This week's column: A tale of two cities
Remember the good ol' days, when regionalism was at least an ideal worth dreaming of?
Now it seems more like a mirage — an unattainable pot of gold on some mystical exit ramp where I-40 touches the horizon.
For goodness sakes, even our hospitals can't get along.
This does not bode well for such crucial initiatives as the Heart of the Triad or the International Home Furnishings Market.
Already, Winston-Salem had grown smug and aloof after landing its precious Dell plant.
Now comes this hurtful La-Z-Boy thing, in which High Point has taken the unprecedented step of offering $600,000 in incentives to move the company's headquarters a few miles from Greensboro to High Point.
High Point leaders say they told their counterparts in Greensboro this was coming. They also say this is an exception, because it involves High Point's bread and butter, home furnishings. But it still feels like a sucker punch.
Says the former chairman of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, Watts Carr, whose term ended last summer: "Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point and Kernersville should have something stronger than a gentlemen's agreement — which doesn't seem to work — on how to best compete with each other on projects which will benefit all of them, and there is no rationale which should allow poaching of any company located nearby or even within North Carolina for that matter.
"Remember how some of us felt when the Charlotte mayor came to the Triad to recruit the ACC headquarters ?"
It gets worse. There's even fragmentation within High Point, where north High Point seems more and more separate and apart culturally and politically from "Old High Point."
Part of what makes all of this even harder to swallow is that it involves generally reasonable, upstanding people. There is no more likable or straight-shooting a city leader than High Point Mayor Becky Smothers. The same appears to hold true for High Point City Manager Strib Boynton.
Yet, even as Boynton insisted last week that High Point still intends to be a team-spirited regional partner, he couldn't resist taking a few jabs at the Gate City in nearly the same breath. "The whole Triad would benefit if Greensboro would get its economic development act together," he said.
To be fair, High Pointers are right: Folks in Greensboro will fight about nearly anything. A few years back, former High Point Mayor Arnold Koonce marveled at how people here were actually mobilizing to block a privately financed new ballpark downtown.
Then there's the recent foolishness with lie detector tests among City Council members in Greensboro.
On the other hand, Greensboro's leadership is more open and collaborative than High Point's top-down model, which tends to make it messier. Greensboro has a bustling downtown; High Point hardly has a downtown. The cities probably could learn a thing or two from one another.
But, first, there should be a set of givens:
• Greensboro is the county seat. It makes little sense for Guilford County to keep making Solomonic decisions to split babies in half between High Point and Greensboro. Do we really need two of everything? Two jails, two courthouses? Or in the case of the county school administration, three school headquarters?
• The Moses Cone and High Point Regional health systems should establish some kind of detente — a long-term agreement on rules for expansion.
• High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem ought to make an ironclad pledge not to offer incentives for companies to move from one of the cities in the Triad to another. Period.
• When it's possible, the Guilford County Schools should establish a new central office in a central location, near the airport.
• Greensboro and Winston-Salem should financially support the furniture market on a permanent basis.
Finally, like it or not, Greensboro and High Point are stuck with each other, in Guilford County, forever.
Get over it, already. And get to work.
Comments (13)
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Allen, having lived here for seven years I get this feeling that Greensboro wants High Point to disappear into a black hole, or better still it want to put it there.
Posted on November 19, 2006 9:35 AM
Alexi Johnsonovich,
Don't you think your article above was missing something. Like maybe mention of the most polarizing political force to hit guilford co. in the last twenty years-of course I'm talking about our current schoolboard and it's corrupt faction- AKA: Dot's Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
You mention the political action of citizens against a baseball stadium but no mention of an actual effective political movement n. HP which actually mobilized and elected a candidate to combat the corruption that it increasingly appears you are a party to.
It appears you are following in the grand tradition and even possibly you are a re-incarnated propagandist for Josef Stalin who tried to re-write Russian history by simply omitting any mention of facts or occurences not consistent with the communist viewpoint.
Don't worry Alexi, your ommision of this 9000lb elephant sitting in guilford Co's living room, said more in it's ommision than it would have if you would have given it the minimalist short-shift treatment you always have.
For the glory of the party and the Mother Russia. Nostrovia!!!!
