A bird flying by tells me Nancy Vaughan, DGI's Zack Matheny and City staff threw Roy Carroll under the bus to enrich Randall Kaplan and Kathy Manning, Congressional Candidate,George House and Justin Outling and Greensboro's elite oligarchs

Sounds like Nancy Vaughan made the ultimate call, and Zack was in on it, with the help of past and current City staff.

Kathy Manning is going to have a boatload of leftover campaign cash to hand out, in exchange for her hubby Randall Kaplan's $32 million parking deck for his hotel which stands to profit from Kathy, George and CFGG's Walker Sander's play for the Steven Tanger Performing Arts Center residual leisure stay profits.

A full D City Council and Zack going for a clear win in the next election with Manning's money seems entirely plausible, now that Kathy's in with the national establishment.

Roy Carroll's Rhino endorsed those running for County Commissioner this year, after they voted for about $18 million in tax breaks to enable his $3 million water and sewer payday for the Publix distribution center.

The City is slow to produce the 1,700 plus emails related to former Greensboro mayor Robbie Perkins' involvement in the deck and Publix deals.

Who would have thought?

Can most let most of City Council and executive staff off the hook after Roy Carroll went after the competing deck with John Hammer and the Rhino Times, considering Roy's paper endorses candidates for local office while extorting votes for Carroll's real bottom line?

Maybe if our local sold out or negligent press would have taken the Rhino to task for influencing who wins and loses private profits from local taxpayer paid for deals originally conceived to enrich most of the big campaign supporters on both sides.

But they didn't.  Both the News and Record and the Rhino endorsed Skip Alston, which is a good indication of what underlies the decision making.

Skip, Nancy Vaughan and Sharon Hightower went to see the Publix distribution center Publix probably wants to downsize with more $400 million high tech, robotic enterprises as planned for Eastern Guilford County. 

Either way Roy Carroll walks with $3 million of water sewer good idea or bad with no skin in the game.

The whole gang gets away with Greensboro's taxpayers on the hook for the STPAC plus interest;

As of November 14, 2017, only $20 million of the private donations had been "raised"; If the City of Greensboro's bond council (Robinson Bradshaw) doesn't know how much Walker Sanders of the Community Foundation has actually brought in for the Steven Tanger Performing Arts Center, then who does?


http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2018/04/as-of-november-14-2017-only-20-million.html

Greensboro's News and Record has not reported "END CITIZENS UNITED ENDORSES KATHY MANNING IN NC-13" since March 1, 2018, after which she continued to take money from PACs

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2018/04/greensboros-news-and-record-has-not.html

Greensboro's latest slush fund balance the City's employees want a chunk of;


http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2018/05/greensboros-latest-slush-fund-balance.html

STPAC VIP Parking Control Fraud Math

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2017/12/stpac-vip-parking-control-fraud-math.html

Downtown Greensboro Parking Deck Math = City Council lied to our community and may have broken a few laws


http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2017/12/downtown-greensboro-parking-deck-math.html

For as many times as this information has been posted, 

has there been a single refutation?

Why would Greensboro Performing Arts Center Parasite Kathy Manning give Nancy Hoffmann $1,000?

http://candidatereports.myguilford.com/files/2021_HOFFMANN%20NANCYMID2.PDF

How much money did Nancy Hoffmann vote to give to Kathy Manning and Randall Kaplan?

This is why Margaret Moffet and Susan Ladd are cowards as journalists.

Who's getting a $30 million parking deck downtown for their new hotel?

How stupid is Greensboro's electorate?

As stupid as the local press is crooked.

Lies From The Wyndham Hotel Study: Part 1

I finally got my hands on the long awaited downtown Wyndham Hotel Feasibility Study and know now why the developers and City officials wanted to keep it hid.

From page 1:

"In addition to the work in 2012, we have confirmed that the City of Greensboro has approved two additional significant projects, the $60 million, 3,000 seat, Greensboro Performing Arts Center and the Downtown University Campus site."

As you can clearly see by clicking on Page 1 below, the study was dated December 9, 2013. The Greensboro City Council did not approve the building of the Greensboro Performing Arts Center until Janurary 2014. And plans for the Downtown University Campus site have yet to be approved.

 This is what I told the City today.



Let the City Council resignations begin.

 Please continue reading Lies From The Wyndham Hotel Study: Part 2 

Wyndham Feasibility Study Suddenly Appears But Remains Hidden

If you've been keeping up you know I previously requested a copy of the downtown Wyndham Hotel Feasibility study and was told the City of Greensboro didn't have a copy of the study despite the fact that North Carolina state law requires feasibility studies to be done before incentives can be given and the Greensboro City Council voted to grant $1.975 Million Dollars to the project.

