AgentPierce and BobLee are both running this one on our sites as our mutual good buddy – Marty Kotis a/k/a The Dennis The Menace of the UNC BOG is making news AGAIN just “being Marty”. 

Marty’s hometown (Greensboro) failing fishwrapper – The News & Record has aimed it’s editorial pea-shooter at him on numerous occasions…. much to Marty’s delight as this one is.   He proudly sent this latest salvo to us Sunday morning.

Marty’s high crime oft-repeated is asking questions that others wish he wouldn’t ask.   Whether that be about Triad political shenanigans or about UNC System “everyone in favor say AYE…. moving right along” issues.   Marty is NOT be a consensus “just go-along kinda guy”.  He actually reads reports and P&L statements !!!   That being a quality I much admire.

My admiration for “Marty The Menace” is not shared by all his fellow BOGers…. including some of yours truly’s other buddies.   I must have  THE most eclectic bunch o’ buddies on the planet:  Chansky…. Kennel…. Bubba…. Marty….  Norwood…. Holden…. “Bonnie & Clyde” and a few dozen others who are not quite ready to publicly bear the scarlet letter of being a BobLee Buddy.  The complete list would rock a few worlds ‘fer sure!

NOTE:  Marty’s alleged “support” of Tom “Z. Smith Reynolds’ Bag Man” Ross was actually his disapproval of the ham-fisted manner in which UNC BOG Chair/Dictator “Trainwreck” Fennebresque chose to kneecap “Bag Man” Ross.  We are on-record as sharing Marty’s disapproval of both “Trainwreck”…. and of “Bag Man”.

Marty’s newly formed Brickyard Fan Club might note his stated disgust at all things Greatly Unpleasant amid the pines.

The N&R’s insinuation that Marty has “political ambitions” is not one I share based upon my numerous conversations with the naughty “Triad Troublemaker”.   I suspect The N&R and I disagree on numerous other issues.

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Marty in the middle: Building a political legacy one brick at a time

 Like an aging Hollywood actor who keeps looking younger and younger, the old Carousel Theater on Battleground Avenue is transforming before our eyes.  It is having — as they tend to say on the Left Coast — some “work” done.

First, was the sudden face-lift on the outside: A new color and new name: the Red Cinemas (as in Retail and Entertainment District).
Then a new lobby, new employee uniforms, a new menu, a new website, a DJ booth, a popcorn buttering station, self-serve beverages and even flat-screen TV’s in the restrooms. More recently, a pair of space-age leather theater seats appeared in one of the foyers: Vote for one, moviegoers were asked; they’ll install the winner.

The extreme makeover comes from the new owner, William “Marty” Kotis III, who has remade familiar businesses before.

The old Darryl’s on High Point Road became the new Darryl’s, with fire pits and a brick-lined outside dining area. The old Uno Pizza on Battleground Avenue is now Marshall Freehouse, a British-style pub with waiters in kilts and wood-paneled walls.

And, by next spring, the old Carolina Tours property on Federal Place in downtown Greensboro will become a beer garden.

As Kotis, 46, sees it, there’s an art to development, even in a strip shopping center. Ideally, he likes his new buildings to look old — like renovations of historic properties, even when they aren’t.   “My goal in architecture is to build something once — right — that will last.”

At the same time, Kotis is building a political resume that defies easy labels. For instance, he’s a Republican who vigorously fought a GOP-sponsored state House bill that would have forced major changes to the Greensboro City Council.

“I don’t want the federal government to come in and tell states how to govern,” he says, “and I don’t want the states doing that, either.”
As a member of the UNC Board of Governors, he was bothered by the treatment of a fellow Greensboro native, UNC President Tom Ross, who is being forced to step down. So he cast the lone vote against that decision.

“That’s not to say that the change wasn’t needed,” Kotis says. “It’s just that the process was not a good one.”

He is a fierce critic of his alma mater, UNC-Chapel Hill, for abetting an academic scandal that nationally disgraced the university.

“They think they’re helping,” he said of faculty and administrators who created bogus classes that enrolled large numbers of athletes. “But you’re not helping anybody if you give them a piece of paper, but not an education.”

And just last week he challenged a lavish new dormitory planned for men’s and women’s basketball players at N.C. State.

“It’s not that State’s breaking any rules,” Kotis says. “But it goes against the spirit of the rules.”

In the midst of a higher-education budget crisis, each bed in the dorm, which will be paid for with booster money, will cost $240,000. But only two others on the 32-member Board of Governors joined Kotis in voting no. Go Wolfpack.

He supports powerful Republican Senate leader Phil Berger Sr., whom many in Greensboro consider a prince of darkness. He is a friend of GOP state Sen. Trudy Wade, the architect of the attempted City Council changes.

But he doesn’t believe he has to agree with fellow Republicans all of the time to be a good Republican. For instance, he praises the current council as “very business-friendly.” “Greensboro is getting a chunk of my investments right now because they’re open for business.”
But he also praises a state legislature whose overreaching prompted the council to challenge the state in court.

Contradictions? Nah, Kotis shrugs. “People tend to get hung up on one thing. You have to look at the governing body in general. And in general I’m happy with the state encouraging job development and trying to attract other businesses to come here with favorable taxes and a favorable regulatory environment.”

He adds: “I tend to fall more in the moderate Republican camp, which is not too far away from a fiscally conservative, Blue Dog Democrat. There’s a whole chunk of people that I think are in the middle, and that are very like-minded. It’s the people on each extreme that tend to get a lot of attention. I’m not out there with them.”

Thus, he’s for Berger and Wade — when he isn’t against them. And he likes healthy profits but is notoriously picky about his projects and doesn’t like cutting corners.

As for his theater, he’s just getting started. The new seats probably will be recliners, which means four old seats will be ripped out to make room for each new one. “What that does is we become your favorite movie theater,” he says.

Then there’s more construction on the boards: retail shops in the front of the theater and a multi-level building in the rear that will overlook the Downtown Greenway. The growing empire of other properties he’s amassing along Battleground Avenue. And the eclectic and unpredictable political legacy he’s building, one brick at a time.

Contact Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson at [email protected]

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