Grassroots of Tarboro

Last week I learned something about Tarboro's form of government. 

I thought I'd like to talk to Mayor Donald Morris about the future 2nd Saturdays events, in hopes that he could inform me of any red tape that we might encounter.

I knew that up until he retired from business, Mr Morris could be found at his furniture store on Main Street, but now, I had no idea where to find him.  I asked at the town hall and was given his home phone number and his cellphone number.

I thought it was very strange that the mayor doesn't have an official office, so I did what I always do,  I researched.

According to the town website:

"Tarboro operates under a Council-Manager form of government. The Mayor is elected at-large on a non-partisan basis for a four-year term. Eight Council Members are elected from wards on a non-partisan basis for four-year staggered terms. A professional manager is employed to administer the operation of the Town. A team of seven department heads assist the manager."

My next step was to understand what is meant by a Council-Manager form of government, so off to my favorite web source Wikipedia.

" In the council-manager form of government, an elected city council is responsible for making policy, passing ordinances, voting appropriations, and having overall supervisory authority in the city government. In such a government, the mayor will perform strictly ceremonial duties or will act as a member and presiding officer of the council, similar to a chairman. The council will appoint a city manager or administrator who will be responsible for supervising government operations and implementing the policies adopted by the council. The manager serves the council, usually with a contract that specifies duties and responsibilities. "

So ... if I've got this right, the councilmen are responsible for making all of the important decisions for our town,  the mayor acts as the chairman at meetings, and the city manager's position is to supervise operations and implement the policies adopted by the council.

One small problem, which may have screwed things up a bit around here, the town manager has an office at the town hall, everybody knows where to find him.  The mayor and council are scattered about town and not as easily accessible and available.  As a result, the town manager has become the hub of our government's information exchange.  It may or may not be factual, but it is a common impression held by citizens around town, that our town manager's opinions are greatly affecting the choices and decisions made by the council on behalf of the town.  

Our town manager was employed to supervise operations and implement policies adopted by the council.  He is our town manager, he is not a town leader, he was not elected by the people to make or to affect decisions made on our behalf.  I mean no disrespect to the man.  Sam Noble has done an excellent job as our town manager, but I am not incorrect in stating that many town citizens are concerned about his apparent "power" in council decisions.  Even more troublesome, is how the town citizens feel about their own "lack of power". 

The more I become interested in the revitalization of Tarboro,  the more I recognize the depth of what needs to be done.  If we want Tarboro to be a town of excellence, we need to rethink how things have been done and look to how things should be done in the future.

A new restaurant opened a few months ago on Main Street in Tarboro.  La Familia Restaurante, serving Spanish and Caribbean foods.  Considering how few eateries we have downtown, you'd think their business would be booming, but like many downtown business owners "The Family" is discovering that our downtown is not as thriving as it may look.  They have had days when very few customers come in, but their rent is due every month.

 I admit my first impression when they opened their doors in mid-January was not that great, but I was only aware of their inexpensive Daily Combos, budget meals with rice and beans that were fast to prepare for workers on a tight schedule.  I didn't know about the house specialties and wide array of dishes made with beef, chicken or shrimp.  I didn't know they had salads and sandwichs. I didn't know they had fresh juice drinks, shakes and desserts. 

I spoke with Ramona Michel, the owner, on this past rainy Saturday and she asked me "Where are all of the people?" "Why aren't there more people downtown?".  She has tried taking menus to Sara Lee and to Heritage Hospital but both times was stopped and told that she could not distribute menus on their property.

If the newspaper ads don't reach many customers, and you can't distribute menus, and very few people actually come downtown, how is a downtown business supposed to survive?

I will help in the ways I know how.   I will eat there at least once a week.  I will encourage folks to give the restaurant a try.  I will help them to get the word out.  I created a webpage for them and put the menu online, so more of you can easily find it, see what they have to offer, maybe call in a lunch-time order or take your family out for a Caribbean-style dinner.  The menu can be found at www.gotarboro.com/la-familia .

If we want Tarboro to be a healthy thriving town we all have to make an effort to support our local businesses.
Remember BUY LOCAL, EAT LOCAL, BE LOCAL.

At the March town council meeting, an issue was raised regarding a possible "conflict of interest" in hiring councilman John Jenkins son's firm, Circumerro Creative,  to re-design and develop the town’s Web site.

According to  Mike Blough, the town’s attorney, it’s not a conflict because John Jenkins has no financial interest in his son’s firm headquartered in Wyoming.  

Ok, so maybe legally it is not a conflict of interest, but COME ON, do the town officials really think the people are that naive?  We're talking about a $60,000 contract!  $60,000 is more than the median yearly income in Tarboro  ($48,187) and I can tell you without much worry of being wrong that the majority of the people in Tarboro would see it as a conflict of interest and as a betrayal of trust. 

