A 2nd Greensboro Performing Arts Center?

Low and behold the surprises never end. Construction of the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts has hardly started and already we learn the State of North Carolina has appropriated funding to build another state of the art performing arts center less than one mile away.

Could the Greensboro City Council have screwed up any worse? How could they have not known? Or is it that Greensboro's rich white elites simply don't dare step foot on the traditionally African-American campus of North Carolina A&T State University?

As shown above as #5 on this map from page 7 of the  A&T PREEMINENCE 2020 plan for which the State of North Carolina approved $200,000 to be used for planning the new PAC in 2007. When did we first hear of Greensboro's PAC, 2011?

Why were we not told another PAC was being planned so close to Downtown?

The first $98 million in bonds went on sale in November of 2015 and have an A+ rating. Has the City of Greensboro sold any bonds yet? And how will a second PAC so close by effect the bond rating of bonds issued by the City of Greensboro for a competitive project?

NC A&T has the State's approval to sell up to a half $Billion Dollars in non voter approved bonds.

Now some may say this venue is only for NC A&T students but look at who performs at Carolina Performing Arts on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill.

And look at who performs roughly a mile west of the  Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts at UNCG's Aycock Auditorium.

Not to mention Greensboro's other theater venues.

It's not too late to stop nor is it too late to prosecute the fraud should our elected leaders continue their current course. Which will it be?

In other news, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat "Grasshopper" Vaughan has left her husband Attorney Donald Vaughan and has taken up residence at a home her mother, Florence Barakat, purchased in December of 2015 located at 1617 Wilton Drive. Say howdy for me when you visit.

A&T Homecoming Mired In Cover-Up

 The following story was first posted on October 22, 2015 after a week of being lied to by the Greensboro Police Department, NC A&T University and rejected by Greensboro's media outlets in the lead-up to the NC A&T Homecoming Game. I'm re posting it today because of important updates. Begin original post:



While North Carolina A&T University plays their Homecoming game this weekend there will be several players on the field who should not have been there. As a matter of fact: they should have been in jail but because of the privilege of being on the Aggie Football Team they are allowed to walk the campus of NC A&T endangering students every day.


Last weekend the Greensboro News & Record reported on the beating of a 21 year old A&T student that was found unconscious on the ground at an off campus party on Booker Street.

What they didn't tell you is how he got there and what has happened since.

The affray, as Greensboro Police called it, began with this student accidentally bumped into a member of the A&T football team. Not wanting any trouble this 150 pound student apologized but that wasn't good enough. Nope, the football player decided to make an example of him, pushing and shoving him across the room.

The student, who isn't an athlete, fought back the best he could but several members of the A&T football team attacked him. He ended up thrown across the room and landed on the couch. Then he was dragged down several flights of stairs where at least 10 or more men resumed beating him on the ground until he was beat unconscious.

The only 911 call came from a neighbor.

The student's family has spent the week trying to press charges but Greensboro Police and the Guilford County Magistrates Office are telling them they cannot do so.

In the latest development today the Guilford County Magistrates , who are appointed by Guilford County Clerk of Court Lisa Johnson-Tonkins, whose mother is Greensboro City Councilwoman Yvonne Johnson, is today telling the victim's family police cannot serve warrants on the NC A&T Campus and must have the home addresses of these students who live on campus and are from outside of Greensboro-- an obvious stalling effort.

Play your homecoming game A&T, but let it forever be recorded there is no honor among your current football team, your coaches, the leadership of NC A&T, the Greensboro Police Department, Guilford County Magistrates and the current Greensboro City Council who all know of this travesty while a 21 year old A&T honors student lays in a hospital bed recovering from a beating he will carry with him the rest of his life.

Cowards, the lot of them.

And the way a life of privilege and living above the law begins.

Do I have to tell you to share this story with everyone you know?

Update: Friday 3:00 PM Photographs of  Thomas Bynum in his hospital room.

Update 2: 3:30 My e-mail to the A&T Provost Office:

"The post has been updated with photos: http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-homecoming-mired-in-cover-up.html

Now just in case the dean, president, provost and others are unaware, this is the same website that broke the story of the UNCG3 which resulted in a lot of very high level firings over at UNCG. I do expect results, I do expect explanations, I do expect communication, and I do expect your people at your highest levels to respond to me so that my over 30,000 regular readers (a number soon to rise greatly thanks to new interest from A&T students and alumni) can get a proper explanation.

And I will warn you. You can ask anyone on the Greensboro City Council or the Greensboro Police Department whose e-mails are above, I can see straight through bullshit. #Everyfreakingtime. Don't you dare let a PR spokesperson handle this for you, I will chew them up and spit them out. I want the President, Dean and Provost to respond to me personally.

And I will take no response as an admission of guilt.

This is exactly why people like Zack Methany grow up to think they are above the law.

-Billy Jones, Your friendly, freelance neighborhood Tyrannicide"

Now lets see if the folks at A&T have balls.

