This week's column
A cartoon in the current New Yorker magazine recalls the April 19 Greensboro City Council meeting.
"No one is making you do anything you don’t want," a compassionate cowboy tells a glaring cow. "I'm just saying we're all headed for Dodge City and we think you should come along."
Mayor Keith Holliday played the role of that sensitive, New Age cowpoke on April 19, and try as he might, he could not round up a 9-0 vote. The rest, as they say, is history.
Instead of a largely empty, symbolic resolution that said the killings of five people in Greensboro on Nov. 3, 1979, were a really bad thing, the council stumbled and fumbled its way to a 6-3 vote that approved a motion opposing the Truth and Reconciliation effort altogether.
The point here is not to rehash the Truth and Reconciliation discussion, but that the mayor, a good man who generally tries to do the right thing, was so incredibly fixated on generating a unanimous vote for a resolution that didn’t say much of anything.
Fast forward to April 21, where the Guilford County commissioners, still hopelessly stuck in Bizarro World, could not agree to approve their consent agenda.
Consent agendas are supposed to be a formality, but so much bad blood continually boils among the commissioners that nothing seems to come easily these days.
Some people have gotten so used to this governance by spite that they just throw up their hands until the next wacky episode. Then they throw up their hands again.
Others wish the commissioners could be more like the City Council. But when it comes to managing conflict, neither is the ideal.
The City Council tries so hard at times to be agreeable that it can sink into the soothing but dangerous fog of group-think. The quest for a united appearance, as they tried to muster with the Truth and Reconciliation vote, can cloud principle and judgment.
This council can be so unwilling to tangle or ask hard questions that it will flee from a fight faster than that woman in Georgia from her wedding.
The result: Project Homestead, the Greensboro Generals and St. James Homes II, three cases in which lax oversight and an absence of tough questions led to wasted taxpayer money.
Even after all that, they've remained at least publicly united. And blamed the newspaper.
The commissioners, on the other hand, seem to relish conflict, to delight in a good mud fight, so long as there’s more mud in the other guy's eye when the battle's over.
From the tempestuous tenure of Robert Moores, to the Famous Water Tossing Saga between Skip Alston and Linda Shaw, to the Billy Yow wet T-shirt episode, the commissioners can be entertaining to a fault. And disagreeable to everyone's detriment.
The healthier model is somewhere in between these two extremes.
It is possible to acknowledge differences and to debate them constructively. To listen. To know when to compete, to compromise, to work together or to give in so as not to bog down.
It's also important to choose battles. Not every one of them is worth a political brawl. Certainly a consent agenda isn't.
They key is to remove personalities from the issues and to place the good of the county above ego or the desire to win.
It can be done, even in a partisan setting.
By the way, partisanship is not in and of itself a bad thing. Yes, it does get in the way of progress among the commissioners. But there's something to be said for the two sides counterbalancing one another, so long as party affiliation does not define every discussion.
Nor should a commissioner be tattooed with a scarlet letter for voting with members of the other party if it is an honest vote rooted in principle.
The next test for the commissioners is the outcome of what clearly appears to be a politically motivated investigation of Tax Director Jenks Crayton.
Somebody is not going to look good when this ends. Will they still be able to look ahead?
As for the council, its members need to mix it up a little more.
That doesn't mean they have to be disrespectful or condescending to one another or the public.
They just need to be more accountable and honest.
They need to be leaders.
Correction: Last week’s column misstated the status of Taser use in the Greensboro Police Department. The department will continue to use Tasers on a limited basis but will not increase their use pending a safety study.
Comments (10)
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Allen - If you were a gymnast, I would say that "you stuck the landing" with today's column, especially the following piece of wisdom. I hope our commissioners are reading, too.
"...partisanship is not in and of itself a bad thing. Yes, it does get in the way of progress among the commissioners. But there's something to be said for the two sides counterbalancing one another, so long as party affiliation does not define every discussion.
Nor should a commissioner be tattooed with a scarlet letter for voting with members of the other party if it is an honest vote rooted in principle."
Posted on May 8, 2005 10:27 AM
Allen,
Your column today is an important, extremely well-written one.
I don't know if all our local elected officials will read it and take it to heart, but you've provided much needed, very balanced advice for them to consider.
It's also great advice for everyone else who might need to realize that it's not a bad thing for decision-making processes to be messy. (Just don't confuse messy with ugly; there's a huge difference, as you point out.)
Also, I will make a seemingly abstract connection and suggest that your next movie-going experience should be "Crash." This movie is as relevant and important for our community as your column today.
I have a post at my Blog with the lengthy title of Billy Yow and Skip Alston Should See and Discuss The Movie "Crash" Together (and so should the rest of us!)
In it, I suggest that the Guilford County Commissioners, the Greensboro City Council, the Greensboro Bicentennial Mosaic Project, the News & Record, and the Guilford County Schools, as well as our entire community have the potential to benefit from this movie.
(I go out of my way in my post NOT to give away any plot details.)
I'd love to know what you or anyone else thinks about "Crash."
Sincerely,
Hardy
Posted on May 8, 2005 10:28 AM
Allem,
So you want us council members to start "cussin' and fussin'"? :)
Posted on May 8, 2005 4:13 PM
Hardly, Sandy. I believe there is a way to engage in conflict constructively, a middle ground between the histrionics of the commissioners and group-think.
Posted on May 9, 2005 9:03 AM
Allen,
Agreed on that - I was just joking with you with that comment.
Seriously though, before you go very far into the "group think" scenario, please do a bit of research into the history of votes regarding the Project Homestead proposals in the past. There are a couple of us - Tom Phillips and me in particular - who did not go along with all the proposals or the effort to stymie the audit investigation. I think you will find that I often voted "no" on the non-routine funding proposals from Project Homestead, including the last one - the Cajun restaurant where a majority of council voted "no." So I am a bit puzzled that the "group think" label is being applied to that particular issue.
Posted on May 9, 2005 1:10 PM
You're right, Sandy. You and Tom Phillips do deserve credit for raising pertinent questions along the way. But the council as a whole chose to circle the wagons rather than come clean and tackle the problems Homestead laid bare as directly, honestly and urgently as it should have. The same goes for St. James II and the coliseum-Generals arrangement.
I'm not saying this council's civility isn't preferred to the Wild West mentality of the commissioners. But this council also has been sluggish to acknowledge and fix smaller problems before they become bigger ones.
Posted on May 10, 2005 5:37 PM
Hardy, I saw "Crash" Saturday and am planning both a post and a column on it.
It made some brutally honest statements about the prejudices in all of us, and our struggles to see past racial and ethnic stereoptypes. It also does an excellent job of portraying three-dimensional characters, with flaws and admirable qualities.
Let's get Billy and Skip and maybe my buddy Chuck Forrester to see it. I'll buy the popcorn.
Posted on May 10, 2005 5:50 PM
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