20/200 Vision

Almost blown to OZ last night. Posting delayed (draft was saved on Monday - and actually posted on Tuesday - I'm not computer savy enough to change the date).

A few days ago, the Courier Tribune took time from following the adventures of an errant rooster, to announce that the "Asheboro 20/20" strategic-planning committee (a dream-child of the Asheboro City Council) had formulated a plan of action to "make Asheboro a model community to live work and play". Here's the link to the story: Asheboro 20-20 .

The committee is chaired by Randolph Hospital CEO, Robert Morrison. Now that was a pretty hard city-government-sanctioned pill to swallow, given that I appeared before the Council in 2004 and levied some pretty serious charges against "Chairman Bob" (insert nasal yankee-twang) in terms of unethical leadership . . . charges of the "Martha Stewart went to prison for it" variety. To this day, those charges remain uninvestigated by our local District Attorney (that's Garland Yates, everybody's second-favorite "law & order" Republican . . . until Sheriff Hurley retires).

Garland is pretending I don't exist.

As for the Asheboro City Council , they apparently think a "non-profit" hospital CEO committing perjury to get his way is no big deal. One of our most-favored (and best paid) "public servants" lied under Oath? Call for an investigation? Who us?

Perjury? What penalty? There's a penalty? Who knew?

You can count me among those long-term Asheboro residents who think Bob Morrison's "vision" is in dire need of Lasik therapy. And the Asheboro City Council needs to take off the rose-colored glasses when they look in his direction.

I attended two of the four 20/20 "public forum" meetings. Those meetings did not boast big numbers in terms of attendance. And, as far as I know, I was the only MD present at the ones I attended (I'm not sure what that says about the community-mindedness of the doctors Bob didn't run out of town). Those folks who did attend the meetings found it very odd that the Courier Tribune didn't have reporters there. Of course that made it easier to avoid reporting any embarrassing "unscripted moments" . . . like the "unpretty" things that some of the attendees said.

It's called pretending the plebes don't exist.

The steering committee asked for feedback (if anybody is interested in providing feedback at this late date, the consultant's name is Ginger Booker, of the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments, e-mail: gbooker@ptcog.org). Being the good citizen (who never gets her "Letters to the Editor" printed because the Courier's publisher, David Renfro approves of pretty much everything Bob does), I drafted a letter to the entire City Council, and forwarded it through my old high-school classmate, now City Manager, John Ogburn.

John grew up to run the town. I grew up to be run out of it.

The thing that really BURNS my tail is that city leaders keep telling us if we don't change our ways, Asheboro is doomed. We're just another Southern mill town waiting for globalization to leave us behind in the dust. Well, excuse me, WHO led us to where we are (and filled their own pockets quite handsomely doing it)? The people of Asheboro did EXACTLY what the big guns at Black & Decker and Sara Lee and Acme McCrary and Bossong and Klaussner wanted. Now the same people that got us to the middle of this ocean are telling us the boat is sinking. We're on our own little version of the Titanic - with most of us stuck down in steerage. Should we keep groveling and paying the bills that kill, or MAYBE, JUST MAYBE ask for/demand something newer and better and fresher than the (old and tired) Bob Morrison method of hiring expensive consultants and forming "Task Forces" populated by the hand-picked?

Of course, Bob Morrison did very well for himself in Asheboro's "non-profit" sector. His CEO salary & benefit package totalled $352,783 last year (and psssssst, Bob, it's NOT "confidential").

Asheboro has paid dearly for bad vision.