Author: John Hammer

Doug Galyon, former Greensboro city councilmember, former Guilford County commissioner and former chairman of the North Carolina Board of Transportation (NCDOT), died Sunday, April 7.

Greensboro, Guilford County, the eight Greensboro police officers and two Guilford County Emergency Medical Services paramedics who were present when Marcus Deon Smith died on Sept. 8, 2018 are being sued by Mary and George Smith the parents of Marcus Smith.

The Greensboro City Council has heard hours of testimony about the death of Marcus Deon Smith on Sept. 8, 2018, but none of the speakers have talked about Bells Mania more commonly called excited delirium.

Last week the Greensboro City Council at its meeting on Monday, April 1 and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at its meeting on Thursday, April 4 both discussed moving forward to implement a Cure Violence program in Greensboro. Bringing Cure Violence to Greensboro is a topic that has been discussed in the community for over a year.

In spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of … lavender? Lilacs? Ligustrum? (I know it’s a word that begins with an L.)  Regardless of which way a young man’s thoughts turn, spring for many of us turns our thoughts to gardening.

The lawsuit filed by Black Network Television (BNT) against the City of Greensboro has been on a long twisty road, and now it’s taken a freakish turn.

Norman Smith of Smith, James, Rowlett and Cohen who was representing BNT not only asked that he be allowed to withdraw as the counsel for BNT in a motion filed March 25 but he also asked that two of the briefs he filed on behalf of BNT be stricken from the record.

Randy Carda, senior vice president at Pinnacle Financial Partners, has been named the corporate chair for JDRF’s High Point One Walk on April 27. 

North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell would like to find out the cost of the health care the state is providing to over 727,000 employees and their dependents. 

Most everyone who has ever look at a bill for any kind of medical care in the past ten years has been mystified by what it means. 

Candidates often run for office saying the reason they are running is they want to serve their community. But, people have plenty of opportunities to serve the community without running for office.

If you do want to serve your community and learn something about how local government actually works, there are a wealth of opportunities available.

Recycling in Greensboro is going to change and not for the better.

Greensboro signed an incredibly prescient recycling contract in 2012.  It then renegotiated the contract in 2016 so the contract was extended to 2020.  What that means is that until June 30, 2020 Greensboro can get paid $15 for each ton of recyclable material produced by the materials recovery facility (MRF).

City Councilmember Justin Outling was conspicuously absent from the second half of the Greensboro City Council town hall meeting on Monday, April 1.

Outling left the dais about 7 p.m. after the whole meeting had devolved into chaos.   At that point Councilmember Goldie Wells was ordering that people standing up and shouting at the City Council be removed from the Council Chamber.  Mayor Nancy Vaughan was shouting that if people didn’t sit down they would be removed.  Lots of people in the audience were shouting at the City Council and in the midst of that Outling collected his iPad and walked out. 

The Greensboro City Council gave in to mob rule at its town hall meeting on Monday, April 1, and all but agreed to launch another investigation into the Sept. 8, 2018 death of Marcus Deon Smith.

Tony Wilkins has announced he is running for mayor of Greensboro in 2021.

 Because the terms of the mayor and city councilmembers are now four years, there is no election in 2019, but that doesn’t mean there is no political intrigue.

The Human Relations Commission held a “special meeting” last week and  considering all that has been going on in the Human Relations Department it was a meeting that appeared to serve no purpose.

If you were planning on sitting back after work on Tuesday, April 2 with an adult beverage and a bowl of popcorn to watch the Greensboro City Council get yelled at for a couple of hours, you’d better reschedule.

The Cadence of the Drums a high school drumline competition sponsored by One Step Further will be held at Simkins Indoor Sports Pavilion at Barber Park on Saturday, March 30.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Dr. John Kilimanjaro, the founder and publisher of The Carolina Peacemaker.
Considering the political beliefs espoused by The Rhinoceros Times and The Carolina Peacemaker, one might think that Dr. Kilimanjaro and I would have had an adversarial relationship.  But it is a great testimony to Dr. Kilimanjaro’s ability to see the good in people that through the years, although often on opposite sides of the political fence, we not only found ways to work together, but also to become friends.  

So much for transparency. 

Greensboro restricted the public’s access to city hall on Wednesday, March 27 but was there a public hearing, a public announcement, even a press release to the public, to the people who pay the bills, to let them know that their access to city hall was being restricted.

