PHOTOS: Mayor Perkins' pre-election party

Mayor Robbie Perkins held a pre-election party on Monday night at Tavo in downtown Greensboro. Perkins said the event wouldn't help his campaign if it was held on election night after people already voted, and said that it would help encourage turn out and support for the campaign.

Perkins faces Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan and challenger George Hartzman in Tuesday's primary. Perkins and Vaughan are widely expected to knock of Hartzman in the primary and proceed to duke it out in the general election.

Left, an ice sculpture for the campaign seen from behind with a band performing in the background. Below, Perkins talking to Theresa Yon, a former Republican NC House candidate who wanted the city to pass a stricter noise ordinance. Perkins, who used to live in Center Pointe like Yon, initially pushed for a tighter ordinance at the beginning of 2012 at Center Pointe developer Roy Carroll's request.

Halfway through the event, about 30 people were in
 attendance, but campaign staff said "well over 100" people attended in total last night. Tayna Wiley, his campaign manager, said that he will be watching the election results from his State Street office on Tuesday evening.

Challenger Nancy Vaughan (who, of course, was not at the event) said that she will initially watch the results come in at home with her family before heading down to the Guilford County Courthouse where candidates traditionally watch the results trickle in.

Below, Perkins greeting former Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston, who was tied up in two major items that came before city council recently (the Bessemer Shopping Center and a loan for the International Civil Rights Center & Museum). Alston spoke with Perkins briefly at the door, stopping to pin on a Perkins campaign button before trying a shrimp cocktail and mingling like the mayor.

(Not everyone in attendance was a highly-visible power broker in the city —though developer and DGI Chair Dawn Chaney came, too — but the room was dimly lit and numerous other photographs did not come out well).

Read about the three mayoral candidates here, and make sure to vote in today's election if you haven't already cast your ballot during early voting!

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

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.”

Indestructible screening in Winston

Indestructible is a film about Ben Byer, a filmmaker living with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). When Mark Burger's weekly column in the paper was filed, my interest was peaked. More information about the film is HERE

Make sure to check out Burger's column in Visions this week for more information. And check out the film next Tuesday at 8pm at the a/perture cinema in Winston-Salem. Tickets are $7.50, and all proceeds benefit the ALS Film Fund.

Green dollars in black hands

The hotel controversy did not go unmentioned during the events surrounding the grand opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum today, but when I reviewed my notes that wasn't the important element. Today was about the remarkable bravery of the four men who initiated the Woolworth's sit-ins and others who joined them. It was about the many roles played on the front lines and behind the scenes by nameless people who sought no recognition as they acted according to their consciences in a cause to dismantle an immoral code of racial separation.

Skip Alston alluded to the hotel project during a press conference in the museum when he reprised earlier comments about moving beyond "civil rights" to "silver rights." Alston and Jones made it clear that they view economic empowerment as the next logical step in the civil rights movement, and they see financial opportunity for themselves as being in no way inconsistent with that principle.

For the sake of posterity and discussion, here are Jones' full comments on the matter:

“Skip can’t say this, but I can. That hotel issue is a good example. There were three phases of the civil rights movement. The first phase was to kill of Jim Crow, which we did. The second phase was black political empowerment. And, of course, the president of the United States is African American. We’ve had Yvonne Johnson elected as the first African-American mayor. We also accomplished that, and won that battle. The next battle is economic empowerment: green dollars in black hands. And that hotel issue represents that. You have hotels built in this city every year all over the city. And you have hotel owners who want to compete with those other hotels. Why is this black-owned hotel selectively targeted for special scrutiny? So you have to think about those kinds of things.

“Now, the fight for economic empowerment is going to be the most difficult fight because it speaks to the heart and gut of free enterprise and capitalism. So until African America can come into the mainstream of free enterprise and capitalism, we’re always going to have some kind of social dynamic that places us in an impoverished category. If we can’t grow businesses, develop businesses, hire people, contract with African-American business folks and others, we’re second-class citizens as far as the almighty dollar. I think it’s very telling and very timely on the 50th anniversary…. And I think it’s very spiritual in nature that this should come up.

“Just to give you a little detail, it was indicated through the media that Skip Alston got up, didn’t inform his people…. I served on city council. We had a number of city council members abstain from voting. The law says, ‘You shall abstain from voting.’ That’s the law. He met the law. So why the special scrutiny? This is the next level. It is the major effort for silver rights. And I think the hotel issue is very telling. And it’s really strange that it would occur on the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth’s sit-ins.”

