Author: Scott D. Yost

Is your house or apartment in danger of flooding? 

On Thursday, July 13, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) put out a press release revealing something fishy about the fish caught in the lower Cape Fear River – namely, that they aren’t safe to eat due to the level of contaminants in the water.

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers has been waiting a long, long time to see his Sheriff’s Department get a shiny new headquarters, and it became clear at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting on Thursday, July 13 that he and his administrative staff will have to wait a lot longer. 

Local and state government officials, along with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are working together to try and reverse a very disturbing trend in the state.

The City of High Point’s Parks and Recreation Department is launching a new study to help develop a vision for a new Center for Active Adults, which would serve people 50 years of age and up.

When Guilford County contracted with Samet Corp. to conduct the demolition of the old county jail in downtown Greensboro and the construction of a new Guilford County Sheriff’s Department administrative building in its place, the whole thing ended as a giant $20 million trainwreck, one of the biggest debacles in the history of Guilford County government.

For years, former Guilford County Health Director Merle Green fought against tobacco use in county buildings and promoted educational programs meant to keep county staff and county residents from smoking.

Guilford County government is letting the City of Greensboro rent Sternberger Park for at least one more year – though the county isn’t exactly raking in a lot of dough on that rental contract.

Record keeping in the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is pretty important because you don’t want to, say, let inmates out early by mistake, keep them longer than you’re supposed to, or confuse two similar looking inmates who have the same snake tattoo on their necks. 

Guilford County government just got its own dedicated Parks Department a couple of years ago and the people in the department have been very busy bees ever since – upgrading parks, pools, trails and more. 

On Wednesday, July 12, conservative Republican long-time Oak Ridge Town Councilmember George McClellan plans to file to run for another term on the town council. 

The High Point Public Library – in partnership with the High Point Historical Society – is hosting Independent Publisher Book Award and Pinnacle Book Award winner Libby McNamee on Wednesday, July 19 at 2 p.m. at the High Point Museum for an afternoon of reading and discussion, followed by a book signing.

The United Way of Greater Greensboro is calling on area residents to mobilize throughout July and support the group’s annual MeaningFULL Meals program, which partners with The Volunteer Center of the Triad and BackPack Beginnings.

At a work session last October, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners made plans to give $500,000 to a nonprofit organization – Shift_ed – to improve education in the county. 

When Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) started buying up land and began building a giant empty 1000-acre aviation megasite with a taxiway bridge over a highway, there were a lot of skeptics who thought it might turn out poorly like some other megasite projects across the state have famously done. 

Guilford County Government is allocating $390,000 to One Step Further.

The late teens and early 20s can be key times for determining whether young men and women get on the right life path and, to help see that happen, the NC Department of Public Safety is giving Guilford County government $198,300 to help fund a transitional housing program for youths ages 18 to 21.

For the last several years, the Guilford County Division of Public Health and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners have been pouring a great deal of effort into helping expectant mothers and their families do what it takes to give birth to healthy newborns and give the infants a good start on life.

A housefire in December of 2022 that killed three small children being overseen by the Guilford County Division of Social Services led to a state investigation of Guilford County Child Protective Services and other Child Welfare Services.  

Well, it certainly was interesting the way in which the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decided to fund non-profits in the new 2023-2024 fiscal budget that just went into effect.

Time flies if you’re having fun and also if you are a political candidate because it’s already time to file to run if you are seeking an elected office in some municipalities in Guilford County this year. 

Whether you still call it the “food stamps” program or call it by its more modern name – “Food and Nutrition Services” (FNS) – state social services officials declared on Thursday, July 6, that the program is changing.

This year 112 nonprofit organizations applied to Guilford County for a total of about $10 million in the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget and the county decided to fund nearly half of those to the tune of $1,885,000. 

Family Destination Guide conducted a national survey of 3,000 families to find out which “affordable destinations” they would most like to visit this summer.

Guilford County officials are asking county residents what they want from Guilford County government so that, in the coming years, that government can meet the needs of the people it serves. 

A Guilford County department and a large county division have begun working closely together to improve the lives of the county residents who are helped by those two services. 

For the first two decades of this century, Guilford County let some very prime real estate – a group of offices on the first floor of the Old Guilford County Court House in downtown Greensboro – go completely unused. 

