Score one for the Working class & Homeless Organizing Alliance (WHOA).
Representatives of WHOA demanded that the City Council turn down a Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) of $250,000 from the Department of Justice because in the contract to accept the money there is a clause that stated the city wouldn’t interfere with sharing information regarding “citizenship or immigration status with federal agencies.”
And the City Council voted to turn down the grant.
The fact that this clause was in the 36-page agreement was brought to the attention of the City Council at the Jan. 7 meeting by a member of WHOA, who said that meant the Greensboro Police Department would have to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
At that meeting the City Council couldn’t figure out if it had accepted the grant or not at the Dec. 17 meeting and decided to put it back on the agenda.
It’s possible that similar wording is in other federal grants the city receives, which could result in the City Council turning down more federal grants.
The vote to accept the grant was defeated on a 5-3 vote, with Councilmember Goldie Wells absent. Those voting against accepting the grant were Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilmembers Sharon Hightower, Michelle Kennedy, Tammi Thurm and Yvonne Johnson. Those voting in favor of accepting the grant were Councilmembers Justin Outling, Nancy Hoffmann and Marikay Abuzuaiter.
Abuzuaiter noted that in past years much of the JAG money had been used to buy police cars, and that while opponents were expressing concern for the immigrant community, the number one request that she heard from the immigrant community was they wanted safe places to live.
Vaughan said that nobody on the City Council worked more with the immigrant and refugee community than Abuzuaiter, but that she could not support accepting the JAG money because, while the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) did not collect information on immigration status, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department did and she didn’t know what it did with that information.
Which raises another issue with the $250,000 grant. Of that money, $138,000 would have gone to the Greensboro Police Department, $61,000 to the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department and $51,000 to the High Point Police Department.
Because Greensboro is the lead agency and the City Council turned down the grant, Guilford County and High Point won’t get their money either.
Outling said that the GPD didn’t collect the information and ICE didn’t ask the GPD for it. He said if that changed and ICE demanded immigration information from the GPD, the city could always return the money.
After the meeting, Vaughan said, “If we could apply for the money on our own, I would vote to accept it.” She said that she didn’t like being responsible for other jurisdictions.
City Council members are morons
What part of illegal does this council not understand? These people are already breaking the laws. I guess the Greensboro City Council cares nothing for the legal residents of Greensboro. The whole lot of them are useless!!
Mayor Vaughan may not be comfortable with making decisions for other jurisdictions, so why not ask what the Sheriff and HPPD wanted. Or ask what we the taxpayers want since we the taxpayers will get to make up the money somewhere along the way. I doubt Hightower is going to write a check even though she thinks $138K is a small amount of money. I agree with interfacegal – what part of illegal do these city council imbeciles not understand? At least Justin tries to get these council hens to listen and understand, but he is fighting a losing battle. Collectively the IQ of the City Council is in the single digits and only slightly higher than a rock.
Greensboro city council wouldn’t want to take any action to enforce standing laws now would they. No wonder they are turning into another crime capital like Charlotte. Should help attract business. May be one reason they have to pay companies to stay.
WOW- our city council has made another big mistake in free money that could be used to save lives. Tell us please what has the Working class & Homeless Organizing Alliance (WHOA) done for the city? Helping citizens? Never hear the good, if any they do, only the ability to control a select few city council members.
John- can the Rhino Times do a story on WHOA? Showing both positive and negative?
The select few continues to show there ignorance, stupidity, racist views without researching the facts. Not only did you fail to help protect the citizens of Greensboro, you now have effectively hurt Guilford County and High Point citizens. I am confident those agencies would have put the money to good use to reduce crime.
When are we going to see the results of the $500,000 dollars you gave to councilwoman Johnson?
This is really outrageous. When five ultra liberal members of the Greensboro City Council can deprive other law enforcement agencies of substantial grants because of their personal prejudices. The citizens of Greensboro, High Point and Guildford County deserve much better. The personal prejudices of these five councilwomen will prevent enforcement of United States general statutes. What is next – city council deciding what state laws and city ordinances will be and will NOT be enforced by the Greensboro Police Department? This would be a very slippery road that we do not want to go down and would lead to tent cities and people pooping on the sidewalks. The citizens of Greensboro deserve much, much more from this council!
Government officials such as the council, as well as sheriffs and law enforcement personnel cannot be allowed to choose what laws they will enforce. The laws are passed by state and federal representatives. We are going to see state and federal money with held from local governments that flaunt the laws. You should be ashamed of yourselves GSO council.
Greensboro, the new San Francisco. Where drug addicts, mentally ill homeless and illegal aliens get free healthcare, free housing, get out of jail free passes and get to drive way nicer vehicles than me with no driver’s license or insurance required. All so a few SJW politicians can feel good about themselves.
As much as I hate to say it, I truly hope their lives will be impacted by their reckless decisions. Wonder how good they’ll feel when their daughters are raped, when their family members are injured or killed in a wreck caused by a non-licensed, intoxicated illegal. How will they feel when their sons are shot/stabbed by a repeat illegal criminal that’s just been released from jail instead of being held accountable for his crimes?
Karma is a bitch and we reap what we sow. Keep voting them in people.
These council members are the problem. They won’t accept badly needed funds for protecting our communities because it means we might need to abide by laws and cooperate in the protection of US citizens and those here legally. REALLY? And, they don’t want to make the decision for other jurisdictions to also abide by laws. Seriously? That is full-press BS. HOW is it possible that they were even elected? Did they pay for and orchestrate their votes? Were they truly elected without corruption? Who would vote for them? They need to be removed from having the authority to govern over legal law-abiding citizens. They are not working for us and are performing their duties in a way that promotes crime within our communities and sets a precedence for breaking the rule of law. All – please use your vote to purge them from their reign-of-disease-promoting-management and replace them with folks that can help to heal our communities. From within.
I’ll ask the same question Mark Robertson asked, when are you going to stand up for my rights as a law abiding citizen!
Just to clarify after reading the comments: I voted to accept the JAG grant. All federal grants have pretty much the same requirements and I fear that many of our other federal grants could become impacted by this refusal to accept the JAG grant. We have accepted this grant for 10+ years and have never had an issue.