news-record.com

GREENSBORO - Listen for yourself. The tape of the closed-door City Council debate tells the tale.

It's all there: the ousted employee, the police department race controversy and the bickering city leaders.

The city Wednesday released a recording of the closed-session City Council meeting in which former City Manager Mitchell Johnson was relieved of his duties.

The hourlong recording offers a rare look at how the council functions and how members decided to fire the city's top employee. Released at the request of the City Council with Johnson's permission, the recording highlights the deep divisions on the council and Greensboro's ongoing conflicts over race and the police department.

"Where we're talking about 1979, we're talking about racial relations with the police department, where we are talking about the city manager; basically where we are today, we cannot move forward," Councilman Zack Matheny said in the closed session, referring in part to the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings in the city. "This thing has taken on a life of its own."

The recording also revealed that the Greensboro Police Department is under investigation by the Justice Department.

Johnson was relieved of his duties March 3 but will work for the city until July in other capacities.

Wray issue still divisive

Johnson's four-year tenure was mired with difficulties, including the 2006 resignation of former police Chief David Wray. Johnson launched an investigation into allegations of racial profiling within the police department and later locked Wray out of his office.

Today, the city faces racial discrimination and other lawsuits from Wray, his former deputy and about 40 police officers.

It was clear from the closed session that those conflicts still divide Greensboro. Councilwoman Goldie Wells said the city has been under a cloud since Wray's departure.

She repeatedly asked her fellow council members to explain why they wanted to dismiss the manager. At one point, Matheny told her he did not like her tone.

Matheny said he came to the conclusion that Johnson had inherited a lot of troubles and the city had been in a quagmire ever since. "Everybody wants to move this city forward," Matheny told Wells.

Councilwoman Sandra Anderson Groat, who choked up as she described how she came to the decision to fire Johnson, said he had become a "lightning rod" among council members.

She said she was disappointed that Johnson did not take responsibility for his tenure.

"He told me....'They want my blood for David Wray's blood,'" she told council members.

Wells blamed the turmoil on council members.

"We have not been a good council. We don't get along with each other. We have our opinions, we stick to what we believe in, and we have not done a thing for Greensboro that's been positive," Wells said. "And we can't put it on the manager."

Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small agreed.

"We have given this man almost a thousand different directions to go in. In one meeting we tell him to stand up. In the next council meeting we tell him to sit down. He has tried to jump up and down and do these things," she said.

Some of the fight over Johnson focused on council members' relationships with each other and how some feel marginalized.

Bellamy-Small and Wells said it was unfair that they were not consulted when Matheny and Groat decided to not support Johnson, touching off his dismissal.

Legal issues were a focus

There was little discussion during the session about whether Johnson would be fired. The session began with City Attorney Terry Wood explaining the terms of the dismissal Johnson agreed to - a plan worked out with a handful of council members, Wood, Johnson and his attorneys before that night's council meeting.

Council members Mary Rakestraw, Trudy Wade and Mike Barber, who pushed for Johnson's dismissal for nearly a year, remained quiet for much of the closed session, speaking mostly to ask questions.

Wade said she felt she was not free to speak during the discussion.

"Anything I say or Mary says or Mike says is going to be a lightning rod, and we don't feel we can make any statements," Wade said in the session.

Council members also considered the ongoing lawsuits against the city from current and former members of the police department and a current Department of Justice investigation into the city's police department.

Wood declined to comment about the Justice Department investigation Wednesday, and the scope and intent of the investigation is not clear.

During the closed session, Councilman Robbie Perkins asked whether dismissing Johnson would put the city in a bad position legally.

"We have a manager who basically made a decision to stand up and listen to some African American police officers who had complaints about the police situation. ... Is that exposure enhanced or increased by us removing the person who voluntarily opened that investigation up and managed through it?" Perkins asked.

Wood said Johnson's help in the inquiry would be crucial.

"We're trying now to fulfill the Justice Department request and he has been helpful in saying, 'You need this, you need that,'" Wood said of Johnson.

Wells said firing Johnson would make the city look bad.

"You don't think we already do?" Rakestraw asked her.

"We will look worse. We will look worse because the people are still talking about 1979," Wells said. "They still know we messed up from that. It is going to come up again. We're trying to get out of that image."

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com