?page=4077
and includes NO NUMBERS AS ORDERED BY COUNCIL and you and 8 other council members have no problem continuing with the process and voting to give the shopping center to 2 men who turn out to be tax evaders who owe tens of thousands of dollars to the City of Greensboro. http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2013/06/two-more-frogs-come-to-greensboro.html
Since when did City Council start taking orders from city staff? Rewarding the crooks? Is that how you plan to do things when you become mayor? We'd be better off with Robbie Perkins. Sure he's a crook but at least the guy has brains enough to know what's going on."
And you all know how much I hate Robbie Perkins.
On top of that, she admits that City Staff said the City could do the job cheaper than the developers and yet none of the 9 members of Greensboro City Council including Nancy Barakat Vaughan bothers to make a motion to delay voting until City Staff can come back with real numbers. Instead, Council votes 5-4 to give $2 Million Dollars in forgivable loans to a couple of shady developers with a history of evading City of Greensboro taxes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah, like those loans will ever get repaid.
Here is the oppourtunity of a lifetime for any local politican to shine: Corrupt developers seize control of a property Councilwoman Vaughan voted against letting them have, angering local conservatives who are furious that $2 Million in tax Dollars has been given to crooks and angering local liberal who are furious that local elites have stolen a community co-op grocery store right out from under them. And I'm leading the horse to the water.
Astitute politicans live for problems like this. But Nancy won't drink. She thinks it's all about her.
Yep, Nancy was right, I was wrong, Roch reviewed the videos and noted it just as I knew he would. I knew I could count on Roch even without asking. Even without Roch knowing what I was up to. That's what I love about Roch, he holds me to the facts. The City didn't come back with the numbers as they were instructed to do by Council. To quote Roch,
"staff declined to provide it for consideration at the June meeting and even refused to provide it when asked by Nancy. "
Really, staff refused their bosses? And Council, including Nancy Barakat Vaughan, proved they haven't got what it takes to run a city by letting staff and the criminals get away with it.
In the private sector, none of these people including Nancy Barakat Vaughan, would still have their jobs the next morning but here we are THIRTEEN days later and everyone involved is still on payroll? But then housewives who dabble in politics wouldn't know about those things, would they?
It's called fishing, Nancy. You should take it up. You might learn a few things.
All the while I was dropping hints to Nancy on Facebook. She expressed to some people privatly that she was hurt. Why? Because her ego drove her to believe it was all about Nancy. Those people even asked me to back off on Nancy as a favor to them and I almost did but then I learned even more. It wasn't about Nancy in the beginning but soon it would be.
I first made Nancy aware of the tax issues of the developers chosen by City Council a week ago on Saturday night thinking that being that as an at-large councilmember who voted against them she would seize on the oppourtunity to show her support for my East Greensboro community. After all, actions do speak louder than words. On Monday night I questioned Nancy again asking,
"How long do you think it should take City Staff to verify that I am right or wrong concerning the following issue? http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2013/06/two-more-frogs-come-to-greensboro.html"
But as you can see by clicking this link https://www.facebook.com/nancy.vaughan/posts/547763645262188 Nancy decided she could make my question disappear and avoid dealing with the issue. Why did Nancy Barakat Vaughan make my simple question disappear? Is Nancy in bed with the developers too?
But at that point in time it was even bigger than I suspected. Nancy was hiding more than I thought possible.
I tried to give her a hint again Tuesday but she still didn't get it. I even wrote:
"Damn, Nancy, I'm trying to hand it to you. Do I have to paint you a picture and spell it out? I'm talking about what is going on today and you're bring up ancient history that ain't going to get you squat in my neighborhood."
To do much more would feel to me like rigging the election in her favor. All the while readers' faith in me was slipping because I deliberatly allowed Nancy to focus her efforts on the smaller issues instead of forcing her to keep her eye on the ball as a compident leader would do without anyone to push or trick him or her into doing so.
But then faith in me isn't the issue, I'm not the one who wants to be mayor of Greensboro nor did I fail to make a motion before Council that could have prevented the city from giving $2 Million Dollars to a bunch of tax cheats.
I wrote this post in advance and checked the newspaper and TV station day after day looking to see if anyone picked up on the story. Even after the story grew to include even more shady characters and tax evading millionares the local media and the City Council still didn't utter a word.
I posted my question to Nancy's facebook page again Thursday morning but she managed to delete it before I could get the hyperlink. That's because I was busy doing a screen grab. Lying by ommission is lying just the same. Explain that to your daughter, Nancy. Just because it's politics doesn't make the lies okay. I gave Nancy chance after chance to speak out and do the right thing by Greensboro's working class but instead she chose to hide the very fraud and tax evasion her and the rest of the Greensboro City Council are apparently happy to allow. They figure only a handfull of people will ever read this blog so nothing I write will ever really matter. That's where the rest of you come in. The local media isn't going to cover this story until it has reached every inbox in Greensboro and they're forced to admit it happened. Please send this to everyone you know.
But the story doesn't end with fraud and tax evasion, does it, Nancy?
Nancy Barakat Vaughan's reply as of Thursday, June 13, 2013, five days after I discovered the conspiracy to defraud the City of Greensboro : Crickets... Not a word, not a sound and you can be sure not a single deed in response to the concerns of the voters who just lost $2 Million Dollars to Skip Alston and 3 other shady developers, Shahzad Akbar, Shehzad Quamar, Khan A Khan and most recently, Greensboro City Attorney Sardar Mujeeb Shah-Khan.
This is not how a mayor-- any mayor-- or anyone hoping to become a mayor of any city in a free country responds to concerns of the voters. Mayors don't dodge questions and they don't make those questions go away in the hope that no one will find them. With each passing day the story grows bigger and Nancy does nothing. Mayors act on questions, find the answers, respond with the answers and take action. Nancy Barakat Vaughan did none of those things. Nancy Barakat Vaughan lied.
Actions speak louder than words. It's time this city council got off their fat dais, stopped trying to perfume their bullshit with pretty words and showed us some action. You see, while it might not be about the nail when it comes to Nancy's concerns, when it comes to Greensboro's concerns we want it fixed.
No, it wasn't about Nancy Barakat Vaughan to begin with, but it was Nancy's refusal to act and Nancy's lies of ommission and cover up that made it all about Nancy Barakat Vaughan. But even then I didn't realize the real reason Nancy didn't want folks looking at my links was that it might lead them to the Kahn family who had just traded the Greensboro Inn for the Bessemer Shopping Center to make way for the downtown Greensboro Performing Arts Center at the expence of Greensboro's poor.
By the way, if you're thinking about hiring Bill Burkley for your political advisor... I think Nancy can now tell you he's all washed up, a drunkard and too far behind the times.
And the notion that City Council Members don't know the outcome before the vote takes place in public view? My June 4, Facebook conversation with Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter during the meeting as I tried to persuade her, Tony Wilkins and Nancy Vaughan to enter a counter motion to sell the shopping center to the community co-op instead. I had to do it in 3 screen grabs to make it all fit.
I'm still holding on to hope that Marikay Abuzuaiter is one of the good guys.... I still believe that is the reason those records were "leaked" to Yes Weekly all those months ago. But when every day is a struggle for survival while you stand by and watch your elected leaders give everything that is yours to their cronies, hope wears thin. Knowing what I know now, if I were a young man I'd pick up my guns rather than live the life I've lived all these years.
Don't fear me, fear those who are young and like me... They know what I never knew.