Update 3: November 12, 2015. High Point's Fox 8 confirms my story. None of the Greensboro media outlets have written the truth about this story to date. And obviously the management of NC A&T University has no balls and should be forced to resign for willingly participating in this cover-up. As a lifelong resident of East Greensboro who along with the rest of East Greensboro, depends on NC A&T to give us honest leadership both now and decades into the future I demand said resignations. Teaching entitlement should not be a part of our university curriculum.

A Good Kid Needs Your Help

A week ago I told you about the horrific beating of Thomas Bynum by the A&T football team and how A&T, the Greensboro Police and local media all kept it a secret so that A&T could play their homecoming game without interruption. After all. the A&T Homecoming is the biggest event in all of east Greensboro and one of the biggest events in the entire City of Greensboro every year.

And why let one 21 year old, honor roll, Greek society college student who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time risk millions of dollars in economic impact for an entire city even if they did leave him lying on the ground to die, right?



Anyway, friends of Thomas Bynum understand he and his mother cannot afford to pay his ongoing medical bills and so they have set up the Help Thomas Bynum Recover! gofundme campaign to help Thomas and his mother out.

I don't know Thomas personally but I have friends that do know Thomas and they assure me he wasn't the type of kid to start trouble. They tell me Thomas couldn't weigh over 150 pounds and yet no less than 10 A&T Football players saw some urgent need to beat him almost to death.

Please, click on the link and donate what you can to Help Thomas Bynum Recover!

And share this post with everyone you know.

Update: Unlike the News & Record which reported the fight as a mutual affray:

"A criminal offense generally defined as the fighting of two or more persons in a public place that disturbs others.

The offense originated under the Common Law and in some jurisdictions has become a statutory crime. Although an agreement to fight is not an element of the crime under the common-law definition, some statutes provide that an affray can occur only when two or more persons agree to fight in a public place.

An affray is a type of Disorderly Conduct and a breach of the peace since it is conduct that disturbs the peace of the community. It is punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both."

Fox8 confirms my story: 

"He was at a party off campus for the football team," said Bynum's mother Sidrane.

She says her son accidentally bumped into someone at the party and the other guy started shoving Thomas.

"The guy turned around and pushed him again. He pushed him two times. They had words and when the guy went to push him a third time, my son hit him. When he hit the guy, at that point he said that's when they started beating on him," she said.

Thomas said 10 to 15 people beat him and pushed him down three flights of stairs.
"He actually had to crawl under a car in order for them to stop beating him," Sidrane added."

Nancy Vaughan Retains Amil Rossabi

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat "Grasshopper" Vaughan has retained the services of mob lawyer Amil Rossabi along with City Attorney Tom Carruthers and Smith Moore Law to represent her in an upcoming trial. And of course the Greensboro taxpayers are footing the entire bill.

In other news, Yes Weekly's Jeffery Sykes spills the beans that Zack Methany was the source of the information that got Jason Cannon fired from his job at Downtown Greensboro Inc. A job Mr Matheny replaced Mr Cannon at.

"What I will say is that we here at YES! Weekly hounded Mr. Cannon based on documents provided to us that ultimately, we discovered, came from Matheny. Matheny wanted that job so bad that everyone in Greensboro could feel it. He lined up the mayor and Mike Barber, who according to DGI’s Cyndy Hayworth, called her up when she was the interim leader and threatened to defund the organization if Matheny was not hired."

I can also confirm that the documents EzGreensboro.com broke concerning Jason Cannon were eventually found to have come from Zack Matheny even though I suspected it all along.

And finally, in a sad lesson of how entitlement behavior begins and is promoted by the system. While the News & Record is reporting Police: N.C. A&T University student an aggressor in off-campus party, student won't be charged, what they are not telling you is that those who joined in are members of the A&T Football Team and that police are wrongfully trying to convince the victim that because Police have ruled the incident an affray he cannot press charges.

Sorry folks, 7 to 1 is not a mutual affray. Seven players will be setting out some A&T football games.

The Great Union Square, Gateway Center Fraud

The State of North Carolina, City of Greensboro, UNCG, NC A&T University, GTCC, developers Bob Isner and Bob Chapman, Cone Hospital and others are all moving ahead with scaled down plans to build Union Square Campus in downtown Greensboro to house a nursing school.

Amazingly, at last Tuesday's Greensboro City Council Meeting, council members Sharon Hightower and Jamal Fox (Districts 1 and 2) pushed to build Union Square. Here's what they weren't telling you:

The current plan for Union Square is 83,000 square feet.

Gateway North in District 2: http://www.gatewayurp.com/pages/North_Campus

"

• A combined 140,000 square feet between eight existing buildings.
• Potential to add more buildings for a total of 450,000 square feet.Two on-site training rooms equipped with flexible seating arrangements and ample audio/visual technology.
• Tenant benefits include access to event, meeting and training spaces, as well as high performance broadband IP connectivity, teresence suite, 232-seat auditorium, and walking trails.
• Within minutes of North Carolina A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Nine miles to Central Business District."

