The YES! Weekly Blog

This week in YES! Weekly

2012-02-01T12:25:00.002-05:00

feature: The Challenger

be there: Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk Live

dirt: City exploring options for a performing arts center

10 best: 10 best things about the NC gubernatorial election

voices: Recognizing class privilege

editorial: The Trader Joe’s seduction

tunes: The passion of the Whites

flicks: Acting is tops in Albert Nobbs, Man on a Ledge goes over the edge

visions: Combat experience spurs student’s artistic and theological journey

chow: Fueling up at the Burger Stop

crash: The winter of my content

Gibson-Picarelli matchup in new Guilford commission District 5?

2012-02-01T11:20:00.002-05:00

Democrat Paul Gibson tells YES! Weekly he will run for Guilford County Commission in the new District 5. Gibson currently serves in an at-large seat, but has been forced to run for a district seat because of a redistricting plan imposed on the county by the Republican-controlled NC General Assembly.

The district travels north from the campus of Greensboro College, encompassing neighborhoods such as Irving Park, and then swerves west along Battleground Avenue before broadening out as it reaches the Rockingham County line.

"I'm already working on it," Gibson said. "It's a district that's designed for a Republican to win, but I've carried those precincts in the past, so I feel like I can win if I work hard."

Meanwhile Guilford County Executive Director Michael Picarelli references himself as a "rumored County Commissioner D5 candidate" in this Facebook post.

Although registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts, the new District 5 would have been carried by Republican Richard Burr in the 2010 Senate race and Pat McCrory in the 2008 gubernatorial race. Democrat Kay Hagan would have carried the district handily in the 2008 Senate race, but Democrat Barack Obama would have taken only 50 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential race. Democrats were heavily favored in that year and are not likely to fare as well this year.

Guilford GOP volunteers ambivalent about marriage ballot initiative

2012-01-31T10:01:00.002-05:00

Considering that the speaker comes from a political outfit with a demonstrated record of mobilizing social conservative voters and that the session was billed as a “citizen action seminar” one might have expected the Marriage Amendment referendum on North Carolina’s May primary ballot to be front and center.

The pointers given by Billy Kirkland, national field director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, at a “volunteer appreciation day” at the Guilford County Republican Party Headquarters on Jan. 28 tended towards the kind of general precepts and nuts-and-bolts mechanics that any political operative, regardless of ideology, would find useful. He talked about identifying people who share your beliefs and who can be counted on to show up and vote, the primacy of face-to-face interaction and importance of relationships, and cultivating candidates who put likeable faces on the Republican agenda.

The Georgia-based Faith and Freedom Coalition is only two years old, but its leadership draws from a deep well of experience. Chairman Ralph Reed served as a senior advisor to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and 2004 and led the Christian Coalition in the 1990s.

Kirkland said the organization has launched a campaign to identify North Carolina churches willing to hold voter registration drives with the goal of signing up 200,000 new voters who are aligned with the coalition’s platform in opposition to same-sex marriage and opposing abortion and in favor of keeping taxes low.

Kirkland added that the coalition seeks to establish liaisons within mega-churches and other politically-active and conservative-leaning churches to avoid adding to the responsibilities of pastors. The coalition will counsel pastors that they may hold voter registration drives and send members to political rallies without worrying about the Internal Revenue Service yanking their churches’ tax-exempt status.

The strategy is more about selecting demographic profiles that are already on board than promoting a particular message.

Kirkland described local party volunteers as “the grassroots army of North Carolina.”

“The people you go to church with more often than not share your values,” he said. “We want to make sure social conservatives vote.”

The organizer also suggesting using petition drives to identify and activate social-conservative voters.

Kirkland’s choice to de-emphasize the Marriage Amendment to the roughly 20 people who attended the session fit with an apparent ambivalence among local Republican activists about the ballot initiative.

Rich Brenner, a retired sportscaster who attended part of the presentation, said in an interview that he regrets that Republican lawmakers put the Marriage Amendment on the ballot.

“I just don’t like it because it’s a polarizing issue,” he said. “It takes the eye off the main issue, which in North Carolina is jobs. We need limited government and less regulation. We don’t need some emotionally charged issue that divides people.”

Brenner predicted that Republican candidates who stick to bread-and-butter economic issues will do better than those aligned with the Marriage Amendment and other social conservative causes in this election year.

“I think the candidates that are going to do well are the candidates who have a positive message and don’t divide people with these third-rail issues,” he said. “Of course, there’s these people who, when you say, ‘Don’t touch, it’s hot,’ they do it anyway.”

While noting that he had not seen Kirkland’s presentation, Brenner expressed skepticism about the efficacy of using the Marriage Amendment as a device to get out the vote.

“He’ll get a bloc of voters to turn out,” Brenner said. “It’s just a question of how many.”

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is attempting a delicate balancing act with the Marriage Amendment, and its leaders are eschewing confrontational “culture war” rhetoric that risks alienating independent voters.

“In the Republican Party, we want to practice addition rather than subtraction,” Kirkland said after the presentation. “[The Marriage Amendment] is a family-values tradition we think is important to uphold.”

In a video of a workshop by Reed that Kirkland showed the Guilford GOP activists, Reed notes demographic and political changes that are making non-whites an increasingly significant part of the electoral mix, and encourages the promotion of non-white candidates such as Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Susana Martinez of New Mexico as a means of reaching voters who might be otherwise skeptical of the party’s agenda.

The party may have some adjustments in tone to make before black and Hispanic voters feel comfortable taking a seat under the tent.

Setting up a story about Abraham Lincoln’s maxim about winning elections, Kirkland mistakenly remarked that there were no reporters present, and then shared with his all-white audience that until fifth grade he had never heard of the Civil War; in his family, the conflict was known as “the War of Northern Aggression.”

Commercial vacancies and the Trader Joe's dilemma

2012-01-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

A photographic companion as preview to our forthcoming editorial on the Trader Joe's dilemma, ailing shopping centers and anchor tenant vacancies

Ailing shopping centers, a set on Flickr.

Alston: No constitutional violations in board's video presentation restriction

2012-01-27T14:40:00.004-05:00

Guilford County Commission Chairman Skip Alston is defiant about pursuing a proposed policy to limit video presentations by citizens to material pre-cleared for placement on the agenda. He said he has not seen the ACLU letter charging that the policy appears to be in violation of the First Amendment, but responded to some of the points I relayed to him.

Previously.

Alston rejected the notion that the requirement that the only way to show is video is to seek approval from his Agenda Review Committee constitutes a prior restraint on speech. He said the free-speech rights of citizens such as Jodi Riddleberger are not being restricted because they can speak all they want during the public comment period, just not with video.

“If we do have access to video [in the meeting room], it’s our right to restrict access,” he said.

I asked how the county commission justified allowing its officers and employees to use PowerPoint, video and other electronic media to make presentations but restricted citizens to oration.

“We’re elected officials and we’re serving our privileges,” Alston responded. “She is not an elected official with privileges to use the facilities at our whim. She can’t come up and sit in my seat.”

Parker’s letter cites the Supreme Court’s 1992 Forsyth County, Georgia v. the Nationalist Movement ruling, which found that a government regulation “that allows arbitrary application is ‘inherently inconsistent with a valid time, place, and manner regulation because such a discretion has the potential for becoming a means of suppressing a particular point of view.”

The government bears an even greater burden in establishing that restrictions on the content of speech are necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest than it does in justifying time, place and manner regulations, Parker writes, while viewpoint restrictions are “patently unconstitutional.”

Alston told me he considers the county’s proposed policy to be a content restriction.

“As far as content, I think there should be some kind of restrictions on freedom of speech,” he said. “You can’t yell fire in crowded movie theater.

“The situation was she showed a video that we didn’t know what was going to be on it,” he added. “If that was the case then anybody could come up and show a pornographic video. What she tried to do is endorse certain candidates.”

If the county commission’s concern is what material a citizen might show on a video, I asked Alston how he would respond if a citizen came up to the podium during the speakers from the floor segment of the meeting and started graphically describing sex acts.

“Stop them,” Alston responded. “A person can come up there and, within reason, say whatever they want to. They also have to be respectful and maintain decorum. I can call them out of order if they are not respectful and do not maintain decorum.

“I can call them out of order for showing a video that is promoting a political agenda,” he added.

I pointed out in response that the First Amendment explicitly guarantees the right of people to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Alston concurred that the First Amendment guarantees citizens the right to criticize their elected officials, but drew the line at promoting candidates.

The speech also “has to be based on governmental business and not personal business,” he further stipulated.

I noted that Alston turned down a request by Riddleberger to be placed on the agenda to show a video addressing the proposed policy change on multimedia presentations, which directly related to governmental business.

In response, Alston reiterated his stance that Riddleberger was free to address her concerns to the commission during speakers from the floor without the aid of a video.

What was the difference between using a video to make a public presentation and holding up a newspaper while addressing remarks to the commission, I wondered. Would the commission restrict citizens from holding up a copy of YES! Weekly or the Rhino Times while drawing attention to an article about a matter of concern, I asked.

Alston said he views this kind of free-speech activity differently.

“You can talk all you want within those parameters,” he said. “When you stop talking your constitutional right to speak has always been granted.”

Alston also rejected my suggestion that this dispute boils down to protecting even the most unpopular speech.

“I want to protect all speech,” he said. “I’m a proponent for free speech. I fight every day for free speech. When somebody tries to make a mockery and over-extend those parameters it’s a different thing.

“If the courts say that we’ve violated someone’s free speech we’ll stand corrected. At this point our lawyer says we’re in no way violating someone’s free speech by not allowing them to show a video.”

ACLU: County commission violating C4GC's free speech rights

2012-01-27T12:20:00.009-05:00

ACLU of North Carolina Legal Director Katherine Lewis Parker expresses concerns about the constitutionality of the Guilford County Commission's proposed citizen multi-media presentation policy in a letter to the board today:

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation ("ACLU-NCLF")was contacted last week by Guilford County resident Jodi Riddleberger ("C4gc"). Ms. Riddleberger has requested our assistance in connection with a recent decision by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners ("the Board") to ban any and all multimedia presentations during prescribed public comment periods of Board meetings. After conducting an initial investigation, we have concerns that your Board is violating Ms. Riddleberger's rights under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Additional material after the jump:

Parker:

It appears that the county's actions with regard to Ms. Riddleberger, as well as the passage of the ban on multimedia presentations during public comment period constitute violations of the First Amendment. First, we believe that the general requirement that individuals can show videos only if approved and placed on the agenda is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Further, Chairman Alston's specific comments and actions against Ms. Riddleberger suggest that these new rules, while they appear to be content neutral, are a thinly-veiled disguise for impermissible content discrimination, or even viewpoint discrimination....

The actions of the chairman in response to Ms. Riddleberger's request to be placed on the December 1st agenda, as well as the language in the new proposed policy, suggest that the chairman has unbridled discretion to make decisions about who and whater material can be placed on the meeting agendas. There appear to be no standards in place to guide the chairman's actions. That is impermissible under the First Amendment.

Further, the decision to deny Ms. Riddleberger's request to be placed on the December 1st agenda and to show a video that appeared to relate specifically to board business, while noting that a request by the library would be approved, demonstrates that the chairman is making these decisions at least based on the content, and maybe the viewpoint, of the message. Content-based discrimination triggers strict scrutiny review — even higher than that for content-neutral regulations as described above. Under strict scrutiny, a regulation must be necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means available.... It seems unlikely that the county can meet this very heavy burden. Further, "[i]n its practical operation," the board's action and proposed policy may "go[] even beyond mere content discrimination," which is patently unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Judge gives government another crack at turkey processor for Clean Water Act violations

2012-01-26T22:37:00.003-05:00

A federal judge dismissed criminal charges against House of Raeford Farms and a plant manager for the turkey processing giant today for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, but left the door open for the US government to reopen prosecution.

US District Court Judge James A. Beaty ruled that dismissal was appropriate because prosecutors violated the Speedy Trial Act, but denied the defendants’ request to close the case for good, contending that “there would be a societal interest in protecting the public and re-prosecuting” the company and its plant manager. The hearing was held in a courtroom at the federal building in Winston-Salem.

Prosecutor Mary D. Carraway, assigned to the environmental crimes section at the US Justice Department, told the court the government intends to do just that. House of Raeford Farms, which employs more than 1,000 people in rural Hoke County (location), and plant manager Gregory Steenblock are defendants in the case.

“The people of the city of Raeford are best served by this case going to trial,” said prosecutor Daniel W. Dooher, also assigned to the environmental crimes section at Justice.

The most recent indictment against House of Raeford Farms and Steenblock alleges that in 2005 and 2006 the plant routinely made unauthorized releases of wastewater containing feathers, blood, internal organs and other body parts that bypassed pre-treatment tanks and dumped the contents directly into the city’s sewer.

Kearns Davis, a Greensboro lawyer with Brooks Pierce law firm who is representing House of Raeford Farms, said there is no evidence the company intentionally bypassed the pretreatment process.

“Nobody’s opening up a valve,” he told the court. “Nobody’s hooking up a hose…. What’s happening is that a pre-treatment tank is not keeping up capacity.”

The government states that the plant in Raeford slaughtered more than 30,000 turkeys per day, five days a week, generating about 1 million gallons of wastewater on an average day. The government’s trial brief promises that city of Raeford employees will testify that they observed turkey parts, fats and grease at the city’s wastewater treatment plant that were discharged from the company’s overflow pipe. The government also plans to call former and current workers at the processing plant to testify that they informed Steenblock that the facility lacked capacity to process the wastewater, yet the problem continued.

The company maintains that it subsequently eliminated the problem in the fall of 2006 by replacing portions of its pretreatment plant at a cost of $1.4 million and paid the city almost $1 million in fines while the upgrade was being planned and implemented.

In support of its motion to dismiss, the company and its plant manager have noted that “due to effective treatment by the municipality, the alleged pollutants did not reach navigable waters."

The government rejected that argument, responding in writing: “Defendants contend that a violation of the law enacted to protect the navigable waters of the United States does not become ‘serious’ until their illegal discharges actually contaminate the nation’s waters. Such logic does not make the crimes any less serious, but would eviscerate the very purpose of the pretreatment provisions of the Clean Water Act.”

Judge Beaty’s dismissal of the original case stems from the government’s failure to bring the case to trial within 70 days of Steenblock’s indictment, as required by the Speedy Trial Act. Dooher called the omission a “mistake in which the government takes full responsibility,” but prosecutors argued in an earlier motion that they immediately notified the court when the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case at the defendants’ request.

The company argued in its motion to dismiss that the drawn-out nature of the case has particularly harmed Steenblock.

“Of course, some of what appears in Mr. Steenblock’s motion is peculiar to him,” the motion reads. “Most significantly, the shadow cast by federal indictment is larger and darker. House of Raeford is an important part of its community — it employs more than 1,000 people in a rural North Carolina county — but the personal stress and strain of this case are more severe for Mr. Steenblock.”

Davis also said that negative publicity surrounding the case has caused the company untold financial losses.

“A press release by the government resulted in media coverage such that a customer brought a turkey back to a retailer and said, ‘Don’t you know who you’re doing business with?’ implying that House of Raeford Farms is a major environmental violator,” he said. “We have no way of knowing how many people elected to not buy turkeys because of the news coverage.”

Judge rejects bail for convicted staffing executive

2012-01-26T17:51:00.002-05:00

A federal judge turned down a bail request by a staffing executive convicted of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and failing to pay over payroll taxes, reasoning that the defendant had not established that he is not a flight risk especially considering the potential prison time he faces.

Greg Harrison is being held in Piedmont Regional Jail in central Virginia as he awaits sentencing in April.

The US government submitted evidence that Harrison withdrew a total of $79,426 from a business account last year as he awaited trial. Assistant US Attorney Frank Chut argued that the transfers undercut the credibility of a statement reportedly given by Harrison to pre-trial services that he had access to 0 to $500 per month.

“The point is that this calls into question the notion that Mr. Harrison had no other source of income and should be eligible for your services,” Judge James A. Beaty Jr. told public defender Tom Cochran.

Cochran affirmed that Harrison was the president of Global Labor, a staffing licensing company, and that he did make the withdrawals, but argued that the government failed to establish that the money was used for any purpose other than business. Cochran prompted Special Agent J. Todd Purgason, an IRS criminal investigator, to testify that one $10,000 withdrawal was paid over to Puryear & Lingle, a Greensboro law firm. Puryear & Lingle is representing Global Labor as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a creditor.

The government also introduced high-resolution color surveillance photographs of Harrison making the withdrawals into evidence.

“Maybe Mr. Harrison takes out withdrawals wearing shirt sleeves and does all his business in cash,” Chut told the court. “It’s not the government’s burden to prove he’s not at risk to flee.”

The government also submitted a record of a June 2010 transfer from Global Labor to Harrison in the amount of $131,786 bearing the memo inscription, “Purchase of furniture and equipment by Global Investment Properties." Five days later, the government’s evidence indicates a transfer from Global Labor to Brooks Pierce law firm in the amount of $181,941 with the notation, “Retainer — BGH.” The defendant, whose full name is Bruce Gregory Harrison III, was indicted in November 2010 and had been under investigation for at least a year prior to that.

“Mr. Harrison was represented by Brooks Pierce,” Chut said. “We don’t know what happened to that money. This shows that he had access to significant funds at a point when he said he had access to zero to $500 per month.”

Purgason also testified that Harrison made point-of-sale purchases at restaurants and cash withdrawals drawn from a Global Labor account on a company-issued debit card prior to the indictment. The transactions were recorded in Greensboro; Jamestown; Myrtle Beach, SC; and Vail, Colo., including a ski lift ticket and restaurant tabs.

Cochran addressed concerns about a series of trips Harrison took to South Carolina to visit Global Labor’s lender, GrandSouth Bank, while awaiting trial. The government had previously questioned whether the trips violated the conditions of Harrison’s pre-trial release. Cochran said his client had obtained permission before leaving the Middle District of North Carolina, and Chut did not indicate any difference of viewpoint on the matter.

“If he were considering fleeing, I suggest he would have done that long before he was convicted, maybe before he was charged,” Cochran argued.

Judge Beaty countered that the prospect of a significant prison sentence changed the circumstances, adding that Harrison might have believed he would be acquitted.

Cochran also offered that Harrison’s sister was willing to put up $50,000 in cash and that the defendant would consent to the appointment of two third-party custodians, one of whom would be in his presence at all times. Cochran acknowledged that one of the custodians was an employee of Global Labor.

“Put the fox in the henhouse,” Judge Beaty remarked, “if you want to be a little more specific about what that may represent.”

William Ray and Juraj Slovak, respectively the director and manager of Global Labor, attended the hearing, along with Harrison’s fiancée, Melissa Cullen; his ex-wife, Diona Slaughter; and Jessica Cox, a lawyer close to the family who has observed many of the court proceedings.

Chut argued that Harrison’s word has no credibility because he introduced a false document into evidence at the end of the trial and attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the court when he submitted a document purporting to show that he had transferred operations of the staffing companies to two partners before the period in which the payroll taxes were not paid. Chut told the court that the jury’s conviction after considering the document essentially amounted to a finding of perjury.

The hearing was held up for three hours when federal officials accidentally delivered Harrison to Alamance County instead of to the federal building in Winston-Salem.

Harrison entered the courtroom with a chain around his waist and with his hands cuffed in front of him. He wore a blue dress shirt, but not the jacket-and-tie ensemble that was a fixture of his appearance during the trial. Streaks of gray have appeared in his brown hair since the government took him into custody more than a month ago. He looked quietly hopeful throughout the hearing, even when he turned to look at his fiancée before walking back out.

Perkins to seek reelection to county commission

2012-01-26T09:13:00.003-05:00

Two Republicans, Trudy Wade and Justin Conrad, have indicated plans to run for the new NC Senate District 27 seat. Meanwhile, some speculation has abounded about whether a Democrat will take a crack at the district, although it leans Republican.

Pricey Harrison, who has been "double-bunked" with fellow Democratic NC House member Maggie Jeffus in the same House District, said she has no plans to run for the new Senate seat. Likewise with Kirk Perkins, a Democrat on the Guilford County Commission, whose district has become somewhat less politically friendly following the imposition of a redistricting plan by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Perkins says he plans to seek reelection to the District 4 seat for Guilford County Commission.

Meanwhile, the announcement by US Rep. Brad Miller that he will not seek reelection is headline news this morning.

Government asks judge to deny bail to Greg Harrison

2012-01-25T19:23:00.001-05:00

The US government has asked a federal judge to deny former staffing executive Greg Harrison’s request for release on bail as he awaits sentencing in April, arguing that the defendant has not presented clear and convincing evidence that he is not a flight risk.

Laying out a case the government is likely to make during Harrison’s bail hearing in federal court tomorrow, a legal motion filed today highlights about 10 questionable trips to South Carolina while awaiting trial, evidence that surfaced in trial indicating the defendant earns $8,000 to $10,000 per month as president of a staffing licensing company and a contention that the defendant presented “false testimony and a false document” during trial.

The bail hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow in the Hiram H. Ward federal building in Winston-Salem. Harrison was convicted by a jury in December of 63 counts of obstructing the IRS, failing to pay payroll taxes and failing to pay individual income tax. The jury found that Harrison failed to pay almost $16 million, but prosecutors allege the true amount is closer to $40 million.

The government’s motion reports, “The court detained defendant Harrison and instructed the probation office to reevaluate his risk of non-appearance in light of the evidence at trial which indicated that the defendant had left the Middle District of North Carolina in ten separate trips.”

Doug Corriher, a loan officer and vice president at GrandSouth Bank, testified that Joey Medaloni, a friend, flew Harrison down to the bank headquarters in Greenville, SC several times last year in a corporate jet. Medaloni, formerly a high-profile nightclub owner in Greensboro, was facing sentencing for federal loan fraud at the time. His sentencing is scheduled for next month.

The government’s motion also reports that the court instructed the probation office to investigate Harrison’s financial status in consideration of evidence presented in trial indicating that the defendant served as president of Global Labor and was earning income through licensing contracts.

“The probation memo simply reports statements of defendant Harrison as to his finances,” the government’s motion contends. “These statements are not worthy of trust and do not rebut the evidence at trial as to his contract with Global Labor.”

The government also discounted information in the probation memo concerning the South Carolina trips, contending that Harrison’s representation that he obtained permission from his probation officer beforehand was not credible.

“At the trial of this matter defendant Harrison presented false testimony and a false document by which he claimed to have transferred operation of his staffing companies to Ray McDaniel and Mark Griffin,” the government contends. “Therefore, his statements to the probation office are not worthy of belief and should not be credited by the court.”

This week in YES! Weekly

2012-01-25T12:12:00.002-05:00

feature: Greensboro Fringe Festival 10th year celebrates

be there: Guilford Masonic Lodge presents: Star Wars Uncut

dirt: Police response to burglary prompts feelings of neglect in southwest High Point

10 best: 10 best political conventions

voices: Learning to do it myself

editorial: Wanting it all

tunes: An evening at the Haw River Ballroom

flicks: Contraband teems with action, Red Tails doesn’t quite soar high enough

chow: High Point pizza joint is full of surprises

crash: All your droids are belong to us

Winston-Salem developers look to Greensboro for hope

2012-01-24T19:25:00.003-05:00

The developers did most of the talking and city staff did most of the listening this morning at what was the last public comment session of the Development Review-Related Advisory Committee. Charlie Sweigart, vice president of Taylor Development Group, tried to refrain from telling “horror stories,” but that feeling distinctly textured his remarks about efforts to navigate the city of Winston-Salem’s permitting process.

He found a sympathetic ear from Stan Senft, the vice-chair of the committee and a vice president of McNair Construction. Senft noted that developers must deal with seven separate city departments in the process of completing a project. The committee is planning a Valentines Day field trip to neighboring Greensboro to learn about the city’s development services department, a one-stop shop that has been lauded for streamlining local government bureaucracy to help developers expedite projects.

“They’re kind of our competitor in a friendly way,” Senft said.

“The impression I have is that if I walk into their office and want to have a Friday meeting, they can assemble their folks in one hour [to review plans],” he added after the session. “I think I can even come unannounced.”

Sweigart indicated that approach would be a welcome change from what he has experienced dealing with the city of Winston-Salem during the development of Arbor Place, a community marketed to elderly residents near the tony Buena Vista neighborhood, about four years ago.

“As you look at this process, I think there could be some advantage to have some kind of central oversight so that a single department, for example public safety in their silo, doesn’t have the power to veto a project.”

Sweigart lamented that a decision by a single department blocked a phase of the project from going forward and deprived the city of significant tax assessments.

After the public comment session, he explained: “We wanted to take the streets private to make it a gated community. It’s about half built out. If we were to take it private it would be three-quarters built out. Taking the streets private would eliminate through traffic. Public safety — they like through traffic. I understand that. When there’s a fire, the fire trucks need to be able to get in and out.”

During session Sweigart emphasized his displeasure with the typical review process.

“I got two infill projects, and it’s like I’m in a mud wrestling match with two different departments,” he said. “I thought you wanted infill. And then you just get thrown up against the wall. It’s maddening.”

Developers also expressed frustration about variations in code interpretations from one city inspector to another.

“You feel like you have to shop for a responsive inspector,” Senft said, summing up sentiment in the group.

An engineering consultant that attended the session said the city’s sequencing doesn’t always make sense. For example, the city required a client to submit plans for a driveway before issuing a grading permit, but sometimes developers want grade a site to make it more saleable before they know where the driveway needs to be located.

Developers also complained about the city requiring new sidewalk along the roadways adjacent to building sites, even in places where pedestrian demand is light. People in the industry have a derogatory term for the phenomenon: “sidewalks to nowhere.”

