Author: John Hammer

eBay calls it Retail Revival, but it sounds more like eBay is going to adopt a bunch of small businesses in Greensboro and raise them up right.  What small business wouldn’t want to be adopted eBay one of the country’s most successful internet companies worth about $42 billion.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued a strong statement calling for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to resign because of the photos that may or may not be Northam in “black face” or dressed as a member of the KKK on his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page.

But there are some similar photos in the yearbook for UNC-Chapel Hill in 1979, when Cooper was a student and a member of the Chi Psi fraternity, that were revealed in an article in the British newspaper The Daily Mail on Wednesday, Feb. 6.

The photos in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook are on Northam’s personal yearbook page; and whether he is in them or not, according to one of the editors of the yearbook, the students submitted the photos for their personal page, although Northam now says he did not submit that one.

Regarding the Northam photos, Cooper stated:“This is a reprehensible picture that is deeply disappointing and I know must come with pain beyond what many of us can even understand.  Resignation is the only way forward.”

In the UNC-Chapel Hill yearbook for 1979, while Cooper was a student at Carolina, there is a photo of two members of the Chi Phi fraternity in KKK garb with a noose around the neck of a white man made up in black face, and on the next page are more students made up in black face. 

The photos are of the Chi Phi fraternity and Cooper was a member of Chi Psi, so it is a different fraternity; and unlike Northam there is no indication that Cooper had anything to do with the photos, but Cooper’s name appears in the yearbook on the page after the offending photos.  Evidently Cooper missed the yearbook photo shoot for his fraternity and is listed as “Not Pictured.”

The Daily Mail ran a long story on the photos and on Cooper, noting that Cooper had demanding Northam’s resignation because of photos on Northam’s page in his medical school yearbook.

Northam first apologized for the photos and then denied he was in them or even knew where they came from.  Northam, however, has admitted to being made up in black face for a party while he was a student.

The photos in Yackety Yack, the Carolina yearbook, are from a different fraternity, and in the photo of Cooper’s fraternity, Chi Psi, there appears to be a couple of black members.  It seems highly unlikely that a fraternity with black members would also have white members made up in black face for parties or dressed up as members of the KKK.

But the photos are in the Carolina yearbook on the pages before Cooper’s name and he made no mention of them when he called for Northam to resign.

So far, Cooper has made no public statement about the yearbook photos.

Tuesday City Council talked about pulling the plug on the entire recycling program. 

Greensboro Field Operations Director Dale Wyrick was going over options for the City Council to consider next year when recycling in Greensboro is going to get a whole lot more expensive. 

The Greensboro City Council may have finally had enough. 

After hours of being yelled at by the same group of people about the same issue, the City Council at the suggestion of Councilmember Justin Outling discussed altering its town hall meetings which have been held once a month for over year.

The draft of the new Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise Program Plan will be reviewed by the Greensboro City Council at a work session in the Plaza Level Conference Room on Tuesday Feb. 5 at 3:30 p.m.

What does it mean that nine of the 42 wells tested near the airport for PFOS and PFOA, were found to have some and 33 wells were found to have none.

The Greensboro City Council is spending more money than the City of Greensboro has coming in as revenue.

The 2019 Greensboro City Council day long retreat at the ACC Hall of Champions at the Greensboro Coliseum on Thursday, Jan. 31 should win an award for the most improved retreat of the year. 

Crime in Greensboro showed a significant drop in 2018.

The latest book by New York Timesbestselling author Jerry Bledsoe, a memoir titled Do-Good Boy: An Unlikely Writer Confronts the ‘60s and Other Indignities,is now available in print. 

The Greensboro City Council is going to get some unwelcomed news at its work session on Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Roy Carroll, president and chief executive officer of The Carroll Companies, tweeted an announcement today that The Carroll Companies had purchased the 6.6 acre site at the corner of Hobbs Road and Friendly Avenue, that had been the center of one of the most controversial zoning battles in recent times

It seems like everyday somebody is announcing their plans to run for office in 2020.  A lot of the announcements are by Democratic presidential hopefuls, but the announcements about statewide offices are also picking up.

An announcement went out this week that because of numerous weather events loose leaf collection that was supposed to end on Friday, Jan. 25 has been extended to Feb. 7.

There is good news and bad news about the confluence (you can hardly call it an intersection) of Battleground Avenue, Lawndale Drive, Westover Terrace, Cornwallis Road, Pembroke Road, Green Valley Road, Sunset Drive and whatever else is in that transportation disaster area.

This may be considered a preemptive strike that has little chance of being successful. 

Don’t tell anyone because it’s kind of a secret but on Thursday, Jan. 31 Greensboro will become the first city in North Carolina to incorporate electric buses into its public transportation fleet. 

