I was mentally shouting out a big —-pardon the pun —-yessss! as I read Yes!Weekly’s editorial letting Greensboro Coliseum Director Matt Brown hear it over his push for a $30-plus million bond to replace aging War Memorial Auditorium:
It’s important to remember that, though Brown is the city’s highest paid employee — by quite a bit last year, at $212,332 making more than $30,000 more than former City Manager Rashad Young and almost $75,000 more than police Chief Ken Miller — the coliseum is not as central to the city’s well being as its internal operations and police department, which could survive without the coliseum but without which the coliseum could not make it.
Brown seems to be acting like a favored child, who wants everything at the expense of his siblings, and we are here to tell him to share his toys.
So you can imagine the letdown —I was hoping they’d suggest shoving the bond— when the editorial went on to say that a new entertainment center belongs downtown, perhaps in the Ole Asheboro neighborhood, although in the end it did question the need “for such a thing.”
Far be it for me to defend Matt Brown, but when looked at objectively, his plan is cheaper —perhaps much cheaper depending on the numbers, which right now range between $32 million- $43 for a site at the coliseum complex to $49-$72 million for a downtown site.
Besides, what does Brown care where it goes, since Mayor Robbie Perkins has already let it be known that he wants Brown to run the new venue, no matter where it ends up. And if Brown has to split time between two different sites, the city would have to give him a raise, eh?
