Author: Scott D. Yost

The Town of Oak Ridge is finding this out about traffic circles:  Some people love them and some people hate them.

Lots of people hope the New Year, 2019, will bring something better for them – but Town of Summerfield residents in particular are really, really hoping that 2019 will be a better year for their town than 2018. 

High Point officials have high hopes for a new cooperative furniture effort in downtown meant to help bring young innovative furniture makers together in a cooperative workspace.

A recent audit of Guilford County government shows that building permits in unincorporated Guilford County and the county’s small towns increased in fiscal 2017-2018 over 2016-2017 – but not by as much as one might think given how hot the national economy was during that time period. 

Calvin Graham, a 56-year-old inmate being held in the Guilford County jail in downtown Greensboro, died in the county’s custody on Christmas Eve.

The City of High Point, long known as the “Furniture Capital of the World,” is taking steps to transform its downtown – a downtown that in the past has largely been known for its furniture showrooms.  But something surprising happened in 2018: High Point’s downtown saw an influx of new furniture businesses and showrooms.

Anyone who drives down a busy street like Battleground Avenue in Greensboro has no doubt noticed the increase in the number of vaping shops around town, but Guilford County health officials are now on an all-out mission to discourage teens from the practice, which eliminates the smoke of cigarettes but still delivers nicotine to the blood stream of the user.

Better late than never.

That’s what people say, anyway, and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has just found out that on Thursday, Jan. 10, the board will finally get some new information regarding the status of a $1-million school facilities study.  The Board of Commissioners paid half the cost of the study, so it has a vested interest in the results.

Christmas is a time when some people drop a dollar or two in the Salvation Army bucket or try to help out those less fortunate in other ways,

Christmas Eve isn’t the time anyone should have to worry about a wastewater spill, but that’s exactly what High Point Public Services officials had on their hands on Monday, Dec. 24.

Over the last decade, the Guilford County School system has added twice as many employees as it has students. 

Most people stopped donating to Susie’s Fund a long time ago, but the fund keeps giving to the news cycle

The Piedmont Triad area doesn’t lead the entire planet in many categories but one that it likely does lead in is creating highly ballyhooed long-term strategic plans that are never looked at again once they’re published. 

Now that all the initial drama has passed from the seismic shift in leadership at the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, new Sheriff Danny Rogers says he’s getting down to the nuts and bolts of reshaping the department and he said that his new leadership model can be summed up in two words – “fairness” and “structure.”

In May 2019, the brand new stadium in downtown High Point opens and that’s when the heated competition begins – not the one between the new High Point Rockers and whatever team they’re playing, but the intense battle between the Rockers and the High Point-Thomasville HiToms, a longstanding and storied baseball team that for the last 20 years has owned baseball fans in the High Point area.

People have all sorts of New Year’s resolutions for 2019 but the main resolution of brand new Minority and Business Women Enterprise (MWBE) Director Cynthia Barnes-Phipps is to have Guilford County spend more money with woman and minority owned businesses.

Guilford County Health Director Merle Green said that Guilford County is trying to get out ahead of a trend that could have very bad repercussions for public health:

While many Guilford County citizens were running around stores this week collecting last minute gifts for friends and family, groundwater inspectors from the Guilford County Division of Public Health were running around neighborhoods in west Greensboro collecting well water samples to see if they’re contaminated – and, if so, to discover how much contaminant those samples contain.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 20, Greensboro City Council members, Guilford County commissioners, Cone Health officials and others involved in the effort to bring a chapter of Cure Violence to Guilford County met to discuss the best way to make that happen.

There’s been a lot of joy and mutual congratulations around the plan by Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center to reshape the nature of mental health care in Guilford County and have Cone take over the job. 

Some Guilford County animal lovers feel like the county’s plan to spend down Susie’s Fund, phase it out and start a broader fund to help the animals at the Guilford County Animal Shelter in more ways, isn’t a good plan – and they’ve been letting the county know it on Facebook, comments and in emails.

