Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Civil Rights Museum Officials Won't Meet With City About Debt

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Credit: ICRCM

Officials with the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro say they won't meet with city council members next week to help determine how much the museum owes taxpayers.

Museum officials were scheduled to attend Monday's city council meeting to discuss the organization's debt.

But according to the News and Record of Greensboro, the center's CEO John Swaine sent a letter earlier this week saying that such a meeting would be premature.

He says the museum would prefer to keep working with internal auditors and legal advisors.

Mayor Nancy Vaughn says the council will go ahead and discuss the issue anyway. Vaughn is a member of the museum's board, as is City Manager Jim Westmoreland.

The city made $1.5 million in forgivable loans to help keep the museum operating. City officials say the museum still owes more than $900,000. The museum says the figure is closer to $280,000. 

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate