Developments across the Triad and beyond, compiled by Keith T. Barber
Federal law enforcement funding announced
The Obama administration announced $56.3 million in new law enforcement funding for North Carolina on March 5. The funds are designated for a wide variety of uses, including hiring new officers, multi-jurisdictional drug and gang task forces, crime prevention, domestic violence initiatives, courts, corrections, treatment and information sharing. A total of $2.8 million of the funds will go to local governments in Guilford and Forsyth counties, including $1.2 million to Greensboro, $901,711 to Winston-Salem and $403,652 to High Point. - JG
Protest petition passes
The protest petition has been restored to Greensboro after 37 years in which the city was exempted at the request of city council. The NC House voted unanimously to reinstate the protest petition on March 3, and the Senate approved the measure the following night. As local legislation, the bill will be signed by the secretary of state instead of the governor. “It’s a great day for Greensboro neighborhoods,” said Sen. Don Vaughan, one of the cosponsors.
“I still don’t understand all these years why it was taken out of the Greensboro ordinances.” In a Feb. 18 e-mail that anticipated passage of the legislation, Rep. Pricey Harrison, one of the House sponsors, credited YES! Weekly with bringing the exemption to her attention, and High Point resident Keith Brown for his advocacy. “Keith, you kept me motivated to pursue this in the face of significant opposition from the builder/ realtor community,” she wrote. “Finally, we are close to righting this injustice.” — JG
Downtown Greenway to begin construction
Action Greensboro has issued a contract worth $134,673 to Greensboro-based S&S Building and Development to build the first phase of the Downtown Greenway.
The contractor was set to begin work with a pre-construction meeting on March 2, and will soon break ground on a section of the 4.8-mile path at the Greensboro College Sports Park in the Warnersville neighborhood. The path will encircle downtown, connecting neighborhoods such as Westerwood, College Hill, Ole Asheboro, the NC A&T University area and Fisher Park. Both public and private sources are funding the project, including a $7 million street improvement bond approved by voters last November, and grants totaling $5.5 million from the Cemala Foundation, the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, the Moses Cone Wesley Long Community Health Foundation and the Weaver Foundation. — JG
Motion proclaiming Smith’s innocence is tabled
A citizen review committee charged with looking into Winston-Salem police procedure in the 1995 Silk Plant Forest- Jill Marker assault case tabled a motion by one of its members proclaiming there is no credible evidence to link Kalvin Michael Smith to the crime and urging the city council to do everything in its power to have Smith freed from prison.
In 1997, a Forsyth County jury convicted Smith of brutally assaulting Marker during an armed robbery of the Silk Plant Forest shop. James Ferree, a member of the Silk Plant Forest committee, put forth the motion, which met with considerable resistance from several members.
Committee member Barry Lyons said the committee’s charge is to make recommendations on police procedure, not to determine guilt or innocence.
Ferree responded,
stating the committee was instructed by city council to conduct a
comprehensive fact finding review of the police department’s
investigation.
Ferree added the committee has an obligation to
seek the truth and do justice. The committee resolved to hold its vote
on the motion after three of its members interview Smith at Albemarle
Correctional Institute on March 13. The committee’s next meeting is
March 17. — KTB
Call for audit and open bidding on Health Plan
The State Employees Association of North Carolina and the NC Justice Center are calling on the state to audit alleged overpayments to Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina in its administration of the insurance plan that covers almost 670,000 current and former employees and to open the contract up for bidding to reduce costs for the plan, which is facing a $1.2 billion shortfall. The NC Justice Department alleges that the healthcare provider charges 18 times more per claim to administer the State Health Plan than the state pays to process Medicaid claims. “While state purchasing agents are required to bid office furniture,” said employees association Executive Director Dana Cope, “it’s ridiculous that the $100 million annual health plan contract is not openly bid for the best services and price available.” — JG
Silk Plant Forest detective served
The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office served former Winston-Salem Detective Donald R. Williams a
court summons on March 7 to respond to a subpoena issued by the
Winston-Salem city council in December, Assistant City Attorney Al Andrewssaid.
Williams, the lead detective in the 1995 Silk Plant Forest-Jill Marker
assault case, was served the subpoena on Nov. 28. On Dec. 17, the city
council instructed City Attorney Angela Carmon to seek court
action to compel Williams to testify about police procedure in the case
after he failed to appear at a special council meeting.
Williams
has refused to cooperate with the Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review
Committee. Andrews said Williams has 10 days to respond to the summons,
and has a number of options. “He could request an extension, which is
typical. Then there would be a hearing set and the city would have to
respond to whatever he puts forth.
It could be anytime from 60 days until the fall,” Andrews said. Williams could also choose to come in voluntarily and testify.
Last
month, the city council extended the deadline for the citizen review
committee’s final report in part to give it time to gather Williams’
testimony. — KTB
US House passes mortgage reform bill
The
US House passed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, which would
allow judges to modify mortgages to help struggling homeowners avoid
foreclosure, in a vote that fell largely along party lines on March 5.
Rep. Brad Miller, a Democrat who represents the 13 th
Congressional District, said on the House floor: “We do enforce
contracts, except when people get hopelessly in debt, we allow them to
draw a line, to pay what they can, and then to get a fresh start in
life. That’s what bankruptcy does. In fact, home mortgages is the only
kind of debt that can’t be modified. And that is not because that was
brought down on stone tablets from Mount Sinai, that exception.
It’s
just a special interest give, which we see around here all the time. In
1978, the mortgage industry got that exception as a special interest
provision.” Joining Miller in voting for the legislation was Democrat
Rep. Mel Watt from the 12 th Congressional District. Republicans Virginia Foxx and Howard Coble, who
respectively represent the 5 th and 6 th districts, voted against the
bill. Miller credited Citigroup for “playing a constructive role in the
compromise” that brought about the bill, and lauded the Durham-based
Center for Responsible Lending for advocating reform since early 2007. — JG
