Thursday, December 6, 2012

In Case You Missed It Creative Loafing Takes On Harry Jones - AGAIN!

You'll miss this re-cap of Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones hubris, since it is buried in the weekly known as Creative Loafing, somewhere in front of the males escorts and strip-o-gram ads but it is worth reading.


John Grooms:

Creative Loafing first got a close look at county manager Harry Jones' high-handed arrogance 10 years ago. In 2002, this paper published an investigative story by former CL reporter Tara Servatius that set off a classic Harry Jones bullying spectacle. The story, "It's A Crapshoot," revealed that millions of gallons of raw, untreated human sewage had been spilled into the county's creeks and streams in the past three years, and that county official charged with enforcing water pollution guidelines had done little to nothing to punish the polluters (i.e., Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities, or CMU).

The reporter, this paper and this writer, in my capacity as editor at the time, were publicly vilified by county officials as "irresponsible" evildoers who, ostensibly, were just out to cause a ruckus. Soon, King Harry told the County Commission that his staff had produced a massive point-by-point response to our article, which would be sent to all local media, "except for Creative Loafing, because they're not interested in the truth." County Commission Chair Parks Helms told Jones that he had to send the response to CL lest the county government appear arrogant. But that was then. King Harry has gotten much worse since.

Last week, a Charlotte Observer editorial (which is here) revealed that Jones "became angry and aggressive" and "upbraided his bosses for their audacity" when the county commission refused to grant King Harry any raise at all this year, much less the 4.5 percent increase he wanted for what he called his "exemplary performance." Sad to say, but for anyone who has followed Jones' ever-growing sense of self-importance, the episode came as no surprise. The Observer editorial went on to, more or less, call for Jones' ouster. We've been saying the same thing for a few years.

Here's a quick review of some of King Harry's "exemplary performances" we've written about.
In 2009, Jones' standard treatment of "his" county government as an Uptown good ol' boys club was in full display when:

1. Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx's wife Samara was handed a $100,000 job as a special assistant to the chief of the Department of Social Services, after posting the job listing for a total of one day;

2. The Department of Social Services hired the daughter of Police Chief Rodney Monroe;

3. It hired the daughter of Superior Court Judge Yvonne Mims Evans;

4. Jones tried his best to cover up a report of tens of thousands of dollars being embezzled from the department's Giving Tree Christmas charity; and

5. Jones reacted to criticism by Bank of America Vice President Harry Lomax by going behind the commissioners' backs to a BofA official in order to have Lomax's complaints quashed.

In 2010, in the middle of a severe economic downturn, Jones accepted a $38,000 bonus on the heels of cutting county jobs and denying raises for everyone else who worked for the county — an action for which he was publicly slammed by Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman, who turned down a bonus, along with his top administrators. In addition, the King showed textbook-quality poor management by waiting until the last minute to tell schools, libraries and parks that they had to make huge, wrenching budget cuts that, to put it mildly, upset the community.

Add to that the revelation of poor, or rather nonexistent, oversight of a nonprofit that handled nearly $2 million in federal funds for the Shelter Plus Care program. And don't forget the brouhaha over a giant conflict of interest after county commissioners received free packets of tickets to the CIAA basketball tournament from Jones, after the county ponied up $200K to the CIAA to keep the tourney in Charlotte.

The rest of John Groom's opt-ed is here.

Cedar's Take: Tossing Harry Jones out on the street will be a hard sell considering that he is allegedly battling pancreatic cancer. However retaining him in a $35,000.00 staff postion, would be pretty smart. First it would ease the conscience and secondly it would lower his 5 year average salary down which would lower his retirment benefit, saving the county a bundle.

Of course if he didn't need the medical coverage, he'd just quit, which works as well.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harry is an arrogant loser who has milked the system for all he could get.....rather successfully!

His record is abysmal, his performance criminal in its total lack of any kind of ethics.

His lack of oversight in his department is appalling. And the lack of oversight given to Harry is shocking.

Like rodney, he seems to have carte blanche, he can lie, cheat, have no conscience and totally scam the public and continuously get away with it!

He, like rodney, plays the race card successfully.

That he and rodney still have jobs speaks volumes about Charlotte, none of it good.

Anonymous said...

how does he keep his job? at least Roberts is gone and Cogdell is gone. Maybe there will be changes.
But probably not.

Anonymous said...

I remember I sent a letter to the a--hole and his response was, if you don't like it lump it. The sign of a true racist.

Anonymous said...

--Nevermind the story was erroneous, poorly reported by Servatius (joke) and edited by Grooms (the Larry Flynt of local publishing).
--Nevermind at least 3 commissioners said the CO editorial was wrong.
--Nevermind the CO now acts like Mary Wilson is a whistle blowing victim when they called for her firing for years
--And nevermind the CO and CL are dying fish wrappers trying to pretend they are relevant.

It's all Harry's fault...please

Anonymous said...

Wow, thanks Cedar for sharing, as I have followed this blog, I do question why the media doesn't cover certain stories they are suppose to be protected under freedom of speech. Those in mainstream media will report a story, but the ones that need to be reported, they have allowed a muzzle to be put on them. They are thinking of the next story and disrespect freedom of speech all together. Muzzle, a device that covers an animals snout. I don't know Cedar if you have been offered the muzzle or not, but if you do please say NO, it is apparent that those reporting in main stream media don't care, just want to report what will get them another story, shame on them. As I have read comments from other past posts over time, those that have posted have chosen to be muzzled as well, talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words. You have something to make a change, do it or continue to wear the muzzle.

HDLadee said...

Oh my...you KNOW you are in trouble when a lapdog progressive paper such as Creative Loafing is throwing you to the wolves!