A Shameful Demand in a Desperate Time

Unfortunately, for some people and apparently cities, greed knows no bounds, even during the middle of a growing deadly pandemic. The astonishing greed of the leadership of our sister city, Winston-Salem, was exposed at Thursday’s Forsyth County commissioners meeting when the county made a crucially important and life saving request to the City of Winston-Salem.
Forsyth County is rightfully looking to expand its Covid-19 vaccine distribution, as the Forsyth County Department of Public Health cannot get the vaccines out fast enough and the deadly disease continues to spread.
“The truth is that this disease is spreading fast. We are in a dire situation,” Gov. Cooper said in his press conference on Tuesday. “The truth is, in order to save lives, people need to follow the safety protocols we have in place.”
Cooper is right. It is a dire situation across the state, and only in three other counties (Mecklenburg, Wake and Guilford) is the situation worse than it is in Forsyth County. By this time, almost everybody knows a friend or family member that has been affected by Covid-19. Because of the rapid spread of Covid-19, Forsyth County wants the vaccines to get out to the public as fast as possible.
“We’re looking to transition to a larger venue, and I have been in talks with city management about utilizing the (Winston-Salem) fairgrounds property, specifically the education building and parking lots surrounding the facility,” Deputy Forsyth County Manager Shontell Robinson told the commissioners. Robinson stated that the fairgrounds site would give the county the ability to scale up or down as the vaccines become more available.
The fairgrounds are the most logical venue to speed up getting people vaccinated in our county. County Manager Dudley Watts described the possible lease negotiation for the fairgrounds as an interlocal agreement between Winston-Salem and Forsyth County for a mass vaccination location, which is unfortunate in this case. We assume the City of Winston-Salem wants its citizens and Forsyth County citizens to get vaccinated as soon as possible. One would think the City of Winston-Salem would be willing to donate the use of the education building and parking lot, neither of which are even be used right now, for the well being of the public. No events are even scheduled for the fairgrounds until the end of May, so why not donate the education building and parking lot during this crisis? Sadly, that is not remotely the case. Greed seems to be the city’s priority.
The current offer from the City of Winston-Salem to lease the fairgrounds as a vaccine site from now through May is $400,000. Never mind the fact that people in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County are contracting Covid-19 and far too many are dying from it. Apparently the money is more important. Robinson said Winston-Salem wants $1,500 per day to rent the education building, plus expenses with the maximum totaling around $2,500 per day at least through the end of May. Robinson said the city would assist Forsyth County with security, cleaning and management of the property itself with things like snow and ice removal. Forsyth County could provide its own security through the sheriff’s department since it funds the sheriff’s department.
Forsyth County Commissioner Gloria Whisenhunt’s reaction to this demand from the City of Winston-Salem was appropriate and ours was the same.
“You have got to be kidding me! The city is going to charge us almost $400,000 for us to vaccinate the citizens of Winston-Salem?” Whisenhunt incredulously stated.
The rest of the county commissioners were also obviously very disappointed with the City of Winston-Salem. Commissioner Ted Kaplan pointed out that the Forsyth County commissioners recently provided Winston-Salem with $1.5 million during the first round of Covid-19 relief funding. So much for gratitude.
Commissioner Don Martin said he understood reimbursing the city for expenses, although he thought $1,000 was far too high. Martin correctly said he could not imagine paying the City of Winston-Salem $1,500 in rent for buildings that are not being used and won’t be used anytime soon.
Commissioner Fleming El-Amin told Robinson and Watts he respected their efforts to come up with an agreement. El-Amin suggested a much more logical counter offer to the City of Winston-Salem.
“I think, at best, a counter offer should be no more than $500 a month,” El-Amin said.
Robinson said she planned to have a rental agreement to the Board by the January 21 meeting. In the interim, let us hope the City of Winston-Salem stops its shameful and tone deaf greed in this horrible time and agree to a far cheaper and more reasonable agreement with Forsyth County.
-Kernersville News Editorial