Their counterparts in Greensboro feel their pain. Despite streamlining the review process, the city in Triad East hasn’t cut developers much slack on this count. Illustration: The Jordan Creek subdivision located on satellite-annexed parcel on Mackay Road features sidewalk extending to the property lines along the roadway and then abruptly ending.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band coming to Greensboro, March 19

2012-01-24T16:53:00.002-05:00

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Announce First US Leg of 2012 ‘Wrecking Ball’ World Tour

GREENSBORO COLISEUM – MARCH 19

**ONLY DATE IN THE CAROLINAS & VIRGINIA**

New Album 'Wrecking Ball' (Columbia Records) Out March 6

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band launch the first US leg of the 2012 'Wrecking Ball' World Tour on March 18 in Atlanta. Bruce Springsteen's 17th studio album 'Wrecking Ball' will be released on Columbia Records on March 6.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play Greensboro Coliseum, the tour’s only date in the Carolinas and Virginia, on March 19.

Tickets will go on sale Friday, February 3at 10:00 a.m. at www.ticketmaster.com, via Ticketmaster’s charge-by-phone network at 1-800-745-300, Ticketmaster outlets at participating Walmart locations and at the Coliseum advance box office.

"We Take Care Of Our Own," the album's first single,' is "classic Springsteen" with "anguish and challenge [that] run thick and fast" (Rolling Stone); a "richly orchestrated Wall of Sound… that nods to the 'Born to Run' era" (Billboard).

Stream "We Take Care of Our Own" and pre-order 'Wrecking Ball” at: http://www.brucespringsteen.net.

The E Street Band's members are: Roy Bittan – piano, synthesizer; Nils Lofgren – guitar, vocals; Patti Scialfa – guitar, vocals; Garry Tallent – bass guitar; Stevie Van Zandt – guitar, vocals; and Max Weinberg – drums; with Soozie Tyrell – violin, guitar, vocals and Charlie Giordano – keyboards.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 2012 Tour Dates:

US Tour Dates
March 18 – Atlanta, GA – Philips Arena (on sale Feb 4)
March 19 – Greensboro, NC – Greensboro Coliseum (on sale Feb 3)
March 23 – Tampa, FL – Tampa Bay Times Forum (on sale Jan 28)
March 26 – Boston, MA – TD Garden (on sale Jan 28)
March 28 – Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center (on sale Jan 28)
March 29 – Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center (on sale Jan 28)
April 1 – Washington, DC – Verizon Center (on sale Jan 28)
April 3 – East Rutherford, NJ – Izod Center (on sale Jan 27)
April 4 – East Rutherford, NJ – Izod Center (on sale Jan 27)
April 6 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden (on sale Jan 27)
April 9 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden (on sale Jan 27)
April 12 – Detroit, MI – The Palace of Auburn Hills (on sale Jan 28)
April 13 – Buffalo, NY – First Niagara Center (on sale Jan 28)
April 16 – Albany, NY – Times Union Center (on sale Jan 28)
April 17 – Cleveland, OH – Quicken Loans Arena (on sale Jan 28)
April 24 – San Jose, CA – HP Pavilion (on sale Feb 3)
April 26 – Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (on sale Feb 3)
April 29 – New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (on sale now)
May 2 – Newark, NJ – Prudential Center (on sale Jan 27)

Proximity Hotel, O. Henry Hotel and Grandover Resort and Conference Center with Four Diamond awards

2012-01-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

CHARLOTTE (Jan. 23, 2012) –AAA Carolinas will honor 14 North Carolina accommodations and eight restaurants for superior quality and service tonight. This year three new properties have achieved a prestigious AAA Four Diamond rating: The King’s Daughters Inn in Durham, the Renaissance Raleigh North Hills Hotel in Raleigh and The Sanderling Resort and Spa in Duck.

AAA Four Diamond awards, given out in three separate ceremonies around the state, continues tonight with an awards ceremony for central and eastern North Carolina at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club in Durham, NC. A total of 14 restaurants and 34 accommodations throughout the entire state have achieved this rating for a combined total of 461 years of service.

Central and eastern North Carolina Four Diamond accommodation winners, who will receive their awards tonight, listed with number of years won, include: The King’s Daughters Inn (First Year) in Durham, the Renaissance Raleigh North Hills Hotel (First Year) in Raleigh, the Sanderling Resort and Spa (First Year) in Duck, the Proximity Hotel(4 years) in Greensboro, the Arrowhead Inn Bed and Breakfast (9 years) in Durham, The Verandas (10 years) in Wilmington, The Holly Inn (10 years) in Pinehurst and theWashington Duke Inn & Golf Club (12 years) in Durham. Others that will receive awards tonight are: O. Henry Hotel (13 years) in Greensboro, The Grandover Resort and Conference Center (13 years) in Greensboro, Graystone Inn (13 years) in Wilmington, the Carolina Inn (15 years) in Chapel Hill, The Siena Hotel (16 years) in Chapel Hill and the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst (30 years).

Central and eastern North Carolina Four Diamond restaurants receiving their awards tonight, listed with number of years won, include; Chef and The Farmer (2 years) in Kinston, Second Empire Restaurant & Tavern (8 years) in Raleigh, The Left Bank (8 years) in Duck, Carolina Crossroads (10 years), 1895 Grille (11 years) in Pinehurst, Four Square Restaurant (11 years) in Durham, The Fairview Dining Room (20 years) in Durham and Il Palio Ristoranté (22 years) in Chapel Hill.

“AAA’s requirements for a Four Diamond rating are rigorous, and those that win it are among the best hotels and restaurants in the world,” said Dave Parsons, president and CEO of AAA Carolinas. “Only 3.5 percent of the more than 58,000 annual inspections conducted nationally result in a Four Diamond rating.”

AAA gives the Four Diamond awards annually to qualified hotels and restaurants in North America. More than 2,000 properties nationally earn the Four Diamond ratings after specially trained evaluators conduct anonymous overnight stays or dine incognito. Lodgings include eight different classifications, such as bed and breakfast, hotel, cottage and country inn with four sub-classifications such as historic, classic, resort and casino.

Restaurants have varying cuisines and ambiances. Each restaurant and lodging that receives any level of diamond rating from AAA is listed in AAA’s TourBooks that are distributed free to any of the organization’s 53 million members nationwide.

Western North Carolina awards were distributed on January 16th and Charlotte area recipients will be honored on January 27th.

AAA Carolinas, an affiliate of the American Automobile Association, is a not-for-profit organization that serves more than 1.8 million members with travel, automobile and insurance services while being an advocate for the safety and security of all travelers.

Foothills Brewing to release Sexual Chocolate

2012-01-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

After months of eager anticipation from beer fans everywhere, Foothills Brewing is proud to announce the return of our world-renowned Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout, on draft and in 22-ounce bottles.

Infused with organic cocoa nibs, this Russian imperial stout is a deep opaque black in color, offering notes of espresso, blackstrap molasses, toffee, and dark fruits that serve to mask an alcohol content approaching ten percent. The Sexual Chocolate and its barrel-aged cousin have received numerous accolades at beer competitions worldwide including the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup, and have been featured in magazines ranging from Draft and All About Beer to Maxim and even Hustler.

2012 Sexual Chocolate will debut on tap Friday, January 27. The following morning, biscuits and coffee will be available starting at 8 a.m., and bottles will go on sale at 9 a.m. 1800 bottles are being sold this year; in the interest of allowing as many people as possible to enjoy this beer, each customer is limited to four bottles.

Attendees are encouraged to arrive ahead of time for the release. In past years, lines have begun forming shortly after the restaurant closed for the night. Bottles have always sold out very quickly, and we are unable to guarantee or reserve bottles for anyone.

The party continues Saturday night with a free concert at the pub featuring the funk/neo-soul stylings of Howie DeWitt, starting at 9:30 pm.

DAUGHTRY COMING TO GREENSBORO COLISEUM SATURDAY, APRIL 7

2012-01-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

DAUGHTRY has announced the first leg of its upcoming tour in support of the multi-platinum selling rock band’s third album, Break The Spell (19 Recordings/RCA Records) will hit Greensboro Coliseum on Saturday, April 7.

Tickets will go on sale Friday, January 20^th at 10:00 a.m. and may be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com, via Ticketmaster’s charge-by-phone network at 1-800-745-300, Ticketmaster outlets at participating Walmart locations and at the Coliseum advance box office.

Daughtry’s “Break The Spell Tour” will begin its first leg on March 20 in Buffalo, NY and continue through April 30 when it concludes in New York, NY. Singer Chris Daughtry, guitarists Josh Steely and Brian Craddock, bassist Josh Paul and drummer Robin Diaz are excited to bring their bigger than life show into theaters across the country to provide an intimate experience for fans.

Daughtry is pleased to welcome special guest Nashville-based pop rock group SafetySuit whose new album These Times. debuted No. 7 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Opening the show is singer-songwriter Mike Sanchez.

Daughtry is also dedicated to using its position to raise awareness about a number of charitable causes. For the "Break The Spell 2012 Tour," the band will help combat Africa's battle against malaria by donating $1 from every ticket sold to Malaria No More, a leading humanitarian organization determined to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015.

The upcoming first leg of the tour will give fans a chance to experience a number of new tracks from Break The Spell, like the chart-climbing hits “Crawling Back To You” and “Renegade.” Singer Chris Daughtry says: “We recorded a hard-hitting rock album that is primed to blow the doors off these great theaters. Fans who come out are going to get an incredible show every night.”

Daughtry has scored four No. 1 hits, garnered four Grammy nominations, sold over seven million albums and played sold out concerts around the world in less than four years. Daughtry’s self-titled debut was the fastest selling rock debut in Soundscan history and its follow up Leave This Town marked the quintet’s second consecutive No. 1 album. Daughtry’s latest album Break The Spell, which was certified gold in 4 weeks, builds on the band’s reputation for melodic hooks and anthemic choruses while providing a powerful showcase for Chris Daughtry’s emotionally resonant voice.

For a complete list of on-sales for the first leg of the tour, please visit:http://www.aeglive.com

Stay in touch with the latest on Daughtry:
http://www.daughtryofficial.com
http://www.twitter.com/chris_daughtry

http://www.myspace.com/daughtry

http://www.facebook.com/daughtry
http://www.last.fm/music/Daughtry

Stream Daughtry’s new singles:
Renegade: http://bit.ly/r8nbHG
Crawling Back To You: http://bit.ly/qlMM5c

VAN HALEN COMING TO THE GREENSBORO COLISEUM

2012-01-20T17:26:00.002-05:00

Van Halen, Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductees and one of the most important and influential rock bands of all time, announced their return to the live stage with an extraordinary 2012 North American tour. The announcement was made during a once-in-a-lifetime performance, at the intimate Café Wha? in New York City. Known around the world for some of the most iconic live performances in music history, the legendary rock band will begin their tour on February 18. Kool & The Gang will join Van Halen for select tour dates.

VAN HALEN will play Greensboro Coliseum on Saturday April 21. Tickets go on sale Saturday January 28 at 10am at LiveNation.com, theGreensboro Coliseum box office, Ticketmaster or charge by phone 800-745-3000.

In addition, Van Halen confirmed their new album, A Different Kind Of Truth, will be released in the

U.S.

by Interscope Records on February 7. The first single from the album, "Tattoo", and its accompanying video debuted on Tuesday, January 10th, with album pre-orders starting that day. A Different Kind Of Truth is Van Halen's first original studio album with singer David Lee Roth since the band’s classic multi-platinum album 1984.

Fans can expect Van Halen to perform selections from  A Different Kind Of Truth alongside songs from their arsenal of epic hits that include: "Eruption," "Running with the Devil," "Jamie's Cryin'," "You Really Got Me," "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love,” "Everybody Wants Some," "Unchained," "And The Cradle Will Rock,” "Beautiful Girls,” "Mean Street," "Somebody Get Me A Doctor,” "Jump," “Panama," "Hot For Teacher," "I'll Wait," and more from their classic albums Van Halen, Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning, Diver Down and 1984.

Van Halen – who the Los Angeles Times recently called “a force of nature” and “one of the flat-out greatest rock bands on the planet” – was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in March of 2007.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1974, Van Halen changed the rock and roll landscape forever with the release of their self-titled, 1978 debut album displaying unparalleled stage presence, revolutionary musicianship, and extraordinary songwriting abilities. With more than 75 million albums sold worldwide, the band's record of achievement is hard to top.   Among a long list of awards, recognition and accolades, Van Halen joins an elite short list of two time Diamond Award honorees in the history of the music industry. Presented with two Diamond Award RIAA Certified Status' for their albums Van Halen and 1984, the band has produced a repertoire of hits that remain some of the strongest and most influential rock songs ever written that fans will admire for decades to come.

Kool & The Gang found a special sound at the unique intersection of jazz, R&B, funk and pop. Their music has been created by the same core of players for over thirty years: Robert "Kool" Bell, his brother Khalis Bayyan, their longtime friends Dennis "DT" Thomas and George "Funky" Brown.

VIP Packages will also be available through VIP Nation, including premium seats, exclusive merchandise and more. For more information please visit: www.VIPNation.com

For more information go to www.livenation.com.

The Triad in 50 years

2012-01-18T12:45:00.002-05:00

Due to a printing mistake in "The Triad in 50 years" from this week's issue, the full version is posted below.

The long-range planning division of the Planning and Community Development Department in Greensboro only plans in terms of 20 to 30 years into the future, and business experts advise against strategizing more than eight years out. Too much changes too fast, and even futurists, who specialize in forecasting future trends and realities, work on a shorter time frame.
It is nearly impossible to plan for 50 years into the future. There seem to be too many variables and factors, so most people don’t do it, sticking instead to shorter time frames. That is exactly what’s interesting about pushing people to consider what this place will be like in 2062, even if they might not be here to see it.
Fifty years ago Eastern Forsyth High School was built in Kernersville, and the Greensboro sit-in movement approached its first anniversary.
While dramatic changes have occurred over the last five decades, this area is not completely unrecognizable. The primary industries dwindled, but locals will tell you that these communities have retained character. Based on what has already happened, what is occurring around us, trends we can identify and other projections, what will the Triad look like in 50 years?

OLDER
One thing people agree on — the area is growing and will continue to increase population-wise. In Kernersville, Mayor Dawn Morgan said the town’s population could hit 35,000 —up from nearly 23,000 today — in 50 years.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said he expects the population of the Triad to hit perhaps 2.5 million people. Projected growth is based off years of experience.
“More and more people will come here as a result of our economic vitality,” said Piedmont Triad Airport Authority Board chairman Henry Isaacson, who is from Greensboro. “When I was growing up as a kid we were a town of 60 or 70,000 people. We’ve quadrupled during my lifetime.”
Susan Feit, director of the National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont-Triad, said the demographics of the population are rapidly shifting. In fewer than 40 years, the non-Hispanic white population (as measured by the Census) will drop below 50 percent of the country.
“Greensboro is already far more diverse, in some ways, than the rest of North Carolina [and the country],” Feit said. “The stronger the opportunity is in the Triad for all different kinds of people, the stronger the likelihood there will be increased migration from other parts of the country and world.”
Other demographic shifts, which are already beginning to appear, will be pronounced in 50 years, she said, including a change in the age of the population and increased religious, cultural and racial diversity. Feit said by 2050, the elderly will be 20 percent of the population
Scott Wierman, president of the Winston-Salem Foundation, expects the increased number of senior citizens to significantly impact the city.
“There is a large cohort of people that will be retiring over the next 15-20 years, if there is such a thing as retirement,” Wierman said. “It’s going to be a huge issue and I think everybody is aware of it but I am not sure anyone has fully digested what it means.”
The aging population could fuel job creation in order to provide healthcare and create appropriate housing, he said, but will also strain services like Meals on Wheels — which the foundation works with — who may not be able to provide for a such an increase in demand. The same may be true in Greensboro.

“One thing we’re seeing that I think will continue is diversification of who lives here,” said Russ Clegg, interim director of Greensboro’s long range planning division with the P&CD Department. “In a lot of different ways we are changing as a community in terms of who is living here and [what they need].”
Other demographic shifts, which are already beginning to appear, will be pronounced in 50 years, she said, including a change in the age of the population and increased religious, cultural and racial diversity. Feit said by 2050, the elderly will be 20 percent of the population.
Scott Wierman, president of the Winston-Salem Foundation, expects the increased number of senior citizens to significantly impact the city.
“There is a large cohort of people that will be retiring over the next 15, 20 years, if there is such a thing as retirement,” Wierman said. “It’s going to be a huge issue and I think everybody is aware of it but I am not sure anyone has fully digested what it means.”
The aging population could fuel job creation in order to provide healthcare and create appropriate housing, he said, but will also strain services like Meals on Wheels — which the foundation works with — that may not be able to provide for a such an increase in demand. The same may be true in Greensboro.

URBAN
The primary demographic currently missing from the housing market in downtown Greensboro is families, according to Downtown Greensboro Inc. president Ed Wolverton. But as people wait longer to get married and start families, there may be more people looking to move downtown, he said.
Regardless of who is doing the moving, Wolverton and others expect housing density to increase in the downtown areas of Greensboro and Winston-Salem in particular.
“The percentage of people living in an urban rather than rural area is increasing worldwide, and I think that will continue,” said Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership Jason Thiel. “We’re going to show a movie called Urbanized at a/perture [that] depicts a real change in the way that people live, and that urban living has really been the trend. We’re going to have mega-cities and you see this worldwide.”
Clegg said as demographics shift over the next few years and decades, housing options will likely reflect it, and the well-built houses will still be around in 50 years.
Despite the projected increase in urban dwellers, Isaacson and Wolverton said they thought downtown Greensboro would become denser without adding any skyscrapers.
“In Greensboro we’re already seeing a lot more multi-family dwellings going up in a lot of places,” said futurist Joyce Gioia, who was based in Greensboro until 2009. “More of us percentage-wise will be living in congregate dwelling spaces like apartment complexes.”
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said more people would move downtown in the Twin City too.
“We’ll be living in more dense housing arrangements,” he said. “People will gravitate to living in urban areas where individual vehicles won’t be as important.”

MOBILE
In many ways, so much of the literal and figurative landscape of the Triad is dependent on transportation.
“It will be critically important to maintain that transportation corridor to Charlotte,” said Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins. “High Point Road is going to look dramatically different.”
Perkins said if a corridor were reserved now for light rail to connect the Triad, people in 50 years would be thankful of the forethought. Numerous people mentioned the likelihood of increased public transit both within and between Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem.
“My best prognosis is that there will be more public transportation in the form of non-fuel-burning buses and trains,” said Gioia, president and CEO of the Herman Group of Companies, now based in Austin, Texas.
Like others, Gioia said transportation will depend on investment and planning as well as technological advances.
“I don’t know that we’ll have flying cars by that time but we’ll probably have more opportunities for transportation other than cars,” Clegg said.
“We love our cars and we’re very tied to them,” Wolverton said. “The transit piece is such a variable. Are we looking at gas at $10 or $20 a gallon?”
In addition to increased growth in the cities, chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners Robert Linville said he expects to see growth along the highways in order to offset suburban sprawl into rural areas.
“In 50 years it’s most likely going to be a big metropolitan area,” Linville said. “When you have more commercial activities… it’s going to cause more growth in residential areas too.”
Perkins, Isaacson and a number of others said the airport would be a central component to the area’s growth, with a parallel runway, HondaJet, Cessna and the Fed Ex hub in particular. The airport, as well as accompanying training programs at GTCC and the highway infrastructure, will pave the way for an increased number of high tech manufacturing jobs, Isaacson said.

SMARTER
Isaacson was not alone in emphasizing the importance of education. Most everyone agreed higher education would be one of the defining characteristics of the future Triad.
The collaboration between UNCG and NC A&T University for the school of nanoscience is just the beginning of a larger trend and is symbolic of the impact local universities can have on the area economy, a number of people said.
“Greensboro will be known nationally as a model for higher education and business collaboration,” said April Harris, director of Action Greensboro, which helped initiate the business-education partnership group Opportunity Greensboro. “[The] seven colleges and universities will use shared teaching facilities downtown, as well as housing. Unlike cities with one major university that dominates the landscape, people are attracted to the diversity of our offerings.”
Even though Jamestown and High Point have fewer educational facilities, both are considered major players.
“We’ll see a lot of young people coming out of High Point University who are going to move on to some degree of notoriety,” Gioia said, who also emphasized the importance of Elon Law School. “We’ll see some biotech companies located in Winston take advantage of the large number young graduates [in the Triad].”
Other people made similar forecasts: Greensboro planner Russ Clegg said the two defining characteristics of Greensboro in 50 years will be the continued importance of the schools and the city’s position as the Gate City, and Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said education will be essential to position the city to compete globally.
“Institutions of higher education are a hub for attracting the best and the brightest of a diverse and a young population, so we have really strong engines,” NCCJ director Susan Feit said. “GTCC has done a remarkable job positioning this area for aviation jobs and others. When you see that connections between economic needs and education it really brings dividends to this community.”

CLEANER
When Richard McMillan thinks of the future, he thinks about waste management. As the assistant director of public services for High Point, McMillan is focused on trying to maximize the life of the city’s landfill, which he said could last up to 40 years if they can continue to divert waste and recycle at increasing rates. After that, it’s hard to say.
“Let’s say in 50 years we look at it and [consider] a transfer station or a regional landfill, but then you don’t have as much control,” he said. “We could explore the option of finding a new cite for a landfill, but it’s expensive and nobody wants it in their backyard.”
By the time the landfill runs out, new technology may allow the city an alternative moving forward. High Point already profits off its compost and recycling collection, selling 6,000 tons of recycling last year.
Kernersville Mayor Dawn Morgan said the town was recently recognized as a green community and a tree city, and boasts a strong recycling program. Green space will continue to be an important component of Kernersville’s identity, as well as civic engagement, she said.
“Hopefully [in 50 years] we’ve taken steps to protect the environment, reduce our carbon footprint and do things sustainably,” Joines said. “Hopefully we will have clean air and clean water.”
People did not agree about future access to water and energy, though some like Joines agreed Winston-Salem was well positioned for water access and Perkins said Greensboro would need to work towards a regional solution. Gioia said technological advances would allow for sustainable energy creation and diversification, thus alleviating energy concerns.
She also said as people have more leisure time in 50 years, they will take greater advantage of the area’s parks. The importance of green space is not lost on Perkins, who sees Center City Park and the downtown greenway as two of the most important current projects.
“We were smart to purchase all the land around the lakes,” he said. “We have some basic infrastructure through our park system [that will help us] preserve green space.”

UNIFIED
Russ Smith spent 10 years working for different local governments in the Triad and as a state planner for the area before becoming an assistant professor of geography at Winston-Salem State University. Now he is working with the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Project to help develop a 20-30 year plan for the area. As an urban and political geographer, Smith said the regional approach is the way of the future and just makes sense.
“Lines on a map don’t impact water quality,” he said. “If the water is polluted in County A, it’s going to be polluted in County B. We’ve really seen in the last 50 years a lot of focus placed on individual cities. In the future I think cities won’t be as important, but regions will be.”
Bret Marchant, director of research and economic development at the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, envisions the future on an even larger scale.
“The thing that I think about most is how Winston-Salem and the Piedmont Triad will connect with [the area] stretching from Raleigh to Atlanta,” Marchant said. “We will need to connect within that larger region to grow and thrive within the community. These will essentially become region-states.”
Joines also said there may be a new intra-city government by 2062.
“I see the possibility for an umbrella government for the whole Triad region [while] still allowing the regions to have a local identity,” he said.

RECOGNIZABLE
Despite all the speculation about changes, people agreed some things would — or should — stay the same. Most people expressed their desire that their community would retain its character despite the anticipated growth, whether that meant a city and small town feel in Greensboro or the arts and overall quality of life in Winston-Salem.
Morgan said she knew Kernersville would keep its identity.
“It’s a challenge to envision 50 years into the future, but if you look into the past and see the value of Kernersville, it’s been pretty consistent throughout,” she said. “Kernersville has always had a very friendly atmosphere and cooperative partnerships.”
Other people hoped different aspects of their cities would stay the same too, from Tournament Town to our historical neighborhoods neighborhoods, and while most were optimistic, a few feared the possibility of bad planning and prioritization that could lead to environmental destruction and increased poverty.
Driving through the Triad communities it is easy to see evidence of a bygone era intact, not far from brand-new developments and construction, so it isn’t too difficult to imagine a new world alongside the shell of the old. But then again, 50 years is a long time — more than twice as long as I’ve been alive.

This week in YES! Weekly

2012-01-18T12:38:00.002-05:00

feature: THE TRIAD IN 50 YEARS

be there: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

dirt: Ministers challenge DA on racial justice stance

10 best: 10 Best! Amusing aspects of the 2012 Miss America Pageant

voices: Ancient history, still news

editorial: One measure of a year

tunes: Future Islands find comfort at home

flicks: The allure of the Artist, Streep as The Iron Lady and Fullmetal spectacle

visions: Art as a refuge

chow: Beyond chicken and waffles at Snack Bar

crash: Not a tent city

Fund 4 Democratic Communities joins internet blackout to protest SOPA

2012-01-18T12:34:00.004-05:00

As major sites like Wikipedia and Google "go black" by blocking some or all of their content today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act (SOPA and PIPA), the Greensboro-based Fund 4 Democratic Communities has joined in.

Above, a screen shot of the homepage for F4DC's website, www.f4dc.org.

"F4DC has joined the internet blackout protest over the SOPA and PIPA bills in Congress," said a statement on the group's Facebook page today. "See our website for more information and how you can voice your opposition to these bills, which threaten free speech online."

Proponents of the bill say it would protect against internet piracy and copyright infringement, while opponents say the wording of the acts is vague and would pave the way for widespread censorship of the internet including popular social media and networking sites that many say have fueled popular and dissident movements worldwide.

Guilford elections board concerned about redistricting plan

2012-01-17T22:01:00.003-05:00

Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne explains changes to the county commission redistricting plans to the board of elections.

Mark Payne, the attorney for Guilford County government, said he’s surprised no one has sued the state of North Carolina to block a new county commission redistricting plan based on unequal representation.

Elections Director George Gilbert seemed to be wondering the same thing when he asked Payne: “At what point does that equal representation issue become relevant to litigation — at the point of filing for an election or winning an election?”

“Any voter would have standing,” Payne responded, and a lawsuit could have been filed as early as last July, when the plan was ratified following a legislative blindside by Republican lawmakers over howls of protest from the Democratic-controlled board.

The Guilford County Board of Elections voted today to send a letter to the NC Board of Elections expressing concern about the redistricting plan, and asking the state board to recommend changes to the General Assembly.

Payne highlighted two problems caused by the redistricting plan imposed by the General Assembly mandating that the size of the commission be reduced from 11 to nine members, with one at-large and one district representative eliminated respectively. With terms set up on a staggered basis, the law provides for each member to complete her four-year term. That means that about half the members will be up for reelection this year, and the other half will continue to serve out their current terms through 2014. Got that?

Five members are seated through 2014, but the two current at-large members are not among them. Four of the new districts are up for reelection. That means the nine seats will be filled by district representatives after the general election in November. According to Payne’s interpretation, that means the county will have no at-large representative for two years, from November 2012 to November 2014.

The more troubling quandary, from a representational standpoint, is that one or two districts will end up with two representatives and one will have no representative for the next two years. Commissioners Linda Shaw and Kay Cashion are both guaranteed seats through 2014, and have been redrawn into the new District 3, which meanders down from Stokesdale in the county’s northwest corner to UNCG in Greensboro’s city center.

Likewise, Commissioner Carolyn Coleman, who currently represents District 9, is guaranteed a seat through 2014, but lives in the new District 7, which is an open seat for purposes of this year’s election. Meanwhile, the new District 6 doesn’t come up for election until 2014. The district, which flanks Interstate 40 and runs from Colfax to north High Point at the western end of the county, will have no representation for the next two years.

Coleman also faces a dilemma, which creates an additional wrinkle for implementation of the plan: If she finishes out her term as representative of the defunct District 9, she will no longer no longer enjoy the advantage of incumbency when the 2014 election comes up. By that time, a new commissioner will be seated in District 7, where she lives. But if Coleman decides to resign as representative of the old District 9 and file this year as a candidate in the new District 7, the board could conceivably end up with eight members instead of the mandated nine.

County Commission Chairman Skip Alston joined the meeting as it wound down, taking a seat at the table with Payne, Gilbert, Deputy Elections Director Charlie Collicutt and the three board of elections members.

“Two districts with two and one with none,” Gilbert summarized. “How does that sound?”

“Sounds like the state to me,” Alston replied dryly. “Totally confused.”

Alston and Dot Kearns, a Democratic member of the board, shared the same concern.

“You hear a lot of talk about ‘one-man-one-vote,’” Kearns said. “You don’t have that here.”

“Taxation without representation,” Alston riffed.

“It’s really applicable to the board of commissioners because they set the tax rate,” Kearns continued.

“The average citizen has no idea what’s going on,” Alston lamented.

Local officials stopped short of opening soliciting citizens to take the state to court to block the plan, but Gilbert made no secret of his distaste for it, exclaiming, “We hope something will be changed.”

Payne emphasized that, notwithstanding a possible legal challenge, the board’s job is to implement the plan.

“This is not a per se illegal statute,” he said. “This statute is the law of the land. Period.”

As it stands, there are four district seats up for election this year: District 4, currently represented by Kirk Perkins; District 5, an open seat by virtue of Commissioner Mike Winstead’s announced retirement that travels up Battleground Avenue from downtown Greensboro to the Rockingham county line; District 7, a minority-majority district that is open this year notwithstanding a possible filing by Coleman; and District 8, currently represented by Alston.

“We’ve had candidates calling us and asking if there’s going to be an at-large contest,” Gilbert said. “We’ve said, ‘We don’t think so, but we don’t know for sure.’ Now, we’re saying there will be no at-large contest unless something changes.”

Filing opens for the county commission on Feb. 13, leaving candidates three and a half weeks to get ready.

Outside of a legal challenge or the county muddling through a flawed plan, a third possibility is a legislative fix, but Payne said the General Assembly would have to call a special session to do that.

As Kathryn Lindley, the sole Republican member of the board of elections, sees it, the fix is simple: Allow the commission to appoint an at-large representative for the next two years and make a minor tweak to the lines so that all districts are represented by one member. Lindley said she planned to contact Republican lawmakers in Raleigh to urge the fix.

Folwell to run for lieutenant governor

2012-01-17T12:40:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: The NC Dream Team weighs in.

ORIGINAL POST: Dale Folwell, a longtime Republican state lawmaker from Winston-Salem who currently serves as speaker pro tem in the NC House, announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor during a press conference this morning at the Forsyth County Republican Party headquarters.

Forsyth County Sheriff Bill Schatzman, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Don Martin and school board member Jeannie Metcalf and other supporters sat behind him.

“We’re going to be launching this campaign by talking about fixing problems,” Folwell said. “If I hear one more speech about what the problems are without a solution I think I’m going to throw up. People want their problems fixed. They don’t care how it’s done; they just want their problems fixed.

“We’re at a tipping point where we’re either going to repair what we have in North Carolina or we’re going to lose it,” Folwell added, “and I want to be part of repairing it.”

The announcement featured remarks from supporters about bills sponsored by Folwell that were signed into law and helped them address problems, including legislation that capped compensation benefits to reduce burdens on business owners, legislation that allows school districts to find out when a prospective employee has been recommended for termination in another system and legislation that provides for the forfeiture of vehicles when a criminal defendant attempts to elude arrest by speeding.

Counterbalancing his message of promoting practical solutions, Folwell espoused hard-line conservative positions on same-sex marriage and illegal immigration — stances that might alienate mainstream voters in the general election.

Folwell is a sponsor of a bill to place a referendum on the ballot in May that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. He said he supports the ballot measure because he believes voters rather than lawmakers and judges should be the ones to decide such an important issue.

“The marriage amendment is something that people run on and apply for these jobs every two years,” he said. “It’s going to be settled. No longer is anyone going to be able to apply for a job or run on the fact that this is the cornerstone of their platform. I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and I intend to vote that way. But the bottom line is this: We need to get things like this off our plate so that we can concentrate on bigger issues that we have found somehow to be unwilling to concentrate on.”

Folwell said the 2000s has been “a lost decade in North Carolina” for jobs, family values and illegal immigration.

“Every state that borders us is clamping down on illegal immigration,” he said. “So whatever magnet we had — which I think was a very strong magnet for illegal immigration in North Carolina — when somebody else turns their magnet down lower, ours gets stronger. We need to make sure that in terms of illegal immigration laws that we need to have the strongest illegal immigration laws in the Southeast.”

In what is expected to be a polarizing election, Folwell indicated he’s not afraid to take strong stands.

“I completely disagree with the national press who says they want us to all get along,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody in this room who really cares if I get along with anybody. You really don’t care about my bedside manner. You want your problems fixed.”

Bail hearing set for convicted staffing executive

2012-01-12T11:24:00.001-05:00

A bail hearing has been set for Jan. 26 at 11 a.m. for Greg Harrison, the Greensboro staffing company executive who was found guilty by a federal jury of multiple counts of failure to pay payroll taxes, in addition to corrupt endeavor to obstruct and impede internal revenue laws.

Harrison is awaiting sentencing in April, and has been detained since his conviction before Christmas. Harrison’s public defender said in a motion filed on Tuesday that pretrial services has completed an updated bail report that includes proposed conditions of release. The motion states that the defendant agrees to the conditions, but the government remains opposed to Harrison’s release.

A federal prosecutor argued after Harrison’s conviction that the defendant was a flight risk because he potentially faces a 10-year prison sentence, his frequent use of corporate jets indicates that he is highly mobile and his word is not to be trusted considering testimony and evidence that the government characterized as fraudulent and misleading.

Fired police officer accused of excessive force in suit

2012-01-11T20:14:00.002-05:00

A Greensboro police officer fired after making repeated allegations of discrimination against the department related to its handling of an internal investigation into an excessive force complaint is being sued by the civilian who brought the original complaint.

Terrence Lipscomb alleges that Office Joseph Pryor kicked him in the abdomen while he was handcuffed and offering no resistance during an incident in January 2009. The lawsuit states that Lipscomb was diagnosed with severe injury to his pancreas as a result of being kicked and had to undergo multiple stays at Cone hospital.

“I’m a hundred percent [confident] of being acquitted,” Pryor said in an interview today. “I don’t see any way, shape or form I could be found guilty since I had no contact with the guy. It was already proven through the criminal investigation and also through the internal affairs investigation that I did nothing wrong procedurally. I’m blessed to have witnesses there who can state everything I did from beginning to end.”

Michael Schlosser, who is representing the plaintiff, declined to comment.

Pryor is being sued in his individual and official capacities. The city, along with the police department, is a codefendant in the lawsuit. Pryor was vindicated of wrongdoing after the department investigated him criminally and administratively for the incident. The professional standards division initially ruled that the charge was not sustained, but the finding was changed to unfounded on appeal.

“It’s always been our policy that we won’t make any comment on the journalistic record,” said Jim Clark, an assistant city attorney who is handling the case for the city. “We have to save that for in the court.”

Then-City Manager Rashad Young upheld Pryor’s termination in October 2010 after making the determination that the officer had violated the department’s truthfulness and malicious criticism and gossip directives. Pryor was one of four officers, including former Capt. Charles Cherry, who were fired after accusing the department of racial discrimination and retaliation.

“A police officer has the ability to deprive a person of life, liberty and property based in large part on the credibility of their word,” Young wrote in the termination letter. “Accordingly, police officers must be absolutely truthful in all matters. An officer whose truthfulness is at issue is unfit to exercise the powers vested in the police department. It has been the department’s practice to terminate officers found to have been untruthful. In addition, your accusations against the [professional standards division] were malicious in that they were clearly untruthful and they tended to impair the operations of the department.”

Pryor has repeatedly denied kicking Lipscomb, asserting that he could not have done so because he fell during the chase and ended up being off the job for five months with a strained medial collateral ligament of the knee. Pryor, who is black, filed a grievance about the department’s investigation of him claiming that Lipscomb had not been able to provide a description of him as the assailant — a matter of dispute — and contending that the investigation should have been terminated once one white officer took responsibility for pinning the subject with his knee and another acknowledged hitting him in the shoulder with his hand.

As reported previously in YES! Weekly, police had been monitoring Smith Homes for open-air drug sales when Lipscomb was spotted tossing something on the ground. Police decided to use the infraction as an opportunity to discover whether he was holding drugs. Cpl. Jay Atkins was patting Lipscomb down when he bolted. Atkins, Pryor and Officer HW Cox gave chase.

Cox is heard in an audio recording telling professional standards investigator Sgt. Mike Loy that he saw Pryor “hit the subject with his two hands” during the chase, causing both the officer and the suspect to fall to the ground. Cox said soon afterward he watched Atkins come over and jump on Lipscomb. Atkins told Loy he pinned Lipscomb to the ground by kneeling with one knee on the suspect’s back and the other on the ground.

Cox said when he caught up with Atkins and Lipscomb, the suspect had placed his hands under his stomach so that the arresting officers could not handcuff him, Cox used a method prescribed in training that is known as super scapular strikes to bring Lipscomb into compliance. Translated into plain English, Cox reportedly hit Lipscomb in the shoulder blades to make him pull his arms out.

“I hit him with the super scapular strikes,” Cox is heard saying in the recording. “I issued the strikes and his arms came out, and we got him cuffed.” Cox adds that a number of officers “piled up on” Lipscomb “pretty deep.”

Even though Atkins acknowledged placing his knee on Lipscomb’s back and Cox candidly discussed hitting him in the shoulder blades, the interviews remained focused on Lipscomb’s allegation that Pryor kicked him in the stomach.

Cpl. Cheryl Cundiff, a criminal investigator, interviewed civilian witness Pamela Haizlip and her son, Jermaine Hayes, who both implicated Pryor. Cundiff wrote in an investigative report that “after interviewing Ms. Haizlip and her son, their stories proved unreliable. The information they provided was inconsistent with the facts.”

Cox disputed Haizlip’s account in an interview with Cpl. Jack Steinberg, one of the administrative investigators.

“I don’t know what she’s saying because [Pryor] was on the ground holding his knee,” Cox said. “You might want to talk to her about that because she’s lying to you…. Pryor had no contact with him at all. The only ones who had any contact with him at all is me and Jay.”

Cox stated unequivocally in response to Steinberg’s questions that he did not observe Pryor kicking Lipscomb.

Young, the former city manager, acknowledged in a 2010 interview that Cox and Atkins took responsibility for physical contact with Lipscomb, but said considering that Lipscomb’s description fit Pryor, it would not have been appropriate for investigators to change the focus of their investigation. He added, “It turns out that the citizen didn’t tell the truth.”

Young upheld Pryor’s termination on the basis of a finding that Pryor was untruthful in asserting that his signature was forged on a notice of administrative investigation.

Pryor said he received a “right to sue” letter in December from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission validating his allegations of racial discrimination, harassment and hostile work environment against the police department. Pryor has a 90-day window to file suit, and said he intends to pursue the claim.

Pryor said Lipscomb’s lawsuit poses a hardship on him because he has to hire a lawyer to defend himself in his individual capacity, but believes his ultimate exoneration and an airing of the facts will bolster his claim against the city.

“Now the city can’t keep it on the hush: It’s going to be in court,” Pryor said. “They’re going to have to defend me because the city changed [the finding] to unfounded.”

This week in YES! Weekly

2012-01-11T12:10:00.002-05:00

feature: Pulling apart: The Piedmont Triad's rapidly expanding income gap

be there: Mixed Tape Series Presents: The Royal Tenenbaums

dirt: UNCG moves slowly to clean up burned houses

10 best: 10 best indoor sports

voices: Latest assault on Racial Justice Act

editorial: Forget about the grass

tunes: Grammy-nominated guitarist heads to Chicago

flicks: Carnage: Caution, adults at play... no sympathy for The Devil

visions: Everything is a canvas... with permission

chow: Brunch every day at the Screaming Rooster

crash: Subterranean goodbyes

Commision warms to eastern Guilford sewer plan

2012-01-11T08:18:00.001-05:00

Commissioner Billy Yow, a well driller, chatted with Greensboro Water Resources Director Kenney McDowell in the hallway outside a county commission retreat.

“Welcome to the county,” said Mayor Robbie Perkins as he reached for the door of the Old County Courthouse after walking across Governmental Plaza from the Melvin Municipal Building with Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan and interim Water Resources Director Kenney McDowell.

Perkins had worked the phones, and he and Vaughan had met with Chairman Skip Alston before the trio made their presentation during the Guilford County Commission’s retreat yesterday. Judging by the receptive hearing from members of both political parties on the county commission, the longstanding cold war between city and county government has begun to thaw.

Based on a plan drawn up by city of Greensboro staff, Perkins is proposing that the city and county jointly fund construction of new water and sewer lines to support future industrial development – data centers are the most oft cited example – in unincorporated eastern Guilford County with money from the dissolved Joint Water and Sewer Fund. Estimates of the amount of money in the fund vary: Interim City Manager Denise Turner Roth pegged the figure at $23 million, and Alston said about $25 million is available. Perkins and Alston are proposing that the city and county each put up $11 million for the infrastructure project. To sweeten the deal for the county, about $2 million would be set aside to extend water and sewer to the Forest Oaks community in the county’s southeastern corner.

“What we’re proposing here is the single, number-one thing we can do as elected bodies to enhance jobs and enhance our tax base for this county,” Perkins said. “We have an area that has the most important ingredient of economic development already in place, which is two interstate highways. If you look on this map, you’ve got almost a billion dollars worth of highways just on this one piece of paper. And you’ve got a Duke power grid that was good enough to attract one of America’s leading companies to build their data center here, so that every card transaction that comes through an American Express card anywhere in the world comes through Guilford County.

“For us to do the kinds of things we need to do as a county, we’ve got to look for a large, dynamic, game-changing opportunity,” he added. “It’s going to happen along these interstates and we’ve got to be prepared so that we can get the next American Express. I was shocked when our staff said, ‘If we have another one come along out here’ – and this is where it’s gonna come [because] Duke Power’s got the juice out here – that we would have to turn ’em down because we’re not ready. And it’s up to all of us to get ready.”

The county has also identified a need for water and sewer lines to serve the Lynwood Lakes community, also in southeastern Guilford, but that is not part of the tentative deal struck by Perkins and Alston.

District 6 Commissioner Kay Cashion asked Perkins if the county could contribute a lesser amount to the industrial development project so it could also fund the Lynwood Lakes extension.

Perkins indicated that the city would be unwilling to entertain such a modification.

“It’s a hard deal for us because it’s out of our corporate limits,” he said.

At-large Commissioner John Parks also pushed to include Lynwood Lakes, but Alston reiterated the city’s bottom line.

“Right now, I think the position of the city is they’ll help us with Forest Oaks, but not Lynwood Lakes,” he said.

District 9 Commissioner Carolyn Coleman told the city delegation that the satellite municipality of Pleasant Garden needs additional water and sewer capacity, while District 3 Commissioner Linda Shaw through in northwest Guilford. Alston remarked that the county would have to fund those projects independently, adding that the city of Greensboro has its own needs.

District 5 Commissioner Billy Yow, District 2 Commissioner Bill Bencini proposed that the city share revenues accumulated through water service to the area with the county. County Manager Brenda Jones Fox said the county owes $10.8 million on its share of the water and sewer fund.

“We think it’s an excellent idea,” Perkins said. “A model that involves revenue sharing should be on the table because a deal of this magnitude is going to generate hundreds of millions of dollars.”

While characterizing the proposal as “fantastic,” at-large Commissioner Paul Gibson said he would like some time to make sure all the right questions are asked. Alston said he would like the commission to take final action on the item at its first meeting in February.

The commission also heard a report from Tax Director Ben Chavis on the scheduled property revaluation this year. The eight-year process was last completed in 2004. Against expectations that the mortgage crisis that began in 2008 will significantly degrade the county’s $45 billion tax base, Chavis said he expects a relatively gentle adjustment.

“We’re not looking at a huge deviation from the tax base that’s on our books,” he said. “I would say the tax base would go down slightly, but I wouldn’t expect the bottom to fall out.”

Chavis said notices will be sent out for about 200,000 parcels in early March and a team of 13 appraisers and three clerical workers will conduct the revaluation.

Chavis characterized the process as “volatile,” but later emphasized that this revaluation promises to be little different from previous times and that 10 percent of property owners typically appeal their revaluations. Appeals are heard by the Board of Equalization and Review, whose members are real estate professionals appointed by the county commission.

Alston said from past experience he expects the commission to take a revenue-neutral approach to revaluation, meaning that if the tax base declines the county would increase the tax rate to compensate rather than keeping the rate the same and making do with less revenue.

Jones said the county is currently facing a $40 million budget gap, and will have to raise taxes by 9.5 cents on $100 of property valuation to cover the shortfall. About a third of the increase would pay for debt service on bonds approved by voters in 2008.

Commissioners also discussed the possibility of adopting a policy to give preferential treatment to local contractors that are competitive with out-of-state businesses, but members reached little consensus on the matter.

“You all start drawing lines around Guilford County, next thing you know other counties are trying to draw lines around themselves,” cautioned District 4 Commissioner Kirk Perkins.

Gibson took the other end of the argument.

“We ought to bend over backwards to keep as much business in Guilford County as possible,” he said.

County Attorney Mark Payne said 83.3 percent of county purchases are from North Carolina vendors, and 45 percent are from Guilford County vendors.

The issue arose when the county dropped its contract with Berico, a local fuel company, in favor of northern Virginia supplier, prompting consternation from Yow and Sheriff BJ Barnes, among others. Gibson said the county should avoid a repeat of that situation.

“Your friend didn’t get the contract,” Coleman said. “That’s what the problem was.”

The county has not received clear input from the business community on the issue to date. The Greensboro Partnership will be holding a forum in March so that purchasing representatives of the county, city of Greensboro and Guilford County Schools can hear local business owners’ needs and concerns. Alston said the partnership’s lobbyist has expressed some reservations.

Alston suggested the county should prioritize the county’s taxpayers over its businesses.

“Maybe we can teach our local businesses to bid lower,” he said.

Jillian Sarno Teta's 10 Best Ways to keep your New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-04T14:44:00.002-05:00

Local naturopathic physician and fitness competitor Jillian Sarno Teta shared her own 10 Best! list of ways to keep your New Year's Resolutions. The following is Jillian's 10 Best! list:

1. Decide what you really want: This may seem silly to consider at first, but really try to take an internal stock of what is important to you. Often times the things we spend time doing are different than the things we think are important to do. Figure out what goals are important to you for 2012.

2. Make your goals clearly definable (and reasonable): Having a goal of losing a half inch off of your waist, or committing to 2 20-minute weight training workouts a week, is a measureable and concrete goal that you can track the progress of and lay out a plan for.

3. Small steps lead to big change: This time of year, we get very excited about making change, and decide we are going to make huge, broad, sweeping changes in our lives. Then as the weeks and months tick by, we lose our energy and excitement around these changes and simply “let go”. But, if you implement small steps (ie – I will have a glass of water every morning when I get up, I will choose only salads when dining out for lunch) these accumulate large benefit without being overwhelming. They are doable.

4. Make yourself a priority: When it comes to your health and your fitness, you have to be important to you. We can often get caught up and toss our own needs aside as we get wrapped up in the daily responsibilities of our lives, but the truth is you can only be your best taking care of others/at your job if you are taking care of yourself.

5. Enjoy the process and measure progress: Life is a journey, not a destination, right? The same is true for any health and fitness goals. Simply deciding to make change is enormously powerful and you are going to learn a lot about yourself. To help support this, it is important to track your progress – think about taking measurements of your waist, taking weekly photos of yourself, tracking workouts on paper, writing lists of things you are grateful for – to help you objectively measure your progress, to motivate you to continue making those changes and to reconnect with why you wanted change in the first place.

6. Know your strengths: Maybe you have great planning and organizational skills and can deftly schedule in time to exercise, walk or plan meals. Or maybe you are a fantastic cook and can make delicious fat-burning meals that your friends and family will love. Maybe you are a writer and can blog about your experience to inspire others. What are you good at?

7. Know your triggers: We all have those “things” that can make us slide off track from our goals. It could be an issue of feeling stressed for time, for not having enough energy, or feeling like you don’t deserve it/it’s too much work. Knowing this about yourself ahead of time lets you deal with these preemptively or reframe them when they do come up.

8. Learn from setbacks: “failure” is not really failure – it is an opportunity to learn about yourself. No one has ever achieved a goal or figured something out without learning from what doesn’t work first. Through trial and error we investigate and learn what truly works for us – and what works for someone else is not necessarily what works for you.

9. Check in with yourself: Throughout this year and your journey, check back in with yourself and take stock again of your priorities and what is important to you. Have they changed? What is different? How can these lessons help you grow as a person and achieve your goals?

10. Find people with similar goals: This is not a necessity, and certainly not as important as getting your mind right, but, for example, if you know of someone who wants to exercise more or eat more veggies, maybe you could become workout buddies, or go for walks together, or have a healthy potluck once a month. By sharing your story, successes, lessons and setbacks, you can create a community around you that can help support you – because, after all, we all can relate to the ups and downs of life.

Emily Nemith Saunders' 10 Best Ways to Stick to your New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-04T14:00:00.003-05:00

Local nutrition coach and fitness competitor Emily Nemith Saunders contributed to this week's 10 Best! list of Ways to Keep your New Year's resolutions. The following is the unedited version of Emily's 10 Best! list:

1. Be specific: Rather than I'm going to lose 30 pounds this year focus on some key changes that you can make. For example, eat breakfast, lift weights 3 times per week for 20 minutes before or after work. Focus on small changes and perfect them prior to moving on to the next step.

2. Find a fat loss plan that works for YOU! There is no one size fits all workout or diet. Enlist the help of an expert for accountability and to help figure out a sustainable plan that will stick.

3. Stay away from absolutes: Rather than " I am giving up sweets" make a weekly plan to allow yourself some wiggle room while continuing to work toward your goals. Make a plan to keep your diet tight during the week and then share a small dessert with a friend on Friday night.

4. Tell your friends, family members etc. - they will help you stay accountable and maybe even join you.

5. Celebrate small victories- reward your progress with a new workout top, download new music, a pedicure etc.

6 Prepare food in advance and make sure to have quick snacks like nuts, fresh fruit, hardboiled eggs and protein bars available.

7. Don't let Small Setbacks bring you down- we are humans and we are imperfect. Jump right back on the bandwagon with the next meal rather than waiting until "Monday".

8. Find ways to stay motivated- The January motivation only lasts so long. Try a new fitness class, learn to cook a food you've never tried, go hiking in a new spot. Keep things interesting to stay interested.

9. Focus on creating new habits- this is much more empowering than focusing on what is "wrong". Think about healthy habits you can implement that replace the old ones.

10. Visualize reaching the goal regularly- this is a powerful motivating tool and a great mental practice that will help you overcome hurdles and allow you to envision the feeling of success.

You can read the YES! Weekly article at: http://www.yesweekly.com/triad/article-13358-ten-best.html

To find out more about Emily's nutrition coaching services, you can email her at: emily.saunders@hotmail.com

This week in YES! Weekly

2012-01-04T12:27:00.002-05:00

feature: The UNSCA School of Filmmaking’s Moving Image Archives

be there: Bit Brigade, The Bronzed Chorus, Ahleuchatistas, Hi-Rollers Live

dirt: Greensboro weighs options for solid waste management

10 best: TEN BEST! Ways to keep your New Year’s resolutions

voices: Howard Coble’s cult of personality

editorial: Not in our name

tunes: Not so fast: Overlooked albums of 2011

flicks: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy hits the mark as a classic spy thriller

visions: De Silva shines inner light through her expressionist works

chow: The hibachi experience is one best shared

crash: Seven years gone by

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-12-28T14:37:00.002-05:00

feature: 2011 in review

be there: House of Fools CD Release Show

dirt: 2011 Year in Review

10 best: Ten best year-end lists for 2011

voices: A new year’s resolution

editorial: Sever the bonds

flicks: Three for the show: Tintin, Marilyn and Young Adult

visions: 2011: A retrospective

chow: 2011 best bites of the year

crash: Christmas gifts

Blog extra: Greensboro businessman guilty on all counts in tax evasion trial

2011-12-21T16:36:00.006-05:00

Federal prosecutors made the case to a jury in Winston-Salem yesterday that Greg Harrison, a Greensboro businessman who controlled an extensive network of staffing agencies, stole upwards of $16 million from the people of the United States to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included luxury homes, yachts and movie productions.