Roch Smith Jr of Greensboro101 sent the following e-mail to Greensboro City Manager, Jim.Westmoreland, Councilman Mike Barber, myself and others today:

"Hello all,

It has come to my attention that the Wyndham Hotel feasibility study, previously requested by and denied to Billy Jones is, in fact, in possession of Andy Scott, who is now further delaying its release because he wants to see if he should distribute it to city council first. This is not a valid reason to withhold a public record.

From the North Carolina Attorney General's Guide to Open Government and Public Records (attached):

"The Public Records Act does not permit an automatic delay by the government in releasing public records, either to allow for approval of disclosure or to notify those identified in public records."

"Agencies may not, however, withhold records based on the agency’s belief that immediate release of the records would not be “prudent or timely.”

"Agencies are required to furnish copies 'as promptly as possible'”.

Mr. Scott, as custodian of this public records is capable of furnishing a copy now, that would be as promptly as possible -- what the law demands.

Sincerely,
Roch Smith, Jr."

Records Law Guide attachment 

Councilman Barber replied,

"My limited knowledge suggests it needs to be released now or made available for inspection during business hours tomorrow or other reasonable times.  This matter is not an exception under econ. incentives as it has been decided upon by Council.  If I'm incorrect, please cite the statute.
Thanks to everyone trying to improve this process.
Mike Barber
CEO/The First Tee of the Triad
Attorney
408 Hobbs Rd.
Greensboro NC 27403"

My reply:

"Is there any reason why it cannot be e-mailed to me?

Thank you -Billy Jones"

The very fact that almost $2 million Dollars in Grants was voted to be given away without a copy of the study in hand is troubling enough. Every minute of delay adds suspicion. I first requested the study on December 9, 2013. Again on February 4, 2014. Still, despite the fact that there is no legal reason to keep it from me or anyone else I don't have it. On February 18, 2014 I asked the following question in a PIRT request:

 "Please ask your employer to explain how they will know that the feasibility study that is presented to them the second time 'round is the same document that was presented to them the first time if they didn't keep a copy? After all, we are dealing with developers who were previously proven by 3rd party auditors hired by the City of Greensboro to have falsified their 2010 hotel study of which you've already sent me copies of that study and the audit."

I guess my questions are just too tough as I never got a reply.

At 5:33 PM Roch e-mailed the following question:

"Is there any reason why Mr. Scott has not provided the record nor cited the statute which justifies him not doing so as requested by Mr. Barber?"

My reply: A link to this blog post.

 Update: From Donnie Turlington at 7:02PM

"Billy,

I understand the concern you and others have raised regarding this situation. I can assure you there was no deliberate attempt on the City's part to withhold or delay providing the records today, although our effort may have created that perception. In many cases, we send items to City Council on a wide variety of issues to be sure they're in the loop with what the public receives. Normally, that does not cause any delays in providing records to the public as it's a seamless process.

Unfortunately, due to scheduling demands, neither I nor the City Manager were aware of the request to provide the records to City Council or to you and other requestors until this evening. Unfortunately, the files are too large for me to email from my remote location tonight but I will provide to you first thing in the morning via disk and our FTP site.

We'll also take a look at today's delay to be sure our process works better in the future.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Donnie"

My reply:

"Donnie,
Were it a few hours or a day, even a few days I would have no concerns but with everything that has happened and the fact that I have been seeking this document(s) for more than a month I'm sure the City of Greensboro can fully understand why myself and my readers would be suspect. Giving incentives without feasibility studies is against state law. How are we to know the feasibility study is real and that it was one in the same as the study that was presented to Mr Scott previously? After all, Mt Scott did document a history of these same investors falsifying studies. (Yes, I can provide documentation for that as well.)

There simply was no excuse for the City not to have a copy on hand before voting to give away $1.975 Million Dollars. In fact: this is looking very much like a replay of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum boondoggle which is still being documented here: http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2014/02/obamas-new-greensboro-girl-in-trouble.html

Please inform your employers that having spent 40 years in private industry I can safely say these sorts of errors would never be tolerated at any level, why are they being tolerated by the most educated and well trained among us?

Thanks -Billy"

Maybe we'll have a study on Tuesday.

Update 2: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 This morning I received the long awaited Wyndham Feasibility Study. Before I finished reading the first page I e-mailed the following link to everyone involved. "The shit has hit the fan."

Stay tuned for resignations.

3 Public Information Requests Sent Saturday

"PIRT #1 From News 2 Jun 25, 2013

http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=289075

     "The city has been taking about half a cent out of every tax dollar that goes into the general fund. They have been putting that money into an economic development fund. It added up to about $605,000 for 2012-2013. It will add up to $1.2 million for 2013-2014.