Republican NC Rep. Jon Hardister has filed a new bill that has passed in the NC House and is expected to pass in the NC Senate next week. The laser-focused part of the bill that applies to the Guilford County Board of Education is meant to, in no uncertain terms, settle the question of who will serve in the board’s District 3 seat, which has been the focus of a legal and political battle all year long.

State, local and federal governments certainly don’t always spend money wisely – however, when it comes to the State of North Carolina’s use of the massive amount of money from a collective lawsuit against opioid makers and distributers, apparently the state is doing it right. 

The Greensboro Transit Agency (GTA) is using a new bus design to honor black men who served in the Continental Army and militia at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

The Greensboro Planning Department is asking area residents to give them some advice on how to achieve “a better-designed walkway to connect Douglas Park and Downtown Greenway both physically and socially.”  The city is also holding a barbeque picnic to celebrate the Greenway work that’s already been done.

Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega put out a press release just in time for all the fireworks shows, and he’s reminding everyone that people may like fireworks but animals generally have the opposite reaction.

Prior to just about every holiday each year, the state of North Carolina puts out various advisories related to that holiday.  For instance, at Christmas they may remind you not to let your tree dry out and catch fire, and, on Memorial Day, they’ll remind you not to bring your charcoal grill into your living room and grill indoors.

On Thursday, June 29, The High Point Public Library announced its 2023 Summer Program schedule for the month of July and there’s plenty the choose from. The theme this year is “All Together Now,” and the focus is on “promoting kindness, friendship and unity.”

Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) really is very much like a local government onto itself – and just like cities and counties around the state this June, the airport has adopted a new budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year that begins on July 1.

The City of High Point is very fortunate: Uncle Sam, the man who best signifies the spirit of the United States of America, has chosen to spend the 2023 Fourth of July holiday in High Point.

Greensboro-based Carroll Companies – a property development and real estate firm that specializes in luxury real estate – announced this week that the company has chosen Philip Williams to be the Senior Vice President of Industrial Development.

Guilford County in the last decade has gone from a wallflower to the belle of the ball when it comes to economic development, and now it seems as though every company in the world wants to relocate or open up a new business in the county.

Now that summer is here and the pandemic is a thing of the past, there’s a lot of pent up travel demand and Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) is a beneficiary of that demand.

If you were saying to yourself, “Give me just a little more time to hear some beach music this summer” – well, you’re in luck because beach music royalty is coming to Greensboro for the next 2023 TowneBank Beach Music Festival concert.

People in Greensboro and the state of North Carolina as a whole are very proud of the fine barbecue that originates from the city and the state, but a new study that used a multitude of measures to find the best barbecue cities in the country ranked Greensboro just 103rd out of the 200 most populous cities in the US.

In the high-tech future – if the killer AI robots let us live – the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math (known collectively as STEM) will be more important than ever for the next generation to know.

Guilford County Schools’ leaders certainly didn’t get everything they wanted in the county’s fiscal 2023-2024 budget; however, one thing the school system is getting is more school nurses. For years, Guilford County commissioners and others have known the nurses at schools were spread too thin – and the county has been slowly but surely attempting to remedy the problem.

July 1 is the start of the fiscal year for a lot of governments and other entities; however, this year, Saturday, July 1 means something special for Friendly Shopping Center: The day marks the store opening at the center of the very popular eyeglasses vendor Warby Parker.

Anyone who’s searched for parking in downtown Greensboro during the middle of a weekday knows that it’s a hit or miss proposition. When you get lucky, and happen to have enough quarters to feed the meter for the time you need, it probably makes your day.

At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 28, High Point will have some talented visitors from the other side of the world come to town. At that time, the High Point-Thomasville HiToms baseball team will host the Chinese Taipei National baseball team at Truist Point Stadium in High Point.

Guilford County residents better hope that nothing catastrophic happens in the county from July 21 to July 24 because, if so, there won’t be many county leaders around to address the problem.

Guilford County just passed the largest budget in the history of the county and all those programs, construction projects, raises, MWBE efforts and other initiatives need to be paid for with money from somewhere. 

Earlier this year, the Rhino Times reported on some prominent local people in the restaurant business who were worried about a 1-cent prepared food tax coming to Guilford County.