Perkins on Urgency
From Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins in the N&R:
ON his desire to build a downtown performing arts center, sooner rather than later:
“I think we made the right move by trying to heavily involve the community and not having the council take this one on themselves. We’ve put together the most significant task force in Greensboro since 1991, when a group was convened to discuss options for the expansion of the Greensboro Coliseum. And I think we have the best and brightest in our community working on this. … It’s a fluid process. You can’t start to work on a project like this and have all the answers at the beginning. …
“I also think it’s obvious we’ve got a functionally obsolete, 50-plus-year-old building (in War Memorial Auditorium) that the folks in the business say is not worth putting a nickel into because you can’t see and can’t hear and the bathrooms don’t work and the rest of the building is in worse shape. It’s something you can maintain for a while, but that while is a very short window.
“It’s not something that is salvageable.
“So, if we want to be the third-largest city in the state, and we have a goal of creating jobs and economic development, then we need to build a community that folks will want to come to. One of the essential components is the performing arts.”…
ON some deeply personal criticism he has weathered on the local blogosphere and elsewhere:
“That’s fine. You’ve got an opinion, I’ve got an opinion. We’re gonna differ and go on down the road. You can’t take it personally.
“This is a job you’ve got to have some pretty tough skin to get through. All of your decisions are not gonna be right. But you’ve got to stand on something. You’ve got to make a decision.
I don’t think he’s aware of the present transitional nature of the increasingly interrelated layers of economic systems.
Well, there ya go. The guy’s got an MBA from Duke but seems clueless about the world in which he presumably lives. According to the N&R, that would be a deeply personal criticism, from a local blogger, rather than some supposed elsewhere.
First sentence is a lie: “I think we made the right move by trying to heavily involve the community” I went to the so-called community forums where no one other than task force members were allowed to address the room. Just another dog and pony show.
Actually it wasn’t JUST another dog and pony show. It was a highly-formulated exercise to generate a pre-determined outcome. And anybody who uses two or more hyphenated words in a sentence should horse-whipped.
That’s a whole lot better than what I had.
I put this up and went to work. I was hoping somebody might drop by and comment so I’d have an opp to say what I thought. Thanks.
His MBA should be revoked.
You’re not the first to suggest it.