    However, all that economic development money is already allocated. WFMY News 2 has put in a request to the city to find out where that money's going."


If all the economic development money for 2014 is already spent, how is it that the City of Greensboro is currently considering more incentives?

And if current incentives being considered are projected into the future then how will we fill the need should an especially attractive incentive package be needed in 2014?


PIRT #2 As pointed out in my article,
Greensboro: Giving Incentives To Tax Deliquents
http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2014/02/greensboro-giving-incentives-to-tax.html

Elm Street Center Llc, which is currently being considered for $1.9 Million Dollars in Incentive Grants currently owes $78,856.58 in delinquent property taxes.

How can the city justify giving incentives to companies with a history of failing to pay their taxes?

PIRT #3 Kaplan and Kern are valuing Elm Street Center Llc at roughly $12 Million Dollars in its current form but as I pointed out in Downtown Wyndham Or Downtown Dump? http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2014/01/downtown-wyndham-or-downtown-dump.html the total appraised values are only about $5 Million Dollars. Has the City taken this $7 Million Dollar discrepancy into account? And if so, how?

In the 2010 Hotel Study commissioned by the City of Greensboro for the previous hotel project Randal Kaplan and Milton Kern http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2014/01/downtown-greensboro-hotel-study.html it was reported that 1. even in the busiest of times, Greensboro hotels are rarely over 70% occupied. and that 2. Greensboro hotel occupancy rates rarely average over 52.4%. The study said:

"The lower-priced, limited-service hotels are performing better than the full-service hotels..."

Please show me where this has since changed.

The study noted that in the past when new Hotels opened rates for all hotels in Greensboro went down as occupancy rates fell.

Please show me where this has changed or where there is sufficient demand to believe it will not be the case/

The study said:

"Members of Elm Street Center, LLC have local food & beverage experience by virtue of the Empire Room catering operation that will become part of the proposed hotel. The City should request income and expense data for this facility in order to assess the reasonableness of the developer’s food & beverage revenue and expense projections."

Has the City done so for the Wyndham Project and if so please provide me with the results.

The study also said:

"The developer’s projection of occupancy at the proposed hotel over thefirst five years is highly  unlikely to be achieved given the recent occupancy levels achieved by the four hotels that will be primary competitors of the proposed hotel."

It is also my understanding that the study for the Wyndham assumed very inflated occupancy rates approaching 100%. Perhaps, considering the history of Mr Kern's and Mr Kaplan's lies, the City of Greensboro would like to explain why you are even considering incentives?

I will be posting these PIRTs to my blog Tuesday morning with or without your answers.

Thanks you -Billy Jones"

Burlington answers Public Information Requests same business day-- why can't Greensboro?

Downtown Wyndham Or Downtown Dump?

A little bird flew by today with the following property reports from 2 pieces of property collectively known as the Empire Room, aka Elm Street Center.

Elm Street Center Property Report  201 S. Elm


Elm Street Center Property Report 207 S Elm


I suspect the bird will be flying past again.

Downtown Greensboro Hotel Study

I recently got my hands on the 2010 Hotel Study commissioned by the City of Greensboro for the previous hotel project Randal Kaplan and Milton Kern had planned to build and were seeking incentives for using the name, Urban Hotel Group. As you will quickly note from the snippets below the figures provided by Kaplan and Kern to then Assistant City Manager, Andrew Scott were in-fact falsified. I have no reason to believe Kaplan and Kern have changed their ways or that there have been any significant upward changes in the Greensboro market since that date.

What is even more interesting is the revelation that even in the busiest of times, Greensboro hotels are rarely over 70% occupied. It would appear Greensboro has more than enough hotel rooms to last us many years into the future. Click on any of the snippets to view them full size.

You see, Kaplan and Kern intend to profit not from the hotel but from renting the hotel parking garage to the City of Greensboro at exorbitant rates. As I wrote in Part 15 of my series, Incentives In Greensboro:

"Here's a better idea, a counter proposal: The City of Greensboro offers to build the entire parking garage and hotel structure and lease it long term to the Wyndham Hotel Group with the hotel group picking up the cost of the interior as is customary in commercial leasing. If Kaplan, Kern and Greg Dillon sign on the dotted line they get their deal. If the hotel is in fact a money maker then that's the best deal going for the Wyndham Hotel Group.

I'm betting Dillon high tails it back to Washington, DC leaving Kaplan and Kern looking like the two bit hustlers we all know them to be."

Update: The entire study is now online thanks to Keith Brown of Triad Watch.

