Given the explosive nature of the charges surrounding the "black book" and related issues [...] the people of Greensboro deserve more details...

...One of the statutes covering this kind of thing says city officials can release such information if they deem that doing so is "essential to maintaining public confidence" in city services.

We've crossed that threshold of essentialness, and we need to know more facts. Soon.

From a column I wrote in January...2006.

Whatever Mitch Johnson has done wrong or right, he works for the City Council, and the Council backed him to the hilt through last year.

Maybe some of the public ire about information flow and lack thereof should be directed at the elected officials who misread the public interest from the start, and in some cases may continue to do so today.

Comments

[Spag]

You (along with many others) are right of course, but I have never seen a man so in love with linking to himself.

[Bubba]

You could have eliminated "linking to", Sam.

[Stormy]

I doubt that the council misread the public interest in this matter. The majority simply thought that they could stonewall the public, and it would eventually blow over. They are too invested at this point into the city's handling of this matter to-date. Most of them campaigned on transparency in government, but it was a campaign promise meant to be ignored when the campaign was over.

[Billy The Blogging Poet]

I think said Council needs to awaken to the fact that the sin of omission is equally as wrong as lying, stealing and cheating, and is apparently quite common in GSO government.

Not telling a lie doesn't diminish the fact that it's a lie.

[Ed Cone]

I think the misreading happened way back at the beginning -- that was the reason I wrote that column in January 2006.

"Public interest" has two meanings -- the public's attention, and the importance to the public. Both were undervalued in this case.

The Council misjudged the importance of the police department to the community, and the way problems within the department would resonate with the public.

On transparency, MMB put it this way: "I find lack of cooperation by the people's representatives as chilling as lying and manipulation." She discusses the non-evil literal-mindedness of City staff; that the City is still treating anything to do with this case as business-as-usual is part of the problem.