The City Council is set to review City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba at a meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 20.
The meeting is closed to the public, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t give the City Council some ideas of what we think they should consider in their review.
Jaiyeoba has been city manager for seven months. In that time, what has he done to make Greensboro a better place to live?
Jaiyeoba waylaid the City Council with his proposed budget. The city manager’s proposed budget is supposed to be a budget based on direction from the City Council. The majority of the City Council agreed that a tax increase of 2 cents or 3 cents was what they wanted. Jaiyeoba came back with a budget with a tax increase of 11.69 cents over the revenue neutral rate. It’s not even close to what the council requested. Jaiyeoba used some accounting tricks and cut $1 million from the Police Department budget and got the tax increase down to 8.69 cents.
That’s insubordination at the least. He reportedly based his budget on individual requests from councilmembers, not the direction of the majority.
The extremely unpopular $25 fine for not rolling garbage and recycling bins back from the street was part of Jaiyeoba’s budget. There may be other surprises in the budget as well.
The City Council needs to inquire as to what benefits the taxpayers have received from the nearly 30 percent tax increase. Does anyone other than Jaiyeoba benefit from his personal assistant, or adding an additional assistant city manager to lighten his work load? What benefit is it to the public to create another city department?
The budget adds over 60 new city employees. How many of these benefit the taxpayers paying their salaries?
These questions should have been asked before the budget was passed, but everyone on the City Council was running in the July 26 election, which made the entire City Council more than a little distracted during the budget process in June. This review would be a great time to get these questions answered.
When they were campaigning, the city councilmembers talked about the need for more transparency. Jaiyeoba has taken the city government in the opposite direction. He refuses to allow reports and presentations to be posted on the city website before meetings, and at the last work session he wouldn’t even allow councilmembers have the report prior to the meeting. Councilmembers were provided printed copies at the meeting.
Printed, electronic, chiseled in stone – it doesn’t matter what form the documents are in, they are still public records. But when councilmembers receive electronic versions, they share them with people who are interested. Jaiyeoba reportedly doesn’t like the public to have access to the information prior to the meeting.
Jaiyeoba tried to have the media banned from the floor of the council chambers during meetings. He said he would allow media representatives to come down from the balcony after the meetings to speak with councilmembers and staff. He was informed of the First Amendment rights of the media and hasn’t tried to enforce his ban. But what is to be gained by banning the media from a public meeting?
After meeting with Jaiyeoba, the City Council should meet privately to discuss whether to give Jaiyeoba another six months or cut its losses and see if Deputy City Manager Chris Wilson will agree to be interim city manager until they can get someone more in tune with the goals of the City Council.
Wouldn’t surprise me if this city council keeps him and gives him a raise . This seems to be how they operate. They run good people off like Police Chief Brian James and retain the others!
He should go! Nothing has improved since he got here and we are spending more money for less services and the attitude among city workers seems to be disrespectful to the citizens that pay their salaries. That attitude has to come from the top because in all the years I’ve lived in Greensboro, I’ve never seen such disrespect.
The manager clearly is not a team player. His actions have been dictatorial and have not followed direction from the city council. It appears that he was a poor choice to begin with. Show him the road.
It is long past the time for Tai Jaiyeoba to be terminated. His ridiculous budget should never have been approved by the City Council.
The ridiculous budget had to be approved by the council, so that’s the problem. They could have cut it back, but decided to go ahead and approve it.
This guy must have gotten his degree in arrogance….
Gone yesterday is not soon enough.
I think you know Obewan will not get terminated due to his race. Betting he gets a big fat raise from the 30% tax increase we got. You know council takes care of their own.
FIRE HIS A$$!!!
Tai Jaiyeoba is a classic African socialist (he’s from Nigeria). He has only contempt for the “ordinary people”, and believes that the elite – like him – know what’s best for us. Well, if you’re paid $6,000 per week (true) to be a nondescript manager of a small Southern town I guess you would reckon that you’re something special. Why on Earth would they pay that much for a minor bureaucrat? And so much more than the previous City Manager?
This individual is profoundly at odds with our values. He was instrumental in erecting a huge BLM (Black Lives Matter) mural in his previous city, Charlotte, where he was almost summarily fired.
This person has no business managing an ice cream stand at $300/week, let alone our dear city at 20 TIMES that. At least he’d be earning his own money, not leeching off us.