Story here.

The US Justice Department brags about the conviction here.

Coverage of the trial on Monday, including testimony from Harrison, that didn't make our print edition follows:

Greg Harrison took the witness stand in his federal trial on multiple counts of tax evasion in Winston-Salem on Monday.

The Greensboro businessman, who spun out movie production companies, a real estate enterprise and a gym from revenues generated by an extensive network of staffing companies over the past decade, looked mildly nervous under questioning by his lawyer and the prosecution, but remained poised and gracious throughout.

The defendant attempted to deflect blame onto a former business partner, Mark Griffin. He testified that when IRS Revenue Officer Crystal Peoples confronted him in 2006 about a series of payroll tax deposits that were not accompanied by returns, he told her that the company had been sold. Peoples asked Harrison for the tax identification number for the business.

Harrison told the court that he called Griffin and explained that there was potentially a large deposit that would be credited back.

“Mr. Griffin gave me the ID number,” Harrison testified.

The US government has accused Harrison of deliberately misleading Peoples by giving her a tax ID number that turned out to be associated with his mother’s staffing company in South Carolina, IHT Staffing/Grand Strand. Harrison testified that at the time he gave the tax ID number to Peoples, he believed it was associated with IHT, a company he formed with his grandfather in 1993.

In later years, a company called IHT of SC was formed that acted as a licensee to Global Labor, for which Harrison serves as president. Harrison said IHT of SC handled staffing for the Charleston ports.

Prosecutor Frank Chut appeared to relish calling Harrison on the striking similarities in the names of the businesses.

“That could be confusing,” he said.

“To whom?” Harrison parried.

“To the IRS, for one.”

“They got confused by quite a bit,” Harrison retorted. “That’s why I’ve had to hire an attorney to straighten this out before I was arrested on 63 counts.”

The government accuses Harrison’s staffing companies of failing to pay millions of dollars in federal payroll taxes from 2004 through 2006, when the assets were sold to Griffin and another partner, Ray McDaniel, and then in 2008 and 2009, when Harrison brought the businesses back under his control.

After June 2004, Griffin was responsible for ensuring that payroll taxes were paid as part of an “Interim Management Agreement,” Harrison testified on Monday.

The prosecution relentlessly poked holes in that representation, starting with a Hobbs Staffing Services memo introduced as evidence. Dated Oct. 31, 2004, the document declared, “At present, Greg pays all payroll taxes.”

The prosecution drew Harrison’s attention to a 941 Employer Quarterly Tax Return in which a box indicating that no future returns were required to be filed was checked off. Harrison testified that he received the form from Griffin, and gave it to Peoples, with the IRS. After 2002 he said that Hobbs, the company in question, was only used as an entity to handle financing and insurance.

Chut brandished a copy of a 2005 W2 form indicating Harrison earned $249,000 in wages from Hobbs that year.

“The document is in dispute,” Harrison said.

“Hobbs Staffing had a large payroll after 2004 and hundreds of temporary workers,” Chut suggested.

“That’s not my understanding,” Harrison responded.

The defense also attempted to blunt the government’s argument that Harrison has transferred millions of dollars from operating accounts of the staffing agencies to entities for his personal benefit. Public defender Tom Cochran introduced graphs showing millions of dollars in transfers from one of Harrison’s personal accounts to the staffing agencies.

IRS Revenue Officer Edward Coakley has previously testified, in contrast, that transfers from the personal accounts to the staffing businesses were “insignificant.”

Chut attempted to undermine Harrison’s evidence, charging, “Your exhibits don’t account for where the money came from that was in your personal account, do they?”

Then he proceeded to introduce a boredom-inducing series of bank statements from May 2005 through August 2006 showing that, with few exceptions, deposits to the personal account came from US Labor and Hobbs Staffing Services. Pointing to a deposit of $165,012 from Hobbs in August 2006, Chut said, “That’s a lot of money for a company that doesn’t have a payroll, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Harrison replied. “That’s basically a company that handed financing and carried the insurance policy.”

Chut also questioned Harrison on transfers of millions of dollars documented by Coakley from the staffing agencies to companies set up to finance movies, a Jamestown gym called Extreme Fitness and a company called Shining Properties.

Harrison testified that money transferred from the staffing companies to business accounts for the two movies — National Lampoon’s Pucked and Home of the Giants — and for Extreme Fitness originated in loans from GrandSouth Bank. The funds were raised, he said, by borrowing against money the staffing companies expected to receive from clients.

“Mr. Griffin and I talked about a way we could generate additional billing,” Harrison said.

The testimony appeared to confuse Judge James A. Beaty, who interjected, “Sir, are you saying that the gym and movie companies were clients of the staffing companies?”

Harrison responded, “The staffing companies had always worked with the gym. To the movies, it was simple administrative services and payroll services.”

Chut attempted to goad Harrison into a confession.

“The $1,087,000 that went to Home of the Giants was not paid to the IRS, was it?”

“There were no wages associated with that transfer,” Harrison responded.

Also deflecting from the government’s argument that Harrison socked away funds that should have been paid over to the IRS, the defendant introduced a summary of transactions from US Labor to StaffCo Management Group, the company started by his former business partners, Griffin and McDaniel, totaling $2 million. “I took the government exhibits,” Harrison testified over the government’s objection, “… and noticed, frankly, that a lot of money had gone over to StaffCo Management.”

Harrison also introduced an exhibit representing that money had been wired from one of the staffing companies to Michael Brooks, a former employee from England who Harrison said he had befriended during a soccer game.

Cochran also asked Harrison about an ex-wife with whom Harrison has two children.

“Have you given her permission to use your bank account?” Cochran asked.

The judge sustained an objection from the prosecution, but not before Harrison could answer: “Completely.”

Harrison also addressed previous testimony by Julie Akers, a former controller, to the effect that Harrison had refused to provide money to cover payroll taxes even though he controlled finances for IHT of SC.

Harrison confirmed Akers testimony that she and company president Elizabeth Byrd had approached him in 2009 about funding to pay an overdue tax bill of $135,000.

“I said, ‘You should pay your taxes, one.’ I said, ‘I’ll see what I can do to pull together some money.’ I came up with $85,000. Unfortunately, it was not enough to cover the check that they had written.”

Harrison said Polo Ralph Lauren in High Point was IHT of SC’s biggest customer, and it was their neighbor because they were literally two or three doors apart.”

Harrison testified that he had no responsibility for paying taxes for IHT of SC, but acknowledged controlling funding. He said IHT of SC typically sent GrandSouth Bank its receivables — an itemized list of expected payments from clients — and the bank would determine how much money to advance based on a percentage of receivables and unpaid debts. The bank would forward the money to Global Labor, and Harrison in turn would send the money to IHT of SC. On a couple of occasions, the amount of funds provided by the bank was short of what the staffing company needed to operate, Harrison said.
Under cross-examination, Harrison testified, “Every penny was remitted to IHT of SC, in addition to $85,000 that we came up with.”

Chut referenced testimony by Akers that Harrison had at one time told her not to file tax returns for Consolidated Management, an earlier incarnation of IHT of SC.
“I never instructed anyone not to file tax returns,” Harrison testified. “That’s inaccurate.”

Last week, the defense put Doug Corriher, a vice president of GrandSouth Bank on the stand. Harrison said in trial that he has had a relationship with the bank since its founding in 1998 and that President Ron Earnest “is my main contact.”

Corriher testified on Dec. 15 that GrandSouth Bank ran into difficulties in its relationship with Harrison because it could not loan out as much money as the staffing companies needed to operate. To do so would have drawn scrutiny from government regulators and jeopardized the deposits of the bank’s other customers.

Chut asked Corriher if it was true that at one time Harrison or his companies accounted for 50 percent of GrandSouth Bank’s portfolio. Corriher allowed that staffing companies licensed by Harrison licensed comprised a significant portion of the bank’s business.

Written comments by Corriher in a 2008 factoring agreement with one of the Global Labor licensees, Brooks Labor, give some sense of the risk-and-reward proposition represented by the staffing businesses from GrandSouth Bank’s perspective:

“The factoring facilities related to the licensees of Mr. Harrison operated as expected with the exception of the failure of the licensor to obtain a renewal of the workman’s compensation insurance in a timely manner…. Additional work will be performed by the factoring division to verify documentation submitted by the client accounts including a higher number of field visits to licensees and branch offices. Also, the factoring division will become more active in the collection of delinquent accounts than in the past to ensure that credit issues do not become a higher risk than is acceptable. Overall, the relationship we had in the past was very profitable and worked as expected with the exception of the insurance issue.”

Corriher testified that Harrison approached him with a proposal that the staffing companies be reorganized through a licensor-licensee arrangement to overcome the difficulty posed by the bank’s lending limits.

“It’s fair to say that Mr. Harrison did the vast bulk of negotiating on the terms of these agreements,” Chut prodded Corriher.

“Yes,” Corriher testified.

Corriher also testified that Harrison has visited GrandSouth Bank in Greenville “probably close” to once a month this year, flying down in a jet piloted by Joey Medaloni. Once celebrated as the king of downtown Greensboro nightlife, Medaloni developed the N Club, along with Much and Heaven, some of the strongest brands among the boom-boom dance clubs that throng South Elm Street. Medaloni has pleaded guilty to loan fraud and faces sentencing in February.

Corriher told the court that upon receiving funding requests from the licensee staffing agencies, GrandSouth Bank would wire money to Global Labor. After that, he did not know what happened to the funds.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-12-21T16:17:00.002-05:00

feature: The Meaning Of Life

be there: Awake The White and Wint’ry Queen

dirt: Businessman convicted on 63 counts of tax evasion

10 best: Children’s Christmas movies and TV specials

voices: Redistricting abuses... again

editorial: The passing of the Great Leader

tunes: Christmas, all that jazz with Pres. Hall

flicks: Mission: Impossible hits its stride with Ghost Protocol, a new Girl in town

visions: Winter Showcase: Christmas in the Carolinas

chow: Ghassan’s for family fare

crash: A big boy at Christmas

Testimony in tax evasion trial puts SC bank in awkward spot

2011-12-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Testimony by witnesses called by the defendant in the tax evasion trial of Greensboro businessman Greg Harrison on Thursday brought to light the role played by GrandSouth Bank in financing staffing agencies.

Based in Greenville, SC, GrandSouth Bank was incorporated in 1998 and operates three branches, all in South Carolina. The bank reports $377.4 million in assets.

Doug Corriher, vice president in charge of the bank’s factoring division, looked visibly nervous on the witness stand, pursing his lips and frowning, even before the prosecution got the opportunity to cross-examine him.

The defense introduced two factoring agreements, essentially commercial lending arrangements that allow staffing companies to maintain cash flow to make payroll while waiting for clients to make billing payments. An agreement with US Staffing of South Carolina was signed by Mark E. Gleason, while another agreement with US Staffing of North Carolina was signed by Michael Brooks. Both are longtime business associates of Harrison. At the time, the companies operated under the umbrella of Hobbs Staffing Services, owned by Harrison.

Public defender Tom Cochran asked Corriher who made weekly requests for funding from Hobbs.

“The majority of the time it would be Mike Brooks,” Corriher testified. “Other times it would be Mr. Harrison.”

That testimony supports the defense’s efforts to minimize Harrison’s role in running the companies as a way to create doubt on the jury about the government's allegation that the defendant has serially and willfully failed to pay federal payroll taxes.

Gleason testified earlier this month that he did not serve as president, control payroll, direct the activities of employees or receive payment from the proceeds of the of US Staffing of South Carolina’s sale, but signed the factoring agreement because he was asked to do so by Harrison.

The defense also introduced as evidence a 2009 factoring agreement between GrandSouth Bank and staffing agency IHT of SC. Corriher signed for the bank and Elizabeth Byrd signed as president of the staffing agency. At a certain point, Corriher testified that he learned Byrd had resigned and had been replaced as president by Gleason.

Corriher said the bank president wrote a letter to Gleason reflecting an understanding that Gleason had purchased the company. Corriher testified that he signed the letter, and that the bank needed to be apprised of who served as officers of the companies.

Cochran asked Corriher if he received any correspondence after that indicating that the documents were not accurate, a fraud or a sham. Corriher said he had not.

Under prodding from Assistant US Attorney Frank Chut during the prosecution’s cross-examination, Corriher acknowledged that GrandSouth Bank ran into difficulties in its relationship with Harrison because it could not loan out as much money as the staffing companies needed to operate. To do so would have drawn scrutiny from government regulators and jeopardized the deposits of the bank’s other customers, Corriher confirmed.

Chut asked Corriher if it was true that at one time Harrison or his companies accounted for 50 percent of GrandSouth Bank’s portfolio. Corriher allowed that Harrison licensed staffing companies that comprised a significant portion of the bank’s business.

Written comments by Corriher in a 2008 factoring agreement with one of the Global Labor licensees, Brooks Labor, gives some sense of the risk and reward proposition the staffing business has held for GrandSouth Bank:

“The factoring facilities related to the licensees of Mr. Harrison operated as expected with the exception of the failure of the licensor to obtain a renewal of the workman’s compensation insurance in a timely manner…. Additional work will be performed by the factoring division to verify documentation submitted by the client accounts including a higher number of field visits to licensees and branch offices. Also, the factoring division will become more active in the collection of delinquent accounts than in the past to ensure that credit issues do not become a higher risk than is acceptable. Overall, the relationship we had in the past was very profitable and worked as expected with the exception of the insurance issue.”

Corriher testified that Harrison approached him with a proposal that the staffing companies be reorganized through a licensor-licensee arrangement to overcome the difficulty posed by the bank’s lending limits.

Harrison serves as president of a company called Global Labor that is described as a licensor of staffing companies. As recently as August, Global Labor acknowledged in a civil lawsuit that it holds licensing agreements with Strategic Insource Solutions, a Greensboro company operated by Trevor Jefferson; Hire Alternatives, operated by Pete Pappas and also located in Greensboro; Integrated Staffing Solutions, a Gastonia company owned by William C. Ray; and Temporary Personnel Solutions, operated by Gleason in Jacksonville, Fla.

In addition to operating the Gastonia staffing agency, Ray serves as director of Global Labor, according to testimony by Gerald Pell, Harrison’s longtime corporate lawyer and sole trustee of the licensing company.

“It’s fair to say that Mr. Harrison did the vast bulk of negotiating on the terms of these agreements,” Chut prodded Corriher.

“Yes,” Corriher testified.

Corriher also testified that Harrison has visited GrandSouth Bank in Greenville “probably close” to once a month this year, flying down in a jet piloted by Joey Medaloni. Once celebrated as the king of downtown Greensboro nightlife, Medaloni developed the N Club, along with Much and Heaven, some of the strongest brands among the boom-boom dance clubs that throng South Elm Street. Medaloni has pleaded guilty to loan fraud and faces sentencing in February.

Corriher also testified that he visited Harrison’s home on Hoke Lane, which is located in the Sedgefield community near Greensboro.

Corriher told the court that upon receiving funding requests from the licensee staffing agencies, GrandSouth Bank would wire money to Global Labor. After that, he did not know what happened to the funds.

Julie Akers, a former controller for Harrison’s staffing companies, has testified that in 2009 Harrison controlled access to the funds, and that there were never sufficient funds to make federal payroll tax deposits.

Corriher testified that a standard part of factoring agreements is that the client pay payroll taxes. He also testified that when he received Form 941 Employer’s Quarterly Federal tax return documents from Akers, they recorded zero tax deposits.

Corriher testified that as licensor, Global Labor handles back-office functions, including payroll and payroll taxes for the licensee staffing agencies. The testimony of Pete Pappas portrayed the licensing arrangement as somewhat less significant. Pappas, who owns Hire Alternatives, testified that he pays a royalty fee to William Ray at Global Labor, and in return receives marketing materials, guidance and support. Ray is not among the potential witnesses listed by either the government or the defendant, but has sat in the courtroom as an observer almost every day of the trial.

Corriher blanched when the prosecution drew his attention to corporate annual reports filed with the NC Office of the Secretary of State listing Harrison as president of US Staffing of North Carolina and US Staffing of South Carolina, the companies on behalf of which Brooks and Gleason respectively signed as president in the factoring agreements with GrandSouth Bank.

The bank executive testified that he found out later that Harrison had sold the two companies as part of the transfer of assets to StaffCo Management Group, a company formed by two of Harrison’s former partners.

Chut asked Corriher if Harrison informed him that he, in fact, was the president of the companies.

“He couldn’t have,” Corriher testified, “because otherwise we wouldn’t have leant the money.”

The defense also put Gerald Pell, Harrison’s longtime corporate lawyer on the stand.

Pell testified that he has known Harrison “since he was a youngster, maybe 10 years old.

“I represented him and his mother in a wrongful death lawsuit when his father was killed in an airplane crash,” Pell explained.

The defense subjected Pell to a lengthy examination on the corporate history of the staffing agencies. None of the questions or testimony related to payroll taxes, the issue central to the government’s charges.

Pell testified that Global Labor is set up as an irrevocable trust with two assets: a life insurance policy on Harrison naming his children as beneficiaries and stock in the company. Pell is the trustee and sole shareholder. Although not disclosed during the trial, Pell also owns the property at 307 S. Swing Road in Greensboro, the longtime corporate headquarters of Harrison’s staffing operations.

The government used its cross-examination on Pell to call into question the authenticity of Global Labor’s representation on paper of its corporate leadership. The prosecution drew attention to a document dated Aug. 29, 2008 indicating that Pell appointed Harrison president of Global Labor, and then contrasted it with a later document that recorded Gleason as resigning as president.

Pell testified that he didn’t know what happened after he appointed Harrison president of the company in 2008.

“Have you ever un-appointed anyone?” Chut asked.

“I don’t un-appoint anyone,” Pell responded testily.

“Do you pay the taxes for Global Labor?”

“No.”

Disentangling church and state in the matter of marriage

2011-12-14T13:05:00.002-05:00

A group of Guilford County citizens are suing the state of North Carolina, claiming that the requirement that couples must obtain licenses from the state before clergy can solemnize marriages violates the establishment clause of the Constitution that forms the basis of the separation of church and state.

The state of North Carolina acts unconstitutionally in NCGS §§ 51-1 and 51-6, with respect to pastors, priests and rabbis performing marriage ceremonies, in three respects. First, it is unconstitutional for the state to make the pastor, priest or rabbi an agent of the state for the purpose of carrying out the ceremony and participating in the submission of the state-granted license for marriage, since this amounts to a state establishment of religion. Second, it is unconstitutional for the state to require individuals who are entering into marriage, to participate in a ceremony prescribed by the state, and to participate in the licensing of the marriage, since this violates freedom of religion. Third, it is unconstitutional for the state to make it unlawful for a pastor, priest or rabbi to solemnize the marriage of same-sex couples.

A historical treatise on marriage written by plaintiff Daniel W. Koenig and attorney Norman B. Smith is found here.

Plaintiffs include Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen; the Rev. Randall Keeney, rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church; the Rev. Julie Peeples, rector at Congregational United Church of Christ; and Al Brilliant, co-owner of Glenwood Coffee and Books.

Plaintiff Jeff L. Thigpen, as register of deeds of Guilford County, North Carolina, and as a citizen of North Carolina and the United States, objects and finds it morally and constitutionally repugnant to administer a system which requires all persons entering into marriage to have licenses that will be recorded; to obligate pastors, priests and rabbis who are performing marriage ceremonies to perform them pursuant to licenses issued by the state; and to require either the religious or civil solemnization of marriages.

The complaint states that Keeney and Peeples believe it to be a violation of their religious rights, the religious rights of their churches, and the religious rights of persons for whom they performs marriages, to require that they act as agents of the state in solemnizing the marriages and participating in the licensure thereof, and when they act illegally and subject to punishment if they marry persons ceremonially without having their marriages licensed by the state. These plaintiffs and their churches are willing to solemnize the marriages of same-sex couples. These plaintiffs and their churches are willing to solemnize the marriages of persons who do not wish to have their marriages licensed and registered.

Other plaintiffs include a pastor who is “willing to solemnize the marriages of persons who do not wish to have their marriages licensed and registered,” but declines to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples; a same-sex couple desiring to have a non-religious ceremonial marriage; a same-sex couple desiring to have a religious ceremonial marriage; and a couple that wishes to have a religious ceremonial marriage but are unwilling to obtain a state-issued license because they are disabled and would lose their Medicaid benefits.

The final plaintiff is Alan Brilliant.

Plaintiff Alan Brilliant is unmarried, but may wish to enter into marriage in the future. He is heterosexual, and if he were to marry, would marry a woman. This plaintiff finds it morally and constitutionally repugnant to participate in any type of ceremony required by the state, or to have his marriage licensed without his agreement and consent, believing that these legal requirements violate his rights of personal and religious freedom.

Methods and detail in Latin Kings indictment

2011-12-14T11:54:00.003-05:00

Here’s our report (link) in today’s issue of YES! Weekly about the indictment on racketeering charges against North Carolina members of the Latin Kings.

And here’s a more detailed version (link) published on the blog on Saturday.

Here’s a copy (link) of the unsealed indictment. The government’s motion for pretrial detention (link), which was granted yesterday by Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp, provides additional detail for some of the more sensational allegations contained in the indictment and reveals the FBI’s methods of obtaining information.

Excerpt:

In this case, the FBI has developed a significant amount of evidence to substantiate the racketeering enterprise allegations against Jorge Cornell and the Latin Kings. The FBI has secured the cooperation of several current and former members of the Latin Kings in North Carolina. Through the use of these cooperators, FBI has recorded scores of conversations involving Cornell and the other Latin Kings totaling hundreds of hours. The quotations citied herein are taken from these audio recordings. Some of the crimes committed by the Latin Kings were captured on videotape. Furthermore, Latin King members have already been found guilty in state court on many of the RICO predicate acts. Those state court convictions can be used at trial in federal court to prove their participation in the enterprise. In sum, the government’s case against Jorge Cornell is very strong.

Also in the motion:

If convicted, Cornell is facing an estimated advisory guideline range of 360 months to life in prison.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-12-14T11:21:00.002-05:00

feature: Rebuilding the House of Fools

be there: Two-Person Exhibit by EO Hill & Alix Hitchcock

dirt: Latin Kings indictment stuns supporters

10 best: Ten Best hot toys through history

voices: Allegations, not evidence

editorial: Sports and tech

tunes: Pres. Hall leader on Big Easy Christmas

flicks: The Descendants, Payne at his best; The Sitter, Green at his worst

visions: A lifetime of memories on canvas

chow: Homestyle goodness on a tray in K-ville

crash: Late-season reflections in the ’Dome

Staff withdraws recommendation to ax Commission on the Status of Women

2011-12-13T14:48:00.001-05:00

In what may have been his final official act, departing Greensboro City Manager Rashad Young revised recommendations on scaling back the size and number of boards and commissions based on feedback from the affected entities. Staff initially recommended eliminating the Commission on the Status of Women, the Community Sustainability Council and the Community Resource Board, among others. Young wrote in a Dec. 9 memo that the Commission on the Status of Women has expressed “a strong desire to continue its work,” and Human Relations Director Anthony Wade recommended that it be retained. Young concluded that the commission “has been very active in its mission area and I deem it to be an important part of the programmatic work performed by the human relations department.”

Young sustained the recommendation to eliminate the Community Sustainability Council. The previous council voted to accept a Sustainability Action Plan drawn up by the sustainability council. Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson and at-large Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter, who were sworn in earlier this month, have expressed interest in resurrecting the plan. Young recommends that the Planning Board assume the responsibilities previously held by the sustainability council, the Community Resource Board and the Advisory Commission on Trees.

Young also recommends eliminating the RUCO Board, arguing that “with the passage of the state law that eliminates the ability of municipalities to conduct mandatory rental inspections, the purpose of the RUCO Board becomes moot.” Young’s memo states that “staff is working to recommend to city council the creation of a task force to determine what, if anything, follows RUCO.”

Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Guilford County restored to stable credit outlook

2011-12-13T14:43:00.000-05:00

Moody’s announced on Dec. 7 that it has revised the outlook from negative to stable for 119 local governments across the nation, including Guilford County, the city of Greensboro and the city of Winston-Salem. All three Triad governments hold AAA ratingx. While noting that further rating actions are unlikely, the rating agency warned, “Based upon actions taken by the US government to address its structural budget deficit, issuers in the US municipal market at all rating levels may become more fiscally strained. The shift towards decreased federal government spending is now a larger factor in municipal credit risk than before given its potential impact on dependent municipal issuers and its repercussion on the broader economy and financial system.” — JG

Corporations put up $1 million for greenway

2011-12-12T15:11:00.003-05:00

Greensboro civic leaders announced a $2.5 million capital campaign today to assemble private funding to continue construction of the Downtown Greenway, with three large corporate donations propelling the project towards its goal. Chuck Cornelio, president Lincoln Financial’s retirement plan services, announced that his company will donate $500,000, while Lorillard Tobacco Co. and VF Corp. each pledged $250,000.

“It’s all really about economic development,” Cornelio said. “Greenways around the country have been successful in creating a $5 to $10 return on investment for every dollar spent. Our first obligation is to our shareholders, but corporations are creatures of he places they live in. I think it’s very important for corporations that employ a lot of people to give back to their communities.”

The total cost of the four-mile loop around downtown is estimated at $26 million. The $2.5 million capital campaign is part of an effort to raise a total of $8.5 million in private funds. A number of local foundations have already contributed a total of $5.9 million.

