News-Record.com

This decision engenders confidence and excitement of a level akin to congress holding a special session, emerging and saying that George Bush will remain in office for an extra six mos.

It's useless, and shows that with some of the council members, they would and could keep a kangeroo in the mgr's chair, if it maintained their pride and interests, and the heck with effective gvt.

Under the "No pay raise, but Johnson keeps his job" article on B1 today was a related article, "Greensboro leads 7 N.C. cities in crime, report says".
I wondered if the associated articles were stacked as a jab to the council members who supported keeping Johnson.

SHHHHHHHhhhhhhh, Tony.
Everybody knows actions dismissing an entire experienced police command staff, intitiated by a local PAC lawyer and based on apparently groundless discrimination charges by putting pressure on a lackey town manager have nothing to do with the crime rate. I mean, if it did, we wouldn't just see artilces in the paper but I think we would see editorials and stuff about it in the N&R suggesting a change in management, wouldn't we? This leads one to question your "intelligent design" theory above.

There must be some other explanation, but one can hope, I guess.

Hope is always good wtca.
According to MJ people look at him like he's evil.
You obviously have a typo in your headline Allen.

Judgement is the key issue with Mitch Johnson. He simply lacks common sense but then boasts of his own greatness. He has over 20 years with the City. He will have full pension, full health and dental for life in a few short years if he can just doddle and claim he is the greatest. He has this city sized up..it is a shame this is the manager the city gets. Take care citizens....there is nothing that will be done about it. This once great city will never recover from his work. Christine

Allen, just curious, as always, so straight-up; How would one quantify, say, firing a police chief. (subsequent crime rates?-Would that be fair?) How do you quantify half your bosses having no trust in the things you do or say or the secretive. obstructive, paranoid way you do things? How can you put a number on any of those things? You suggested it, so I'm thinking you have some way to do it.

Don't want to overlaod the system here, but also, do you think the average newspaper editor, assuming of course he had an interest in his city's welfare, would , if he see's the police chief fired and most of his command dissolved, in the face of one of the highest crime rates in the state, for vague reasons-something about a black book subsequently debunked, would demand in print to be shown more proof of why these actions were taken instead of suggesting some type of grading system?

Is this unreasonable? If it is, just say so.

anon was me

You can't quantify all of those things, but you could factor in the crime rate as an objective measure, though I'm not sure that's entirely fair.
Other possible measures:
1. Employee surveys
2. Response times
3. Rate and nature of citizen complaints

Thank you, Allen. You kind of only answered the first half my post, but I'm not complaining, believe me.

Response times? See what you mean, I guess. Hmmm....You know, they said Mussolini made the trains in Italy run on time.

Employee surveys? With Mitch's record of fair treatment of employees, I'd imagine they'd be coming out of the woodwork to give objective answers, of course this might be limited only those city employees who practiced lock-smithery as an avocation.

Apparently, part of the quick and dirty resolution Tuesday night was a desire not to get bogged down in pointless bickering, I am told.
The three who want Johnson gone are outnumbered for the foreseesable future.
But the issue won't go away without common vision, agreed-upon priorities and objectives and measurable outcomes.
Otherwise, the council definitely will pass this way again.
In today's midterm report story on the council, Barber, Rakestraw and Wade all cited among their accomplishments their attempts to remove the manager.

So you think it's good for the town to have this stand-off situation?

No, they need to resolve this, or this conflict will play out over and over again.
It's not good for the city to have this issue hanging constantly over Johnson's head.
An objective evaluation process would help.

Sometimes events happen in the past, in the course of things, especially government, that the differences can't be bridged or overcome. It even becomes irrelevant who is right or wrong, but for the good of the whole, changes must be made.
This is clearly one of those times.