As Mayors Races Go this one was a Mind Twister
Posted in Greensboro City Council
Nov. 11, 2007 at 11:40
by BrendaBee
I love a mystery. Not the blood and gore and leaking body fluids type of mystery, but just the little gossipy kinds that tries to explain why people do the things they do. This probably had a lot to do with my choice of psychology as a second career field. Anyhow, the 2007 race for Mayor of Greensboro intrigued me from the very beginning. One candidate's motivations were crystal clear, but other one's just made no logical sense at all. To get a fuller picture before passing on my musing, I had to wait until now after the elections results were in and the money trail had been exposed. But even this didn't help solve this story and perhaps nothing will but the workout to reduce the players actions to some kind of everyday "normal" was fun.I'll take Yvonne Johnson first. Yvonne wanted to be Mayor of Greensboro probably for all of the 14 years or more that she has been both a local politician and a local political operative. She has a lovely smile and a soft voice and she meets and greets well. In fact so well that I don't suppose there is a soul in Greensboro over the age of 10 years who does not know Yvonne Johnson's name. If her campaign finance information is correct, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, so many people know and love Yvonne that they were willing to ante up $71,185. in individual donations to see her elected. Her released reports list every single one of these from the smallest $5 donation to the largest which if I remember correctly was in the $300 range. I am not about to go back over all those pages of names and make sure of this figure even if it does give Roch heartburn. Take a Tums and live with it Roch.
All the other candidates had donations of $50 and under sort of lumped together under an "aggregate" where no name or occupation was given. Yvonne wanted to give credit where credit was due. She also wished us all to realize how many and by how much she was loved I would suppose. I couldn't tell much from her list of donors as far as occupation as they seemed to offer quite a variety, and there were even several from out of state. I understand " I
Yvonne" tee shirts were given out to some supporters. In fact there was a lot of lovin', meeting' and greetin' done during her campaign if I have interpreted the disbursements correctly. She and her supporters do enjoy a good party. Yes, Yvonne was the perfect candidate for mayor, and just think, the first woman and the first Black mayor of Greensboro rolled into one.It was also a fact that the Black leadership in Greensboro wanted a Black for mayor. They believed their time had come. Being men and women of intelligence they also knew there was no way any Black man in their group that is well known for rather nefarious dealings had a snow balls chance in Hell of being elected to anything which required a city wide vote of confidence. Being elected in their own little districts where the minorities are the majority and the residents were not the ones most likely to get out and vote was one thing, but there has been too much dirt swept under Greensboro's Filthy Political Rug to give any of the known Black male leaders credibility with the larger community.
It has not always been this way in Greensboro. In the beginning there were many Black men of goodwill and integrity who were able to open the city political arena up to Blacks. Dr. Simkins was one of these fine men. But somehow over the years the criminal element took over the Black leadership, Simkins PAC and Pulpit Forum and we have had years of shady dealings, claims of poor and inept bookkeeping which allowed the rip off of perhaps millions of tax payer dollars and back room maneuverings that have had the careers destroyed of anyone who questioned these peoples' motives.( Ex. Jackie Dowd, City Auditor for daring to question Project Homestead and ask for an audit). Of course this wasn't done in a vacuum. Oh no, there were many White politicians and officials who aided and abetted these activities, or who stood by and silently allowed them to happen. (In the case of Project Homestead the culprits from the City Council who wanted Dowd's head and went to City Manager Friendly to make this request were Yvonne Johnson and Burroughs-White both Black women, accompanied by Don Vaughn and Robbie Perkins both White men) So we come to the Black leadership feeling that their time for a Black Mayor of Greensboro had come and no one but a Black woman who had a chance of winning such a post.
The question however was,"could Yvonne Johnson win the mayoral race?" In the spring of 2007 after over a year of controversy over the forced resignation of David Wray as Chief of Police of the GPD and less than satisfactory, in fact contradictory, explanations coming out City Hall and damaging stories in The Rhino Times Jerry Bledsoe, "Cops in Black and White" Series there seemed to be a shifting of attitudes towards Blacks in public office by both White voters and young Black voters. I live in a mixed community of middle class people mostly in their 30's and early 40's. Discussions around the pool are often concerning city issues and I can say with confidence that young Black professionals are more that embarrassed with Greensboro's Black leadership. They moved into the northwest portion of the city to get their children into schools like Northwest High and not Dudley. They don't themselves feel as if they are victims of racism and don't want their children to associate themselves with this self defeatist attitude. The unprofessional antics often seen in the County commissions meetings by the three Black commissioners do not entertain or justify them as they are seen as merely embarrassing and demeaning to the entire Black community.