Susan Schwartz, co-chair of the Downtown Greenway Campaign Committee, cited the an apartment building project at the old North State Chevrolet site and the planned relocation of Deep Roots Market, each of which will be built adjacent to the greenway, as key developments.

“Before you know it, we’re going to have that northern Phase III completed," she said.

Greensboro voters approved a $7.5 million bond for the greenway in 2008, and Mayor Robbie Perkins said the city will be releasing $2.1 million in funding in coming months, coupled with a $2.8 million federal grant. The city is reimbursing Lomax Construction to the tune of $217,812 to relocate a storm sewer line for the apartment buildings, and Perkins indicated that the city might need to support the Deep Roots project as well.

“It will get done,” he said of the loop.

UPDATE: Trial in recess until Thursday

2011-12-12T14:40:00.003-05:00

US District Court Judge James A. Beaty has declared that the tax evasion trial of Greensboro businessman Greg Harrison will be in recess until Thursday to allow a juror whose father died over the weekend to handle family business.

Supporters know different Latin Kings than one indicted for federal racketeering

2011-12-10T21:51:00.011-05:00

Tracy Weyman, also known as Queen Smiley, leaves her house on Lexington Avenue, during an FBI raid that was part of a coordinated effort to detain six Greensboro members of the Latin Kings on federal racketeering charges. (photo by Eric Ginsburg)

by Jordan Green and Eric Ginsburg

Dozens of FBI agents and officers with the Greensboro Police Department and Guilford County Sheriff’s Office swarmed over a house at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Florida Street in Glenwood on Dec. 6 to arrest Jorge Cornell, also known as King Jay, and Charles Moore, members of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, on racketeering charges.

The police had knocked in the back door with a flash-bang grenade. All the occupants of the house were taken out in handcuffs, including Tracy Weyman, a nation member, and her 15-year-old daughter.

The arrests were part of a coordinated raid that resulted in the detentions of six Greensboro Latin Kings. The indictment unsealed by the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina against 13 individuals, including a number who have been stripped of their status in the nation, alleges that the North Carolina Latin Kings under Cornell’s leadership have conspired to commit murders, assaults, robberies, kidnappings and arson since 2005.

“There’s no way in hell,” said Weyman after being released from custody. “There’s nothing going on.”

In addition to Cornell and Moore, the six Greensboro members arrested include Russell Kilfoil, Luis Alberto Rosa, Samuel Velasquez and Richard Lee Robinson. Wesley Williams, a former member who was stripped of his status after fleeing Greensboro in 2010, was arrested in Las Vegas. Arrest warrants have been issued for six others, including Randolph Kilfoil, who is currently serving a federal sentence for a felony weapons charge.

The indictment seeks the forfeiture of shotguns, revolvers, pistols, an AK-47 assault rifle and three machetes. What they found at the house on Florida and Lexington was cell phones, notebooks, papers, cameras, Cornell’s wallet, a laptop computer, a nation flag, pictures of lions, and various items of clothing and jewelry bearing the nation’s black and gold colors, including a Pittsburgh Steelers cap.

A street organization with roots in Chicago and New York City, the Latin Kings’ history has unfolded as a push-pull tug between criminality and social uplift. In the summer of 2008, the Latin Kings splashed on to the scene in Greensboro only a week after the Justice Department announced the indictment of 26 members of the MS-13 gang in the Western District of North Carolina. During a press conference at the Beloved Community Center, the Latin Kings accused the Greensboro Police Department of harassment, and adamantly insisted the nation was committed to social improvement, starting with an effort to secure a peace agreement among street organizations.

“Most of these groups, somewhere down the line, guess how they started?” Cornell told YES! Weekly at the time. “Protecting neighborhoods from racism, against police brutality. Somewhere down the line they did something wrong or they went down the wrong road, but here’s an opportunity, a beautiful opportunity to get back on the righteous road, so all our people can shine.”

That posture doesn’t comport in the least with the federal government’s indictment, which describes the purpose of the enterprise headed by Cornell as “preserving and protecting the power, territory, operations and prestige of the Latin Kings through the use of intimidation, violence, threats of violence and destruction of property.” Among the most disturbing allegations is that Cornell bragged about killing an MS-13 member, procured machetes to kill a member who had defied his authority, and planned to firebomb the house of another disgruntled member.

“It’s a bit stunning because it has the potential of being really bad for them,” said the Rev. Randall Keeney, an Episcopal priest who is acting as Cornell’s spiritual advisor. “I’m a bit confused, quite frankly with some of the things they listed in the indictment: two armed robberies, arson and a conspiracy to commit murder. I’m a bit confused if those things are true why the Greensboro Police Department didn’t arrest them and prosecute them for those things.”

The indictment alleges that in late July 2010, Cornell stated, “I’m not going to say when or where, but I got me a 13. I got me one. A certain brother did not want to motherf***ing pull the trigger, so I snatched it out of his hand and did what I had to do. You know what I am saying? I can’t stand niggas hesitating.”

Keeney said Cornell has denied making any such statement.

“My question is where did that quote come from?” Keeney said. “That’s a huge accusation and so far the sources of these things are anonymous. Who's the source of many of these accusations? In my dealings with Jorge, he has some pretty straightforward and nonnegotiable rules with the folks that were going to be in the Kings with him, and when people broke those rules he threw them out of the organization. My worry is that someone who he threw out of the organization is engaging in a little bit of retribution and accused him of things he hasn’t done.”

The indictment alleges that in December 2009, Cornell ordered that three members who had rebelled from his control be killed. The indictment states that “Cornell ordered Velasquez to transport from Raleigh to Greensboro two machetes, each stamped with the Latin Kings reference ‘Corona’ on the blade” for the purpose of killing one of the dissidents.

In May 2011, Latin Kings posted up against bailiffs in the hallway outside a Guilford County courtroom after a superior court judge found Cornell guilty of resisting a public officer. The Rev. Nelson Johnson deescalated the confrontation by escorting Cornell to the elevator. Cornell expressed concern that the supervised probation sentence was a setup, and Latin Kings and their supporters retreated to the Beloved Community Center to call Executive Director Anita Earls at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice for legal advice.

After the call, Johnson and Keeney counseled Cornell against taking any action that would be considered provocative by law enforcement. Keeney recommended that Cornell get rid of some machetes at his house to avoid violating his terms of probation.

“I think it’s for self-defense because they don’t have guns,” Keeney said. “[Jorge has] been arrested and is not allowed to have guns.”

Like much of the indictment, the allegations that Cornell bragged about killing a MS-13 member and ordered the killing of rebellious Latin Kings members do not identify the source of information or describe investigative methods, but a press release issued by the US Attorney’s Office states that the investigation was part of a coordinated effort between federal, state and local law enforcement carried out by the Safe Streets Task Force.

“I don’t think anybody has any doubt about their innocence,” said Saralee Gallien, an anarchist who helped establish the Greensboro ALKQN Legal Defense Coalition. “Everyone on the support committee has read the indictment and finds it outrageous…. It is completely vague. A lot of the allegations in the report come from people who were stripped of their status and are no longer members of the nation.”

Cornell, who twice ran unsuccessfully for city council, has maintained a high profile in Greensboro over the past three years. On any given day, he could be found holding campaign meetings at the Green Bean, attending meetings at the Beloved Community Center, marching and demonstrating, selling homemade candy with his daughters at Center City Park to raise money for school supplies, and speaking at candidate forums. If he was secretly directing a coordinated criminal enterprise, then he certainly maintained an elaborate and time-consuming front. And if narcotics trafficking and robbery were among the activities the group pursued for purposes of enriching themselves in an alleged racketeering enterprise, supporters ask, why were members almost constantly impoverished?

Gallien said she hopes people who have dealt with Cornell and other members will boldly bear witness about what kind of people they are.

“We need to express that loudly… and say, ‘I know who King Jay is. I have been with him and his daughters going door to door fighting for a higher minimum wage.' We’ve got to be honest and not afraid of the media. I’m challenging city council members who have had dealings with them. The churches have been supportive. We’ve got to let the state and feds know that we know these men better than they do.”

The federal government’s list of particulars begins in early 2006, alleging that Randolph Kilfoil and at least one other Latin Kings member committed an armed robbery of an individual in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store in Greensboro.

Kilfoil, who is Cornell’s younger brother, was arrested and charged by the Greensboro Police Department. He pled guilty and received a 39-month sentence in state prison.

Following the arrest, the indictment alleges “Cornell traveled to the Guilford County Jail” and attempted “to intimidate and harass law enforcement officers.”

The incident has been widely documented: Cornell appeared at the magistrate’s office, banged on the window and accused law enforcement officers of assaulting his associates. He was convicted of disorderly conduct in a summary judgment.

The indictment alleges that in April 2007, Luis Rosa — also known as King Speechless and one of the Greensboro six — and Steaphan Acencio-Vasquez — another defendant who is also known as King Leo — along with two others, robbed a dry cleaning business in Greensboro, and one struck the storeowner on the head with a handgun. The indictment also alleges that Acencio-Vasquez committed armed robberies in Raleigh and Durham that year.

In 2008, the indictment alleges that Cornell and Russell Kilfoil, who are also biological brothers, approached the assistant manager of a cell phone store in Greensboro, and that Cornell ordered her to give him money that she was responsible for depositing in the store’s bank account.

Cornell and Kilfoil were each charged with 11 felonies in the matter, which was investigated by the Greensboro Police Department gang unit. All charges were dismissed.

“It certainly seems to me that they charge first and do an investigation later,” Georgia Nixon-Roney, a High Point lawyer who represented Cornell in the matter, said in a 2008 interview. “I can tell you that it’s rare when this happens. I have lots of clients who tell me, ‘Yes, I did this,’ or, ‘No, I didn’t.’ When you start to put the pieces together, it may go to trial or they may decide to plead down the charges. With Jorge’s cases, I barely got involved, and the DA looked at it and said, ‘Based on what the officer turned in, we have to dismiss this.’”

Sgt. Ronald Sizemore, who led the gang unit, said the assistant store manager was Kilfoil’s girlfriend.

“She told the police a couple different stories,” Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann said in 2008. “One of the stories was that she was doing this for the Latin Kings, and they had threatened to harm her family if she didn't continue to do so. We were able to find where she had literally made thousands of dollars of cash purchases herself at a jewelry store in Greensboro, and at Dillards at Four Seasons. We were able to substantiate that she was spending the cash. All these were public places that were under video surveillance by businesses.”

On Aug. 10, 2008, Cornell was shot and critically injured by an unidentified perpetrator on Aug. 10. A group of pastors held a press conference while Cornell was in the hospital, and the Rev. Johnson conveyed an expression of forgiveness on Cornell's behalf to whoever perpetrated the shooting.

The federal government tells a different story, alleging that after he was shot, Cornell ordered Latin Kings to transport guns from Charlotte to Greensboro to be used in a retaliatory strike against MS-13.

The indictment also includes an allegation that on Aug. 21 Jason Paul Yates, Wesley Williams and others “committed a home invasion in Greensboro, looking for a man who had attacked another Latin Kings member and threatened Williams’ mother. One of the Latin Kings members smashed a beer bottle on the head of the resident of the home.”

The incident can be verified in court records, and was acknowledged by Latin Kings members during a community meeting in 2008. As it happened, the assailants’ information was faulty, and they attacked someone who had nothing to do with the affront. The man who was attacked received a written apology from Cornell. Felony charges against Yates related to the incident were dismissed by the Guilford County District Attorney’s Office in late 2010. No explanation for the decision is provided in case files.

The indictment asserts that “members of the Latin Kings sold controlled substances to financially benefit themselves and the enterprise as a whole.” Substantiation, however remote, is found in only one overt act listed in the indictment, which alleges defendants stole rather than sold drugs:

“On or about December 18, 2008, Yates, Vasquez and two others committed an armed robbery and kidnapping of a drug dealer and his roommates in Morrisville, North Carolina. Yates and Vasquez pointed guns at the victims, threatened to kill them, tied them up with duct tape, and stole from them approximately $450 in United States currency and twelve grams of marijuana.”

Yates became estranged from Cornell’s group in 2009.

In May 2009, the indictment describes a scene involving Randolph Kilfoil, who had completed his state prison sentence for armed robbery, sitting on Williams’ front porch with several other Latin Kings:

“At that time, Randolph Kilfoil carried a loaded semiautomatic firearm for protection from rival gang members. Randolph Kilfoil was later arrested, and attempted to threaten and intimidate certain Greensboro police officers by stating, “It’s a good thing you got me off the streets or it would have been a hard summer for the police. You can’t stop the Latin Kings. We are everywhere. We are going to teach you guys a lesson.”

A Title VI civil rights complaint filed with the Justice Department by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice on the Latin Kings’ behalf states that six officers in the gang unit in plainclothes ran at the house with guns drawn. Accounts differ on whether the police identified themselves, but in any case Kilfoil ran inside. The civil rights complaint states that Officer Roman Watkins jumped up and kicked the door down, and then arrested Kilfoil for weapons possession. Based on his prior felony conviction, Kilfoil was sentenced to seven years in federal prison.

Federal prosecutors described Kilfoil in court documents as “enforcer,” a characterization vigorously disputed by Cornell. The racketeering indictment does not include that characterization of Kilfoil.

In April 2010, the indictment alleges, “Cornell ordered Robinson and Williams to complete a ‘mission’ on behalf of the Latin Kings, and the two obtained an assault rifle, a shotgun and more than 90 rounds of ammunition."

Both were charged with carrying a concealed gun. Robinson appealed a district court conviction. In March 2011, he pleaded guilty and as part of a plea agreement the weapons were destroyed. Williams failed to appear in court and an order was issued for his arrest. His charge was dropped in April 2011.

Most of the allegations covering the period of mid-2009 through 2011 were previously undocumented:

• Cornell allegedly ordered a Latin King member to burn down a home belonging to Williams’ grandmother in October 2009 so Cornell and Williams could collect insurance proceeds;

• Cornell allegedly stole an electronic benefits card valued at $200 in the same month from a Latin Kings member who refused to comply with an order to commit arson;

• Cornell allegedly ordered members to determine where Latin Kings who were not under his command were gathering in Charlotte and “roll up on them” in November 2009;

• Cornell, Russell Kilfoil and others allegedly discussed and planned to firebomb the home of disgruntled member who had disrespected Cornell in May 2010;

• Cornell, whose felony status legally prevents him from owning a firearm, allegedly described efforts to obtain guns on several occasions;

• Moore and Robinson allegedly wrote a series of bad checks to defraud Wachovia Bank of $2,180 in July 2010;

• Russell Kilfoil, Robinson, Moore and Carlos Coleman allegedly assaulted a former Latin Kings member outside the Guilford County Courthouse in October 2010 in retribution for defecting; and

• Cornell allegedly got into a fight with rival Latin Kings members at a Greensboro mall in August 2011.

“I’m not suggesting that Jorge or the guys in the Latin Kings are angels,” Keeney said. “They’re kids. Many of them don’t have post-secondary education. They haven’t had opportunities for employment. Who knows if somebody may do something because they don’t have money.

“I haven’t seen any organized criminal activity that the Latin Kings seek to carry out,” he continued. “Because if they did, they wouldn’t be without money, unable to pay rent, unable to buy food and depending on the charity of others to get by. It’s just not quite fitting as far as the racketeering thing. I think if you take a group like the Latin Kings and define them as a criminal group and then go looking for criminal acts committed by individuals over a 10-year period, they’re going to be able to find that.”

Gallien said that not only did Cornell not authorize or direct criminal activity within the group but that he specifically forbade it.

“Jay doesn’t keep around murderers, drug dealers and rapists,” she said. “The nation was started in 2005 to empower Latinos…. Jay was brought up in a nation [in New York City] that was changing, that was trying to become a nation for community empowerment. Because of the way the group is structured — it’s weird that anarchists are working with the Latin Kings. The Latin Kings are explicitly hierarchical; there’s no way to sugarcoat it.

“Jay is very strict about ‘there can be no illegal activity; we are under such scrutiny by the state we cannot afford that,’” Gallien continued. “Kids have said, ‘I just want to make a living.’ Jay says, ‘It’s not allowed, and that’s that.’”

Gallien said the activities alleged in the indictment are antithetical to her values as an anarchist, but she believes they are trumped up to discredit the Latin Kings in retaliation for beating numerous charges brought by the Greensboro Police Department’s gang unit.

“All those allegations represent a kind of vicious, destructive [activity],” she said. “There’s nothing radical in those allegations that I would support. They’re very personal vendetta stuff. There’s no evidence for it.”

Keeney said he and other pastors are ultimately not concerned with the question of guilt or innocence.

“Ultimately it comes down to our relationship with them being about trying to care for people that are on the fringes of society, to befriend them and try to guide them as best as we can,” Keeney said. “For us, our relationship is not going to be defined by guilt and innocence. It’s built around something else — the call that we have to reach out to those on the fringes and the outside, to do our best to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and visit those in prisons. It’s not supportive of any particular action or inaction, but it’s supportive of them as human beings to seek the best for them. I don’t think anyone is going to back away from them. We care about them, and we’re going to continue to care about them.”

“It’s been a long week,” the priest concluded, “hasn’t it?”

Occupy Greensboro holds employment march

2011-12-10T14:30:00.003-05:00

Dozens of people turned out for an employment march and subsequent rally Saturday morning, called by Occupy Greensboro. The march began at the public library and ended at the Government Plaza.

Speakers highlighted various employment and economic woes, as well as a handful of potential solutions. Among them was newly elected at large city council member Marikay Abuzuaiter, who has been active with Occupy Greensboro since the first meeting.

After the rally ended, participants stayed, splitting into smaller groups to discuss some of the issues brought up during the march and rally. A few attendees held a banner from Occupy Winston-Salem.

photo by Eric Ginsburg

Government: Harrison took out company funds for personal benefit

2011-12-09T21:02:00.007-05:00

The United States government rested its case against Greg Harrison on Thursday, following testimony from an IRS revenue officer that staffing companies owned by the Greensboro businessman failed to pay nearly $16 million in payroll taxes to the federal government over a five-year period, and that $6.2 million was transferred from staffing company accounts over the years to entities for Harrison’s benefit, including homes, movie productions, a yacht and other businesses.

What the testimony didn’t explicitly point out but what is deducible through basic math is that those transactions still leave almost $10 million unaccounted.

Evidence introduced by the government during Revenue Officer Edward Coakley’s testimony further eroded the defendant’s position, including a workers compensation audit performed by AIG for one of Harrison’s companies, Hobbs Staffing Services, for a period in 2004 and 2005. The court had previously heard testimony on Wednesday from Revenue Officer Crystal Peoples, who closed a collections case against Harrison in 2006 after he told her that Hobbs Staffing Services had sold its assets and ceased to employ workers in 2002.

Coakley testified that the external audit reported that the company paid about $60 million in wages during that period. That figure corresponded within 99.358 percent accuracy with the government’s own report on wages paid for the same period based on data extracted from the company’s Navision accounting software, which was seized by the federal government as part of its investigation.

To assist in his testimony, Coakley referred to two boxes of bank transfer documents for Harrison’s dozens of staffing companies, individual accounts and other businesses, as well as a thick binder of business articles of incorporation filed with various state governments.

Coakley said he had reviewed all of the documents, and presented aggregate transfer charts to show movement of funds from the staffing companies to entities that the government asserts as being to Harrison’s benefit: $1.6 million from for US Labor to a business account for the movie Home of the Giants; $1.1 million from US Labor to business accounts for the movie National Lampoon’s Pucked; $1.1 million from Compensation Management to Green Ideas N Motion, a company owned by Harrison; $820,046 from US Labor to Shining Properties, owned by Harrison; $743,350 from Hobbs Staffing Services and US Labor to two companies doing business as Extreme Fitness (not covered in the trial was the business failure of the fitness center, as reported in the Jamestown News in 2009); $437,500 from the staffing companies to cover a down payment on the yacht Columbo; $369,000 from the staffing companies to cover the down payment on a South Carolina beach house.

Coakley testified that transfers from Harrison’s personal accounts to the staffing companies were insignificant, in comparison.

The government introduced two loan documents that hinted at a deliberate attempt to throw off federal investigators and others. One of the government’s exhibits was a 2005 letter in the files of IndyMac Bank related to the purchase of the South Carolina beach house that was signed by a former financial analyst for the staffing companies indicating that Harrison had loaned the businesses $2 million. Coakley testified that he would have expected to find transactions from Harrison’s personal bank accounts to the business accounts totaling $2 million, but did not.

Similarly, the government introduced a 2006 loan statement by Patrick Henry National Bank indicating that US Staffing Services Holding Corp. owed Harrison $4.8 million. Considering that 14 months had elapsed between the time the purported $2 million debt was recorded and the $4.8 million loan was referenced, Coakley testified that he would have expected to see a $2.8 million transfer of funds from Harrison’s personal accounts to the business accounts during that period. He did not.

Following Coakley’s testimony, Judge James A. Beaty sent the jury out. Before the judge got around to recessing for lunch, counsel for the government and the defendant approached the bench, followed by an episode of courtroom confusion and controversy.

Public defender Tom Cochran frantically searched the gallery for Jessica Cox, a lawyer who represents one of the witnesses who has been observing the trial. Another audience member said she might be upstairs in the lounge. The judge sent out a marshal to find her, and she eventually returned.

Cochran told the judge that Cox had approached him during the break and told him that a juror had been seen speaking with a reporter. Cox said she had been told by Diona Slaughter, who is Harrison’s ex-wife, that this reporter had been seen speaking to a juror. Slaughter told the judge that as she had been driving away from the federal building on Wednesday evening she observed this reporter speaking to a juror on the street.

In fact, this reporter had been speaking to another courtroom observer who had been sitting in the gallery during the afternoon session of court. The judge instructed that if the allegation were true, this reporter could be held in contempt of court and informed him of his right to remain silent and right to seek representation of counsel. This reporter gave an explanation, which the judge said he accepted. During the break, the judge said he would have security review surveillance video to confirm the presence of the observer this reporter had spoken to and would interview jurors about the matter.

When the trial resumed in the afternoon, Judge Beaty said he had confirmed that the observer had been in court on Wednesday, and that the court found no credence to the allegation that a juror had been contacted by a reporter, and would make no further inquiry with the jury on the matter.

Beaty then turned his attention to Cox. He said a security officer had spoken to her about speaking too loudly in court and that she had been observed making a friendly gesture to the defendant. He cautioned her that as a member of the public she “should not have anything to do with this trial,” and ordered her to sit apart from Slaughter and others who appear to be supporting the defendant.

“Ms. Cox, I’m talking to you,” Beaty said.

The defense chose not to cross-examine Coakley, the revenue officer who presented the IRS’ master summary of its investigation of Harrison. The government rested its case.

The defense called its first three witnesses: Mo Caldwell, Lou Ann Shaw and Trevor Jefferson. The testimony of the three former employees of Harrison’s staffing companies reinforced a theme highlighted earlier by the defense — that they had little contact with Harrison, and most of their dealings were with former partners Ray McDaniel and Mark Griffin, who were running the day-to-day operations of the companies.

Caldwell, who was hired by Harrison in 1994 to develop new branches, testified that by 2002 McDaniel and Griffin were running the company as a committee. Caldwell said the committee terminated him against Harrison’s wishes when the company restructured as US Staff Holding Corp.

Shaw, who worked at a staffing company in Gastonia that was acquired by one of Harrison’s companies, said that she did not report directly to the defendant until his company, Compensation Management, took back the staffing company assets from McDaniel and Griffin in 2008.

Both Shaw and Jefferson, who worked as director of corporate sales for Harrison’s companies, gave testimony that spoke to the value they added to the enterprises. Shaw testified that the most important part of the staffing business is the relationship between the customer and the agency.

The prosecution seemed happy to build on that theme.

“You’re a customer person,” prosecutor Frank Chut said.

“Yes,” Shaw responded.

“That’s the heart of the business.”

“Yes.”

Jefferson testified that he was hired away from a competing staffing agency in the early 2000s after he swiped some accounts from Harrison’s staffing companies.

“They were small, home grown,” Jefferson said of Harrison's operatioin. “That was a good thing…. We created a strategy from which to grow the company, to capture additional markets and expand geography.

“We were tremendously successful in growing, expanding market share and geography, and capturing some pretty significant accounts,” he added.

Jefferson testified that he devised the expansion strategy with McDaniel and Griffin in 2003. Harrison was not directly involved.

“He was not around a lot,” Jefferson said. “Greg was the person Mark and Ray would go to when they needed business advice, funding or more money.”

Jefferson also testified that a plan to roll out state subsidiaries in 2004 was devised by Griffin, McDaniel and him. That testimony could help Harrison by lessening the impression that the almost constant mutation of corporate entities served a purpose of hiding assets from the IRS.

Oddly, Cochran asked both Jefferson and Shaw about the 2007 raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a Fresh Del Monte Produce plant in Portland, Ore. whose workers were supplied by the staffing companies while they were under McDaniel and Griffin’s control.

“That was my account,” Jefferson said. “I sold it. That was a $40 million book of business. That was my largest and the company’s largest account.”

Shaw testified that losing the Del Monte account knocked out a significant chunk of the company’s sales, and hurt its reputation.

“In my territories, we didn’t lose any clients,” she said. “We had to do damage control…. We were doing the right thing. We did E-verify. We did I-9s.”

Shaw added that after the raid, the staffing company’s corporate offices started requiring branches to copy all I-9 forms, which verify the identity of all employees and eligibility to work, and send them by Federal Express to the federal government.

The trial resumes on Monday.

Mother and revenue officer's testimonies dovetail in Harrison trial

2011-12-08T00:42:00.005-05:00

The United States government put its star witness on the stand yesterday to testify in the tax evasion trial of Greensboro businessman Greg Harrison.

Crystal Peoples, a 32-year career employee with the Internal Revenue Service with 26 years of experience as a revenue officer, testified that in June 2006 she was assigned to collect delinquent taxes and civil penalties from Hobbs Staffing Services, a company owned by Harrison.

