Author: Scott D. Yost

As if the citizens of the Town of Summerfield didn’t already have enough to fight about these days, now they’re engaged in a bitter battle over public records held by Summerfield Mayor Gail Dunham in a private email account.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed 2018 Guilford County Superior Court Judge candidate Lora Cubbage to serve the remaining term of Judge Patrice Hinnant, a former Guilford County Superior Court judge who retired in August.

With the economy improving, everyone expects to see some prices going up, but many residents in Summerfield are doing a double take – and asking a lot of questions – due to the astronomical prices that citizens are being charged for their public records requests.

The talks over whether to create a new $50 million municipal water system to serve northwest Guilford County are gaining steam. Recently, Guilford County Manager Marty Lawing met with the town managers of the three towns that could get a new water system – Summerfield, Stokesdale and Oak Ridge – to discuss the next move for the proposed project.

Early voting is proving to be a big hit this year with county voters and,
by Friday, Oct. 19, after three days of it, more than 18,000 citizens had
already cast their votes for the November election. That’s about 2,000 more
than voted in the first three days of early voting in the 2014 midterm
election – and, since there are 50 percent more days of early voting this
year, some election officials think those initial numbers could be a sign
of very strong turnout for the 2018 election.

Hurricane Michael has come and gone but Guilford County’s recovery is far from over.  In a report to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at the board’s Thursday, Oct. 18 meeting, County Manager Marty Lawing said the preliminary costs associated with the storm for the county, cities and nonprofits was estimated to be about $1.5 million.

Two years might seem like a long time to make plans, but when it involves constructing a new building and moving the county’s mental health services to a new location, it means starting to look for a new location right away. That’s is why Guilford County commissioners and county staff, behind the scenes, are looking at big plans for mental health services in the county two years from now.

Sometimes the Guilford County commissioners get treated like VIPs, but recently some of them have clearly felt like second-class citizens when it comes to a major new school facilities study.

Several commissioners said that, even though Guilford County paid for half of the study from Tallahassee-based MGT Consulting Group, the county commissioners haven’t been granted the same access to the results as school officials.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes isn’t only in a campaign to win reelection – he’s now also in campaign to save an old jail renovation project he wants badly. This week, Barnes has been trying to get the nine Guilford County commissioners to proceed with a $17.3 million renovation of the old jail in downtown Greensboro in order to move his administrative offices into the revamped building.