Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Johnson and Guilford County Board of Commissioners chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston will spearhead an unusual new relationship aimed at adopting a new joint development guide for downtown Greensboro. Today's News & Record reports both elected officials will make the case to their respective boards (City Council and the Board of Commissioners, respectively) to kick off the process within 30 days.The plan was revealed during a strategy session held last night at the West Market Street United Methodist Church where Action Greensboro unveiled a so-called new-and-improved action plan. Only problem is, there's no meat in this plan (see my related post on Guilford School Watch).
N&R excerpt:
The community development group Action Greensboro has volunteered to pay $150,000 for the study.
Johnson said she’d like to see a plan that would guide downtown development adopted by the end of 2009.
So...was there any grist to this meeting or simply a gathering to say that construction on the Downtown Greenway will get underway soon and that the Civil Rights Museum will open next year...hopefully?
Did I really miss anything by not going to this meeting last night?
By the way, Action Greensboro's Judy Morton wrote me back yesterday...her response:
Erik – We are sorry you can’t attend tonight’s meeting but certainly understand. The entire reason Action Greensboro came into existence was to try to minimize the jobs crunch Greensboro was heading for with all the off-shoring of manufacturing jobs. Certainly when folks are unemployed—or underemployed—it creates negative ripples throughout every aspect of life in Greensboro and Guilford County. Please know that whatever we can do to improve your situation we are doing. We’re rooting for you!
Judy Morton
Office & Communication Manager
Action Greensboro
317 South Elm Street
Greensboro, NC 27401
*****************************
UPDATE-1/13/09, 11:08AM: Here's the plan from Action Greensboro, just uploaded onto their site (a blurb from SpringBoard can be found here).
I fail to see a lot of grist in here. I also fail to see where the jobs component and recruitment efforts are in this puzzle. A lot of grandiose plans for downtown won't make a bit of good if there are no jobs to support downtown redevelopment.
E.C. :)
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2 comments:
Surely you've recognized by now, Eric, that if you want to get something done in Guilford county, just say it's about jobs. Works like magic.
Want to build a bike bath around downtown? Say it's about jobs. Want to crap up the city with strip malls? Say it's about jobs. We fall for it every time, as if the simple utterance of the word hypnotizes us. "You want to put what where? Well, okie dokie if it's about jobs."
The people who know how to and actually can create jobs are not busying themselves spending other people's money on feel good "action plans."
Oh yeah...unfortunately, it's all making sense now, Roch. I took my blinders off a long time ago.
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