Author: Scott D. Yost

Republican NC Rep. Jon Hardister has filed a new bill that has passed in the NC House and is expected to pass in the NC Senate next week. The laser-focused part of the bill that applies to the Guilford County Board of Education is meant to, in no uncertain terms, settle the question of who will serve in the board’s District 3 seat, which has been the focus of a legal and political battle all year long.

State, local and federal governments certainly don’t always spend money wisely – however, when it comes to the State of North Carolina’s use of the massive amount of money from a collective lawsuit against opioid makers and distributers, apparently the state is doing it right. 

The Greensboro Transit Agency (GTA) is using a new bus design to honor black men who served in the Continental Army and militia at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

The Greensboro Planning Department is asking area residents to give them some advice on how to achieve “a better-designed walkway to connect Douglas Park and Downtown Greenway both physically and socially.”  The city is also holding a barbeque picnic to celebrate the Greenway work that’s already been done.

Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega put out a press release just in time for all the fireworks shows, and he’s reminding everyone that people may like fireworks but animals generally have the opposite reaction.

Prior to just about every holiday each year, the state of North Carolina puts out various advisories related to that holiday.  For instance, at Christmas they may remind you not to let your tree dry out and catch fire, and, on Memorial Day, they’ll remind you not to bring your charcoal grill into your living room and grill indoors.

On Thursday, June 29, The High Point Public Library announced its 2023 Summer Program schedule for the month of July and there’s plenty the choose from. The theme this year is “All Together Now,” and the focus is on “promoting kindness, friendship and unity.”

Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) really is very much like a local government onto itself – and just like cities and counties around the state this June, the airport has adopted a new budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year that begins on July 1.

The City of High Point is very fortunate: Uncle Sam, the man who best signifies the spirit of the United States of America, has chosen to spend the 2023 Fourth of July holiday in High Point.

Greensboro-based Carroll Companies – a property development and real estate firm that specializes in luxury real estate – announced this week that the company has chosen Philip Williams to be the Senior Vice President of Industrial Development.

Guilford County in the last decade has gone from a wallflower to the belle of the ball when it comes to economic development, and now it seems as though every company in the world wants to relocate or open up a new business in the county.

Now that summer is here and the pandemic is a thing of the past, there’s a lot of pent up travel demand and Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) is a beneficiary of that demand.

If you were saying to yourself, “Give me just a little more time to hear some beach music this summer” – well, you’re in luck because beach music royalty is coming to Greensboro for the next 2023 TowneBank Beach Music Festival concert.

People in Greensboro and the state of North Carolina as a whole are very proud of the fine barbecue that originates from the city and the state, but a new study that used a multitude of measures to find the best barbecue cities in the country ranked Greensboro just 103rd out of the 200 most populous cities in the US.

In the high-tech future – if the killer AI robots let us live – the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math (known collectively as STEM) will be more important than ever for the next generation to know.

Guilford County Schools’ leaders certainly didn’t get everything they wanted in the county’s fiscal 2023-2024 budget; however, one thing the school system is getting is more school nurses. For years, Guilford County commissioners and others have known the nurses at schools were spread too thin – and the county has been slowly but surely attempting to remedy the problem.

July 1 is the start of the fiscal year for a lot of governments and other entities; however, this year, Saturday, July 1 means something special for Friendly Shopping Center: The day marks the store opening at the center of the very popular eyeglasses vendor Warby Parker.

Anyone who’s searched for parking in downtown Greensboro during the middle of a weekday knows that it’s a hit or miss proposition. When you get lucky, and happen to have enough quarters to feed the meter for the time you need, it probably makes your day.

At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 28, High Point will have some talented visitors from the other side of the world come to town. At that time, the High Point-Thomasville HiToms baseball team will host the Chinese Taipei National baseball team at Truist Point Stadium in High Point.

Guilford County residents better hope that nothing catastrophic happens in the county from July 21 to July 24 because, if so, there won’t be many county leaders around to address the problem.

Guilford County just passed the largest budget in the history of the county and all those programs, construction projects, raises, MWBE efforts and other initiatives need to be paid for with money from somewhere. 

Earlier this year, the Rhino Times reported on some prominent local people in the restaurant business who were worried about a 1-cent prepared food tax coming to Guilford County.

For many years, the Animal Shelter in Guilford County was at 4525 W. Wendover Ave.

There was a lot of excitement when the Board of Commissioners passed an $840 million budget on Thursday, June 15, so some people might not have caught what happened right after that.

On Thursday, June 22, at a press conference and in a press release, Guilford County officials explained the actions the county is taking to address the eye-opening problems recently discovered in the Guilford County Division of Social Services. 

Many people expected the Guilford County commissioners to say something about the recent Guilford County Division of Social Services (DSS) scandal in which State of North Carolina investigators discovered that social services workers in Child Protective Services and other DSS workers dealing with kids have been completely ignoring duty, policy and the law in many cases.

As everyone has heard many times before, one definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting to get separate results. 

Whether you think “woke” is a good thing or a bad thing, Guilford County government has certainly been waking up in a big way recently. 

Guilford County commissioners like for people to know that they didn’t raise the property tax rate in the new 2023-2024 fiscal budget. 

North Carolina lawmakers have had enough of the alarming new trend of people shooting up power stations or attempting to incapacitate them in other ways.

Now that the Guilford County fiscal 2023-2024 fiscal budget is in the can, and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education have kissed and made up.  The question still remains – why did Guilford County Schools ask the county commissioners for the monumental amount of $101 in additional money for operations for the new fiscal year?

The 71st North State Law Enforcement Officer Association Conference will take place on Thursday, June 22 in Greensboro.

Since becoming county manager over two years ago, Guilford County Manager Mike Halford has argued that there simply aren’t enough county positions to handle all the work that comes with meeting the needs of the residents of the third largest county in the state. 

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has adopted a new fiscal 2023-2024 county budget and, though the property tax rate remains the same, many of the fees you pay Guilford County will be going up when the new budget goes into effect at the beginning of July. 

Based on all the rain that’s been falling lately, you might think that every inch of Guilford County is at risk of flooding and flood damage.

The Rolling Stones said you can’t always get what you want – but sometimes you just might get what you need. 

Guilford County has a new budget, which will go into effect on Saturday, July 1, and control county spending through the end of June next year.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners did not state why they went into closed session on Thursday, June 15, but it was a secret to no one why they went behind closed doors.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is making changes to the Behavioral Health Center Oversight Board as well as to its by-laws. 

The backers of High Point’s new Major League Soccer NEXT Pro team – the Carolina Core Football Club – have been putting the pieces of the puzzle together before the start of the team’s 2024 inaugural season.

The Guilford County Family Justice Center held an event on Thursday, June 15, meant to keep senior citizens and others in the county from falling victim to various scams.

Each year in June, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has a day of celebration followed by a month of vacation. 

The Guilford County Division of Social Services has come under scrutiny from the state and the media due to its failure to follow rules and procedures in two cases in which a total of five children died in house fires while the division was overseeing those households.  

When the North Carolina Division of Health and Human Services decided to do a deep dive into Guilford County’s Child Protective Services after the tragic death in December of three children in a house fire, it was to be expected that some infractions of policy would be discovered. 

It is hard to imagine anything worse than young children burning to death in a fire.

An investigation by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) after three children died in a fire on December 12, 2022, found some serious issues with the way the Guilford County Division of Social Services checked the household prior to the fire.

Every June, the most important day of the year arrives for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.

All good things must come to an end – and that goes for COVID relief programs as well.

It was a concerned Facebook poster who first called attention to the dog that appeared to be starving to death in Greensboro.