My vote is for him to please leave Greensboro. He has done nothing to improve our city except to raise taxes, hire a person to make sure people in our government are the right color as well as adding 29 others to bloat the city government but he cut money for the police, try to ban media from City Council meetings as well as not letting the public know the agenda ahead of time, and make sure our trash cans are pulled in and charge us if they aren’t.
My vote is send him out the door.
I certainly agree with this article! This city manager has done nothing but spend our tax payer’s money and there appears there is no end in site. Shame on our city council for being hoodwinked by their employee. He should be given his walking papers with as little severance as possible.
How did this buffoon get to be city manager in the first place? Who’s accountable for his appointment?
I have emailed him personally twice only to have both ignored. Although typical for most municipal employees (shame on them), an example from the top would only benefit us all.
Parenthetically, I emailed the Register of Deeds office a couple of months ago. Still no reply….
What a contrast with the Productive Sector, where you normally get a response within 24 hours. But then, that’s the Parasitic Sector for you, isn’t it?
Where did he work before? How did that council evaluate his work? Seems management jobs should be so easy with all the federal money.
He is a divisive “woke” individual who will do nothing but continue to run Greensboro into the ground like sooo many other democrat run cities and states . I recently saw that Greensboro is now losing population in recent months . This insidious tax hike on the citizens of Greensboro is lunacy .
They should fire him, as he has no justification with the property tax increase where he wants it. The mayor and all city council should be terminated, unfortunately the election did not do this. The people who run the city and county are too liberal and should all be gone.
Out! Look for someone with real experience!
Take your losses NOW. This person is a compete embarrassment for our city and to the city council. He thinks he runs the city all by himself and has shown just that. I know this is not the best question , but City Council , are you stupid and ignorant of what’s going on or just don’t care or have the “ba**s to stand up to this man who WORKS FOR YOU. Where is that hardliner Johnson when you need her? Please help Greensboro and fire this man before he really messes things up that even you guys can’t fix.
bigger government does not necessarily mean better government. send him packing!
Jalyeoba will pass this review with flying colors. This City Council can see no wrong in anything this man has done. You can take this statement to the bank. He has found a home.
he has no regard for the citizens, send him on his way
Tai Jaiyeoba’s previous experience in Charlotte included his controversial “2040 Plan” that mandated multi-family homes. The plan narrowly passed 6 to 5, but I suspect it will be radically “revised” since the author is now gracing us with his presence.
Mr. Jaiyeoba attended a university in Nigeria where he grew up, evidently majoring in geography. I don’t know if he graduated or not, but seems to me a degree in geography would be of good use in a classroom or maybe on a game show. His previous experience (in Charlotte at least) allowed him to forward a plan that crams, packs, shoehorns, (et. al) people into an already congested city. Why? Could it be that “multi-family residences” are a basic tenant of COMMUNISM? Why yes, in fact it is. The so-called “trained Marxists” that comprise and lead Black Lives Matter follow the Communist playbook chapter, line, and verse.
I will not live in a socialist/communist city and I suspect a great majority of citizens will not agree to it either. If the Greensboro City Council (and Mayor Vaughan) that hired this guy believe in that kind of future for Greensboro then it is TIME FOR THEM TO GO AND TAKE THEIR COMMUNIST PLANNER WITH THEM.
The Democratic Party of today is a Marxist ,socialist , communist party , gone are the days of the Democratic Party of our grandfathers , today they are wiping away our religious freedoms , destroying our Sacred Constitution,
Boys are girls , girls are boys , the government is Your God now….
Look at you using your big scary words.
Democrats just let people be themselves even if they are different or weird or goofy or even scary. THAT is freedom. But you be you and live in fear of people you don’t understand that will have no impact on your life what so ever.
I’m sorry Chris, but if you genuinely believe in freedom you’re wrong to support the political Left.
Become a Libertarian.
We REALLY believe in freedom.
I find Libertarian’s desire for individuality at the expense of a common good (public health for example) to be selfish and against my personal principles of community. Libertarians also mistakenly believe in a free market and ignore large corporations ability to control and impact lives of millions in very negative ways in pursuit of profit.
Replacing him would have been a top priority had I been elected.
Seems to me it doesn’t matter what we the people say. He has an attitude that stinks, he wants to spend money but not on our neighborhoods. Send him packing PLEASE