Gateway South in District 1 with nothing but a retaining wall between it and Councilwoman Hightower's back yard (Remember having the gateway workers remove the blacksnake from your driveway, Sharon? I literally have spies watching your homes.) http://www.gatewayurp.com/pages/South_Campus

"

• Six Building Pads (25K SF footprint each, two-story)
• Infrastructure and Grading in Place
• 8,000 SF Raw Unfinished Space
• 1,800 SF of Finished Space
• Two (2) 1,000± SF Labs
• Ample Free Parking"

Sharon claims in front of the cameras and on Facebook that she wants to see development in east Greensboro but pushes for more downtown development first. Sure, Greensboro elites are making promises to them both, the exact same promises they made 20 years ago: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9h2K8JxTQUjNFVjSFV1RkhWRnF3Sy1kRFhTM2xtMkFKQy0w/view?usp=sharing

Nothing changed. They claim over $150 Million was invested in the East Market Street Corridor but that includes a football stadium on Lindsey Street. Roughly $148 Million was spent by the State of North Carolina on the NC A&T Campus over the course of 20 years but they claim it all as east Greensboro economic development.They didn't keep their promises then and they don't intend to keep their promises now.

And damn, you still can't walk across East Market without getting run down by a speeding bus!!! Streetscaping was supposed to fix that.

Yvonne Johnson, Goldie Wells, T Diane Bellamy Small and others played this game for many years and got us exactly nowhere-- what makes Jamal and Sharon think they can do any better? They can't, not as long as they follow the rules set forth by the status quo. Black folks on my side of town are already saying worse about the two of them than I've ever said about them. I believe they both know why. Are they right? Prove them wrong.

If Union Square doesn't get built the UNCG / A&T  nursing program moves to east Greensboro because that is where both schools own empty buildings. That is if A&T's rapidly crumbling nursing program is allowed to remain in existence by the regulatory boards which have already close parts of their program. 

 

The Bobs (Isner and Chapman) are under contract to build a mixed use development-- who says a mixed use development must include a college campus? Tell them to meet their terms of the contract, build the development or back out entirely leaving the City owing them nothing. Let them sue the City if they want-- City Council does it all the time. What? Are other city council members afraid of the discovery process? Nancy? Robbie? Zack? Yvonne?

There are others who would like to build bigger projects there if the Bobs don't step up to the plate. And let us not forget, the Bobs never developed the property the City gave them on MLK several years before. So why are we letting them do it again?

But wait, the story gets bigger. The tenants, COIN and Advaero at Gateway South are there in name only. They don't do anything, They didn't bring Greensboro jobs. Gateway South is in reality a ghost town when it comes to commercial tenants. Anyone can have a local telephone number in any city in the country redirected to any other telephone in the world and no one knows the difference.

And at Gateway North, the SERVE Center, the most significant presence in the entire park was making plans to move over a year ago and hasn't filed a Federal Form 990 since the year 2000. Are they even still in business? And if so are they legit?

Sharon Hightower e-mails this morning to say:

Billy, this building is in District 2,  It has now been downsized to 83,0000 due to GTCC not needing as much space.  I support my colleague with efforts in his District as he supports mine. 

Dear Ms Hightower, judging from the information I have given you the fact that Union Square is tucked away in a tiny downtown corner of District 2 hardly justifies the millions of dollars of taxpayers moneys that will be spent when larger, empty buildings owned by the entities involved already exist.

Better taxpayer investments could and should be made in our communities and you, Sharon Hightower should be at the forefront of seeing they are done instead of whining about where developers chose to spend their money. You are a steward of the taxpayers' money, not the developers' money-- get it?

More Bad News For Downtown Union Square Project

On November 30, 2014 we reported:

"NC A&T might not even have a nursing program in a couple of years as they've twice had to get special dispensation to continue probation in the last ten years."

On Friday Fox 8 Reported:

 "Monday North Carolina A&T advisors will meet with pre-nursing majors in the lower division nursing program to discuss their options of transferring or changing their field of study.

In its April 2014 meeting, the Board of Governors completed its annual review of the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) first-time writers’ pass rates for graduates of the nursing programs across the university system. The board suspended new admissions to the Bachelors of Science in Nursing program at NC A&T State University’s School of Nursing after 2014 and called for a full review of the program.

If students decide to transfer elsewhere, NC A&T will provide the students transcripts at no cost."

The same article also states:

 "The suspension does not include their accelerated BSN or RN to BSN programs.

NC A&T’s involvement in Greensboro’s Union Square Campus will not change."

Plans for construction of Union Square have now been twice reduced in size and yet neither UNCG, the City of Greensboro nor the State of North Carolina acknowledges the glut of empty classrooms owned by UNCG on 2 campuses at Gateway East and Gateway North. Together the 2 campuses total almost 500,000 square feet of newly constructed buildings that have yet to be put to use but Union Square is said to be only 85,000 square feet at a cost of $90 Million Dollars. The fact that A&T is continuing to spend taxpayer dollars to build a nursing school in downtown Greensboro despite the fact that their own nursing program is currently being dismantled piece by piece only goes to demonstrate the shift from education to real estate development that is taking place in our statewide university system. Remember Folks, we first reported it even before the students at NC A&T were told about it. From Fox 8:

"A sophomore pre-nursing major from Delaware contacted our station in frustration that the department’s first notification of the suspension was on Dec. 22, 2014."