Greg Dillon And Greensboro's New Math

On Tuesday night the Greensboro City Council met in closed session to discuss incentives to the proposed Wyndham Hotel project to be built by Randall Kaplan, George House and Washington, DC area investor, Greg Dillon. According to Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record the council's concerns are the cost of the parking garage:

"Mayor Nancy Vaughan wouldn’t provide details, but she said the council made a proposal to investors and is waiting to hear back.

Councilman Zack Matheny said the council won’t support the city building a parking deck for the project.

“We just can’t do the parking deck,” he said. “It’s in their court right now.”

But what Amanda may have not known was that on December 9th I submitted an as yet unanswered public information request concerning the use of the IMPLAN anaylisis tool and the figures that were submitted by Mr Kaplan and company to the City of Greensboro that has until now, gone unanswered.

Do they not plan to answer me until after several $Million Dollars are given to Misters Kaplan, House and Dillon?

You see, Mr Kaplan's numbers were forged, based on a 100% occupancy rate when Greensboro's current hotels only maintain roughly 54% occupancy. You do the math.

Downtown Greensboro Wyndham Hotel Study A Fake

A few weeks ago, George Hartzman, myself and others requested the study for the proposed downtown Wyndham hotel to be built by Milton Kern, Randal Kaplan and others with the support of an $8 Million Dollar incentive package to be paid for by the City of Greensboro. I said then the study was falsified. I stand by that statement. Note that I made that post on December 7. It is now December 26th.

Previously I pointed out how Wyndham Hotel Group would not be an investor in Kern and Kaplan's taxpayer funded project despite what the News & Record would have you believe with their finely worded articles meant to deceive.

Way back in August I pointed out the water and sewer issues the downtown construction will cause that no one wants to talk about:

"You see, Greensboro isn't New York City with giant sewers big enough for homeless communities to camp in and alligators to breed, nor are we Atlanta with a new wastewater system costing $Billions upon $Billion. Nope, Greensboro is a city whose downtown already has a less than adequate sewer system that dates back almost 100 years. "

But back to the  downtown Wyndham Hotel study.

When we got our hands on the hotel study, Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record, let it be known to George Hartzman, Roch Smith Jr and I that a computer program called the IMPLAN Analysis Tool had been used by the City of Greensboro to provide the results published in the downtown Wyndham Hotel Study and knowing that Kern and Kaplan had faked their 2010 downtown hotel proposal we thought it time to check to see if they were faking their 2013 proposal as well. So on December 9 I sent the following questions to the City of Greensboro:

"What data was used in this study?
Was the IMPLAN data customized? If so, how? Why?
What assumptions are behind this study? (i.e. What values did you enter into the IMPLAN system,   Why those numbers?)
How many assumptions were made for this study? Is this enough information to create a thorough study?
Has anyone done a similar study with different results? If so, what assumptions were behind that study? How do these assumptions differ?"

All those questions are recommended to be asked by the makers of the IMPLAN Analysis Tool. 

Requested December 9th. It's now December 26th at 5:00 AM and to date I have received no answers. One can only assume this latest study, like the first, is a fake.

As further evidence, might I add the contents of an e-mail that Amanda Lemhert, Jeff Gauger, Allen Johnson, Doug Clark, myself and others all received from from George Hartsman on December 11th:

"Some of the assumptions that went into the 29.3 million.

 

I spoke to the fellow who did the "analysis" a few minutes ago.

 

Deer in the headlights conversation.

 

Sounds like he took the expectation of jobs created provided by Kaplan and crew and extrapolated 29.3 million out without any expectation of percentage of occupancy included.

 

The Urban Hotel Group had all the breakdowns of per room per night etc...

 

I would say the "analysis" took less than an hour to complete.

 

crap in, crap out, just like congressional CBO studies.

 

g"

I know the name of the "fellow" who did the study on behalf of the City of Greensboro.

What Are Kaplan And Kern Planning For Downtown Greensboro?

One of the companies mentioned in today's News & Record article, Some people, businesses roll the dice on taxes is Greensboro Hotel Holdings who owes 34,553.10 pending litigation for tax foreclosure.

According to the NC Secretary of State their address is 110 SENECA ROAD GREENSBORO NC 27406  a former Denny's Restaurant apparently now vacant and available for rent.with their corporate headquarters being 901 SE 17TH STREET, STE. 206 FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33316 who is in-fact a loan servicer known as HPC LOAN SERVICER, LLC  of the same address.

But the picture showed a Carolina Country Kitchen there so it's back to the NC Secretary of State where I learned that Carolina Country Kitchen, an alias for THE CARIBBEAN 1830 RESTAURANT & CAFETERIA, INC. that was suspended by the NC Secretary of State in 2006...