The big news from the Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation Advisory Committee meeting on Monday, March 27 came from a speaker from the floor and it wasn’t about roads but buses.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan officially welcomed the eBay team and the participating business owners to the eBay Retail Revival kickoff at Revolution Mill on Wednesday, March 27.

The City Council asked for more decorum at its town hall meetings held the first Tuesday of every month.

The City Council work session on Tuesday, March 5 in the Plaza Level Conference Room at city hall was not at all what was on the agenda, but nobody on the City Council complained.

At large City Councilmember Michelle Kennedy says that she is going to hold a community conversation every month, in different locations and at different times of day.

State Rep. Jon Hardister agreed that in the proposed state education bond referendum it appeared that Guilford County as the third largest school system in the state “was not getting as much as it should.”

Somebody in Raleigh doesn’t much like Guilford County, in fact a whole bunch of folks must not like Guilford County judging from House Bill 241 which if passed would put a referendum for a $1.9 billion bond for statewide education construction on the ballot in 2020, but wouldn’t do much for Guilford County.

Legalized sports gambling could be coming to North Carolina sooner than you think.

On Monday, Feb. 25 Greensboro sent out a notice that a “Special Meeting” of the City Council would be held on Friday, March 8 at 10 a.m. in the Council Chamber.

Kimberly Sowell, was appointed as a Greensboro assistant city manager according to a Tuesday afternoon press release. 

Mayor Nancy Vaughan has asked for advice on how to make the City Council meetings run smoother and be more productive.

Having attended the vast majority of City Council meetings since 1992, it would be shocking if I didn’t have some advice to offer.

Greensboro has initiated a pretty sweet deal, Housing Connect, for first time home buyers, and anyone who buys a home in a redevelopment area, if they meet the income requirements.

The third round of Participatory Budgeting is kicked off this month, but it raises the question how can it be called Participatory Budgeting when in the first two rounds about 99.6 percent of the people in Greensboro did not participate.

Greensboro has had electric buses running routes since Jan. 31, however like a soft opening for a new business, Thursday, Feb. 21 was the official grand opening of the electric bus program and Gov. Roy Cooper came to help celebrate.

Greensboro now has a community bank. 

Carolina State Bank held the grand opening of its headquarters at 3202 Northline Avenue beside Friendly Shopping Center on Thursday, Feb. 21. 

At the Tuesday Feb. 19 work session the City Council heard a report on Welcome Home new program for homeless people which started in January.

District 1 Councilmember Sharon Hightower frequently complains about the treatment her district receives from the city.  At the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 5 one of her complaints was that the police responded to calls in her district slower than they did to calls in other City Council districts.  Hightower said, “My district doesn’t get any kind of response.  They don’t get fair treatment across the city.”

If you happen to a be a taxpayer in Greensboro you have no one on the City Council looking out for your interests.

More government regulations, more government employees to enforce them and how to pay for it, is what the Greensboro City Council will be considering at its work session on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 4 p.m. in the Plaza Level Conference Room.

The Greensboro City Council and the Guilford Legislative Delegation had a cordial meeting at the ACC Hall of Champions in the Greensboro Coliseum Complex on Friday morning.

Social media is pretty amazing.

Thursday afternoon Joymongers Brewing Co. posted a notice on its Facebook page stating that because of a Guilford County Health Department interpretation of state regulations, dogs would no longer be allowed in the brewery taproom. According to the post because taprooms were not defined in the regulations the Guilford County Health Department had decided to treat taprooms as restaurants. 

The Greensboro City Council is meeting with the Guilford County Legislative Delegation Friday, Feb. 15 at 10 a.m. in the ACC Hall of Champions at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Some departments are so well run that you don’t read much about them in the news.  One of those is Greensboro Workforce Development and the force behind Workforce Development, Director Lillian Plummer is retiring on Feb. 28.

Greensboro now owns the Guilford County mental health building and the 2.6 acre lot it’s on at the corner of West Friendly Avenue and North Eugene Street.

For the past six months when asked about the February One Place parking deck and Westin Hotel project the answer from city officials has been “We’re making progress.”

The Greensboro City Council is all set to approve the new Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise (MWBE) program at its Feb. 19 meeting.