Say Yes to Education, according to what was said when it was being heavily promoted, is supposed to be working hand in hand with the Guilford County Schools to improve the education of children in Guilford County.
Now, one year in, Say Yes is refusing to give the Guilford County school board or the public basic information on their operation. The selling point of Say Yes is that it purportedly gives college scholarships to Guilford County high school graduates to pay for their college education. Say Yes pays the last dollar, which means if a student receives a partial scholarship then Say Yes makes up the difference between that and the actual cost.
School board member Deena Hayes-Greene asked how much money Say Yes spent on scholarships for students in the fall semester last year. This seems like a perfectly reasonable question, but she didn’t get an answer.
The fact that Say Yes won’t tell the school board how it is spending all the money it raised sends up red flags all over the place.
It certainly appears the executive director, Mary Vigue, was forced to resign. Now the new director won’t provide basic information on the operation to the school board. It looks like some of those in the community who made pledges that made the whole endeavor possible need to go down to Say Yes and find out what in the world is going on.
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I don’t know if 6th District Congressman Mark Walker was front and center on all the broadcasts of President Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, but on the broadcast I watched he was.
Before Trump entered the chamber Walker was right in the middle of my screen, texting, standing with his hands in his pocket talking to folks, but not leaving his seat. It looked like he had snagged a really good aisle seat and was easy to spot when the camera panned the audience to show all the Republicans clapping and most of the Democrats sitting on their hands.
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In what may be the too-little-too-late category, City Councilmember Tony Wilkins has asked the city staff to write a letter informing Trader Joe’s that they would be welcomed into the community.
Trader Joe’s was reportedly interested in the Friendly Avenue and Hobbs Road location, but the rezoning for that property was so contentious that Trader Joe’s decided it didn’t want to have anything to do with Greensboro.
With cities all over the country trying to recruit Trader Joe’s, why would the company want to come to a community where it wasn’t wanted?
Wilkins decided it was time to try and mend that fence and a whole lot of folks who drive to Winston-Salem or Chapel Hill for their Trader Joe’s fix no doubt agree with him.
