The Greensboro City Council is meeting for half a day on Wednesday, March 23 and all day on Thursday, March 24 at the ACC Hall of Champions board room at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, and you’re invited.
Despite the fact that there is nothing on the agenda about these meetings being open to the public or how to view them if you can’t attend in person, the meetings are open to the public and anyone can attend, even without an invitation.
Regular City Council meetings are what are termed “hybrid” meetings, which means members of the City Council, city staff and the public can participate in the meeting in person or via Zoom. The City Council work sessions continue to be virtual meetings and Mayor Nancy Vaughan has said she likes the virtual work sessions and plans to continue to hold them virtually.
It appears for the day-and-a-half “strategy session,” the members of the City Council will be participating in person.
Candidates for City Council may be interested attending at least some of the day-and-a-half strategy session. This is supposed to be the meeting where the City Council sets its budget priorities and gives the city manager guidance on what direction it wants him to take in the coming year.
The bare bones of the agenda for the meetings on March 23 and March 24 has been released, which means an agenda with times, speakers and topics has been posted but not the reports that will be presented by the speakers.
As usual, the meeting will begin with a financial overview by Budget and Evaluation Director Jon Decker and Financial and Administrative Services Director Marlene Druga. City financial matters are set to be discussed until 2:30 p.m.
It appears that City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba will kick off the meeting at 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 24 with a discussion on transportation, because the speakers listed for that segment are “Taiwo Jaiyeoba/Ehren Bingaman” and Bingaman is a public transportation consultant with Transpro Consulting.
Bare bone agenda…why meet?
Mandate Mayor loves to meet virtually because it removes a lot of her opposition and further disenfranchises those without means to have high speed Internet connected devices. Why would Mandate Mayor want the public to know meetings are open to the public? ….she might have to see someone who isn’t a donor or nonprofit head solicting funding. So sad our leaders are afraid of the public they are paid to serve.