The Greensboro City Council took its show on the road Monday night with mixed success.

The monthly City Council town hall meeting held Monday, July 8 was at the Barber Park Event Center on Barber Park Road instead of in the Council Chambers at city hall.  It was also held on Monday instead of Tuesday which is the usual City Council meeting day.  The Barber Park Event Center had already been rented for Tuesday night by the time the City Council decided to meet there.  When that decision was made is unknown because it was made in private meetings.

The change in venue didn’t dim the crowd extra chairs had to brought in as over a hundred people attended the meeting.

It also didn’t change the meeting much.  The City Council still heard from many of the same speakers who have been showing up for months to accuse the Greensboro Police of murdering Marcus Deon Smith on Sept. 8, 2018 and to demand the firing of Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott. But they were for most part better behaved than they have been at meetings in the Council Chambers.

Vaughan had to explain that the City Council did not take questions shouted from the audience, but she only had to do it once.

However, there were some differences.  Several speakers demanded that the handcuffs be taken off the police so that they could enforce the laws.  One speaker demanded that Scott be fired, and a new police chief hired who was willing to arrest people and enforce the law.

Scott Jones, the executive board chairman of Tiny House Community Development said that they had plans and were getting prepared to build a development at Gillespie and Peachtree streets, but had their appearance before the Redevelopment Commission canceled and couldn’t even get a meeting with the community.  He said, “A group of people want to invest in East Greensboro and we can’t even get the community to meet with us.”

Jones got his answer about what had happened.

City Councilmember Sharon Hightower said, “Let me say, it would be nice to have a conversation with me as the representative of the community.”

She said, “Those investments need to be determined by the community.”

Hightower has blocked development in her district before because she wasn’t consulted and according to her statements she has done it again.

The City Council didn’t take any action because the Council doesn’t at the town hall meetings.

Councilmembers Nancy Hoffmann and Tammi Thurm were absent and Councilmember Justin Outling participated by phone.