Yvonne Johnson and Bill Knight wrapped up a candidate forum hosted by the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress about an hour ago. Johnson was battling a case of bronchitis, and the forum was interrupted twice while she left the table to seek relief. The two candidates remained gracious toward each other throughout the two-hour exchange and differed on some important issues, including a recent decision by interim City Manager Bob Morgan to reinstate Greensboro police Officer AJ Blake.
Knight called it "a regrettable thing" that Morgan overturned a decision by Chief Tim Bellamy to terminate Blake, adding, "It just struck me that when we talk about bad cops, the police department has to be populated with people who command respect and carry out their jobs."
Johnson, who is currently the mayor, defended the propriety of Morgan's decision, but conceded that the process might need some tweaking. "We have a process where if a department head fires a person, the city manager will review it and make a decision," she said. "This was such a case. The chief of police made one decision. And this was appealed to the acting city manager, and the acting city manager made another decision. I think that we don't often have a big discussion when these kinds of things happen, but the police department and this incident was a major thing in this city."
Marsh Prause moderated the forum.
I'll be posting transcripts of the two candidates' remarks over the course of the two hour forum. The battery of my digital recorder died during remarks in response to a question about the city manager, and then ran out of memory during remarks about the budget process, so those segments will be missing. Fact-checkers are welcome to vet the candidates' statements.
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