"Nancy has said she wants open govt. try emailing her for a meeting, and promise to be nice, send her a list of questions in advance this way she is not caught off guard, nancy is mayor and she has to be careful what she saids to some point. Reach out to her and see. Nancy is under a lot of pressure, she got gpac a mess, and a few other issues, send her an open email to talk, she probably is not to happy with the blog but that's America, reach out to her and if she lies to you then it is what it is then, but if you both can reach a deal then go for it, who knows she might put you on a board."
I founded the forum Real Progress For Greensboro with the hopes of opening a dialog. Mayor Nancy Baracat Vaughan was a member until she chose to leave on December 7, 2013 rather than tell the truth about the Downtown Parking Issues I brought up there. (Here for those who don't use Facebook.) That's right, Nancy, multimillion dollar issues are never going away.
I've never turned a Greensboro resident away from joining Real Progress For Greensboro and I've only 2 hard and fast rules 1. No Spam and 2. No partisan politics.
I've been e-mailing Mayor Vaughan and the rest of city council for years-- they don't answer my e-mails. If you don't believe me then send a public information request to the City of Greensboro at inforequests@greensboro-nc.gov and ask that they send you my e-mails to city council members along with the replies from council members. You'll very quickly notice the disparity and lack of dialog on their part.
And I was the one who first suggested Greensboro move towards Open Source Government.
Here's the facts:
You cannot have a dialog with someone who lies or otherwise obscures the facts. As the Downtown parking issues point out, Mayor Vaughan, Zack Matheny and others on council are in the habit of lying and obscuring the facts.
You cannot have a dialog with someone who won't reply to you. Those of you who file public information requests will know the truth that while I try to talk with Council, Council does not give me the time of day.
Sal tells me to be nice. Why the hell should I? They've ignored and ran roughshod on me and my entire east Greensboro neighborhood since it was annexed in 1958. From the City of Greensboro website:
"This lively community began to wind down in the late 1950s and 1960s when, under the guise of "urban renewal," thousands of people and more than 80 businesses (many minority-owned) were displaced. Most of those businesses never reestablished."
And that was just the beginning, it got worse. A lot worse.
I am not going to play nice with a class of people who have a 50 year history of attacking me and my neighbors until said people mend their ways and begin making reparations. And I'm not talking about that crap called the Strategic Plan for East Greensboro that will only make Greensboro's developers richer while providing only minimum wage jobs in retail and fast food. So don't even try it.
But I was the first to try and open a dialog. Mayor Vaughan, the Greensboro City Council and Greensboro's elites don't want dialog, they only want to stay in power and remain in control so they can continue to do what they've always done.
