If there was an award for ignoring the elephant in the room, the Greensboro City Council would win a gold medal.
During the March 5 City Council meeting, Tai Jaiyeoba sent an email to members of the City Council, resigning as city manager.
During the next meeting of the City Council on Tuesday, March 19, Mayor Nancy Vaughan did mention that Jaiyeoba had resigned when she introduced a resolution to appoint Deputy City Manager Chris Wilson as interim city manager at a salary of $240,000 a year, but otherwise the fact that Jaiyeoba had suddenly resigned by email in the middle of the previous meeting was not mentioned.
However, the resignation of Jaiyeoba was talked about obliquely at length.
Councilmember Sharon Hightower made a long statement where she recited the oath of office that she took when she was sworn into office and implied that other unnamed members of the City Council had violated their oaths of office. But she didn’t say how they had violated their oaths of office.
Councilmember Goldie Wells followed Hightower’s statement with a little more openness about why she and Hightower were both so upset. Wells said, “I was a little bit upset because I thought some of the confidentiality that I thought should have been kept in closed session, and when I saw things in the newspaper, I was really upset.”
Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann talked about “strict parameters” of what must be kept confidential in closed sessions.
Although none of them came out and said what crime their fellow members of the City Council had committed, the reason they were upset was that both Vaughan and City Councilmember Tammi Thurm gave almost identical statements to the press about the reason that Jaiyeoba resigned, which was that he had violated a city policy for which other employees had been fired.
Hightower, Wells and Hoffmann appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the North Carolina Open Meetings Law, which “allows” governmental bodies to go into closed session to discuss certain issues. It does not require that the City Council go into closed session and the law does not forbid councilmembers from talking about what was discussed in closed session with the media. There are laws that require some personnel information to be kept confidential, but not all personnel information is confidential.
In the past, when a city manager has resigned, an explanation of why they were resigning has been part of the announcement. It was not kept confidential that former City Manager Rashad Young resigned to accept the job of city manager of Alexandria, Virginia, and it was not considered confidential that Denise Turner Roth resigned as city manager to accept a position in the Obama administration.
It appears that Hightower, Wells and Hoffmann didn’t want any information released about why Jaiyeoba suddenly resigned from his $322,000 a year job and don’t believe that the taxpayers of Greensboro, who will continue to pay his salary for three months, have any right to know anything about why he chose to resign.
But just because Hightower, Wells and Hoffmann don’t want a topic that the City Council discussed in closed session to be reported in the media doesn’t require other members of the City Council to keep information confidential.
Hightower and Wells are the new version of Boss Tweed patronage managers. They each only care about promoting race based progressive policies that advance the interest of non whites. If that means keeping secret that our City Manager had an affair with his hand picked Integovermental Relations Manager (there is a pun in there somewhere…) and the famial fallout is recorded on a police camera at his home then every effort must be maintained to protect his highly questionable integrity. Why else pay severance to an employee who would be fired except to protect a favorite son.
Transparency at an all time low. Shame on our city council and our Mayor, what else are they sweeping under the rug. Disgusting behavior from our City council who salary’s are paid for by citizens of Greensboro.
The problem with Hightower, Wells and Hoffman is that they all think they are smarter than others, but in-fact, they are stupid. YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!
No surprises here. Ignorance is bliss.
#1 Hoffman sucks. She rarely says anything. All three of them (and Zack’s weird statement) reeked of “I know something you don’t know.”
#2 Hightower doesn’t seem to mind leaking information when it benefits her.
What’s the secrecy? Released the alleged emails. Transparency BS
Why should malfeasance committed by ANY “Public Servants” be withheld from the public?
Don’t you know? It’s because Jaiyeoba is black and east greensboro was trying to support him knowing the next manager might not be of the same race.
If you look at the district outlines, all council members have a small percentage of “downtown” geekborough, which is yet one more reason to dilute the voters who do not live “downtown”. See how this works? They need to break up greensboro into districts like we see with the county. . .but even then, those need to be reviewed again as well.
Wait for it, wait for it! The race card will be next.
Ok here you are folks. Hightowers cell # is 336-317-4953, wells is 336-317-4590, hoffmans is 336–255-1306. For all council members cell numbers call 336-373-2396. Call them all every day UNTIL we the taxpayers get an answer as to why the manager resigned and still gets 100k of tax dollars for nothing. And secondly why does his former mistress with a created position at 135k a year still have a job. Call and leave a message multiple times a day. Don’t stop. This YOUR money that was wasted
In case anyone is interested Ms. Crawfords the governmental manager for Greensboro, a position that was created for her by the former manager with NO experience in this position at 135k a year her number is 336-373-7926. Just give her a call and wish her well also when you do ask her why her twitter account was scrubbed the day after the former manager resigned.
This article is a great example of how you can recognize “hacks,” poor journalists, or disingenuous actors trying to get by as journalists.
1. The only mention of a “crime” is by the journalist himself. Council members are cited as questioning statements of others but the only person to mention a crime is the “journalist.”
2. The “journalist” then mocks the council members for “a fundamental misunderstanding of the North Carolina Open Meetings Law” that nobody claims was violated.
3. The “journalist” then goes on to explain how the law (that nobody in the article claims was violated) allows for what council members found distasteful (but not illegal).
4. Wrap up the story with airtight fact based insights like “it appears that…” then draw the conclusion that fits your needs.
The slanted, disingenuous reporting is exceeded only by the sheer laziness of this entire article. The entire basis of this article is to put the author at the center as the authority. Contrived. Pathetic. Sad.
Good one!
Are tickets still available for both shows Friday and Saturday night?
The journalist is the person who broke the story. Otherwise all this may never have come to light.
I reckon you owe “the journalist” an apology,
Justice and law have lost touch with eachother. Is that why Jesus had to come, live, die, prove his power over death? Come on people, live and walk a better path, how many times does He have to teach the lesson? You know when it’s a choice, aim higher. This could have all been avoided, shame on all the lies. Just stop, no more secret meetings. Nothing done in secret stays true.
Chris Wilson has invited us city employees to “coffee with Chris” so that we may have casual conversation and ask any questions we may have”. Where do we go with our questions about our former City Manager? Where do we go to get an explanation as to why he received severance after breaking our city policy? If you can’t legally discuss Tai’s case specifically, speak to us generally. What are the different reasons someone could receive severance? Where are we supposed to ask these questions without risking our jobs?