Yvonne Johnson has been in the center of these damning and embarrassing situations. Yes, her presence was quiet and dignified, but she was there nonetheless. The releasing of the RMA report which supposedly proved Wray's racist attitudes and actions, but in actuality was a document put together by so-called professionals that would not have passed as a research paper in any freshman English 101 course for accurate investigative techniques. The public read the report to the extend their stomachs would allow and threw it back in the City Council and City Managers face as a joke at best, but more likely a malicious piece of work that deliberately set out to destroy David Wray's distinguished career as a police officer.
This was followed by a much publicized and immature attempt to lull the public by the entire City Council signing a statement that they were not responsible for the RMA report leak and following this thru with individual lie detector tests. Again featuring Yvonne Johnson front and center in her quiet righteousness and willingness to "clear her name". Diane Bellamy-Small refused to be involved with either of these actions and was therefore tacitly branded as guilty. Soon after this the Black Pulpit Forum issued an inflammatory "Declaration of Intolerable Racism" document listing 8 issues as evidence of White racism in Greensboro. The first item on the list was harassment of Diane Bellamy-Small. Yvonne Johnson stood proudly with her fellow Blacks at the news briefing /rally attended by the Black leadership spoken of above, reporters and a very few White college students trying to relive the 1960's 1970's liberals civil disobedience movement and a very few opportunists who show up at these affairs regularly to be seen and hopefully remembered when their time to run for office arrives. When Yvonne was asked why she took the lie detector test and signed the affidavit and still could sign her name to a document that claimed because she did not do these things Bellamy-Small was being discriminated against, her answer was that she didn't necessarily agree with everything in the document. Which of course begged the question of just what Yvonne Johnson does believe and not believe and unless she is willing to stand up and tell the public each time she is found to be in agreement with some accusations of White racism just exactly what it is she believes then it can only be assumed that she believes in all such statement. So you see in the present day climate of distrust and disgust with what has been happening in Greensboro there was some justified concern as to whether Yvonne could be elected. Something had to be done. The Black leadership wanted a Black mayor and the monied developer boys wanted to keep a nice accommodating city council that would quickly dispatch of this distracting GPD matter and get on with the business of making money.
Now we come to her opponent. Milton Kern is a wealthy developer with his hands full of all kinds of money making schemes in downtown Greensboro and elsewhere. But for some odd reason this busy man steps in and tosses his hat in the ring for the mayors race. Now why would he do a purely insane thing like this? Prestige? Hardly! Mayor of New York is prestige, but not Greensboro, NC. Money? Dear Lordy me but that is a laugh. There was no logical reason at all for this man to be willing to take any of his valuable time away from his first occupation and devote himself to overseeing long tedious meeting listening to irate citizen berate him and the other council members, Dr. Goldie Wells making inane statements now and again and T. Diane Bellamy-Small ramble on and on about every meal she was able to sponge off of some one or some group during the past month at the end of each and every meeting. With all her trucking about town using her position as City Council member to cop free meals it is a wonder she had time for handing out "for our eyes only" city documents and temper tantrums concerning the office arrangements. When one lets themselves visualize Milton Kern man of action in this setting it is down right hilarious people! I mean really now, I'm sure this man would choose even death or worse yet, taxes, over this scenario.
Therefore we come to the Election of 2007 and it is not a sure bet that Yvonne Johnson can win as mayor. What is to be done about this situation? We know the Black leadership represented by the Simkins PAC and Pulpit forum want a Black mayor and it soon becomes apparent that the Melvin/developers/Realtors group dubbed MELDEREC also want Yvonne Johnson as mayor since she has a long standing history of giving them what they want in the area of zoning changes, incentives and approvals. So do the two groups allow just anyone to run against Johnson and possibly win? What kind of candidate could they run who would keep other more worthy candidates off the ballot?
Well then it all comes clear: enter Milton Kern. A very wealthy candidate who had almost unlimited funds to throw at the public to buy their votes would most certainly stop most thinking human beings from considering what could only be seen as political suicide. And it worked. Kern threw his hat in the ring and everyone else just faded into the background. The only reasonable explanation for Milton Kern running for an office he obviously didn't need and even more obviously didn't want considering his "Please Do Not Elect Me" campaign, was that he really and truly wanted Yvonne Johnson to win!
So we have that mystery solved. Nice and tidy with only one slight catch: it almost didn't work. Yvonne Johnson with her $71,185 in individual contributions, $6525 in PAC money (not the Simkins PAC however since they don't give out money to candidates but they do request money from candidates), and disbursements of $56,402.10 garnered only 18,709 votes. Whereas Milton Kern with his $44169 in individual contributions albeit some of them in the thousands per individual; his mere $500 in PAC money and a whooping $30,651 disbursement to one Seattle, Washington firm for running his campaign came in with a vote total of 14,031. Now these were NOT votes FOR Kerns, they were votes AGAINST JOHNSON.
The Simkins PAC/Pulpit Forum/MELDEREC joint venture almost didn't work! The ordinary man on the street people of Greensboro almost won! It certainly will be interesting to watch these next two years and especially the next few months. Don't you agree? BB
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