News-Record.com

"quickly and seemingly painlessly"

Uh uh. It's not painless. That money is coming from somewhere - arts programs have already been gutted and it appears you're making the argument that a city should provide no services at all except the essential-of-the-month. A fundamental issue may be whether or not a city should fund programs that benefit a variety of citizens in different ways and we need to pay close attention to the results of slashing funds for social and cultural programs (thereby relegating an entire sphere of quality of life into nothingness). We posit quality of life as one of the best reasons to live here yet we support losing a lot of that quality and you call it painless?

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul and Greensboro's been doing that for too long. We may be paying the price for that right now.

I agree with Sue. Who says it's going to be "painless?" One N&R editorial writer? He needs to substantiate his opinion. The social programs the city funds are all valuable to maintaining a livable city.The council now has to shift its priorities based on what is happening now. It's called responsive government.

I wonder where the magic number of $500,000. came from since I watched the emergency city council meeting and as far as I can determine, the chief gave this figure to the council without any facts and figures on how he arrived at it or how it would be spent.

If I ran a company and one of my employees came to me and told me he was having problems in a particular area and needed $500,000. to hire more people, my first question would be show me facts and figures on how you will spend this money. I would not approve the extra money and then say, bring me a list of what you need.

The city council needs to get details of each step that is taken and the city council needs to approve it, in conjunction with our chief.

Seems to me since they had no problem diverting $750,000 from a federal grant to give to the civil rights money pit museum, now on it's second decade in development, that they could just divert it back to the police department. The fact they did so originally is an outrage to every taxpayer in Greensboro. If they then require 'sacrifice' for this essential city function, while squandering yet more money on this scam in the guise of a museum project then there ought to be a federal investigation and audit of the whole city government.

It's a matter of what city government's responsibilities are. It seems that Priority #1 is to ensure the safety of the people. Arts and social programs enhance the livability of a city, but they should be funded only after essentials are funded, such as the police protection. The police department has been ignored for years and taken for granted. As I recall staffing of the police department was an issue when David Wray was chief, and never properly addressed by the city. If the city can't ensure the safety of residents and visitors, all of the arts and social programs will not be used or needed. Why not redirect the money allocated to the Civil Rights Museum? City voters indicated their disagreement with further funding of the Museum at the last bond referendum, so the council acted against the voters wishes. My guess is that there are many places that they can find the money, if they want to do so. I can assure you that when crime gets intolerable, money wil be found, so why not now?

We're basically into Third World level corruption now. The lack of outrage by our citizens suggests a numbness unprecedented in American political life. It's scary. We're at their mercy.

Roger,

I do not believe people are numb. I would be very interested to see the stats on the number of people who are aware of the increase in crime in Greensboro. While many of us are fully aware, there are tons that are in the dark.

If anything, people are tired of the constant bickering amongst residents, local government and local politicians. No one likes to go around a person that is constantly griping and always brings them down right? That same concept goes for local issues.

Ryan

"If anything, people are tired of the constant bickering amongst residents, local government and local politicians. No one likes to go around a person that is constantly griping and always brings them down right?"

Ryan,

The above quote sounds like you're indicting negativity instead of crime and the way the city council has confused their priorities. I guess I'm confused about what you're saying. Is there no reason to criticize our city council? We wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by pointing out anything negative. I'm sure crime victims or potential ones would all feel better if we stopped pointing these things out.

Roger

If the police dept. is 100 or so officers short and the shortage has been for some time it would appear that there has to be some extra money already in the budget or is this too simple to understand?

It sounds like some of those DIRTY cops are going to be out on the street for longer periods of time and at a higher rate of pay.

Roger,

The current council is what, a week and a half old? How can you possibly have that much to complain about in regards to the new council? It is not about hurting someones feelings, it is about finding solutions to real problems. You can gripe all day long but is the mother of a teen who is killed by a gang member going to say "please bicker and be unproductive" or "spend the money and change the situation?"

I certainly don't fault you for being upset with past situations... but I hope we don't sit around and dwell on the past.

Ryan

You haven't addressed anything except to talk in platitudes and generalities. For instance, you talk about the city council being new as an acceptable reason for them to seek funding by either cutting programs or increasing taxes, when they've managed to find money for superfluous things unrelated to their mission quite readily with no sacrifice required. That is unless you're a family that depends on low income housing money to help you put a roof over your head. Ignoring those things and just declaring 'all is well' like Kevin Bacon at the end of 'Animal House' is the reason we have such 'negativity' in the first place. These are legitimate, debate points and an exercise in democracy. Sorry you'd like to squelch it.