Taft Wireback - "The council’s wisdom, or the lack of it, in supervising city money emerged as a theme."

[Mostly George Hartzman's] Questions ...dealt with the council’s decision to loan $1.5 million to the struggling International Civil Rights Center & Museum and the recent partnership between the city and Wake Forest University in which the Greensboro Coliseum will manage some events at the school’s Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem.

The council’s wisdom, or the lack of it, in supervising city money emerged as a theme. Both Johnson and Lawyer said the board acted too hastily earlier this year in approving a $300,000 loan for a local couple producing a TV sitcom for the Black Entertainment Network.

The city pulled out of the deal when new information came to light raising questions about the couple’s finances.

...The candidates agreed the general concept of the $65 million performing arts center downtown would be a good thing, but several said they think the council should have put the city’s participation up for a referendum.

A $586,000 commission paid to real estate broker David Hagan — brother-in-law of U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan — for assembling land for the center received criticism Thursday because it left a poor impression with the general public and because critics [George Hartzman] said the same work might have been done by city staff as part of their normal workload.

“That was dumb,” Johnson said, noting that the commission was decided by the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro before the city got involved...

Johnson also said the Lawrence Joel arrangement with Wake Forest was not handled well by city staff.

The agreement will allow Greensboro Coliseum staff and facility director Matt Brown to supervise non-school events at the Winston-Salem arena under a $115,000 contract.

“That came as a surprise to most of us on the council, I think,” she said.

Jean Brown criticized the decision by City Manager Denise Turner Roth to give Matt Brown a $51,000 raise that takes his annual salary to $263,000.

She disagrees with the council’s decision to lend money to the civil rights museum, but Holder said he wants to withhold judgment until the museum produces a “clean audit.”

But he criticized city staff for not updating the public after saying audits of the last several years of museum operation would be completed by late September, “and they (the audits) still aren’t back yet.”

Taft Wireback