For years now spending has been out of control here in Greensboro. As JoeyG writes at Triad Conservative, some of the big spenders are now trying to make you think they are something they're not:
"This is all pretty breathtaking. Barber supported the aquatic center and the performing arts center-- enormously expensive, unnecessary projects costing many tens of millions of dollars. Abner Doon has catalogued his offenses over the years in connection with the Melderec crowd over at Billy's place. Barber served on council when they kept tax rates constant in the face of rising property assessments, thereby raising taxes. He served on council when various fees were raised repeatedly. I don't recall his having made a highly public stance demanding our tax rate be brought in line with other southeastern cities. He has, after all, had every opportunity to do so for many years even though he has been a registered Democrat."
While JoeyG and I will probably never agree on social issues, when it comes to matters of money I tend to agree. For a lot less money that has been spent and/or committed to the luxuries JoeyG writes of we could have turned our local economy around, lowered taxes, and increased the tax base. I dare say if we'd just have flown over town tossing half that amount of money out the windows of an airplane the positive economic impact would have been greater to the community as a whole.
Not that I'm advocating we do so. I'm so tight I won't even walk past a penny laying on the ground without stopping to pick it up. I'm so tight I save old nails to reuse or sell for scrap metal.
It was because of this excessive spending that I started this website in January 2012. When then Mayor Robbie Perkins announced plans to build a downtown performing arts center I started this site using the name East Greensboro Performing Arts Center in an effort to prove that the performing arts center was not about economic development.
To do so I chose a city owned property on the corner of Elwell Ave and Phillips Ave and proposed that the performing arts center be built there if the real intention was economic development.
On the pages of this blog I challenged the downtown crowd on every economic development metric they made mention of and showed them how that old shopping center on Phillips Ave could be a better deal for all the citizens of Greensboro, including Downtown.
Perhaps you've noticed there has been no mention of economic development from the City for building the performing arts center for several years now.
I won then just as I'm winning now.
Yes, they still plan to build the project but in reading the Feasibility Study keep in mind that we already know the cost to build the performing arts center is almost twice as much as estimated-- what if revenue is half as much as estimated and cost of operation is twice as much as expected?
And remember, we here at EzGreensboro.com were the first to tell you they couldn't build it for the price they claimed. Am I so smart that I know all these things? No, but I am smart enough to know who to ask when I run into problems I can't solve on my own.
The writing on the wall has been here for years and we have been telling you about it all along while Mayor Vaughan and the Greensboro City Council spends like there is no tomorrow:
"GREENSBORO — The number of distressed properties sold in foreclosure auctions, short sales and other homes sold by banks rose by 7 percent in the third quarter for the Greensboro-High Point metro area.
Real estate research company Attom Data Solutions reported Thursday that 16.6 percent of the 2,580 homes sold during the third quarter in Guilford, Rockingham and Randolph counties were “distressed,” meaning they were sold for less than the debt owed on the home, at foreclosure auction or repossessed homes sold by banks.
That’s an increase over the third quarter of 2016, when 15.4 percent of homes sold were distressed properties."Do you know who is buying those homes at such great deals? Slumlords armed with cash given to them by the Greensboro City Council as part of their so-called affordable housing bond package.
And still I win because these words will remain here long after I am gone-- a testament to the crimes of Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan and the Greensboro City Council she presided over.
Winning isn't always what we think it might be. If enough people write-in Billy Jones for Mayor of Greensboro then Greensboro wins by getting a mayor with a track record of calling it right when the politicians you elected before were wrong. But either way I win because I've been right all along, even when no one wanted to hear what I was saying.
And if I don't win? Truth is, odds are slim. Today I got a brand new Yanmar 324 four wheel drive tractor to play with. Between that, the farm, raising fish, the saw mill, the welding shop, wood working shop and machine shop I'm sure I can find lots of things to do.
Oh, and I do still enjoy creative writing.