Posted on November 20, 2006 9:45 AM
You're right, although the north High Pointers seem overly eager to blame Terry Grier. In reality, the choice plan was not his idea.
It came from the school board and from some "old High Point" leaders who dropped it like a hot potato when opposition to it mounted.
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:21 AM
I'd shudder to think about the Triad without High Point. The two cities' presence here ought to be a big plus; they could complement their respective strengths and weaknesses if they weren't so stuck in an outdated rivalry.
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:28 AM
One other note: We invited High Point officials to tell their side of the La-Z-Boy story in an op-ed for yesterday's Ideas section. They declined.
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:30 AM
The CP may or may not be Terry Grier's idea since nobody, and with good reason, has ever copped to it. Regardless, he was either an enabler and did it because he was told, bought and sold, or even more worrisome and with more implication for the rest of the county; he was daft enough to think such an outrageous selective lottery plan that FORCED one school's kids to distant schools but was ironically named a "choice plan" could succeed. If it's the latter- it looks like he's dim, or if it's the former...well, lets just say it looks like he's a practioner of one of the world's oldest professions. Either way-NOT GOOD.
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:46 AM
Actually, Alan Duncan has. But it took him a while.
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:48 AM
At least the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, after their latest parting gambit of making Terry Grier Superindendant For Life, is now apparently down to just two remaining members plus Walter- Dot's "Driving Miss Dotty" chauffeur...or wait, who is this Belton guy? There were rumors at one time Marti was thinking of having surgery...Nah, couldn't be. But wait, has anybody ever seen Mr. Belton and Marti in the same room at the same time?
Posted on November 20, 2006 11:40 AM
Allen, you mentioned the High Point leaders letting T.G. take the heat for the CP? In their defense,I would say they probably quickly discovered they were sold a bill of goods; "world class" schools etc. that was quickly proven to be hype/BS,although I did hear that there was even complicity extending as high as the mayor's office,with the more recent abomination KNOWN AS "The Wrath of Dot"AKA the notorious Map C.
Posted on November 20, 2006 4:46 PM
In light of the fact that our schoolboard, while being faced with dire educational issues, is constantly wasting time and resources persuing agendii other than education ie: trying to demographically rehab indidvidual boardmembers neighborhood schools, attending meeting to facilitate funneling no-bid contracts to selected cronies, friends and live-ins, it would seem that eliminating some of these peripheral agenddi would help.
Has anybody thought about a one time 8.5 million dollar payout to Deena Hayes. She could distribute this money to any people...I mean "contractors" that need it and whom she thinks are worthy and maybe keep say $2million for herself. Now obviously she would need to resign or at least sign a waiver to never waste anybody's time with this again. Now I know some taxpayers are not going to accept this and think it is extortion, but duh....think about it. The board will NEVER have to waste their time on this issue again or fund "healing" seminars etc. Well worth it. Many members of the board would jump on this in a heartbeat.
The other alternative is for the board just to institutionalize graft. All the boardmembers should divorce their spouse, have the divorced spouse set themselves up as "contractors", the board should then award them as many no-bid contracts as possible, then they move back in. All perfectly legal according to Jill Wilson because the couple is not legally married any longer. This would also protect them from the press, such as the N&R, who are always looking very diligently to expose graft on the schoolboard.
Just some things to think about over the holdiday.
Thank you
Posted on November 21, 2006 9:37 AM
Could I call by company LYLES-MOR?
Posted on November 21, 2006 10:38 AM
I had always wanted to have a little business, and I know this sounds strange, but I wanted to get rid of kind of the dirt and grass that forms in the cracks of the sidewalks. First I would use some Round-Up or something on it and then kind of remove the dirt later. I think if I went around to the different schools it would be worth 50 grand and the board and taxpayers would not think I was cheating them.
Posted on November 21, 2006 2:21 PM
SC Savage,
Great Idea for Paying off Deena Hayes...
maybe she would send some of her BOOTY to Skippy so he could relocate the Civil Rights Bar Stools and Lunch Counter over to his Hot Dog Emporium.
Spread the Wealth , Deena
Posted on November 21, 2006 3:23 PM