Greensboro council to discuss officer's reinstatement

Interim City Manager Bob Morgan confirms that the Greensboro City Council will hold a closed-session meeting on Friday to ask him questions about his decision to reinstate Officer AJ Blake, overturning a termination decision by police administration. An official notice states that Mayor Yvonne Johnson has set a special meeting for 2 p.m. "for the purpose of adjourning to closed session for the discussion of personnel matters."

Some background here and here about the suspension, criminal charges against, and eventual acquittal of Blake.

"Some council members are interested in the issue, and I offered to explain that in closed session," Morgan told me. "We don't have another meeting until Oct. 20, and they wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way, so we scheduled a special meeting." Morgan said he was constrained from identifying the council members who had expressed concern about his decision. He added that he is legally prohibited from publicly discussing his reasons for overturning Blake's termination.

One member of council will not be there. Robbie Perkins said he already had plans to be out of town on business on Friday, adding that he was "very concerned" about the meeting and does not think it was appropriate for council to be involved in such a personnel decision.

UPDATE: Colleague Amanda Lehmert reports that the council member who requested the meeting was Mary Rakestraw. Lehmert says that Rakestraw and another council member did not realize Blake had been acquitted.

Greensboro council prepares for budget cuts

Greensboro Interim City Manager Bob Morgan promised to brief city council members on possible program cuts to trim the city’s budget by $11.3 million on April 14. The reduction represents 2.7 percent of the 2008-2009 budget, which was $425.7 million. “We’re going to have so many things to consider that we’ve never had to consider before,” he said. “Kind of like gut-check time. We’ll throw something out and if you have just terrible nightmares about it, then we need to rethink something.” At-large Councilman Robbie Perkins said, “There will be no joy in receiving these alternatives.” To which Mayor Yvonne Johnson added, “It will be grueling.”

Gateway Gardens gets green light

The Greensboro City Council voted unanimously on March 17 to move forward with the construction of Gateway Gardens with a traffic light at Florida Street and a turn lane at the Lee Street entrance of the gardens. Interim City Manager Bob Morgan said the cost of the traffic light — $30,000 to $40,000 — could be absorbed in this year’s budget, and the $180,000 cost of the turn lane would come out of transportation bond funds. “The consensus is not that we are happy about the outcome, but what do you do at this point?” resident Sharon Hightower said. “What we hope going forward is that organizations realize neighborhoods and communities need to be engaged in the process, not just shown a project…. We have a lot of people that are very interested in being part of advisory boards.” District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small indicated that was a likely outcome of a neighborhood meeting held on March 14: “One of the things that did happen Saturday that I think was a step forward is that we asked that some of the people who live in the immediate area be a part of the Gateway Gardens committee on this particular project, Greensboro Beautiful’s Gateway Gardens Committee, because there is no representation from the immediate area,” she said. “And I think three people signed up and said they wanted to do that.”