Author: John Hammer

The Greensboro Fire Department five story drill tower, a landmark since it was built in 1956, will be demolished next week.

This week Honda Aircraft Company announced it was expanding its market to the most populous country in the world with the delivery of its first HondaJet Elite to China. 

Education in North Carolina is seriously underfunded according to a report by an independent consulting group that was hired as part of the 25-year-old Leandro lawsuit.

The groundbreaking for the $2.2 million Keely Park upgrade is Wednesday, Dec. 18 from 10 to 11 a.m.

Greensboro is evidently part of the solution to New York City’s homeless problem according to an article in The New York Post.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is considering allocating a couple million dollars for the Guilford County Schools maintenance needs.

The safest city in North Carolina is in the Piedmont Triad, but it isn’t Greensboro.According to WalletHub, Winston-Salem is the safest city in North Carolina and ranks 21 in the country, with Raleigh close behind at 22.

Monday, Dec. 9, Fresh Market – which recently announced its corporate headquarters would move to a new location but remain in Greensboro – received the kind of national press companies dream about.

Two candidates have filed for the 6th District US House seat and both are Democrats.Democratic Kathy Manning, who ran a well-funded campaign in 2018 in a failed attempt to unseat 13th District Congressman Ted Budd, has filed to run in the 6th District in 2020.

Holiday Parade diversity came up at the City Council meeting this week.

It’s hard to explain why the administration of NC Gov. Roy Cooper chose for months not to pay the scholarships the state provides for the children of wartime veterans.

It appears that Greensboro may have found the solution to its economic development woes – High Point.

Predictions are that it will shine, but rain or shine the Greensboro Holiday Parade will begin at noon on Saturday, Dec. 7 on North Greene Street.

Friday, Dec. 6 is the best evening of the season to go for a stroll in downtown Greensboro.

The Greensboro City Council held its last town hall meeting Tuesday, Dec. 3, where the policy is not to conduct any meaningful business – but not conducting business doesn’t mean that ideas can’t be tested for future action.

Participatory Budgeting came under attack at the Greensboro City Council town hall meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 3 from an unlikely direction.

The goal is to transition the operations of the City of Greensboro to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, but according to the resolution passed by the City Council on Tuesday, Dec. 3, the city could make a huge step toward reaching that goal before the end of the year.

The big news on the Republican side of the aisle – as far as candidates filing to run for statewide office –  is not who filed but who didn’t.

The final Greensboro City Council town hall meeting, held on Tuesday, Dec. 3 in the Council Chamber, had a theme. 

It’s finally official: The 2020 North Carolina congressional elections will be held with the districts re-re-drawn by the North Carolina legislature last month.The districts were approved for the 2020 elections by the three judge panel on Monday, Dec. 2, after filing for every other office in the Nov. 3, 2020 election had already opened.

Monday, Dec. 2 was the opening day for candidates to file to run in the Nov. 3, 2020 election

The “Resolution to Support Establishment of a 20-year Strategic Plan and Goals to Transition to 100% Renewable Energy for the City of Greensboro” is fairly typical of the priorities of this City Council, and that priority, despite what councilmembers often say, is not on jobs.

The Greensboro Farmers Curb Market at 501 Yanceyville St., across the street from the World War Memorial Stadium, is moving for the month of January 2020 to Revolution Mill at 1601 Yanceyville St.

A simple exchange between City Manager David Parrish and City Councilmember Yvonne Johnson at the City Council work session last week appeared to violate the City Council’s normal conflict of interest policy.

The City of Greensboro regularly releases a list of council-appointed boards and commissions with openings. It also instructs people who are interested in serving on a board or commission how to apply, but it’s a little disingenuous because it is far more complicated to get appointed than the notice implies.

The final town hall meeting of the Greensboro City Council will be Tuesday, Dec. 3 in the Council Chamber at city hall.

The Greensboro Commission on the Status of Women held its final meeting of 2019, on Tuesday, Nov, 26 at the Cultural Arts Center, but it would be misleading to say that a great deal was accomplished.

The legislature finally adjourned the 2019 session for the final time earlier this month, but that...

Wyndham Championship Tournament Director Mark Brazil won the American Junior Golf Association Digger Smith Award. In addition to the award, an ACE grant endowment in Brazil’s name was presented by his friends.

The City of Greensboro offices are closed Thursday, Nov. 28, aka Thanksgiving, and Friday, Nov. 29, aka Black Friday.

For many people who don’t live or work downtown, or live and work in downtown Greensboro, the main concern when coming downtown is where to park.But until Dec. 6, drivers will have more to worry about than just parking.

The Fresh Market corporate headquarters will stay in Greensboro according to a press release from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

A lot of newspapers across the state ran articles about Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest calling for an investigation of the $57.8 million pipeline “mitigation fund” that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper arranged to have created and put under the sole control of the governor.

City Councilmember Sharon Hightower doubled down on her inappropriate behavior before the Greensboro Zoning Commission at the Monday, Nov. 18 meeting in the Council Chamber.

The 2019 Participatory Budgeting (PB) votes have been counted and projects approved.

Melanie Neal, executive director of Guilford Metro 911, has been nominated to be the representative of the North Carolina Chapter of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials on the North Carolina 911 Board.

Greensboro did not have a good year in Raleigh, which means Greensboro’s paid lobbyist McGuireWoods Consulting didn’t have a lot of success to report to the City Council at the work session on Tuesday, Nov. 21.

The city councils voted to approve economic incentives of up to $301,000 each to Fresh Market. Each city council passed a resolution in support of the economic incentives

The Greensboro Board of Adjustment is not meeting on Monday, Nov. 25 because of a lack of business, which is fairly unusual. It is far more common for the board not to meet for lack of a quorum.

Downtown Greensboro Inc. (DGI) held two Community Workshops this week to solicit input on developing a new strategic action plan for downtown Greensboro.The event on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at South End Brewing Co. was attended by close to 100 folks who had a lot of ideas on what the downtown should look and feel like in 2030. The fact that it was held in a venue that sells beer may have helped up the attendance.

Republican Sebastian King officially launched his campaign for the District 27 state Senate seat currently held by Democratic state Sen. Michael Garrett with a press release dated Nov. 12, 2019.

Throwing the agenda out the window, Councilmember Michelle Kennedy brought up two new affordable housing initiatives at the Greensboro City Council Work Session on Tuesday, Nov. 19.

After much discussion, the City Council – by a 7-2 vote at the Tuesday, Nov. 19 council meeting – decided it was going to stay home in 2020.

In 2020, the Greensboro City Council will end the experiment with town hall meetings and go back to having two meetings a month where the City Council actually does the business of running the city.

An item on the City Council agenda for the Tuesday, Nov. 19 meeting, setting the meeting calendar for 2020, has the potential to become one of the more controversial items of the evening.

The North Carolina Supreme Court met for the first time in Greensboro on Monday, Nov. 18.

Greensboro made some major changes to its recycling program this year and some residents still have not gotten the message that glass placed in the brown residential recycling bins ends up at the landfill.But along with that was a major financial change. Instead of being paid $15 a ton for recyclables only, July 1 Greensboro started paying $30 a ton. July 1, 2020, Greensboro will start paying $60 a ton, and on July 1, 2021, it will increase again – to $90 a ton.

The Greensboro City Council will find out how it fared in the North Carolina Legislature this year at a work session at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19 in the Plaza Level Conference Room.

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 owners of Hillside, the historic 31 room mansion at 301 Fisher Park Circle, had applied to the Greensboro Zoning Commission for a special use permit to allow them to operate a bed and breakfast and were denied.