One of the most interesting things that happened at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners work session on Monday, June 17, didn’t happen at the work session – it happened right afterward when Commissioners Jeff Phillips and Skip Alston sat locked in intense conversation and asked the media to step away so that reporters could not hear what the two men were talking about.
The mystery discussion was a last minute appeal from the Democrat Alston to the Republican Phillips to get Phillips to vote in favor of roughly $250,000 in county funding to establish a proposed Cure Violence program in Greensboro.
For months, advocates for Cure Violence have been encouraging both the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners to fund the program that uses ex-felons and others with criminal records to attempt to reduce murders and violent crimes in cities.
The plan on the table calls for Cure Violence to be placed under the Greensboro-based non-profit One Step Further Inc. and for the City of Greensboro and Guilford County to each fund half of the roughly $500,000 cost for the first year of a program in two high-crime sections of Greensboro. Those plans seemed to hit a brick wall last month when it became clear that there weren’t enough yes votes on the Board of Commissioners to approve the plans and therefore the Greensboro City Council repurposed money it had planned to use to pay for the program.
However, if Cure Violence is dead, no one has told Alston: On Monday Alston was working hard to get Phillips on board. As the votes are thought to stand now, a single vote swayed toward Cure Violence funding could swing the board, and it’s commonly believed that, if Guilford County does approve funding, the city would gladly vote to approve as well.
Alston said after the discussion that he was not sure if Phillips was convinced yet of the wisdom of funding the program but he added that he was still working the Republican commissioners.
The Guilford County commissioners are expected to adopt the county’s 2019-2020 budget on Thursday, June 20, and that would be the logical time for the county to approve the funding if it’s going to happen this year. The Republicans would like to see a unanimous vote on the budget – or at least a bipartisan one – and they could likely pick up some of those votes if Cure Violence is funded in the budget.
So far, the five Republicans on the Board of Commissioners haven’t seemed to budge on Cure Violence, and, after the meeting, Republican Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Alan Branson said he didn’t believe at the current time that there were five votes on the board to support it.
This will never work.
If they cave and vote to appropriate that money, they should know up front that they are wasting a quarter millions dollars. This program stinks and has no positive outcome (ask Chicago and Durham). It’s a backdoor way for folks to make a half million dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. Does nobody think it is a conflict to have a Greensboro City Commissioner as the Director of the group in charge of running this failed program? Please, Please do not cave on this issue. Demand that the ones purporting its success to provide proof of its success.
Is it worth endorsing a program with all the pitfalls and legal issues like Cure Violence just to get Skip Alston to approve the county budget so it can be a unanimous vote? Surely not. Please commissioners, let this issue be put to bed like the Greensboro City Council has done.
As the homicide rate continues to climb in Greensboro, this money would be better spent placing more officers on the street. Re- create, re-structure the street gang unit along with special ops folks and focus on areas of high crime. Why not let the anti- police groups handle this problem? They are great at yelling, screaming, complaining, disrupting city council meetings, and protesting when police are involved in an unfortunate arrest or shooting. Has anyone seen or heard these groups take any action in their neighborhoods to reduce these constant tragedies? When police and neighborhoods can work together is when a reduction in crime will occur. Providing funding to the x-mayor, and convicted criminals is not the answer in my opinion. City council needs to untie the police hands and allow them to do the job(s) they were hired to do. Police chief needs to support his department and tell the council he has this. Yes we understand not making waves to protect a pension as the city council can hire and fire as they please. Seems so far the council has and continues to support the chief.
Action speaks as loud as words when we all work together for a common goal. Get involved- safe a life!