Peoples said she presented a “final demand” letter to Harrison on June 27, 2006 threatening to seize and sell Hobbs Staffing Services’ assets if the company did not pay over to the government $756,988 – an amount that included unpaid payroll taxes from 2002 and civil penalties. She testified that before pursuing the delinquent taxes, she pulled quarterly reports on file with the NC Employment Security Commission and confirmed that the company paid millions of dollars in wages for a number of years.

Reviewing a case history report, Peoples testified, “It looks like they were not making deposits with the federal government, but they were making payments with the state.”

Peoples’ testimony was sometimes difficult to follow, but suggested a number of contradictions in Harrison’s representations to the federal government. The ordeal of getting the matter sorted out through a total of four personal meetings and four telephone conversations gave the impression of a hall of mirrors, as Peoples described it.

Peoples testified that Harrison told her the company stopped maintaining payroll and sold its business to another company in 2002, and that she confronted him with the fact that state records indicated otherwise.
Contradicting Harrison’s assertion that the company was no longer handling payroll, Peoples said she located a record created by the employment security commission for a company bearing the same employer identification number, or EIN, as Hobbs Staffing Services that was checked off as “active.”

Peoples testified that Harrison told her by way of explanation that he allowed a new company use EIN. She researched the number in IRS records, and found that three payroll tax deposits totaling $475,826 had been made under the number. The discovery presented a new wrinkle.

“I was trying to let Mr. Harrison know that these deposits were made in this quarter, and we needed to know who made them if he didn’t make them.”

Peoples said she asked Harrison for the EIN number of the company that had purportedly bought out Hobbs Staffing. When she researched the number, 57-1024567 through IRS records, she found IHT Grand Strand Inc., a company established in South Carolina in 1995. She testified that through her research she concluded that the unclaimed deposits could not have been paid by the South Carolina company.

Reading from a Summary of Taxpayer Contact report dated Aug. 29, 2006, Peoples recited, “This case is getting stranger by the minute.”

Asked to explain the report, Peoples testified, “It was strange that all these deposits were made, and they didn’t belong to the taxpayer.”

Prior to Peoples’ testimony, the court heard from Billie Baggett, who is Harrison’s mother. Baggett testified that she owns IHT Grand Strand Inc. and recited the last four digits of her company’s EIN number from memory: 4567.

Asked by prosecutor Frank Chut if she ever purchased any of her son’s staffing companies, Baggett responded, “No, Sir.”

Baggett did not look at her son as she left the witness stand, but stopped briefly at the prosecution table, smiling at Chut and whispering something to him.

Ultimately, Harrison’s tax difficulties were resolved when he presented the revenue officer with a 2002 employer quarterly federal tax return for Hobbs Staffing Services with a box checked off indicating that the business did not have to file returns in the future. Peoples testified that the check-off closed out the business for the IRS’ purposes of attempting to collect payroll taxes and that it was consistent with a “final return,” which is typically filed when a business has been sold and no longer employs anyone.

The government’s trial brief alleges that “Harrison made a series of false statements and provided false documents” to Peoples that caused her to close the investigation.

A former chief executive officer and former controller who worked for Harrison have testified that the staffing companies operated under the aegis of Hobbs Staffing Services and US Labor until 2004, when US Staff Holding Corp. was formed as an umbrella, and state subsidiaries were gradually rolled out.

Tom Cochran, the public defender representing Harrison, gamely attempted to poke holes in Peoples’ testimony. He asked her to read from one of her contact reports filed shortly after visiting Harrison’s office on Swing Road in Greensboro.

“I have higher priority cases,” Peoples had written.

“The day that I wrote that I may have had another case that I needed to get right on,” Peoples explained on the stand.

Cochran also noted that Peoples’ testimony that she had hand-delivered letters to Harrison contradicted documentation indicating that they were sent through certified mail and confirmed for delivery.

Among the other witnesses called by the government yesterday was Mark Gleason, a high school friend of Harrison’s who later worked periodically for his ventures. He testified that he now owns two staffing businesses of his own.

Gleason’s testimony was mostly notable for providing a sense of how Harrison used friends as nominee officers with the result that public records for companies controlled by him often did not bear his name.

Chut asked Gleason if he served as president, controlled payroll, directed the activities of employees and received payment from the proceeds of the sale of a company called US Staffing of SC.

“No,” Gleason answered.

“Why did you sign documents as president?” Chut asked.

“Was asked,” Gleason replied.

“Who asked you?”

“As I recall, Greg Harrison.”

Chut showed Gleason a copy of a factoring, or funding agreement between US Staffing of SC and GrandSouth Bank containing Gleason’s signature, along with that of bank vice president Doug Corriher.

On cross-examination, Cochran asked, “Now, Mr. Gleason, did you have problems with taxes with regard to one of your companies?”

Judge James A. Beaty sustained an objection by the prosecution.

Gleason was not allowed to answer.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-12-07T12:28:00.002-05:00

feature: Ministers of justice: Rewriting the Racial Justice Act

be there: My Morning Jacket & Delta Spirit

dirt: Greensboro businessman on trial for federal tax fraud

10 best: Ten best things about winter

voices: Occupying the healthcare industry

editorial: Dangerous crosscurrents

tunes: The 25 best albums of the Carolinas in 2011

flicks: Apocalypse now and again: Take Shelter, Lars Von Trier's Melancholia

visions: The Nutcracker a proud tradition for school of arts

chow: Encore American Bistro opens in Winston-Salem

crash: Big Time in New Orleans

BREAKING: Mayor-elect says resolution to seating dispute is reached

2011-12-06T11:55:00.003-05:00

Greensboro Mayor-elect Robbie Perkins called to say a resolution has been reached to what he called "seating-gate," a dispute between himself and District 5 City Councilwoman Trudy Wade.

The new council is scheduled to be sworn in tonight.

Perkins said all sitting council members except District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small will be moved.

Starting from the left end of the dais from the viewpoint of the audience, the sequence will be Bellamy-Small, at-large Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter, Wade, District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny, Perkins, Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson, at-large Councilman Nancy Vaughan, District 2 Councilman Jim Kee and District 4 Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann.

Perkins said the arrangement was reached after Matheny "did a little shuttle diplomacy between me and Trudy."

The mayor-elect said he has talked with Wade, and they have agreed to discuss a new policy for governing seating and appointments to boards and commissions for future transitions.

Anatomy of a shadowy national staffing conglomerate

2011-12-01T08:00:00.002-05:00

Three days of testimony in the tax evasion trial of Greensboro businessman Greg Harrison have sketched a picture of a shadowy national staffing network operating at the height of what passed for a boom in the last decade. (Previous reporting: 1 and 2)

Involved in brokering the labor of people who often earned no more than minimum wage, Harrison’s staffing agencies provided a degree of removal for client companies seeking to minimize their commitment to their workforce. Through almost continual restructuring, the companies presented a kaleidoscopic front that threw off revenue officers with the Internal Revenue Service for years, while also lowering the business’ public profile to near invisibility while employing thousands of workers.

“In a grand business sense, you think of [temporary employees] as inventory,” testified Robert Patterson, who was formerly employed as a controller for Harrison.

The labor of temporary employees financed opulent lifestyles by those in control of the staffing companies, who — at least from the outside — appeared to have performed little work of their own.

At the top of the pyramid was Greg Harrison, who, former employees testified, was often not involved in day-to-day operations even while maintaining responsibility for payroll and controlling the movement of funds. Robert Patterson and Toni Johnson, who served as controllers for Harrison’s staffing network in the period of late 2004 through 2006, testified that McDaniel and Griffin ran the companies on a day-to-day basis. At the company headquarters in Greensboro, salaried permanent employees handled back-office functions and raked in profits from client companies.

Harrison's staffing enterprises were far from iconic, and branding was not part of his strategy. If anything, it was the opposite. From the late 1990s when Harrison took the small staffing company inherited from his mother and went on a national buying binge, the empire operated under two corporations, but did business under a completely different trade name, USA Staffing.

In 2004, the conglomerate restructured without interrupting operations. US Staff Holding Corp. was one of the new companies. Under its umbrella, state subsidiaries were incorporated in at least eight states. The names morphed again in 2005 and 2006, when ownership changed hands, and yet again in 2008 when Harrison bought back the assets. Despite having once employed thousands of employees across the country and billed clients millions of dollars, even acquaintances sometimes have difficulty naming the staffing companies. The dizzying proliferation and evolution of corporate names seems to promote confusion.

Ray McDaniel, who served as chief operating officer for Harrison’s staffing companies, testified on Monday that when staffing companies bill their clients, they typically mark up total wages paid to temporary workers by 28 to 38 percent.

“The markup is the profit and the payroll tax burden associated with it,” McDaniel said.

In the case of Harrison’s companies, the government alleges, the payroll taxes were often not paid and instead the proceeds were diverted into personal uses such as luxury homes, a yacht and movie production.

As early as December 2004, Harrison’s staffing companies provided workers to a Fresh Del Monte Produce packing plant in Portland, Ore., according to a weekly revenue report introduced into evidence by the government on Monday. The account was significant enough to receive its own line item under a list of branch offices. Fresh Del Monte Produce accounted for such a significant portion of the staffing company’s Portland business that it maintained an office on the premises of the packing plant. In the course of acquiring the assets of Harrison’s staffing businesses, McDaniel and Griffin would take over the Del Monte contract in 2006.

“In the case of Del Monte, we singled those out because they had such large volume,” McDaniel testified on Monday.

McDaniel and Griffin formed StaffCo Management Group in 2005. By November 2006, they had acquired the assets of Harrison’s staffing businesses. Harrison has confirmed to YES! Weekly that he served as a creditor to the company and as a member of its board.

“Mr. Harrison didn’t want to be in the staffing business anymore, didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” public defender Tom Cochran argued in his opening statement. “He wanted to be a lender.”

(Background on Harrison’s investments in nightclubs and movies)

Documents introduced into evidence on Tuesday establish that Harrison loaned McDaniel and Griffin $1.5 million over a six-month period that coincided with the launch of StaffCo. McDaniel testified that the two also obtained a $7.5 million loan from a New York company called BHC, adding that $3.7 million was handed over to Harrison to pay for the asset purchase of the staffing business.

A 2007 Triad Business Journal article by Michelle Cater Rash quotes staffing firm consultant Bruce Steinberg as saying that StaffCo was expected to be one of the largest privately held staffing companies in the country.

StaffCo operated under the trade name American Staffing Resources, which was the name of a Pennsylvania-based staffing company it had acquired.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Fresh Del Monte Produce and American Staffing Resources in Portland, Ore. in June 2007. An affidavit filed by ICE Special Agent Maximillian L. Trimm citing an interview with Jose Ortega-Milian, a former maintenance manager and supervisor, sheds some light on labor conditions at Del Monte at the time the staffing companies controlled first by Harrison and then by McDaniel and Griffin handled payroll and hiring.

Ortega stated that there were between 25-30 juveniles employed at FDMP, and that anyone with common sense could tell they were minors. He also stated that the FDMP managers knew that they were minors by their appearance.

Ortega stated that during his time at FDMP, he heard various complaints from the other workers that were not being paid for the hours they worked. He stated that FDMP avoided paying overtime, and wouldn’t allow anyone to be paid for more than 40 hours in a work week, although they were required to work well over 40 hours in a given week. He further stated that they were reluctant to complain, because of their illegal immigration status.

Ortega stated that [there] were several factors that contributed to unsafe conditions at FDMP that included: forklift operators were not certified or trained properly; the electrical components were unsafe and exposed; unqualified people were running various dangerous machinery with no training and little instruction. Ortega also stated that during the course of a typical work shift, there was constant yelling by the supervisors to the production staff that included threats of being fired if they did not work as hard as expected….

Ortega stated that he estimated that between 80%-90% of the production workers were undocumented illegal aliens from countries other than the United States.

Ortega estimated that the staff was split between 50% Mexican nationals and 50% Guatemalan nationals, and of those workers, approximately 75% were female.

During several conversations with Zarazua, Freddy LNU and Sanchez during Ortega’s period of employment at FDMP, when the hypothetical scenario of immigration agents showing up at FDMP to execute an immigration raid was posed, everyone agreed that American Staffing Resources would “take the hit” due to the fact that they did the actual hiring, and that FDMP managers could just claim ignorance of their knowledge of the production workers’ illegal status. Ortega stated that he was present during these conversations and that they were sporadic and occurred several times while he was working at the FDMP facility. Ortega stated that all of the managers were aware that almost none of the employees spoke, and were reluctant to report pay discrepancy issues to management, because it was visually obvious, and often talked about.

Upwards of 100 of StaffCo’s employees were detained. Fresh Del Monte Produce withdrew its business, accounting for $30 million in annual revenue to the staffing company. National news about the raid had an adverse impact on the company’s reputation, McDaniel testified.

“That was the beginning of the end of StaffCo,” McDaniel testified. “We never recovered.”

Two of StaffCo’s lenders declared default, McDaniel said. Harrison ended up buying back 70 percent of the company’s assets. McDaniel and Griffin broke up the remaining 30 percent among themselves, creating smaller staffing companies in Tennessee and Georgia.

Harrison incorporated Compensation Management Inc. and Compensation Management Inc. of Iowa, and later, IHT of SC to operate the staffing businesses acquired in the wake of StaffCo’s dissolution. Julie Akers, who was promoted to controller at StaffCo in the fall of 2006, followed the transfer of assets, helping wind down StaffCo’s business and then working for Harrison at Compensation Management Inc. and the other companies.

Akers testified that IHT of SC was formed in the spring of 2009 because two prospective clients were considering bringing new accounts with significant volume to the staffing companies, but wanted to avoid association with American Staffing Resources and its successor because of the negative publicity surrounding the 2007 immigration raid in Oregon.

Prosecutor Frank Chut asked Akers about the similarity between the name IHT of SC and the company owned by Billie Baggett, Harrison’s mother. That company is called Innovative Hiring Technologies and is located in South Carolina.

“It was our understanding that eventually she was going to retire, and the two companies could be rolled together,” Akers testified.

Harrison is accused by the government of lying to an IRS revenue officer after being presented with a $756,988 tax bill by telling her that he had sold the business in August 2002 and had no payroll after that. Harrison allegedly provided Revenue Officer Crystal Peoples with the tax identification number for a company called IHT Inc.

The government’s trial brief details the alleged attempt to throw off the IRS:

RO Peoples examined electronic records for IHT Inc. and determined that it had filed payroll tax returns and paid taxes for the period at issue. After some further attempts to resolve the confused situation, the RO closed her case on defendant Harrison. In fact, the 57-1024567 tax identification number actually belonged to a staffing company called IHT Grand Strand operated in South Carolina by Billie Baggett, defendant Harrison’s mother.

Akers testified on Wednesday that Baggett had no involvement with Compensation Management Inc., Compensation Management Inc. of Iowa or IHT of SC, the three companies operated by Harrison in 2008 and 2009. Baggett is also expected to testify as a government witness.

Akers testified that the staffing companies after Harrison bought back the business operated first at an address on Muirs Chapel Road in Greensboro, then at an on South Swing Road, and finally at a third location in High Point. Akers said Harrison did not maintain an office at the High Point location and was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. Yet Harrison controlled funding to the companies, and Akers said she would have to call him to get him to release funds to make payroll.

Annual reports filed with the NC Secretary of State’s office for Compensation Management Inc. list Michael Brooks as the company’s president. Virginia Linke, who worked as payroll manager for StaffCo and then for Compensation Management Inc. testified on Wednesday that Brooks had no involvement with the company despite his title.

Describing Harrison’s role, Linke said, “He basically controlled the funds.”

The trial is expected to last two weeks. Among 34 potential witnesses the government has said it is considering calling to the stand is Joey Medaloni, a former Greensboro nightclub owner who has been convicted of loan fraud. Originally set for September, Medaloni’s sentence has been postponed to Feb. 12, 2012.

Another potential witness is Phil Smoot, a local filmmaker who served as unit production manager for National Lampoon’s Pucked, a 2006 movie financed in part by Harrison and that starred Jon Bon Jovi.

Harrison’s former business partner, Mark Griffin, might also testify, but US Attorney Ripley Rand has written in a letter that “Griffin suffers from stage four brain cancer and is undergoing debilitating treatment.”

Harrison has given notice that he might take the stand himself. Throughout the trial, the defendant has dressed impeccably, maintained good posture, taking notes, conferring frequently with his lawyer and listening closely to testimony. On Wednesday, after he passed through the gate from the gallery to the court, he clasped the two panels between his forefinger and thumb, taking care to align them perfectly, in contrast to prosecutors and other court personnel who left them ajar.

A motion filed by Rand attempting to limit the scope of the defendant’s questions to government witnesses provides a different picture of Greg Harrison:

During the Rule 15 deposition ordered by the court, the defendant conducted extensive improper cross-examination of the witness about irrelevant personal matters. Over the government’s repeated objections, the defendant tried to make the witness admit to supposedly improper relationships with various women, and questioned him at length about photographs of himself and others taken at nightclubs featuring nude female dancing.

By his determinedly salacious line of questioning, the defendant forced a witness, whose direct testimony dealt with his business dealings with the defendant, to confront irrelevant sexual innuendo in the form of cross-examination. Among other things, the defendant presented the witness with purported exhibits of e-mails between himself and various women and questioned the witness on the nature of his relationships with them. The defendant also presented the witness with photographs of the witness and others with “showgirls,” and demanded detail of the evenings the witness spent at various nightclubs. When pressed to justify such lines of questioning, the defendant claimed purpose of “impeachment.”

Lewis Brandon and Nelson Johnson speak to Greensboro College class

2011-11-30T12:58:00.002-05:00

Veteran civil rights activists Lewis Brandon and Reverend Nelson Johnson spoke to a Greensboro College history class on Nov. 28 about their experiences in the civil rights and black liberation struggles in Greensboro during the late 60s.

Professor Mike Sisterom invited Brandon, who was an early participant in the Greensboro sit-ins, to address his class, and Brandon invited Johnson to come with him.

Students have been reading William Chafe's accounts of the movements in Greensboro, and Monday's lecture helped expand on what they've been learning. Johnson spoke about the Greensboro Association of Poor People, the Dudley-A&T revolt of 1969, the Malcolm X Liberation University, drew connections to Occupy Wall Street and talked about how his opinions have changed.

"The [Occupy Wall Street] movement as a whole was born out of necessity," Johnson said. "It really represents something bubbling under the soil. I think they've invited the nation to become a classroom."

Speaking about black power, Johnson said the movement grew out of a rejection of white paternalism and was a period of the black community looking inwards to determine its future, later growing to incorporate Pan-Africanism.

In Greensboro, the struggle included working with other black organizations, like the NAACP, and organizing workers, students and tenants in particular. Various groups Johnson was involved in led a successful strike of A&T cafeteria workers, brought together tenants to fight collectively in GAPP and created statewide black student group as well as the national Student Organizing for Black Unity.

"This kind of thing is dangerous to write about because people will look back and see what they're capable of doing," he said.

Johnson spoke for the majority of the class time, with some space for questions and a few remarks from Brandon at the opening and closing. The event was open to the public, and a few staff members were in the audience of 20.

Pictured: Reverend Nelson Johnson addresses the classroom, as Lewis Brandon looks on. Both work at the Beloved Community Center. Photo by Eric Ginsburg.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-11-30T12:41:00.002-05:00

feature: Laurelyn Dossett’s gathering

be there: Hand-To-Hand Holiday Market

dirt: Concerns about crime collide with infill goal

10 best: Ten best things I haven’t done in Greensboro

voices: Violence, structural and interpersonal

editorial: The oldest trick in the book

tunes: The Music lover’s guide to holiday gifting

flicks: The Muppets are in marvelous form and Arthur Christmas is a holiday treat

visions: Out of Fashion highlights a vanishing art form

chow: A Thanksgiving story... with bivalves

crash: The holiday bait and switch

Government: Harrison willfully violated tax law

2011-11-29T22:56:00.002-05:00

The government put four witnesses on the stand today who have formerly worked as financial controllers for staffing companies owned or controlled by Greensboro businessman Greg Harrison over the past decade.

(Previously.)

Although they worked for Harrison at different times, they shared something in common: They prepared quarterly federal payroll tax returns — known as 941s — for the staffing companies during years when Harrison is accused of willfully failing to pay payroll taxes on thousands of temporary staffing employees across the country, along with taxes on a dozens of permanent employees in support functions at the conglomerate’s corporate headquarters in Greensboro.

Two of the controllers, along with a former chief operating officer for Harrison's conglomerate, have testified in the first two days of a trial that federal payroll taxes were withheld from their paychecks, but later discovered in letters from the Social Security Administration that there were no wages or Social Security contributions reported from their work for Harrison.

The testimony of Toni Johnson, who became interim controller in 2005 and prepared quarterly federal payroll tax returns for each of the staffing conglomerate’s state subsidiaries, was typical.

Prosecutor Frank Chut placed a federal tax form on the courtroom’s overhead projector.

“What is this?” he asked.

Johnson told him it was a 941 return for US Staffing of Florida for the second quarter of 2005.

Chut pointed to a field on the form and asked her to read the amount.

“$158,116.04.”

Then the prosecutor asked her what the number meant. She explained it was the amount of payroll tax liability for that quarter.

Then Chut pointed to a signature box, where Harrison’s name was handwritten.

“Who wrote that?” he asked.

“I did,” Johnson responded, explaining that she had prepared the form for Harrison’s signature, though it ultimately remained unsigned.

After preparing the returns, Johnson testified that she would take them upstairs to Harrison’s office and either hand them to him personally or leave them on his chair. Johnson testified repeatedly that Harrison assured her he would take care of the payments.

And so it went, one unpaid tax return after another in mind-numbing succession, with former employees describing in excruciating detail how they prepared them and what happened or didn’t with them afterward.

The indictment against Harrison includes a total of 59 counts related to failure to pay payroll taxes, each of which corresponds to a quarterly 941 report for any of a dozen-plus staffing companies that he owned and controlled. In increments ranging from $42,800 to $1 million, the amount of payroll taxes allegedly withheld from employees but not paid over to the Internal Revenue Service for the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 totals almost $16 million.

Julie Akers, a controller who worked for the staffing companies in 2008 and 2009, testified that she typically had to call Harrison to request funds to make payroll, but there was never enough money available to pay payroll taxes to the federal government.

“What happened when you asked Mr. Harrison for money to make payroll tax payments,” Chut asked.

“It was denied,” Akers said. She said she confronted Harrison about the fact that payroll taxes were not being paid.

“And his response?”

“That he would get them paid.”

“And were they?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Akers testified that eventually she filed a return without Harrison’s authorization even though no money was available in the corporate account to make payments because “at this point it was the right thing to do.”

Another time, Akers said she became concerned about an outstanding tax liability, and asked Harrison to meet with her. Harrison authorized her to send a check to the IRS for $145,693, the amount due. The check did not clear the bank, Akers said, and the company’s president and vice president resigned.

The government has promised in its trial brief to prove that Harrison “knew he had an obligation to pay over employment taxes for his staffing companies in 2004-2006 and in 2008-2009, but willfully failed to do so.”

The government’s witnesses gave ample evidence to support that position.

To underscore the notion that Harrison clearly understood his tax obligations, the government introduced USA Staffing’s employee handbook bearing Harrison’s signature as president, and asked a witness, former controller Samantha Lee Hooker, to read aloud from a passage stating that the company matched employees’ contributions to Social Security and unemployment insurance.

Robert Patterson testified that he was brought in to break up the two companies, Hobbs Staffing and US Labor, into state subsidiaries, even as administrative functions remained consolidated at the longtime headquarters on South Swing Road in Greensboro.

Patterson said he became alarmed on one occasion when he observed in the company’s general ledger that tax liabilities had continued to grow with no payment offsets. He went to Harrison’s office to share his discovery.

“He told me those were the old companies, and the old companies weren’t my concern,” Patterson testified. “I was to be concerned with the new company roll-outs, and that if there were any problems with the old companies he would take care of it.”

Tom Cochran, the public defender assigned to Harrison, attempted in cross examination of the government’s witnesses to shift responsibility to Ray McDaniel and Mark Griffin, respectively the chief operating officer and general counsel of Harrison’s company through 2006.

Patterson testified that he was hired by McDaniel and Griffin, and that he reported to McDaniel. Under cross-examination, McDaniel said he did not recall whether he ever told Patterson that he was his supervisor.

“Who ran the company on a day-to-day basis?” Cochran asked.

“Ray McDaniel and Mark Griffin,” Patterson replied.

Notwithstanding the two men's central roles in the business, Patterson testified that he typically left the 941 returns on Harrison’s desk, and never gave them to McDaniel or Griffin.

“Is it fair to say that the tax issues were handled and handled well while you were there?” Cochran asked.

“Yes, that’s fair to say,” Patterson replied.

Patterson’s testimony about the circumstances of his departure raised questions about McDaniel and Griffin’s motives. Cochran asked him what reason the two had given him when they called him in to fire him in April 2005.

“Their reason was I had failed to win over the ladies in accounting,” Patterson responded tartly, “and this just wasn’t going to work.”

McDaniel testified that he didn’t recall whether he was involved with Patterson’s termination.

Johnson, who was trained by Patterson and succeeded him, testified under cross-examination that McDaniel and Griffin were running the company at the time of her employment, notwithstanding her work preparing 941 returns for Harrison.

Cochran asked Johnson if during the time she served as controller she ever observed any expenditures by the state subsidiaries that raised her suspicions.

“Yes,” she answered. “It occurred more than once.” She said she brought the matter to Mark Griffin’s attention, but never learned how it was resolved.

During Cochran’s cross-examination, McDaniel had testified that he traveled to the branches weekly or every other week to ensure they were performing efficiently, see to it that clients were happy and cultivate new clients. McDaniel testified that he didn’t recall Harrison ever taking part in any of the branch visits. Cochran asked McDaniel if he would ever entertain clients as part of the business of generating new revenue, but Judge James A. Baity sustained an objection from the government.

