Author: John Hammer

The City Council plans to start holding its meetings in April in the council chambers in city hall.  Or at least the City Council will be in the council chambers along with staff, but the public will participate virtually.  However, if the COVID-19 numbers keep going down, it’s possible the City Council will hold an actual meeting by the third week in April.

The agenda for the Tuesday, March 2 virtual meeting, which was finally posted with attachments on after 3 p.m. Monday, March 1, only had two items. Item 1 was “Way Finding Update” and Item 2 was “Minority/Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) Program Review/Griffin and Strong.”

It looks like students in North Carolina won’t be back in the classroom anytime soon. Monday evening the North Carolina state Senate failed to override the veto by Gov. Roy Cooper of the school reopening act.  The 28 Republican senators and one Democrat voted in favor and 20 Democratic senators voted against.  To override the governor’s veto a 60 percent majority is needed.  In the state Senate that is 30 votes.  So in order to override the veto the Republicans needed to have two of the 22 democrats vote for the override.  The vote was 29 to 20 falling one short of the 30 votes needed.

The Greensboro City Council is holding a rare Thursday virtual work session on March 4 at 2 p.m.

The North Carolina state Senate plans to vote Monday, March 1 to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the school reopening bill. The legislation, Senate Bill 37, passed both the state House and state Senate with bipartisan support and more than enough votes to override Cooper’s veto.

There is a bill before the North Carolina General Assembly to deannex 10.6 acres of land from Greensboro – not something that happens very often. Rep. Jon Hardister is sponsoring House Bill 164 entitled, “An Act To Remove Certain Described Property From The Corporate Limits Of The City Of Greensboro.”

The Greensboro City Council has scheduled a virtual work session on the topic that is discussed at every work session and every City Council meeting regardless of what’s on the agenda. A Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise (MWBE) update is on the agenda for the Tuesday, March 2 City Council virtual work session beginning at 3:30 p.m.

Crime Stoppers recently announced a $4,000 reward for information about the aggravated assault on Saturday, Feb. 13 near the intersection of Elmwood Drive and Cornwallis Drive.

With the recommendation that the 2022 primary be postponed several months, there is growing uncertainty about just how that election is going to be held. However, what may be causing anxiety in other candidates is not having any effect on the campaign of former 6th District Congressman Mark Walker.

NC Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill passed by large bipartisan majorities in the state legislature requiring public schools to offer in-person classes.

State Rep. Jon Hardister is co-sponsor of a bill that would provide some property tax relief for businesses struggling because of COVID-19 restrictions.

The agenda for the Tuesday, March 2 virtual meeting of the Greensboro City Council is, as usual, extremely light.

It looks like this may be the beginning of the end of coronavirus lockdowns, stay-at-home orders and curfews.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday, Feb. 24 that, by Executive Order 195, on Friday, Feb. 26, he would be easing some restrictions and canceling the 10 p.m. curfew. Bars will finally be able to open for indoor service.

The City Council is holding a work session next month to discuss a proposed economic development incentive policy. The council was expected to pass the new policy at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 16, until Councilmember Sharon Hightower brought up a new requirement that the council had not considered during its three work sessions on economic development in November and December.

All nine seats on the Greensboro City Council, including mayor, are up for election in 2021, but it may be that the 2021 election won’t be held until 2022.

In this topsy-turvy coronavirus world, it’s time for high school football.

Both the Men’s and Women’s Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Basketball Tournaments will be played at the Greensboro Coliseum the first two weeks of March.

However, at least one commission has escaped this effort for race and gender equity.  The Commission on the Status of Women has no gender diversity at all.  The City Council has appointed nine women to the nine-member commission. The last appointment in December 2020 was after the City Council held an entire work session to discuss race and gender equity on boards and commissions.  And that appointment was another woman, making no move toward bringing the Commission on the Status of Women in line with the demographics of Greensboro, where 46.5 percent of the population is male. 

The City of Greensboro and the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority are at odds over the proposed new Airport Overlay Districts, what is commonly called the noise cone. Both agree that reducing the size of the noise cone to comply with a study that was done in 2007 to open up 1,464 acres to more residential development is a good idea. As is usually the case, the devil is in the details.

The City Council was all set to approve a new economic incentive policy at the Tuesday, Feb. 16 meeting, but instead it decided to discuss additional requirements that not all councilmembers support.

Amendments to the airport noise cone map and regulations – which the City Council continued at the Tuesday, Feb. 16 meeting – have become controversial, but it is difficult to understand why. The Zoning Commission unanimously approved the map and text amendments proposed by the city Planning Department, but it was not clear at the zoning meeting of Jan. 20 exactly what the commission was approving.

The City Council had three zoning requests on the agenda at the Tuesday, Feb. 16 meeting. Two were annexations and original zonings, and two had neighborhood opposition.  All three were approved unanimously.

The Economic Development Incentive Policy that was on the agenda for the Tuesday, Feb. 16 City Council meeting did not have a requirement that Councilmember Sharon Hightower wanted included on the list, so the policy was continued until the legal department can formulate that policy in proper legal terminology and the council can hold a work session to discuss the proposed new policy with the Hightower amendment.

