Author: John Hammer

The Greensboro City Council voted unanimously to ignore the recommendation of the Citizens’ Redistricting Committee and approved the Moderate Change Version 2 Draft Map.

The Carroll Companies on Monday, Nov. 1 announced the addition of Carroll Hospitality to its growing family of companies, which includes the Rhino Times.

The Greensboro City Council is scheduled to approve new City Council districts for the 2022 election at the 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1 meeting.

City staff is recommending that the Greensboro City Council oppose a request for extra-territorial jurisdiction by the Town of Summerfield at the Monday, Nov. 1 meeting.

Shakespeare’s famous question was, “To be or not to be?”  However, the question that will be on the table next Tuesday evening, Nov. 2, at a special meeting of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is whether the county should continue to enforce its current mask mandate for everyone indoors in public places – and, if so, for how long.

North Carolina now has one congressional redistricting map before the legislature.

The City Council agreed to move forward with the plan to create a permanent supportive facility for the homeless in northeast Greensboro at the Thursday, Oct. 28 work session.

The City Council was faced with a difficult financial dilemma at the Thursday, Oct. 28 work session. As usual the council decided not to decide and then kinda sorta allowed city staff to make the decision anyway. The problem is, which bucket of money do they want to use to pay for revenue losses caused by the COVID-19 restrictions.

The State Treasurer of North Carolina Dale Folwell released a report on Wednesday, Oct. 27, that revealed Cone Health and the majority of nonprofit hospitals in the state are not meeting their obligations for charity care.

It appears the COVID-19 vaccines will be approved for young children. Vaccines were first approved for those over 65, the highest risk group, and have been moving down in ages.

The Greensboro City Council work session Thursday, Oct. 28 has been re-re-scheduled for 2 p.m.

“Wicked,” the first touring Broadway Show to play at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Greensboro, finished its historic run on Sunday, Oct. 24. The 24-performance run was seen by over 66,000 people.  Not only was it the first Broadway show at the Tanger Center, it was also the longest and highest grossing Broadway show ever in the triad region.

The Greensboro City Council has a lot on its plate coming up on the final two months of the year.

The Greensboro City Council met in a virtual closed session on Monday, Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m. Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that the council spent Monday doing Zoom interviews of applicants for the job of city manager and that they had narrowed the number of applicants down to eight.

In typical fashion for the current City Council, the brief virtual open session on Monday, Oct. 25 at 9 a.m. was not broadcast on the City of Greensboro web page or on the city’s YouTube channel where the agenda stated that it would be broadcast.

The motion to go into closed session at the 9 a.m. Monday, Oct. 25 City Council meeting including a real blast from the past.

North Carolina and Ohio have long feud about which state deserves credit for the first airplane flight.

The City Council plans to approve newly drawn City Council districts for the 2022 election at its Monday, Nov. 1 meeting.

The Greensboro City Council met from 4 to after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 19 and all the votes were unanimous.

At the end of most Greensboro City Council meetings, councilmembers are given a few minutes to speak about whatever they want. At the Oct. 19 City Council meeting, Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann used her time to go talk about some quick calculations on the economic impact The Tanger Center is having on downtown Greensboro.

The federal judge – in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the city of Greensboro by Mary and George Smith, the parents of Marcus Deon Smith, who died on Sept. 8, 2018, after being in police custody – denied three motions filed on behalf of the Smiths.

The North Carolina Senate has released some of the congressional redistricting maps submitted, and several split Guilford County into three congressional districts.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 meeting asked the City Council to revisit supplying Greensboro police officers with take home police cars.

The Greensboro City Council held a long closed session on personnel matters at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 meeting.

The Greensboro City Council spent a lot of time thanking the Citizens’ Redistricting Committee at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 virtual meeting. Then Mayor Nancy Vaughan and councilmembers made it clear that they had no intention of following the recommendation of the committee, but they had cleverly arranged things so they could say that they had.

The City of Greensboro recently settled a lawsuit filed in 2019 against Arco Realty for unpaid building code violation fines totaling over $680,000. On Tuesday, Oct. 19, City Councilmember Justin Outling, who is running for mayor in 2022, sent out a campaign email that quoted the N&R headline and stated, “I certainly agree with this headline.”