Cochran asked Johnson if she developed an opinion on McDaniel’s truthfulness, but again the judge sustained an objection.

On the first day of the trial, McDaniel had testified that was never responsible for making payroll tax payments for Harrison’s staffing companies, but today testified that, in fact, he had filed two 941 payroll tax returns to the IRS on behalf of Harrison’s companies.

Cochran also attempted to create an impression of Harrison’s former business partners as lavish spenders by asking McDaniel if he and Griffin purchased half an interest in an airplane together after they went into business for themselves and acquired Harrison’s assets. The judge blocked the question.

Johnson testified that she preferred working under Harrison to McDaniel and Griffin, opting to stay on and work for another of Harrison's enterprises after the former partners acquired the staffing businesses.

The government has asserted that McDaniel and Griffin paid over payroll taxes during the period when they controlled those assets from late 2006 to late 2008, in contrast to the defendant, demonstrating his willful violation of the law. Cochran attempted to poke holes in that portrayal by bringing up tax difficulties faced by StaffCo, the company founded by McDaniel and Griffin.

Cochran asked McDaniel if he remembered Julie Akers, who would later work for Harrison, telling him that StaffCo had gotten behind on its taxes.

“No, I don’t recall,” McDaniel answered.

Cochran introduced Defense Exhibit No. 14, a notice of a federal tax lien against StaffCo. McDaniel said the first time he had seen it had been three or four weeks ago.

Former staffing agency owner on trial for tax evasion

2011-11-29T08:00:00.007-05:00

A Greensboro staffing agency executive whose opulent lifestyle once included the adornments of luxurious homes, a yacht and the financing of movies and nightclubs has been reduced to answering charges of tax evasion in federal court with the assistance of a public defender.

The tax evasion trial of a Greensboro businessman who once owned a national temporary staffing agency before attempting to cross over to the movie industry and investing in local nightclubs got underway in Winston-Salem yesterday.

Prosecutor Frank Chut told a jury in his opening statement to expect former employees of Greg Harrison’s staffing companies and revenue officers of the Internal Revenue Service to testify that the businessman failed to pay federal payroll taxes for his companies for several years, and then lied to revenue officers and falsified documents to cover his tracks. Chut said the prosecution will also prove that Harrison stiffed the government on his personal income taxes.

Harrison is accused of willfully failing to file individual income tax returns for three years, despite earning $651,594 in one of those years, 2005, in compensation for his executive duties as owner of his staffing empire.

Harrison inherited a staffing business from his mother in the 1990s, and expanded it into a national chain. In the next decade he began investing in a nightclub complex in downtown Greensboro that passed from the control of Joey Medaloni to Rocco Scarfone. (Medaloni pleaded guilty to loan fraud in a separate federal case, and is scheduled to be sentenced in February.) Harrison also helped finance The National Lampoon's Pucked, a movie starring Jon Bon Jovi that was filmed in the Triad, and is named as one of the film's producers.

The government lays out the facts behind its charge that Harrison “corruptly endeavored to obstruct the due administration of the internal revenue laws” in the trial brief. The prosecution alleges that Harrison lied to an IRS revenue officer in 2006 by telling her that he had sold his staffing business and provided her with falsified forms claiming that his company no longer had to file tax returns. When the revenue officer requested a tax identification number for the company that purportedly acquired Harrison’s business, he allegedly provided her with the tax identification number of a staffing company owned by the defendant’s mother in North Carolina.

The trial brief states that Billie Baggett is expected to testify that she never purchased any company from her son.

The government promises to prove through bank records and witness testimony that “Harrison took millions of dollars withheld from his employees’ paychecks and, instead of paying that money to the IRS, used those funds to pay for (1) his palatial personal residence in Greensboro, North Carolina, (2) a luxury beach house near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, (3) the purchase of a yacht, and (4) the funding of two commercial motion pictures, National Lampoon’s Pucked (2006) and Home of the Giants (2007).”

Lending credence to the assertion that Harrison converted withheld payroll taxes to his personal use, the government pledges to enter into evidence documents showing a movement of funds from corporate operating accounts to pay for mortgages on homes, the purchase and mortgage of the yacht Columbo, accounts for the two movies and a number of unrelated businesses. The direct transfer of the funds suggests that the spoils of the alleged unpaid taxes were not applied to compensation and shared with the other executives in the staffing companies.

Tom Cochran, the public defender assigned to represent Harrison, deflected blame to two of Harrison’s former employees in his opening statement yesterday. Noting that Mark Griffin and Ray McDaniel, respectively the general counsel and corporate operating officer of Harrison’s companies, started their own company and then bought their former boss’s business in 2006, Cochran promised, “You’ll hear testimony that they ran that company lavishly,” adding that Harrison loaned the two $1.5 million that they did not repay.

By the mid-2000s, Harrison’s staffing company employed thousands of workers in at least eight states, generally in labor-intensive industries, the prosecution states in the trial brief.

Harrison’s “companies failed to file IRS Forms 941 Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Returns and also failed to pay over millions of dollars in taxes withheld from employee paychecks, including federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security taxes (often referred to as Federal Insurance Contribution Act or ‘FICA’ taxes, collectively, ‘payroll taxes,’)” the trial brief states.

Harrison looked attentive and composed during yesterday’s proceeding, frequently taking notes and conferring with his counsel. When McDaniel accidentally knocked the microphone while raising his hand to point Harrison out in court, the defendant briefly looked up but maintained an impassive gaze. When Judge James A. Baity called a recess for the day at about 5:30 p.m., Harrison retrieved a hand truck to transport the numerous binders assembled in preparation for his case.

“Mr. Harrison didn’t want to be in the staffing business anymore, didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Cochran told the jury. “He wanted to be a lender.”

The defense counsel wound down his opening statement by challenging the government’s assertion that Harrison cheated on his personal income taxes.

“You will see documents where the IRS acknowledges that he paid taxes,” Cochran promised the jury.

McDaniel was the first witness called by the government. Originally hired to oversee branch offices in Tennessee, McDaniel soon transferred to the Greensboro office on South Swing Road that served as a corporate headquarters for Harrison’s staffing empire and assumed the role of chief operating officer.

Harrison’s staffing companies hired workers, many of them unskilled, for light-industrial jobs, McDaniel said. Executives typically marked up wages paid to the workers by 28 to 38 percent to establish billing rates to client companies, McDaniel said, adding that “the markup is the profit and the payroll burden associated with it.”

McDaniel testified that Harrison signed his paycheck, and when he received it, federal taxes, Social Security and Medicare had been withheld. When he received a letter from the Social Security Administration acknowledging how much he had earned and contributed to the fund over the years, it showed zeroes for three years he had been employed with Harrison.

“Yeah, it was surprising,” McDaniel said. “It was disturbing… because I had worked and received wages.”

McDaniel said he confronted Harrison with the discrepancy.

“I asked him why there were no wages reported,” McDaniel said. “He said it must have been a mistake, and that I could take my W2 forms to the Social Security office, and they would surely correct it.”

Chut asked McDaniel: “As to the funds withheld from your paycheck, did you give anyone authorization to do anything other than pay them over to the federal government?”

“No,” the witness replied.

McDaniel testified that he began working for one of Harrison’s companies doing business as USA Staffing in 2000. Harrison also incorporated another company as US Labor, which handled most of his day labor business. In about 2004, US Staff Holding Corp. was formed as an umbrella, and Harrison began incorporating subsidiaries in each of the states in which he operated.

Meanwhile, the corporate headquarters remained at South Swing Road in Greensboro, and the executive leadership team remained in place despite the various name changes.

“The lights flicked off one night as one company and came back on the next day as another,” McDaniel said.

So convoluted is the history and proliferation of Harrison’s various staffing companies that the government has sorted them into two categories for the purpose of making its case, referencing corporate entities operated during the period of 2004 through 2006 under which 48 counts of failure to pay payroll taxes were allegedly committed as “Harrison 1.0 companies.” Companies operated during the 2008-2009 period, under which 11 counts of failure to pay payroll tax was allegedly committed are referenced as “Harrison 2.0 companies.”

Using an overhead projector, the prosecutor displayed a weekly revenue report dated Dec. 26, 2004 that McDaniel reviewed as chief operating officer for one of Harrison’s companies. The document itemized gross payroll, gross revenue and a third figure, “GP%,” which McDaniel explained stood for “gross profit percentage.” The report itemized and totaled revenues for all of the temporary staffing offices across the nation that were under Harrison’s control. Underneath the list of branch offices, Chut zoomed in on “Del Monte Fresh Produce” — one of a number of clients.

"What was that?" Chut asked.

“In the case of Del Monte, we singled those out because they had such large volume,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel testified that he and Griffin started their own staffing company, StaffCo, in 2005, and ultimately purchased Harrison’s staffing businesses. At the time StaffCo purchased US Staff Holding Corp. in November 2006, the company was valued at $12 million, McDaniel said.

McDaniel acknowledged that StaffCo, which operated under the trade name American Staffing Resources, soon ran into trouble.

“The first major challenge was when the federal government, [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], raided one of our clients in Oregon,” McDaniel said, referring to Del Monte. “They detained about 108 employees.”

Del Monte pulled its business, depriving StaffCo of about $30 million in annual sales. The raid made national news and damaged the staffing company’s reputation, making it difficult to drum up new business.

“That was the beginning of the end of StaffCo,” McDaniel said. “We never recovered.”

With the company’s creditors filing notices of default, McDaniel said Harrison agreed to buy back 70 percent of the assets. McDaniel ended up with the Tennessee subsidiaries, 12 percent of the former company, and Griffin took the Georgia subsidiaries, making up the remaining 18 percent.

The government states that McDaniel and Griffin filed employment tax returns and paid payroll taxes to the IRS during the two-year period that they controlled the assets, but after Harrison regained control of the staffing companies, he “again stopped paying over millions of dollars of withheld payroll taxes to the IRS.”

From the trial brief:

During the summer of 2006, defendant Harrison told lies and gave false documents to two different IRS revenue officers who were trying to obtain unfilled payroll tax returns (IRS Forms 941) and collect unpaid payroll taxes for two different companies that he owned. These revenue officers will testify at trial.

In June of 2006, revenue officer (RO) Crystal Peoples contacted defendant Harrison to attempt to collect delinquent 2002-2005 payroll taxes, penalties, and Forms 941 for Hobbs Staffing Services d/b/a USA Staffing with tax identification number (TIN) 62-1236734. RO Peoples knew that Hobbs had been operating during that period because she had North Carolina state employment security records showing that the company had thousands of employees on its payroll in the 2002-2005 time period.

In fact, defendant Harrison had purchased Hobbs Staffing in December of 2000, and then merged it with another company in January of 2002 to create an entity called Hobbs Staffing Services d/b/a USA Staffing, which used the 62-1236734 tax identification number. The company had thousands of employees and paid millions of dollars in wages reported to the IRS by employees filing their tax returns.

On July 27, 2006, RO Peoples presented defendant Harrison with a $756,988 bill for penalties for unpaid 2002 payroll taxes. The next day, she spoke with defendant Harrison and requested 16 delinquent tax returns from him. During that conversation, defendant Harrison falsely told RO Peoples that Hobbs Staffing Services d/b/a USA Staffing company had not had a payroll since 2002. Moreover, on July 17, 2006, defendant Harrison falsely told
RO Peoples that he sold the business in August of 2002 and that it had no payroll after that. The RO asked defendant Harrison for the tax identification number of the new entity on July 31, 2006, and again on August 7, 2006. In the meantime, on July 24, 2006, defendant Harrison provided RO Peoples with IRS Forms 941 and 940 for Hobbs Staffing Services that falsely claimed the company did not have to file employment and unemployment insurance tax returns after September of 2002.

On August 21, 2006, defendant Harrison provided RO Peoples with the tax identification number for an entitity called IHT INC (57-1024567). RO Peoples examined electronic records for IHT INC and determined that it had filed payroll tax returns and paid taxes for the period at issue. After some further attempts to resolve the confused situation, the RO closed the case on defendant Harrison. In fact, the 57-1024567 tax identification number actually belonged to a staffing company called IHT Grand Strand operated in South Carolina by Billie Baggett, defendant Harrison’s mother. Ms. Baggett is expected to testify that she never purchased any company (i.e., Hobbs Staffing d/b/a USA Staffing) from defendant Harrison and will deny having any operations in North Carolina since the year 2000.

Thus, defendant Harrison made a series of false statements and provided false documents to RO People that caused her to close an investigation into the unpaid payroll taxes and unfilled Forms 941 for one of defendant Harrison’s main staffing businesses in the 2002-2005 time period. But for those falsities, the IRS would have taken action to collect the unpaid taxes and obtain the unfilled returns from defendant Harrison.

On August 22, 2006, another revenue officer, RO Gail Roberson contacted defendant Harrison about the payroll tax liabilities of another of his companies, USA Staffing of Virginia. On that day, RO Roberson presented defendant Harrison with a bill for $1,363,603 in unpaid payroll taxes for 1999 and 2001 and requested unfilled IRS Forms 941 for those years through 2005. In the course of being interviewed by that RO, defendant Harrison falsely claimed that he was current in filing Forms 1040 and paying his personal tax liabilities. In fact, as of that date, Harrison had not filed an individual income tax return since the 1999 tax year.

Besides his lies to the revenue officers, defendant Harrison corruptly endeavored to obstruct the IRS from receiving payroll taxes by converting the taxes to his own use. Bank records and witness testimony will show that defendant Harrison took millions of dollars withheld from his employees’ paychecks and, instead of paying that money over to the IRS, used those funds to pay for (1) his palatial personal residence in Greensboro, North Carolina, (2) a luxury beach house near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, (3) the purchase of a yacht, and (4) the funding of two commercial motion pictures, National Lampoon’s Pucked (2006) and Home of the Giants (2007).

As recently as September of 2009, defendant Harrison obstructed the due administration of the internal revenue laws by writing a $135,693 bad check to be sent to the IRS for payment of payroll taxes. During that period, defendant Harrison had convinced one of his employees to serve as the nominee owner of IHT of SC Inc., one of the defendant’s staffing companies. Not knowing there was no money in defendant Harrison’s account to cover the check, the nominee owner sent it to the IRS to cover overdue payroll taxes. All of these acts are good evidence of a corrupt endeavor on the part of defendant Harrison to obstruct the due administration of the internal revenue laws.

Photography with a social consciousness: ‘The Bully Rag’ a labor of love for Causey

2011-11-23T13:59:00.006-05:00

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them. — Diane Arbus

If there’s one artist who’s influenced Jacqui Causey’s style, it’s legendary photographer Diane Arbus.

“I like to pretend to be one of her children,” Causey said. “She never made fun of anybody but she took photos of the people that nobody else felt were worthy of a photograph.”

Arbus’s “love of the freaks” and her prodigious talents catapulted her into the stratosphere of 20th century American photographers. Forty years after her death, Arbus’s work remains simultaneously influential and controversial. Like Arbus, Causey strives to capture storytelling moments that extend well beyond the frame.

“I do think I take the photographs of a storyteller instead of the photographs of a photographer,” Causey said. “That’s the objective for me and it always has been.”

The depth and breadth of Causey’s work spans photos that were captured in a perfect moment as well as posed shots that were planned frames in advance.

“It’s the most exciting thing in the world when I look at a photo after I’ve taken it and it moves me — that whatever moment I caught is moving to me,” she said. “That is the thing that makes it something I can’t stop doing. What an incredible thing to find something that actually moves [me]. So many people don’t ever get to know what that feels like.”

During last month’s Winston-Salem PRIDE 2011 event — the first gay and lesbian pride parade in the Twin City in 15 years — Causey experienced the sheer joy of her art.

Causey participated in the parade with a contingent from Wake Forest Baptist Church. While snapping photos of members of the church, people on parade floats, and people just milling around, Causey stumbled onto a beautiful moment that eloquently expressed the greater truth of the PRIDE event.

“It was a very organic shot,” Causey recalled. “I was just taking a picture of a little girl standing with her mom and noticed after the fact her T-shirt that said, ‘I [heart] my moms.’”

The black and white photo captures the beauty of a child’s innocence. It’s difficult to tell if she’s aware of the camera’s presence. She’s either averting her eyes or simply in a contemplative state.

“The truth it told me was a family story — something that took the sex out of the PRIDE parade,” she continued. “There’s this idea that gay pride is about people having the freedom to have sex with whoever they want to, and it’s really not that at all. It’s a story about love and when you see a little girl clinging to her mom’s legs, I don’t know how you don’t see family there.”

A Greensboro native, Causey began her artistic career working in the world of music videos and commercials. She once dreamed of becoming a great writer until she moved to south Florida in her late 20’s to try her hand at filmmaking. That experience offered a valuable insight that would forever alter Causey’s life’s path.

“I was struck by the fact that most of these people were spending millions of dollars to tell stories and millions of frames that I could tell in one frame if I did it well,” she said.

Causey returned to the Piedmont Triad eight years ago and was immediately embraced by the Winston-Salem arts community. During that time, Causey has embarked on a number of photography projects, including working for the nonprofit Neighbors for Better Neighborhoods to dispel stereotypes involving race and socioeconomic status.

With her latest project, an anti-bullying campaign, Causey brings to bear the wealth of a lifetime of personal experiences as an artist and as a member of the gay and lesbian community.

It all started with an idea to create a video for the It Gets Better Project. Created by Dan Savage to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, It Gets Better encourages young people to submit videos telling their own personal stories of how they’ve been subjected to bullying because of their sexual orientation. Causey began researching the highly-publicized cases of young gay people who had been bullied that had committed suicide.

“I was sort of moved by the fact that, the gay kids are getting all of the attention but any kid that is bullied is at equal risk of dying,” Causey said. “So I decided to make myself an expert on the subject and talk to people — find out what their stories were and try to really understand the phenomenon.”

So Causey began sitting down with families whose children had been subjected to bullying. The extensive one-on-one interviews led to a photography project and a wealth of insights about the true nature of the phenomenon.

“What I’ve really begun to understand is it’s about power on both sides,” Causey said. “A child who feels powerless will take his power wherever [they] can get it, so they take somebody else’s power and you’ve got two powerless children.”
Causey began shooting video of young people and their parents and “sort of got hooked.”

Now, she’s planning a photography exhibition of her interview subjects. A set of triptychs will be a key element in the exhibition.

“The first [photo] would be is sort of a dysmorphic look of how they see themselves in the world, why they get picked on, and the reasons for that are so vast it’s endless photographic opportunities, “Causey said. “The second photograph is what they think they would have to look like to in order to not be bullied. We’ll do that through use light, costumes, digital enhancements.”

The last photo will come from interviews with friends and family about how the real world sees them and it will not be dysmorphic, a simple photo of a beautiful child.

“The idea behind that is to show adults how much damage it really does,” Causey said.

Causey plans on creating an exhibition of enlarged photos from her anti-bullying project and placing them on the edifices of buildings in downtown Winston-Salem during a Gallery Hop event next spring.

Mary Haglund, owner of Breakfast of Course restaurant, will hold a fundraiser for The Bully Rag Project on Dec. 7. In the meantime, Causey is beginning to edit hours and hours of videotaped interviews with young people on her website: http://thebullyrag.tumblr.com/.

Causey encourages young people to post their own videos on YouTube and Vimeo and post the link on her website.

“The idea is this project will be a voice for anyone who needs one,” Causey said. “Those stories have to be heard and that’s going to be the driving force that’s going to make it bigger.”

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-11-23T12:03:00.002-05:00

feature: Seriously, Spaz is Snooki´s manager? Whaddaya nuts?

be there: Jim Breuer Live

dirt: Occupy movement burgeons across state amidst nationwide crackdown

10 best: 10 BEST economic distress indicators

voices: El Mozote and the School of Assassins

editorial: Alcoa takes another tack: Cold, hard cash

tunes: Rob Halford hammering away on well-tempered metal

flicks: Deep-cover DiCaprio in J. Edgar, go west, old man in Blackthorn

visions: Photography with a social consciousness

chow: Something to be thankful

crash: Mermaids in Greensboro

UNCG considering 10% tuition hike

2011-11-22T17:25:00.003-05:00

UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady told state lawmakers today that a tuition committee comprised of students, faculty and staff has recommended a 10 percent tuition hike for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Brady and high education leaders from NC A&T University and GTCC met with members of the Guilford County delegation to the NC General Assembly this afternoon in Greensboro City Council chambers.

Brady said she will take the recommendation of the tuition committee to the UNCG Board of Trustees next week. The University of North Carolina Board of Governors, which governs the state’s university system, is expected to consider tuition increases across the system in February.

“It’s obviously a challenge because we want to continue to provide access to students, but I think it’s essential to try to maintain the quality of our educational experience,” Brady said. “Just before he left his position, Erksine Bowles, who is the former president of the UNC system, made a comment to the board of governors that low tuition with low quality is no bargain.”

The board of governors maintains a 6.5 percent cap on tuition increases, but Brady said the board indicated that universities in the system could go above that if they were significantly below their peer universities nationally. Even with a 10 percent increase, she said, tuition at UNCG will remain in the bottom quartile among universities across the state.

Interim Provost Winser Alexander was not able to provide a percentage increase, but A&T also plans to hike tuition above the 6.5 percent cap. The News & Record has reported that A&T is likewise considering a 10 percent increase.

Brady said a third of the revenue raised from the tuition hike will be invested in need-based financial aid "to offset the increase for our neediest students."

The majority of the revenue will be invested in hiring additional instructors and faculty, and for faculty raises to increase compensation towards a goal of 80 percent of average salaries provided by peer institutions across the nation. Brady said faculty and staff have not received raises in three years.

“The concern that we have – and it’s really a concern for all of the campuses – is the risk of losing some of our very best faculty to other institutions,” Brady said. “And this will help. It will send an important signal. And it’s important to our students because they come and stay and major in particular areas because of the quality and reputation of the faculty.

“Our IT mid-level people are being recruited away by the private sector,” she added. “And it’s difficult for us to compete there because the salaries that are being offered are fully 20 percent higher than they are making at the university.”

Alexander said state budget cuts have had “a significant impact” on A&T, resulting in cuts to faculty and support staff, including a reduction of 66 full-time equivalent faculty positions. The loss of faculty positions has carried over to a reduction of course offerings.

Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat, asked Alexander if students were having to adjust their majors as a result of having fewer course options.

“Probably some of all of that,” Alexander responded. “We have far less flexibility in terms of things that we can do. So there will be fewer offerings, but to my knowledge we don’t have any students who are prevented from graduating as a result of that.”

Christopher Tew, a member of UNCG’s Class of 1969, said he and his wife oppose tuition increases.

“The reason for that, as Chancellor Brady mentioned, many of the students are working or married, or have families. This is a tremendous burden to place on them…. It’s the equivalent of paying Paul by robbing Peter. We’re giving grants and scholarships to the less fortunate, who certainly deserve and need it, but the money’s coming from those who are only a little more fortunate.”

Tew suggested that the university could avoid a tuition hike by taking money out of athletic programs that are funded through student fees.

“I do have a concern anytime we start asking students problems having enough money to get their education – I do have a concern about that, as I suspect every legislator does,” said Rep. John Faircloth, a member of the Republican majority in Raleigh. “These are tough times, as everyone knows.”

Faircloth questioned GTCC President Randy Parker about an enrichment class offered by the community college providing instruction in shag dancing. The lawmaker expressed concern that the class might create competition for private instructors.

Sen. Don Vaughan, a Democrat, quipped that he would be “eminently qualified” to teach the class.

“All of those programs are self-supporting,” Parker said. “There’s no state funding at all. We have to cover 100 percent of our costs, whatever that is. If Sen. Vaughan wants to teach a shag-dancing class across the street, we might see if we can hire him. It could be a joint effort between GTCC and Vaughan’s Dance Class.”

NC Press Association backs Winston-Salem’s appeal to NC Supreme Court

2011-11-22T13:11:00.002-05:00

The NC Press Association and the NC Association of Broadcasters have filed a “friend of the court” brief with the NC Supreme Court in support of the city of Winston-Salem’s petition for a review of a decision by the NC Court of Appeals last month that reversed a decision by Superior Court Judge Richard Stone to release statements made by a number of current and former Winston-Salem police officers to the Silk Plant Forest Citizens Review Committee.

The NCPA and NCAB both cite “serious concerns” about the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of state statute regarding the release of personnel files of government employees. They argue the court’s interpretation of the statute “constitutes legal error” and that access to personnel files of government employees under state law is a matter of significant public interest. The brief characterizes the court’s decision as a threat to the First Amendment that undermines the public’s right to access information that has been ordered released by a court of “competent jurisdiction.”

The Silk Plant Forest Citizens Committee interviewed current and former Winston-Salem police officers involved in the criminal investigation of the 1995 Jill Marker-Silk Plant Forest assault case. Kalvin Michael Smith was convicted by a Forsyth County jury of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and armed robbery. He has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence.

The citizens committee concluded in its 2009 report that there was no credible evidence to link Smith to the crime. The committee also stated it did not have confidence in the Winston-Salem Police Department’s investigation or the result of the investigation and that investigators failed to follow proper procedures.

Rockingham County automotive manufacturer adds jobs

2011-11-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

Henniges Automotive will add 64 jobs and invest $2.2 million at its Reidsville plant, Gov. Bev Perdue announced on Monday. The factory manufactures sealing parts for Ford, Chrysler and BMW. The salaries of the new jobs will average $27,849, below Rockingham County’s average annual wage. The company will receive a $65,000 incentives grant from the state’s One North Carolina Fund as an inducement to make the new hires.

Guilford lawmakers to meet with local college administrators

2011-11-21T10:36:00.004-05:00

State lawmakers from Guilford County plan to meet with UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady, NC A&T University Provost Winser Alexander and GTCC President Randy Parker in Greensboro tomorrow.

Proposed and anticipated tuition hikes necessitated by state budget cuts are expected to be a significant topic of discussion.

