Skip Gone Wild

He's gone rogue...or gone wild. Either way, the man you and I know as the chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, has literally lost it.

And Melvin "Skip" Alston, is not through talking (and bad mouthing) the News & Record.

Today's Inside Scoop, with which today's post has so many good quotes, it must be re-run in its entirety for the point to be exploited:

Alston seemed to have a lot on his mind Monday, and he first got to his definitions of the public and the press.

"I had no obligation to inform your newspaper," he said, "and you took it upon yourself to say that the newspaper is the public."

He was going back to an earlier statement he made about not feeling any responsibility to tell me what is going on in the county. And by me, he meant me, Gerald Witt, News & Record employee. I also happen to live in Greensboro.

"I said specifically you," he said, "and your newspaper and you know to what extent I was talking about. And I’m saying there’s no obligation to inform them."

"I talk to my constituents," he said, "and I know what my constituents are saying to you. And I don’t have to talk to you and I don’t have to talk to Allen Johnson. Just because I don’t talk to you all, and it does not mean that I’m not talking to the public."

He said that he doesn't have to include us in on his thought process, or brainstorming when it comes to spending public funds.

"I don’t appreciate that you have to think (we're) thumbing our noses to the public," he said.

We chatted a little more, and he said that the public he speaks with supports his tax-cutting measures and that the only ones that seem to have any problem with anything are at the News & Record.

Then we asked how many phone calls he fields in a day.

"That’s for me and the public to know," he said, "and I think you're being sarcastic."

We asked how he logs his contact with the public.

"Again, I think that you're being facetious. My job is to bring about efficiency, not to explain to you how I act as an elected official," he said.

"I’m bouncing a few things off my constituents," he said, "not with the News & Record."

So then we asked his definition of constituents.

"My constituency is all the citizens that are paying their tax dollars and every citizen of Guilford county ... not just the constituents in my district, and I’m not saying that I talk with every person in the county," he said. Alston said he talks with residents who call him, business people and plenty of others.

"You are a reporter, and you are trying to get a story. The average citizen is trying to get it for average information. And you take what I say and then twist it. That’s what makes you different, and these people are doing it out of concern for their neighbors and themselves."

Commissioner Billy Yow accuses Alston of being a liar:

"The chairman has not come out with any mission statement," Yow said, and he’s promised transparency. And he lied to the public and he lied to you, the media, and he’s not bringing the transparency."

Alston said when he was named chairman that he would be more open to the public.

There's been a number of accounts to the contrary.

"And if his memory fails him that much," Yow said, "you should blister his ass for not telling and doing what he said he’s going to do."

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The circus that is...Guilford County, part 77.

E.C. :)