The Greensboro City Council will hold its penultimate business meeting of 2019 on Tuesday, Nov. 19, and this meeting is actually in the Council Chamber beginning at 5:30 or sometime after.
The City Council has taken to holding closed sessions before the public meeting rather than after, which means the public meetings often start late. But if the council holds the closed meeting after the public meeting then the big wigs the council meets with in closed session have to wait for the unwashed masses to finish with their business before the closed session. The City Council has decided it makes more sense to let a hundred or so of their constituents wait rather than a couple of attorneys or economic development professionals.
The agenda does not appear to be action packed, but there are a couple of items this City Council could get hung up on.
Accepting $300,000 in grants and federal forfeiture money to buy small tools and equipment for the Police Department was continued at the Oct. 19 meeting, so it’s back on the agenda.
Considering how some members of the City Council feel about the Police Department, this could be one of those routine contracts that is discussed for an hour.
Then there is the approval of an $824,000 contract with Axon Enterprises to purchase 330 Tasers for the Police Department. Because this is a sole source contract, there is no Minority and Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) participation. This was approved by the MWBE department and makes sense to most people. The Tasers are being bought from Axon Enterprises, which is not an MWBE company, so there is no MWBE participation, but Councilmember Sharon Hightower in the past has complained at length about contracts like this and there is no reason to think she won’t on Tuesday night.