The meeting, which takes place at 3 p.m. in Greensboro City Council chambers in the Melvin Municipal Office Building, will be broadcast on Channel 13. The public is invited to attend.

MoveOn chapter participates in Occupy day of action

2011-11-18T18:48:00.003-05:00

On Occupy Wall Street's two month anniversary and day of action Nov. 17, the Guilford County MoveOn.org chapter organized a demonstration on the Summit Ave bridge over Murrow Boulevard near downtown.

Guilford County MoveOn organizer Ken Knight said the national organization asked its 500 local chapters to hold rallies at bridges or schools that were crumbling to highlight the negative effects of decreased public funding. Knight said 40 people participated.

"It’s a direct cause of the rich people in this country not being taxed and supporting the repair of infrastructure," Knight said. "We could put a lot of people to work doing useful work if we had a government that would actually support taxing the rich to maintain safe infrastructure for all of us."

MoveOn organizes separately from the Occupy movement but has acted in connected and complimentary ways before, including a nationwide call to switch money out of big banks to local ones or credit unions on Nov. 5.

"There’s been some debate in Occupy Greensboro and other Occupy councils about whether MoveOn wants to take over," Knight said, "and the local group realized correctly that we aren’t trying to take over anything, but that we have the same interests. We very much support it."

The protest was the only action in Greensboro that day, though large protests happened throughout the country, particularly in New York City where anywhere from 32,000 to 50,000 people took part in the day of action, Occupy Wall Street's biggest yet.

'Joggin' for the Noggin' raises money, awareness of brain cancer

2011-11-16T14:03:00.003-05:00

Runners participate in the first annual 'Joggin' for the Noggin' in Greensboro on Nov. 12. (courtesy photo)

On Saturday, Nov. 12, Lansing Brewer led a group of his fellow running enthusiasts in a fundraiser to help raise awareness of brain cancer while assisting with the medical expenses of Ashley Chrisco, a server at Bimini’s Oyster Bar in Greensboro.

A 2009 High Point University graduate, Chrisco has undergone a series of medical procedures in the past year and a half to remove a tumor from her pituitary gland. Recently, Lansing, a regular patron of Bimini's, approached Chrisco with the idea holding a fundraiser to help cover her medical expenses.

“Jogging for the Noggin” started 4 p.m. at Wired! Coffee Café in Kernersville and wound its way through Colfax and finished at Bimini’s Oyster Bar. The two-hour run concluded with a performance by the band, Bone Monkey, and the fundraiser "Party for a Purpose" to further assist Chrisco.

Chrisco sold her handmade jewelry as her contribution to the cause and donated a portion of the proceeds. A seasoned runner, Brewer was one of 20 runners selected to run the first-ever relay around the world in 2007. He was the oldest runner selected and only one of two from the southeastern US. He ran across Europe, Asia, the US and Canada over a 95-day span covering more than 15,000 miles in an effort to raise awareness of the need for clean, safe drinking water.

Martha Dawn Howell contributed to this story.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-11-16T12:39:00.002-05:00

feature: Cobblestone Farmers Market a showcase for locally raised, sustainable food

be there: Ham it up for the hungry

dirt: Voters signal desire for change with election returns

10 best: Ten best things I learned this week

voices: Lessons in civics and succession

editorial: How we fix elections

tunes: The enduring soul of Syl Johnson

flicks: A greek tragedy: Immortals stakes its claim as the year’s worst movie

visions: The controversy behind public art

crash: Conflicts of interest revealed!

City extends deadline for applications to city attorney position

2011-11-16T12:01:00.004-05:00

Mayor Bill Knight has agreed to allow an executive search firm to extend the deadline for applications from candidates for an open city attorney position by almost two weeks.

The original deadline was Monday, and Knight said he approved a request by the Mercer Group to extend the deadline to Nov. 27.

“It did not start as quickly as they had hoped as far as their response on the initial search,” Knight said, adding that the search firm has taken the additional step of advertising with position with the North Carolina State Bar.

Knight said that in his experience as an employer it is not unusual to extend application deadlines in recruitment efforts.

Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Vaughan said she had been unaware of the extension.

“I’m sure the reason they extended it is because they didn’t get the number or the quality of applications that they had anticipated,” she said.

Knight bristled at a perception expressed by voters at candidate forums before the election and amplified in the news media that the city might face difficulty recruiting a new city attorney and a new city manager because of the council’s reputation for division and turmoil.

“I think it’s time to start speaking positively about what’s going on in Greensboro,” he said. “This is an opportunity to bring in a first-rate city attorney to a first-rate city.”

The position profile posted by the search firm describes Greensboro as “one of the most historic, diverse, and progressive city governments in the southeastern United States”:

Greensboro is a desirable workplace with a very stable council-manager form of government, an excellent executive team, and a highly educated and committed staff. The community values its schools, commerce, cultural diversity, emphasis on social justice and transparent and involved government.

The job profile outlines the qualities the city is seeking in its next city attorney:

Clear communicator, patient, with strengths in facilitating the legislative process, parliamentary procedure, open meetings, and open records. Skills in intergovernmental and interpersonal relations as well as a proven record of giving sound, reasoned advice on controversial issues.

The job posting at the Mercer Group website cites the new Nov. 27 deadline, but a document advertising the job that can be accessed from the Jobs page on the city's website references the old Nov. 14 deadline.

Lomax Properties to build apartment complex near ballpark and greenway

2011-11-16T11:14:00.004-05:00

UPDATE2: Rendering of the future Greenway at Fisher Park apartments courtesy of Lomax Properties

UPDATE: This post originally stated that an apartment complex planned by Lomax Properties LLC will include 156 units. In fact, the company is building 196 units. The post also incorrectly identified the company receiving a reimbursement from the city as Lomax Properties LLC rather than Lomax Construction Inc. Both companies are owned by developer John L. Lomax. The incorrect information was taken from a resolution in city council members' agenda packet at last night's meeting. The contract, in contrast, correctly identifies the number of apartment units and the name of the company.

"If you’re wondering can we enforce the contract, the answer is yes, because the construction company will have to submit plans to the city for approval," said Assistant City Manager Tom Carruthers. "The initial plat already has 196 units on it."

ORIGINAL POST: The vote last night by Greensboro City Council was swift and unanimous to reimburse Lomax Construction Inc. in the amount of $217,812 to relocate a storm sewer line at the Old North State Chevrolet site (map) just north of NewBridge Bank Park, home to the Greensboro Grasshoppers minor league baseball team.

A previous developer had planned an ambitious mixed-use development at the site, but then the economy tanked in 2008. Lomax Construction plans to develop a four-building, 196-unit apartment complex on the site.

, according to the resolution approved by council. (The contract, in contradiction, references 196 units.)

State law allows cities to reimburse developers or private property owners for “public enterprise improvements that are adjacent or ancillary to a private land development project.”

Downtown Greensboro Inc. is publicizing a press conference at Lomax Properties offices, located at 700 Battleground Avenue, from 1 to 1:30 p.m. today. The press release indicates that building renderings will be shared.

Downtown Greensboro Inc. President Ed Wolverton says in a prepared statement characterizes the project as transformative and says it will “meet market-based, economic development goals for downtown.”

The site is along the path of the planned Downtown Greenway, and about a block from the site where Deep Roots Market plans to open a grocery store and deli.

Greensboro council approves incentives for low-wage jobs

2011-11-15T22:52:00.001-05:00

The Greensboro City Council might be sharply divided on issues such as solid waste, but on the matter of a small economic incentives request – $37,500 to Springfield Service Corp., owned by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. – the members voted unanimously for approval with no discussion.

The company plans to create 75 new jobs for clerical workers tasked with billing patients and insurance companies on behalf of Cone Health System. An additional 25 jobs will transition from the hospital system to the service provider, which will occupy vacant office space on West Market Street.

The jobs will pay an average wage of $28,130. In comparison, the average wage in Guilford County is $40,560.

Assistant City Manager Andy Scott told council members that the jobs don’t meet the average wage requirement in the city’s economic incentives policy, but staff asked council to waive the requirement, which is permissible in the policy.

“Based on the high unemployment rate in Guilford County we are recommending that you approve this grant,” Scott told council.

After the vote, Scott explained that considering that the wages paid for the new jobs are only about 60 percent of the county’s average wage, the company stands to receive only 50 percent of the typical grant: $500 per job as opposed to $1,000.

“While we love the better paying jobs, we do have people at the skill level [that need the low-wage jobs],” Scott said.

Another factor that led staff to recommend the incentive grant, he said, was the fact that the company will occupy vacant office space.

The grant also waives a requirement that the company invest a minimum of $7 million. In this case, the company is investing $350,000.

The city has waived the average wage requirement once before. In 2009, the council approved an incentive grant to LabCorp, which pledged in exchange to create billing operations jobs at a site near Four Seasons Town Centre that would pay 70 percent of the average county wage. In that instance, council voted to approve the full amount of $1,000 per job. The decision was based on the company agreeing to site the operation in a high-poverty Urban Progress Zone.

Yvonne Johnson tops write-in vote

2011-11-15T16:54:00.002-05:00

The write-in votes for Greensboro City Council are out.

A manipulative and anonymous campaign that featured campaign signs posted predominantly in majority black precincts and robo-calls suggesting that voters dissatisfied with candidates for mayor and council should write in their choice appears to have garnered 61 votes for Yvonne Johnson.

Johnson ran at-large and received the largest number of votes of any candidate. A former mayor, the write-in campaign appears to have been designed to draw votes away from mayoral candidate Robbie Perkins, a longtime political ally of Johnson's. Perkins had no trouble defeating incumbent Bill Knight in spite of the dirty tricks.

In other concerted campaigns, Jean Brown earned 26 votes in the at-large race, and Tony Wilkins won 22 votes in the District 5 race. Brown ran at large, but was eliminated in the primary. Wilkins’ was the recommended candidate of YES! Weekly, which declined to endorse either incumbent Trudy Wade or challenger Jorge Cornell. Wilkins also received votes in the at-large and District 1 categories.

Someone named Eric Ginsberg received a single vote in District 2. The voter might have intended to write in YES! Weekly staff writer Eric Ginsburg.

Other mayoral write-ins included, not surprisingly, two mayoral candidates who got primaried out: Bradford Cone, Tom Phillips and Chris Phillips. Other vote-getters in the mayoral category include former at-large candidate Cyndy Hayworth, former Councilman Mike Barber, activist Ed Whitfield, at-large candidate Wayne Abraham, former congressional candidate Teresa Sue Bratton, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Mayor Keith Holliday, Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux, former Councilwoman Goldie Wells and Rhinoceros Times Editor John Hammer.

Hammer also won eight votes in the at-large race. District representatives and candidates, including Mary Rakestraw, Jim Kee, Trudy Wade, Dianne Bellamy-Small, Nancy Hoffmann, Bradley Hunt and Zack Matheny, polled at the top of the write-in list for the at-large category. Others who received at-large write-in recognition include farmers market supporter David Brantley Craft, former blogger Ben Holder, District 1 candidate Donnell Hardy, presidential candidate Herman Cain, Triad Business Journal publisher Doug Copeland and Guilford County Elections Director George Gilbert.

A total of 82 write-in votes was cast in District 5 — the most in any district. In addition to Wilkins, other names on the list include former at-large candidate Sal Leone, with four votes, District 2 candidate C. Bradley Hunt, Deep Roots Market General Manager Joel Landau, former District 5 Councilwoman Sandy Carmandy [SIC], former Mayor Jim Melvin, pastor Julie Peeples and News & Record Editor John Robinson.

District 3 attracted 46 write in votes, the second largest district tally. Hayworth, Rakestraw and Wade each earned two write-in votes. Other names include community organizer Wesley Morris and Action Greensboro Director of Projects Cecelia Thompson.

Perennial presidential candidate Ron Paul seemed to pop up in virtually every category. Others who received votes, whose eligibility to serve is questionable, include Betty Boop, Need Better Choices, Obama, Mickey Mouse (three votes), Tupac Shakur, Donald Duck (two votes), Jimmy Buffett, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Trash Collector, Hal Jordan, Open Landfill, Chicken Little, A None Lying Politician and Anybody who is Not in office.

This week in YES! Weekly

2011-11-09T13:53:00.002-05:00

feature: The decline of the textile industry
be there: The Wizard of Oz
dirt: Perkins triumphant in mayor’s race; Johnson wins at-large seat
10 best: 10 BEST considerations for kinship care
voices: Survival of the creative class
editorial: Video kills free speech
tunes: Holy Ghost Tent Revival ponder new beginnings
flicks: Back in New York City: All-star cast hits stride in Tower Heist
visions: UNCG filmmakers to screen works at Cucalorus
chow: Neighborhood chili
crash: My first Book Year

Turnout improves slightly in Greensboro council election

2011-11-09T13:36:00.002-05:00

Turnout in yesterday's Greensboro City Council election increased somewhat from two years ago. In 2009, 18.1 percent of registered voters went to the polls. This year: 20.7 percent. The number of ballots cast also increased, from 35,152 to 37,781.

Turnout this year also compares favorably to turnout in 2007, when Yvonne Johnson was elected mayor. That year, 20.1 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

The year 2009 was an anomaly in more than one way: Many political observers have noted that conditions were uniquely favorable to help elect a conservative council that year. Also, the voter rolls were bulging with people who registered to vote for Barack Obama in 2008, who didn't follow through in the city council election. The number of ballots cast actually went up from 2007 to 2009, but the inflated registration numbers statistically depressed the turnout percentage.

In the past two years, upwards of 11,000 people have been shed the rolls. I'm not sure of the reason for this. Perhaps those college students who registered to vote for Obama in 2008 graduated, moved away, and updated their registrations.

So what accounts for the dramatic reversal seen in last night's election results? Conservatives Bill Knight and Danny Thompson virtually came out of nowhere in 2009 to win the mayor and at-large seats respectively. Knight, Thompson and District 4 incumbent Mary Rakestraw were each replaced by challengers this year who are markedly more liberal.

It's probably too early to answer that question. But I'll hazard a guess: Different constituencies were mobilized this time around. In 2009, residents of the Cardinal miffed at being annexed against their will showed up. This time, it was citizens angry about the conservative faction's heavy-handed attempt to reopen the White Street Landfill. There was probably an enthusiasm gap at play also, with landfill opponents exercising the franchise as a matter of urgency. In contrast, the only reason conservative voters had to show up, aside from civic duty, was the vague threat of future tax and water rate increases if a more liberal council needs to finance big-ticket spending.

There's also the possibility that some former Knight and Thompson supporters may have been turned off by the dysfunction and bickering on council, and decided to give mayor-elect Robbie Perkins and former Mayor Yvonne Johnson a shot instead. But I'm guessing this is the less likely explanation.

Channel 14 News' flub on District 5

2011-11-09T11:32:00.003-05:00

Reporting live from the old Guilford County Courthouse last night, Channel 14 News reported that challenger Jorge Cornell was leading incumbent Trudy Wade by a large margin, holding nearly 80 percent of the votes cast with 27 percent of the precincts reporting in District 5.

Cornell and his campaign team sat at Pizzeria L'Italiano on Elm Street watching the results, and were both shocked and thrilled to see Cornell doing so well.

Not wanting to get ahead of themselves, they waited until at least half of the precincts were reporting, and then came down to the old courthouse to watch the rest of the results come in and celebrate.

When they arrived and saw the numbers scrolling across the screen, the same numbers Channel 14 News and the rest of us were pulling from, they didn't understand what was going on. Somehow in the time it took them to get to the courthouse, the results had flipped. After talking with me and a few other people, they began to realize what actually happened: Channel 14 News had reversed the results for District 5, and Wade had held a strong lead from the beginning with Early Voting results.

A shorter account of what happened appears in this week's print issue as part of our election coverage. Above, a photo courtesy of campaign member Samuel Velasquez, that he took of the television at L'Italiano shortly after 9 p.m.

Mediocre turnout leaves outcome of city council election uncertain

2011-11-08T19:04:00.002-05:00

Throughout the day, voter turnout at polling places across Greensboro has appeared to track closely with performance in the last municipal election two years ago. That observation is based on a sampling of precinct reports by Guilford County Board of Elections Deputy Director Charlie Collicutt.

Turnout across the city consistent with numbers in 2009 without a significant bump in east Greensboro would tend to benefit conservative candidates. After all, 2009 was the year that mayoral challenger Bill Knight came out of nowhere and upset incumbent Yvonne Johnson.

District 4 incumbent Mary Rakestraw, part of the conservative coalition, spent the day at Christ United Methodist Church, a precinct she narrowly carried in the primary. She appeared to be relaxed and enjoying herself, noting that she had seen a lot of neighbors.

“She’s almost our Howard Coble,” said Loretta Calhoun, a campaign volunteer, alluding to a sense of familiarity that voters have about the candidate.

“In our district I voted for the lesser of two evils,” said Tim Pabon. “The one that I decided to vote for was Rakestraw. The other one seemed too far out there.”

Pabon said he dislikes the bickering on city council and that it often seems like a body suited more for a small town than a large city. Along with Rakestraw, he cast his vote for the rest of the conservative slate: Bill Knight for mayor, and Chris Lawyer and Danny Thompson for at large.

At Claxton Elementary, a traditionally high-turnout precinct that leans conservative, at-large candidate Wayne Abraham and a passel of volunteers for other progressive candidates expressed disappointment at reports of mediocre turnout across the city.

“This one is up in the air,” Abraham said.

Florence Gatten, a retired member of council, brought her granddaughter to the polling place to offer candy and encouragement to poll workers and precinct officials. She embraced Abraham.

She said she believes the mediocre turnout is explained by a sense of discouragement and fatalism in the electorate. She said she would like to see some change on council, although she doesn’t think about the election in terms of conservatives versus liberal.

“I think this is a key election,” she said. “I’m disappointed if it turns out that turnout is low. There are a lot of new faces, people who are very capable. Change is good. I’m always hoping to see some turnover. There is a lot of talent in this city. The assignment will be tough.”

At 6 p.m. about 530 people had voted at Bluford Elementary, a traditionally high performing precinct that is considered a bellwether in elections because it typically sets the high water mark for District 1. The vote count in the precinct topped out at 560 two years ago. Considering the evening rush before polls close at 7:30 p.m., performance at the precinct should exceed the 2009 benchmark.

The voters in Precinct G74, whose polling place is Bluford Elementary, tend to be more elderly, and District 1 challenger Donnell “DJ” Hardy said he knew he had to work for some of their votes.

"I knocked on a lot of doors in G74," said Hardy, who ran unsuccessfully as an at-large candidate two years ago. "I learned how diverse the viewpoint is. There are a lot of people who are scared about where we're headed on a national level. Then they turn on Channel 13 and wonder about what's going on with the city council. If there's some fluke that helps us make it through, it might be that a lot of people are ready to try something new. It used to be, 'Thank you, goodbye.' Now, it's, 'Now, what are you trying to do, young man?' There's more acceptance this year."

Hardy said his campaign team worked hard in Precinct G56, which was transferred from District 5 to District 1 in redistricting this year. Many voters there appear to be loyal to their former representative, Trudy Wade. The Hardy campaign also expended significant effort in Precinct G51. He said he was heartened to find that early voting numbers in both precincts were up.

Based on the performance of Luther T. Falls Jr., Bellamy-Small's general election challenger in 2009, Hardy declared Precinct G75, which votes at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, to be "an uphill battle."

"We looked at the numbers in 2009," he explained, "and [Bellamy-Small] walloped him."

By 6 p.m., Hardy had pushed on to a new polling place, and Bellamy-Small was standing on the sidewalk outside of Bluford Elementary to appeal directly to the last wave of voters.

Candidate decries 'write in' sign as racially divisive

2011-11-08T13:32:00.004-05:00

Yvonne Johnson, an at-large candidate for Greensboro City Council, said she considers a sign urging voters write in their choice rather than vote for one of the candidates for mayor to be a tactic to divide the black electorate for the political benefit of incumbent Bill Knight.

Johnson noted the similarity between the "write-in" sign and her own campaign sign. Johnson served as mayor from 2007 to 2009, and is extraordinarily popular on the east side of the city. Robbie Perkins, Knight's challenger, is expected carry east Greensboro precincts by significant margins and benefit from Johnson's coattails.

"The signs are purple; I have the same font," Johnson said. "I just think it's lowdown and it is a racially divisive tactic. The signs are purple. I have the same font. I ain't happy about it. It's interesting how they're disappearing from the polling places now."

Johnson and Perkins have made no secret of their longstanding political alliance, and Johnson said she supports Perkins' bid for mayor "absolutely," notwithstanding what the mysterious "write-in" signs might suggest to voters.

"If I wanted to run for mayor, I would have," Johnson said. "It's not my time. I support Robbie 100 percent. He's always supported me. That is a tactic to divide the black community and get Bill Knight elected. There's no mystery to that."

Johnson said she doesn't think the tactic will be successful.

"I hope somebody spent a million on them, and it all goes down the toilet," she quipped.

Sharon Hightower, a politically active east Greensboro resident, concurred.

"The average voter who votes on a regular basis is stronger than that," she said. "It really strikes to the heart of somebody desperate, a group of people who are desperate and scared. It's not working."

Who speaks for Occupy Greensboro?

2011-11-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

I have received a phone call from an anonymous participant of Occupy Greensboro concerned about references in this blog to the group endorsing candidates for Greensboro City Council. It’s the direct attribution of the material on this web page to Occupy Greensboro in the headline and the word “endorses” that seems to be causing the trouble.

The text of the blog post attributes the information more specifically to the Occupy Greensboro Media Group. The wording of the material on the web page somewhat supports that characterization. The headline reads, “Candidate Information for City of Greensboro by a couple members of the Media Group.”

A subhead contains the caveat: “A member of the Media Group has composed some opinions on tomorrow’s candidates. This is not an endorsement that has reached consensus within the General Assembly.”

The matter has caused some dissension in the group and a possible defection. Billy Jones says in a comment thread: “I consider any endorsements to be out of line with Occupy values. Now I must reconsider my support for Occupy Greensboro.”

Jones says the post has been altered, and originally read, “Members of the Media Group have composed some opinions on tomorrow’s candidates…”

As to whether the material constitutes endorsements, the web page clearly recommends specific candidates, although with different degrees of enthusiasm.

Excitement level, clear skies help turnout in Greensboro election

2011-11-08T11:31:00.006-05:00

Frank Rakestraw, husband of candidate Mary Rakestraw, greets Jim and Joan Adams outside the polling place at Claxton Elementary.

Greensboro voters are going to the polls today to elect the next city council with clear and moderately warm weather. Polling places across the city have seen steady turnout.

“I think we’re up just from the buzz that I can hear and the calls that we’ve gotten,” Guilford County Deputy Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said. “From the reports that I've heard from the polling places, it seems like they have had good, steady turnout. Nobody was overwhelmed, but nobody was bored either.”

Collicutt said phone calls fielded by people who are not eligible to vote because they live outside the city limits indicates an unusual level of excitement and interest in the election.

At polling places across predominantly African-American areas in east Greensboro, signs reading, “Not Happy with Your Choices for Mayor or City Council? Write In (Your choice!)” have cropped up overnight, alongside the usual candidate placards. The purple color and lettering bears a strong resemblance to the signs of at-large candidate Yvonne Johnson.

A "write-in" campaign sign shares space with candidate signs outside of the polling place at Bluford Elementary.

A former mayor, Johnson dominated returns from east Greensboro during the primary. She is a close political ally of Robbie Perkins, a current mayoral candidate who traditionally performs well in east Greensboro. The signs message appears to be calibrated to soften support for Perkins among voters who might view him as insufficiently committed to east Greensboro and who might prefer Johnson.

Jo Isler, a white east Greensboro resident who is managing at-large candidate Marikay Abuzuaiter’s campaign, said she received a robo-call featuring a female voice that sounded African American suggesting that if she wasn’t satisfied with either of the mayoral candidates, “Don’t vote for either one.” (More from Ed Cone.)

As to the campaign signs, Collicutt said he has made an inquiry with the NC Board of Elections said that considering that the text is not candidate specific he doesn’t believe the person or group behind the effort would be required under state election law to form a political action committee, which typically report financial transactions and identify themselves in electioneering materials or communications.

District 4 challenger Nancy Hoffmann was at the polling place at Claxton Elementary in mid-morning greeting voters with her campaign manager, Graham Sheridan. The traditionally busy precinct delivered strong returns during the primary for conservative incumbents Rakestraw, Mayor Bill Knight and at-large Councilman Danny Thompson. Isler was also there campaigning for Abuzuaiter, whose number lagged in the precinct during primary polling, along with poll workers for Johnson, Perkins and at-large incumbent Nancy Vaughan.

Rakestraw’s husband, Frank, showed up at the polling place at about 8:45 a.m. Competing with Hoffmann for voters attention, Rakestraw told them that his wife “straightened out that parking situation on Westridge Road.” Some voters brushed Hoffmann aside.

Things appeared to be going better for the Hoffmann campaign at the Westminster Presbyterian Church polling place, where she had been earlier.

“I’m quite sure we’ve done well there,” the candidate said, noting that many voters gave her the thumbs-up gesture.

At Faith Presbyterian Church, a traditionally high turnout precinct in District 5, Chief Judge Willie Taylor said she expects to see at least a 40 percent increase in turnout when voting closes this evening. Located west of Guilford College, the precinct is something of a political tossup. Both Knight, a member of the conservative faction trying to hang on to control, and Johnson, part of the progressive-moderate coalition seeking a change of course, led polling in their respective races during the primary.

“We’re seeing the two groups [of voters], just like in the primary, Taylor said. “We see the coalition that formed across the city around the landfill issue. We see the very effective Republican get-out-the-vote effort, with voters bringing in door-hangers.

Knight chatted with voters and poll workers outside the polling place at about 9:45 a.m. The two volunteer campaigners were Richard O’Brien, a retired firefighter handing out cards for Johnson, and a member of the Professional Fire Fighters of Greensboro union holding an Abuzuaiter sign. The firefighters endorsed Knight’s opponent.