The Greensboro City Council plans to approve a contract to tear down a Guilford County building at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 virtual meeting. The City Council is expected to approve a contract with D.H. Griffin to demolish the old Guilford County Department of Mental Health Department building at 201 N. Eugene Street on the corner of North Eugene Street and West Friendly Avenue.

The public hearing on the maps presented by the Citizens’ Redistricting Committee is the high profile item on the agenda for the Tuesday, Oct. 19 City Council virtual meeting, but far from the only item.

The Greensboro City Council at the Tuesday, Oct. 19 meeting is scheduled to approve a loan of over $3 million to turn a motel on US-29 in northeast Greensboro across from the Wal Mart shopping center into a homeless shelter.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson showed samples of the illustrations in a book that he does not believe are appropriate for elementary schools in North Carolina at a press conference this week. Robinson, who is North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor, also displayed several of the emails that he and his office have received regarding this latest controversy (some of which are shown below).

It appears the misinformation campaign about the work of the Citizens’ Redistricting Committee to draw new council districts has already begun.

The Greensboro Police Officers Association issued a press release on Thursday, Oct. 14 titled, “The Greensboro Police Department (GPD) is under attack.”

The Guilford County Republican Party has stepped into the fray about statements made by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson about young children being exposed to sexually explicit materials in the classrooms of public schools and taken out of context.

The Greensboro Redistricting Committee, after a long and impossible to follow discussion, reached a consensus that the revised “Pie Shaped Version 2 Draft Map” was its number one preference to redraw the five City Council districts.

Each year the Greensboro Police Department gives residents of Greensboro an opportunity to get a firsthand look into the operation of the department by holding the Greensboro Police Citizens’ Academy. The application period for the Greensboro Police Citizens’ Academy is currently open and the deadline to apply is 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 26, the day after Thanksgiving.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is under attack with various Democratic leaders calling for him to resign. Robinson’s crime is speaking out against pornographic materials about transgenderism and homosexuality in elementary schools.

The Alamance County Board of Commissioners fired Alamance County Attorney Clyde Albright by a vote in closed session on Monday, Oct. 4.

A traffic stop on Monday, Oct. 11 resulted in a Greensboro police officer shooting a man who is now being held in the Guilford County jail.

Halloween is, according to usually reliable sources, right around the corner and there are no shortage of events to mark the occasion this year.

Redistricting is going to be a hot topic for the next couple of months. The 2022 elections will be held in newly redrawn City Council, Guilford County Board of Commissioners, North Carolina state House and state Senate and US congressional districts.

At the request of the City Council, Watts filed such a request in Superior Court and on Friday, Oct. 1 the members of the City Council were granted the right to view the police body worn camera videos of the 50 cases that are now evidence in the Marcus Deon Smith lawsuit.

Hemant Desai, Guilford County government’s long-time director of the Guilford County Information Services Department, has resigned and taken a new job with an international organization based in Washington, DC.

If you have the alert on your calendar set for 5:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of the month so you won’t miss a single minute of a City Council meeting, you may need to make some revisions.

It’s too early to tell how “normal” Christmas will be this year, but Downtown Greensboro Inc. (DGI) has announced that the traditional holiday celebrations are coming back to downtown Greensboro in 2021. The annual Festival of Lights will be held on Friday, Dec. 3, followed by the Greensboro Holiday Parade on Saturday, Dec. 4.

The Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC) is offering assistance for small businesses that export.

The grand opening of transformGSO and the Elm & Bain events space is being held Wednesday, Oct. 6 from 5 to 8 p.m. The complex of class A office space, co-working space and an events space is in the former Greensboro Gateway Building at South Elm Street and Gate City Boulevard.

The Greensboro City Council honored two North Carolina A&T State University athletes for Olympic medals at the Tuesday, Oct. 5 meeting.

In July 2020, the Greensboro Public Library announced that it would no longer charge “fines” for overdue books. However, that is misleading.  What the library actually did is eliminate the daily “fines” and replace that with a one time “fee.”  It doesn’t really matter what they call it, you still have to pay for a book that is long overdue.