Contextualizing Skip and the sit-in anniversary

Some thoughts on the panel discussion at A&T last night kicking off the 50th anniversary activities commemorating the Woolworth's sit-ins:

Against my expectations, Skip Alston and Deena Hayes' behind-the-scenes advocacy for the downtown hotel project did not come up as a topic during the discussion. Hayes and her partner, John C. Greene, attended, but Hayes was not part of the program. Alston and museum co-founder Earl Jones spoke briefly about the museum, but made little mention of their role in developing the museum and no mention of the controversy that sometimes follows them. Credit them for that.

Jesse Jackson was the only prominent national civil rights leader who attended. No mention was made of Al Sharpton's absence. As I mentioned in my last post, the only reference to current Greensboro politics was Jackson's expression of regret that A&T students did not turn out at the polls last November and support the city's first black mayor, Yvonne Johnson. That comment was less a dig at the new white mayor, Bill Knight, than a lament that the bold and courageous actions of A&T students 50 years ago seem to be contrasted by apathy and disengagement in the current generation.

It strikes me that the voluminous commentary about the ethical questions surrounding Alston's backroom advocacy of the hotel are mainly a matter of concern for whites. (I offer the comment thread below the News & Record story, at Ed Cone's moderate-liberal blog and at Guarino's conservative blog as evidence.) In contrast, the black community has other preoccupations and distractions. Journalist Ed Gordon, the host of last night's discussion, referenced "the giant egos in the room" among black media and civil rights figures in previous affairs, and participant Warren Ballentine lamented that civil rights leaders are sometimes so concerned about who gets the glory that they never coalesce behind a program.

The discussion last night was wide ranging and sometimes disjointed, tackling disparate topics such as the need to give young black people trying to break into the entertainment industry a foundation in finance and business training, whether and how to constructively engage young people caught up in thug culture, and institutional barriers to black people obtaining capital to build wealth.

The forum also celebrated the legacy of Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan and David Richmond instead of dwelling on the controversies of press moment in the city's race relations. That's probably as it should be.

ADDENDUM: More sit-in anniversary events.

Alston warned mayor of consequences of revisiting hotel bond vote

Skip Alston warned Bill Knight and Nancy Vaughan that there could be consequences if an item approved by the Greensboro City Council in December related to hotel bond financing were to come back up on the agenda. Alston acknowledged that he told Knight and Vaughan that “the community would hold them responsible to do the right thing and not to cave into influence by one of the largest taxpayers in Guilford County.”

Knight and Vaughan said that Alston warned if the hotel bond financing item came back up, the mayor could be dis-invited from opening ceremony for the International Civil Rights Center and Museum on Feb. 1, that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be present, and it could be pointed out to the embarrassment of the city representatives that the proposed downtown luxury hotel was a black enterprise, and that Knight, a white man, had defeated the city’s first African-American mayor. Alston categorically denied the specific allegations.

Vaughan went one further, and said that Alston had warned that she, Knight and fellow at-large Councilman Danny Thompson could face recall initiatives if the hotel bond financing were reconsidered. Alston also denied that allegation.

During the conversation, Alston represented himself as a friend passing along information.

Read the full story here in our digital version.

UPDATE: Pickups by Cone and Guarino.

Hayes: Hotel group will turn down offer for land at South Elm and Lee

Deena Hayes says in a mass e-mail that the Ole Asheboro Neighborhood Association has decided to turn down the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission's offer to sell property at the intersection of South Elm streets for $1.1 million as a site for a luxury hotel.

Hayes writes in an e-mail yesterday at 12:26 p.m. to supporters of the neighborhood association's efforts:

Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the effort to bring-wealth building opportunities to the Ole Asheboro Street Neighborhood Association. After talking with our real estate representative, Skip Alston, we all felt that the price that the redevelopment commission attached to the land was inflated and did not fit our plan. Mr. Alston aligned us with a partner a few blocks away and we should be solidifying the partnership in the next 36 hours. The new site is in the heart of downtown and still meets the criteria for the Stimulus Economic and Facility Bond resources that Bridget Chisholm secured for this project. It is in a redevelopment area, the neighborhood association is still a partner and African Americans, Urban Hotel Group/OASNA will have majority ownership.

UPDATE: Looks like I missed the official announcement.