Details are now coming out fast regarding what mental health care in Guilford County will look like after a new partnership between Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center is in place – and so are answers to the all important question, “Hey, who’s going to pay for this shiny new mental health care system?”

Big trees grow from small acorns and, in the case of Guilford County’s mental health services, a very big deal reached between Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center came from a short but forceful statement made by one commissioner in early 2017.

Given the major new agreement between Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center to reshape mental health care across the county,

A new chapter of Cure Violence – a program meant to reduce violent crime – has been proposed for Guilford County and it might become a reality.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners’ retreat is a chance for the board to get a fresh start on the New Year, set priorities, make the collective equivalent of New Year’s resolutions for Guilford County and plot out a course for the year.

Cure Violence is looking for a home.

In order to encourage a healthy Guilford County and honor those who contribute to that goal, the Public Health Division of the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services, along with the American Heart Association, sponsored a 2018 Community Partner Recognition Awards ceremony

It’s well known that no one wants to be in jail as an inmate, but right now, apparently, no one wants to be in Guilford County’s two jails as an employee: Of the 381 budgeted positions in the Detention Division of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, there are now 47 vacancies.

After years of almost nothing but bad news on the opioid crisis front in Guilford County, there’s finally some good news: The number of people who die from opioid overdose has been nearly cut in half in Guilford County in 2018.

With just a couple of weeks left for people to get their Guilford County property taxes in on time, property owners in the county are behind where they were last year in their payments.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is holding a “Celebration of Life” and tree-lighting ceremony to honor the lives lost in the county through traffic accidents, domestic violence, crime and addiction.

Newly elected Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers is making a lot of changes in the Sheriff’s Department and he said this week that one of the changes he’d like to see is a second Sheriff’s Department office in High Point with much of the same functionality as that in Greensboro. 

A new statistical analysis of county data, done in conjunction with the county audit, shows the continuation of a negative trend that’s been occurring for years: The number of volunteer firefighters serving in Guilford County is dwindling.  

There’s been a lot of press lately about Guilford County’s attempts to address the needs of foster children, but the county is also enhancing efforts to aid older adults who can’t take care of themselves entirely but wish to remain at home.

An October hurricane and the recent December snowstorm have spurred a debate in Summerfield over the need for a Public Safety Committee.  Some say a coordinated volunteer response effort opens the town up to liability concerns, while others argue that the town must have some plan in place when a severe storm hits or when there is another type of emergency.

In what was not a very Christmassy discussion at all, the Summerfield Town Council, on Saturday, Dec. 15, argued over whether or not town employees should get the entire week of Christmas off.  In the end, the council voted 4-to-1 to give staff the extended break – but not before council members bickered over the question just as they have all year long over practically everything.

It’s been ten years since Guilford County took on a massive debt for the school system, the community college system and the jail. The county will be paying off that debt for years to come, but the Republican-led board now in charge is taking a much harder look at what new debt the county accumulates. 

Forget about the fact that Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) has been steadily growing its passenger numbers lately – cargo flights at the airport are through the roof.  

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…”

You might think the founder of Susie’s Fund would be upset about the fact that Guilford County is doing away with the well-known fund set up to help cover the medical costs for injured and abused animals that ended up at the Guilford County Animal Shelter, however, Roberta Wall, who gave the fund its name and helped establish it, said nothing could be further from the truth.

The Guilford County Planning Department is seeing a red hot new trend across the county: Dollar Generals and small stores like it are popping up all over like mushrooms after a big rain in summer. 

County sheriffs are often equipped with guns and Tasers, but new Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers says he’s carrying an even stronger weapon in his arsenal – love.

Guilford County is getting rid of Susie’s fund.

Guilford County gets most of its revenue each year from property taxes, but sales tax revenue is the county’s number two source of income and, for the, 2018-2019 fiscal year, sales tax revenue is running significantly behind projections. 

 “What have you done for me lately?”

You can’t keep the boys down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree, and, more importantly for conservationists, you can’t bring farms back once they’re gone.

Schools don’t like it if you turn in your homework late – and, apparently, Guilford County commissioners don’t like it when the school system and the consultants they hired turn in their study results late.