Before the City Council work session on Tuesday, Feb. 16, the majority of the City Council held a meeting to discuss the Airport Authority Overlay District, commonly called the noise cone, which was not in compliance the North Carolina open meetings law.

The Greensboro City Council had a curious virtual work session on Tuesday, Feb. 16. Hearing from a Guilford County department that the city has no control over.

At the Tuesday, Feb. 16 City Council meeting, Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the shooting in which one man was injured, “Brings to everyone’s consciousness the importance of policing and the importance of quick response.”

A wild card in the 2021 Greensboro City Council elections, which has been talked about behind the scenes for a while, is getting some press. The wild card is redistricting.  Once the 2020 Census figures are official, Greensboro may be required by law to redistrict.

District 5 Greensboro City Councilmember Tammi Thurm, on Monday, Feb. 15, announced that she is running for reelection.

The Executive Committee of the Guilford County Republican Party has officially censured North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr because of his vote in favor of the impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump.

The Tracy Furman campaign sent out a press release on Monday, Feb.15, announcing that Furman is running for Greensboro City Council.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan officially announced she was running for a fourth term as mayor of Greensboro in a video posted on her Facebook page on Saturday, Feb. 13  

The Greensboro City Council spent some time discussing violent crime statistics at the virtual retreat on Friday, Feb. 12. The City Council did not discuss what could be done to stop the increase in violent crime or what it had done in the past year to try and decrease violent crime.

There was mostly bad financial news presented at the City Council virtual retreat on Thursday, Feb. 11. Sales tax revenue is $2 million under expected growth, utility tax revenue is down $1.5 million, hotel-motel tax revenue is down $1.1 million and the Coliseum reports a loss in revenue of over $7.5 million.

What’s not on the agenda at the two-day virtual Greensboro City Council retreat this week is as telling as what is. Two items that are supposed to be high on the City Council’s priority list are missing from the agenda – public safety and economic development.

At the first session of the two-day City Council virtual retreat on Thursday, Feb. 11, the City Council discussed issuing $16 million in two-thirds bonds in 2022, putting a $120 million bond referendum on the ballot in November of this year, and to pay for all that by raising property taxes by 3 cents.

Chip Roth has officially announced he is running for the District 3 City Council race, and the word on the street is that Downtown Greensboro Inc. President and former District 3 City Councilmember Zack Matheny is going to run for his old seat.

Here is some good news in the saga of two new downtown parking decks. According to Greensboro Department of Transportation Director Hanna Cockburn, the Bellemeade Deck – across the street from First National Bank Field home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers – will be open for use maybe as early as next week. And the deck will be free for probably the first month to six weeks of operation.

At least in one statistic 2021 in Greensboro so far is worse than 2020.

As of Tuesday, Feb. 9, there have been seven homicides in Greensboro in 2021.  In 2020, by the same date, there had been four homicides according to Greensboro Police Department Public Information Officer Ron Glenn.

The February 1 parking deck and Westin Hotel project is still on hold as far as actual construction goes.

Jane Sellars “Jan” Scott who worked for Congressman Howard Coble for 20 years, died at her home on Jan. 31 at age 71 after a short battle with lung cancer.

The City Council retreat is scheduled to begin on Thursday, Feb. 11 and Friday, Feb. 12 at 9 a.m. and presumably can be viewed by going to the city website and to the City Council calendar page at greensboro.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and clicking on the video for the date.  There is no agenda available to the public.  The information that is available is that the meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11 and 9 a.m. to noon on Friday, Feb. 12.

An item on the legislative agenda that was presented to the Guilford County Legislative Delegation last week asks for Greensboro parking tickets be linked to the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles annual vehicle registration.

This week Gaston College announced that Gene Banks has been hired as the athletic director and John Horshok as the director of athletic program development and sports marketing.

The North Carolina House on Thursday, Feb. 4 approved legislation that extends deferrals for ABC permit renewal fees to help bar owners who were hit with renewal fees in January.

UNCG is celebrating the opening of its new $105 million Nursing and Instructional Building, as it should. Or perhaps celebrating as much as it can in this time of limited gatherings and social distancing – there is no ribbon cutting event planned.  It’s taken three years to construct the five-story, 180,000-square-foot building that is commonly referred to as “The NIB.”

The Greensboro City Council at its regular virtual meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 2, after much discussion, passed a policy by an 8-0 vote that will allow the city to pay for damage caused by the Police and Fire departments doing their jobs.

Robinson, who is North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor, held a press conference on Wednesday, Feb. 3 to express his concerns about a cartoon on the WRAL website that depicted the Republican members of the North Carolina Board of Education as a Klansman.

Greensboro city councilmembers noted several weeks ago that Greensboro isn’t popular with the state legislature and the Greensboro Legislative Agenda almost seems designed to keep it that way. The City Council held a virtual meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 2 with members of the Guilford County Legislative Delegation to discuss the Greensboro Legislative Agenda, which is a list of items that the City Council would like to see passed in the 2021 session.

It appears the state government in Raleigh is united in the effort to have public schools in the state reopen their classrooms. A bill was introduced in the state House Monday, Feb. 1 that would require all public schools to offer in-classroom instruction for parents and students who choose it.

The City of Greensboro is selling the 1.6 acre cloverleaf from Summit Avenue to Murrow Boulevard for development.