But then it hit me, this is also the location of the Knight's Inn, "part of Wyndham Hotel Group" which according to the Knight's Inn website is now a Super 8 Motel. In other words, a Wyndham Hotel Group dump that owes back taxes to the City of Greensboro.
Is this what Kaplan and Kern have planned for $8 Million Dollars in incentives from the City of Greensboro? A downtown Wyndham turned Knight's Inn turned Super 8 Motel and someday turned another Greensboro Inn? Luckily, the citizens of Greensboro only paid to buy the Greensboro Inn on 1 occasion-- when the City of Greensboro seized the property to build the Greensboro Performing Arts Center. 

Randall Kaplan Falsified Wyndham Hotel Study

The City of Greensboro released a study that said the proposed downtown Wyndham Hotel would generate 29.3 Million Dollars a year in economic impact. We now know that developer Randall Kaplan provided the numbers for the study and that the numbers he provided assumptions that can only be described as falsified before being entered into the IMPLAN software by Jeff Sovich, Neighborhood Planning Coordinator, City of Greensboro.

Allow me to be clear, I am  implying no wrongdoing on the part of Mr Sovich, whose job it is to enter accurate figures given to him by developers and calculate economic impact based on honest assumptions.

Why would Randall Kaplan do this? Two reasons: to entice the City of Greensboro into $8 in incentives and to use the incentive package to attract other investors-- anything to keep from risking his own money. You see, in that way Kaplan makes money even if the hotel goes broke.

Watch the local blogosphere, this blog and Greensboro101.com for updates.

Update: I'm now being told that Andy Scott and Jim Westmoreland provided data as well.

The Fake Wyndham Hotel Study

Earlier this week, George Hartzman, Paul Clark of the Rhino Times, myself and others asked the City of Greensboro to provide us with the study that proves the proposed Wyndham Hotel, which, by the way, is getting no investment from Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, aka Wyndham Hotel Group, aka Wyndham Worldwide, a franchise seller of hotel franchises, will generate $29 Million Dollars a year for Greensboro. What did we get? You're looking at it when you click here.

No math, no proof, no evidence to support their claim and no study. Just slick advertising designed to sell a project to suckers with no mention of who is responsible for putting it all together. For all we know this could have been written by Randal Kaplan, the developer asking the City for $8 Million in incentives to build the hotel the News & Record won't give us a straight story on.
It's time this city did better.

GPAC And Two Downtown Hotels: Who Pays For The Water And Sewer Improvements?

The local media outlets are touting the news that our local corrupted elites, Randal Kaplan and Roy Carroll are both planning downtown hotel projects in anticipation of the construction of the Greensboro Performing Arts Center that you and I had no say in being built, but besides all the obvious corruption one question remains that no one wishes to answer: Who pays for the water and sewer improvements necessary to make it happen?

You see, Greensboro isn't New York City with giant sewers big enough for homeless communities to camp in and alligators to breed, nor are we Atlanta with a new wastewater system costing $Billions upon $Billion. Nope, Greensboro is a city whose downtown already has a less than adequate sewer system that dates back almost 100 years.

Oh sure, there have been improvements, pipes repaired and plastic pipes inserted into much of downtown Greensboro's water and sewer lines and our water and sewer department is reasonably certain they have since removed and replaced all the wooden pipes installed downtown in the early 1800s but a sewer system big enough to handle 2 luxury hotels and a performing arts center... Folks, we ain't got it.

Not only do we not have it, we can't afford it. At well over $1 Million Dollars per mile from downtown to the closest waste treatment plant located in McLeansville the cost will be staggering and the project will take years to complete. Meanwhile downtown residents, restaurants and everyone in-between will be inconvenienced with the worst known kinds of problems just so 2 rich bastards can flush their royal thrones.


View Larger Map

You see, the existing pipes simply aren't big enough to flow the extra volume. What's that? Forced mains? Yes, you can add pumps and force more through the lines? Sure, if you don't mind it shooting out into every East Greensboro sink and toilet between downtown and the Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant. Forced mains require separate lines and separate lines is exactly why its going to cost in excess of $1 Million Dollars per mile. And we don't even know that the Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant currently has the excess capacity to handle 2 hotels and a GPAC. After all, there have been times when there were spills at Osborne because it exceeded capacity. That's what caused the odors at the White Street Landfill. You see, the overflow from the Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant is piped upstream to the White Street Landfill I presume so the spillage can be recaptured and treated as it comes back downstream to the treatment plant.

So again, who pays for the water and sewer improvements? After all, we don't want to end up like Fatburg.