“It shouldn’t be about Robbie Perkins trying to line Skip Alston’s pockets,” Hartzman called out.
Groans rose up from the crowd. Alston yelled that Hartzman should show some respect.
A woman grumbled that they should be more selective about who they let attend these meetings.
If Hartzman sensed the crowd’s hostility, he didn’t let it show. After the meeting, he was chatting with strangers and handing out his business cards.
“They need to be uncomfortable. There is no other way to tell the truth,” he said. “If you want to fix Greensboro, you have to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
Billy Jones, an east Greensboro resident and fellow blogger who supports Hartzman, said Hartzman’s style is designed to disrupt the status quo in order to change the conversation.
“We go into these very controlled situations ... where you are not supposed to take control of the conversation,” Jones says. “You are very limited to what you can say and what you can do, so you have to go about things in a way where you have to take control.
“You have to do things in such a way that allow you to take control of the conversation, if just for a minute.”
And while Robbie Perkins is no longer Mayor of Greensboro, the reasons George and I fight are still with us and every bit the threat they were before. Nothing has changed for the better, Greensboro is still the center of the 2nd hungriest MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) in the United States, still has a 21% poverty level and still has the highest unemployment of any comparable city in North Carolina. And no one in Greensboro government has even proposed to do anything about it, much less acted upon it.
Al-Qaeda didn't die with the death of Osama bin Laden and Greensboro's Elites haven't given up on robbing you now that Robbie Perkins no longer holds elected office. On Tuesday night they plan to vote to build the downtown Greensboro performing arts center with millions of dollars of taxpayer money and a contract that will give ownership of the PAC to private interests while making you pay to keep it up for the next 50 years. And your children go without.
The vote has been fixed. But if council is forced to stare at enough angry faces in the crowd they will back down and vote no. Don't assume others will take your place as that's how these battles are always lost. Show up in mass on Tuesday night with signs that read "No Pac" and please share this message with everyone you know ASAP.