According to Wikipedia:  A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust,  has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system.  A conflict of interest arises when anyone has two duties which conflict - for example an employee's duty to well and faithfully perform their work as purchasing manager, and that same employee's familial duty to their sibling who happens to be tendering for the sale of widgets to the employee's employer. In that case the employee has a conflict of interest.

Circumerro may indeed be the best choice to do the job, but to be the best out of only 3 proposals submitted still implies a level of inappropriate favoritism.  Why were only 3 proposals submitted?  How did the town let it be known that they were seeking proposals?  We know that Market Force was aware because they are connected to Electri-Cities (as is Sam Noble),  and that Latham Jenkins' Circumcerro had the inside scoop from his family connection, the 3rd group, Regency Interactive Corporation, from Rocky Mount, read about Market Force's proposal and presentation in the local paper. I just happen to have a copy of the proposal that Regency submitted to Sam Noble.  The total price for their proposal is $32,500.

I personally, don't think Tarboro is ready to hire ANY company to "re-develop" the town website, and if you've been reading my blog you already know that, BUT if they are going to legitimately seek out internet development and marketing proposals they need to do more than announce it at a town meeting and make their decision from 3 proposals.  They need to seek out other small towns with great examples of promotional websites, research the results that the towns have experienced from those websites and ask for proposals from the creators of those sites.  It would be nice if we could keep that money in Edgecombe County. If  that's not possible, try to keep it in North Carolina.   It doesn't take a genius to know this. 

If we (I'm referring to WE, the people of Tarboro, WE the people who elected THEM to represent US) are going to spend $30,000 to $60,000 for a website, I think it may be appropriate to spend some time and get a larger selection of candidates to choose from, especially since one of the candidates up for selection creates an apparent CONFLICT OF INTEREST. 

Wouldn't it be nice if Tarboro had a community newspaper that everyone read, so everyone knew what was happening BEFORE it happened?  Wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't it be nice if when you planned events, you knew that you could place one ad in one paper and everyone in Tarboro could learn about what you were trying to do?  Wouldn't that be nice?

We have the Daily Southerner and we have two options (that I can see). 1) We can work with the Daily Southerner to make it a newspaper that everyone will read, or 2) we can create a new FREE weekly paper that is delivered through the mail to all 9500 addresses delivered by the Tarboro post office and available for FREE at pick-up racks around town.

I've seen it done in other places, more businesses buy advertising because they know their ad will be seen by EVERYONE in town.  The advertising pays for the production and Voila!  good community networking is achieved and a few new jobs are created.    What do you think?   Is it do-able?  As they say in Minnesota, "Yessir, you betcha!" (I know this from the movie, FARGO ... I am not from Minnesota) .

I looked online to see if our high school had a school newspaper. If they do I wasn't able to find anything about it.  Couldn't a community newspaper be an excellent hands-on opportunity for our young people to learn the newspaper trade?  Could the production of this community asset also be an asset to our schools?  Journalism, printing, graphic arts, selling advertising, these are all marketable skills that our children could learn either in the schools or in an after-school community-service program sponsored by the Grassroots of Tarboro.

I'd love some feedback on this topic. Tell me what YOU think.

In 18 days we will experience the first of Tarboro's Second Saturday's.  In many ways things are falling into place and in a few ways I'm wondering IF things will fall into place.

Folks are finally signing up their yard sales for inclusion in Tarboro's Townwide Tag Sale.  We actually thought that a townwide tagsale would be the easy part of the project, but getting the word out has been harder than we expected. A big problem with networking seems to come from the fact that not everyone reads the local newspaper, so getting the word out takes some creativity.  I drove around town on Saturday morning and signed up people who were already having yard sales just by asking them to do it again on April 12th.  Easy!

Another small and not quite resolved problem is FOOD.  There are not very many places to eat downtown on a Saturday.  We sure don't want to draw people downtown just to have them leave because they are hungry or thirsty.  Besides, what's an "event" without food?  This is America, every social gathering includes food.

I thought that Myrick's Bar-B-Que was going to be open for that Saturday, but must have mis-understood. I learned this afternoon that they will not be open.  Am I worried?  A little, but there's still time. 18 days. I'll find a restaurant or restaurants to provide food, even if it is pre-wrapped sandwiches.  If it comes down to the line, I will prepare sandwiches, have lemonade and sell cake slices.  

I am not allowing myself to worry too much, because this is meant to be a FUN event for everybody, including me.  I don't need to stress about it, everything will be exactly what it is going to be.  And if things don't work out perfectly this time... there's always NEXT month.