In his post Mr Johnson admits we were right about the Greensboro Performing Arts Center, World War I Memorial Stadium and computer tablets made by Amplify Inc. He even goes so far as to admit:
"And the truth is, we need to be skeptics and visionaries — a community that is willing to dream and to discern. To set high goals and ask tough questions."
But Allen Johnson also has a problem with the truth.
For example, Allen Johnson writes:
"To be sure, the skeptics have gotten stuff wrong: for instance, that there wouldn’t be enough parking for downtown baseball games;"
Allow me to explain to you how the parking problem for the baseball stadium was solved. Drive down to the corner of Eugene St and Belamead Street on any day during regular working hours and take a look at the half empty parking lot across the street from the baseball stadium. That parking lot belongs to Guilford County and the spaces are empty because they are reserved for the baseball stadium. But while the parking lot sits half empty employees and patents of Guilford County mental health services must park and walk long distances to enter the very building on that same piece of property because there simply isn't enough parking there.
Of course, Allen Johnson of the Greensboro News & Record would never report that the poor and disabled among us are being put out so the downtown elites can park near their precious baseball stadium. You can easily verify this by walking in and asking anyone who works there.
He also made the claim that we claimed:
" that the old Wachovia tower was beyond saving;"
Wrong, lying bastard, we weren't claiming the tower was beyond saving, we were outraged that the Greensboro City Council was giving taxpayer money to a billionaire to do it. Oh, and by the way, the building is now called Center Pointe and owner Roy Carroll has still only sold about half of it.
Johnson goes on to write:
"Again, in the case of the arts center, a dose of healthy skepticism from then-City Council members Nancy Vaughan and Zack Matheny in 2013 helped create a more viable financing model. “The additional scrutiny has made this a much better project,” Vaughan said afterward."
Seriously? All the money promised to build the arts center is currently invested in the stock markets and as of roughly 20 minutes before I published this article I found, Global stock markets fall amid oil rout. Need I say more about the "more viable financing model" and the "additional scrutiny" that "has made this a much better project" Mayor Vaughan?
Allen is right when he writes:
"The problem is, being against something is easy. Being for something is a lot harder."
But when it is obvious to rationally minded people that what you are doing isn't practical and you are forced to lie to sell us on the idea then you never had anything worth being for in the first place.
Then Allen cuts his own throat in writing:
"I won’t even get into wacked-out conspiracy theories that Vaughan, now mayor, planned and plotted the car accidents of rival candidates."
You see, it was Allen Johnson's very own reporter Joe Killian who made that story up in response to my story entitled Joe Killian And The Dark Money Trail in which the wrecks were talked about but never was the Mayor accused.