Electric scooters are returning to the streets of Greensboro on Monday, January 28 according to Chris Spencer with the Greensboro Department of Transportation.

No the Lincoln Financial building is not on fire, but if you drive past in the morning for the rest of the week you have every reason to think it is.

It looks like just another press release from the City of Greensboro about yet another public meeting, but for those interested in downtown development this one is a blockbuster.

A crowd of bundled up folks gathered in the cold at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Bragg Street at 2 p.m. on Monday to dedicate the much traveled bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in its new and everyone hopes permanent location.

The meeting of the Greensboro Criminal Justice Advisory Commission (GCJAC) held Thursday, Jan. 17 was surprising calm and businesslike considering the fact that two high profile members of the commission had been removed by the City Council on Tuesday night.

Tuesday night the Greensboro City Council voted unanimously to buy about 40 apartments for $2.8 million. But the purchase has nothing to do with affordable housing, the minimum housing code or any housing issue, the apartments were bought to ensure that Greensboro’s water continues to be safe and clean.

The rezoning request to build 380 apartments on Horse Pen Creek Road from Keystone Development, is what filled the Greensboro City Council Chambers on Tuesday night. 

One thing reporters learn pretty quickly when covering local government is that you don’t write about the clerks.

The community meeting held Monday night to explain in more detail the reason that the Renaissance Community Co-op grocery store in the Renaissance Shops at 2517 Phillips Avenue was closing on Jan. 25 was a sad occasion with more than a few tears shed, but it was also surprisingly upbeat.

When High Point announced that it was building a baseball stadium to promote downtown development in the fall of 2017, Carroll Companies President and CEO Roy Carroll said that he would work with the master developer in an effort to build about a 100-room hotel near the stadium as part of the project.

Greensboro was actually pretty fortunate when it came to Hurricane Florence, we got a lot of rain but not the tremendous winds that cause massive damage and compared to the folks in Eastern North Carolina we didn’t even get that much rain

Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that studying the use of the “Ripp Hobble” and other restraints the police use was just the kind of thing that the Greensboro Criminal Justice Advisory Commission (GCJAC) should do.

It looks like 2019 could be the year the Heritage House redevelopment project gets moving again.

The just released Plan2Play Parks and Recreation Master Plan is chock full of information about Greensboro, the history of Greensboro and, of course, the multitude of parks and recreational facilities in and around the city.

If you want to start a meeting with a rousing recital of the Pledge of Allegiance invite a championship youth football team to lead the audience.

The Renaissance Community Co-op grocery store at 2517 Phillips Ave. announced today that it would close its doors on Friday, Jan. 25 after a little more than two years in business.

After the meeting Tuesday, Jan. 8 where the City Council sat and listening to people accuse police officers of killing Marcus Deon Smith and covering it up,  Councilmember Tammi Thurm said that she had a couple of points that she had planned to make during the council comment period usually held at the end of the meeting.

At least the meetings of the Greensboro City Council are consistent and the Tuesday, Jan. 8 meeting at 5:30 in the Council Chambers fit the bill. 

Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 5:30 the Greensboro City Council will sit at the dais in the Council Chambers for hours, not to conduct the city’s business but if the meetings of 2018 are any indication of how the meetings will go in 2019, to be harangued, yelled at and berated.

The Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners are considering spending $300,000 each to bring a Cure Violence program to Greensboro.

At some point this year the City Council will almost certainly pass a newly minted Comprehensive Plan called PLANIT GSO.

Greensboro City Council meetings coming soon to a Facebook page near you. 

Greensboro City Councilmember Justin Outling said that he doesn’t always agree with the District Attorney or with the actions of the police department

After a thorough investigation Greensboro police officers have been cleared of any criminal wrong doing in the incident that resulted in the death of Marcus Deon Smith on Sept. 8, 2018 on Church Street downtown.

Every Greensboro City Councilmember should attend one meeting of the Greensboro Board of Adjustment, so they can see what effect the current zoning ordinances have on the citizens of Greensboro.

Chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party Troy Lawson has announced that he will not be running for reelection at the Republican County Convention in March.

Despite the fact that 2018 set a new record in Greensboro for precipitation including almost a foot of snow in December, the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts is on schedule for its opening in March of 2020.

Judging from the final meetings of 2018, it looks like 2019 is shaping up to be a tax increase year. Whether it is a sales tax increase or a property tax increase, it seems that some kind of tax increase is in the air.

New electric city buses will be on the streets of Greensboro later this month.

In December the City Council unanimously approved the new Cultural Arts Master Plan which has been in the works for two years.