Bill Knight, a 71-year-old retired certified public accountant who is challenging Yvonne Johnson for mayor, recalled that he would meet his best friend and former running buddy, David Williams, at Port City Java before his friend died.
Williams had been a deputy police chief and considered a strong contender for the top job in the Greensboro Police Department before his retirement in the late 1990s.
“We would sit and read the newspaper and solve the problems of the world,” Knight recalled. “Officers would come in; they probably didn’t recognize him because of the chemo. It really demoralized him: It seems like the officers would be there longer than we would. They would spend 30 to 40 minutes on a break.”
Knight has spent a lot of time talking about the various challenges in the police department over the course of the campaign. His comments reflect a sense of nostalgia for old friendships within the department, and a sense that things have gone wrong in the department.
In early October, he reminisced during a candidate forum held at the Greensboro Public Library about the downtown of his past, about driving a delivery truck and selling linoleum and tires at the Montgomery Ward department store.
“I spent a lot of time downtown over the years,” he said. “I had a lot of friends in the police department. I used to be a runner, a longdistance runner, and we ran there. So I’ve seen a lot going on in downtown.”
On the night that the city council voted to fire former City Manager Mitchell Johnson, Knight spoke asked the body to reimburse David Wray for his legal expenses and to issue a public apology to the former chief. The council discussed the possibility at its most recent meeting but failed to take action.
“This is a step to heal the rift in the city,” Knight said last week during a midafternoon break from campaigning at Yum Yum Better Ice Cream near the campus of UNCG.
The police department presents an array of challenges to the new city manager, Rashad Young, as well as the next mayor and council. Among the items of old business is determining how to handle a number of lawsuits filed by black officers who claim to have been subjected to racial discrimination under Wray’s administration.
“Anything that needs to go to court, let it go to court,” Knight said. “I do not favor a financial settlement.”
He noted that one of the plaintiffs is an assistant chief, adding, “We cannot have an effective police department when one of the assistant chiefs is bringing a lawsuit against the city.”
A more vexing matter might be current and ongoing allegations of misconduct within the police department. Knight has a decision by former interim City Manager Bob Morgan to reinstate police Officer AJ Blake “regrettable.” Blake was acquitted by a Guilford County jury of assaulting his girlfriend and another woman at a drunken police party in January. But Blake has leveled accusations of misconduct against officers himself, including that other officers at the January police party were involved in a swingers club, that supervising officers have made derogatory comments towards Hispanics and harassed Hispanic gang members. Some view Blake as a whistleblower; others see him as an officer who is trying to distract attention from his own unprofessional conduct.
Knight made it clear that does not sympathize with Blake, who has held a number of press conferences, including one with Latin King leader Jorge Cornell.
“The chief should not tolerate an officer holding a press conference against the department,” Knight said.
Knight said he does not believe the mayor and council should micromanage city staff, but emphasized that police officers should be held to a high standard of conduct and professionalism.
“You listen to your city manager,” the candidate said. “The city manager represents the city council, carries out council’s policies. The city council certainly has the right to ask questions…. In the end, members of city council are accountable to the taxpayers. If there’s a perception of wrongdoing in the department or the leadership in the department is not doing its job, I would expect the city manager to hold all department heads accountable for performance.”
As a retired certified public accountant, Knight said he would like to apply his expertise towards reducing expenditures and improve efficiencies in municipal government, and do more to aggressively recruit new employers and reduce regulatory burdens on business.
“I want to do everything I can to make Greensboro fiscally solid, lean and mean, able to do a solid job without spending a lot of money,” Knight said. “I’m a fiscal conservative. I firmly believe that government is not the solution; business is the solution.”
Almost as a mantra, Knight has said during candidate forums that the discussion of business has long been missing from council.
In late October, Mayor Yvonne Johnson defended her record on recruiting and promoting business.
“I don’t agree that we don’t have business at the table,” she said. “We have recruited Precor, which is the top-of-the-line exercise company — 300-some jobs — Lenovo, HondaJet, Federal Express Ground, and I could go on and on.”
Knight said in an interview that Greensboro’s mayor can do more to communicate with leaders in Winston- Salem and High Point to advance regional economic development, and exploit opportunities to attract big companies.
“I’ve made the point if a Boeing — which makes some noises about leaving Washington State,” Knight said. “I would like to think we could get into play with our great educational institutions — nine universities and colleges — a great airport with land to develop around it.”
