Author: Scott D. Yost

If your tap water starts smelling a little off in early April, don’t panic – and definitely don’t stop drinking it.

The City of Greensboro is once again wrapping up its annual Temporary Free-Chlorine Conversion Program – a routine maintenance effort that can leave some residents noticing slight changes in taste or odor. The program officially ends Monday, April 6, when the city switches back to its normal disinfectant system using chloramines….

Guilford County has tapped one of its own to help lead its emergency medical system, promoting longtime employee Jeff Hutchens to deputy director of Emergency Services following what officials described as a nationwide search.

According to Guilford County Emergency Services, Hutchens will oversee operations of the county’s EMS system in his new role, which he is scheduled to begin on Sunday, April 5….

The City of Greensboro has announced a slate of service changes and facility closures for Friday, April 3, as city offices shut down in observance of Good Friday and Spring Break.

As is often the case with city holidays, the biggest impact for many residents will be changes to their trash and recycling pickup. No garbage, recycling, bulk trash, yard waste or appliance collections will take place on Friday, April 3. Instead, those Friday collections will move up a day to Thursday, April 2, while Thursday’s collections will be picked up even earlier, on Wednesday, April 1….

Spring planting season is just about here, and Guilford County’s annual plant sale at the Guilford County Farm is set to begin on Wednesday, April 1.

According to Guilford County officials, the sale will start at 9 a.m. that day and continue through Saturday, May 30 – or until all the plants are sold.

The plants for sale are grown by Guilford County Parks staff in the greenhouse at the Guilford County Farm, located at 7315 Howerton Rd. in Gibsonville…

Greensboro police say they’ve made an arrest in connection with the city’s third homicide of 2026 – but, as is often the case early in an investigation, many key questions remain unanswered.

According to the Greensboro Police Department, officers were called to the 3300 block of North O’Henry Boulevard on Sunday afternoon, March 23, after reports that a person had been shot…

As Guilford County property owners brace for potentially higher tax bills following the latest countywide revaluation, most of the public conversation has been focused on one question: How much of that increased tax base value will local governments actually nab and spend?

However, while that debate has taken center stage, a second, much less discussed story has been unfolding at the same time – the projects on the table that will mean local government spending for decades to come…

There’s an old saying: “Georgia drivers, no survivors.”

Greensboro drivers aren’t quite that bad but the city certainly has some terrible drivers who frequently create dangerous conditions. Many Greensboro drivers don’t know that there is a lever on their steering wheel that alerts others of their intention to turn; a lot don’t know that it’s not a great idea to crank up the high beams at night and blind the drivers coming at them; and many have no idea what to do when two cars arrive simultaneously at a four-way stop.  If three Greensboro drivers ever arrived at a four-way stop simultaneously, they would all have to turn off their cars, get out and discuss it for a while and perhaps draw straws to see who should go through the intersection first…

More than two years after a 5-month-old child died in Brown Summit, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office has made an arrest and filed murder charges in the case.

According to Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers, deputies were first called to a home on Hickory Court on the night of Dec. 8, 2023, for a reported cardiac arrest involving an infant.

When deputies arrived, Guilford County Emergency Services personnel were already on the scene performing life-saving efforts on the child. The infant was taken to a local hospital but was later pronounced dead…

There’s a growing concern in Guilford County that doesn’t fit neatly into partisan politics, easy solutions or even clear definitions – and that’s exactly why local officials say it’s time to slow down, collect some real data and then figure out what’s actually going on.

At the center of that current effort is Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen and his office, which is working with other county staff, planners and outside researchers to understand better how many homes in the county are being bought and owned by corporations – and what impact that might be having on local communities….

Guilford County health officials are warning residents about a potential measles exposure after a confirmed case passed through Greensboro earlier this month.

According to Guilford County Division of Public Health, an out-of-state individual who tested positive for measles visited a Wendy’s at 2221 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive on Friday, March 13, between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Anyone who was at that location during that time may have been exposed…

Two-third bonds are confusing, and many people don’t fully understand these special types of after-the-fact bonds. However, local government leaders across the state – not just in Guilford County – understand that financial vehicle very well, because it can be a useful tool when officials need to find money for projects that might not win voter approval.

All of this is why voters who approve large bond referendums need to understand exactly what they’re voting on…

There’s been a lot of talk on social media lately claiming that Guilford County is planning to take money away from school bond funding to pay for new county buildings and a massive, consultant-recommended, countywide renovation and capital project.

If county staff and commissioners move forward with the project – or even major parts of it – the county will need to take on more debt. However, that debt would be on top of, rather than in place of, the more than $3 billion in school bond debt the county is already taking on to fund school projects….

The City of Greensboro is touting what it calls a major year for economic development, and on paper, the numbers are truly eye-catching.

According to the city’s just released 2025 “Year in Review” from its Economic Development Office, Greensboro saw more than $4.74 billion in capital investment tied to projects announced or advanced during the year…

Guilford County’s long-anticipated 2026 revaluation continues to unfold – and now the focus is shifting from homeowners to business owners.

As of noon on Tuesday, March 17, the county hadn’t yet released updated tax values for commercial, or business, properties. However, Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis told the Rhino Times on Tuesday morning that those values are expected to go live later today….

The tax values for Guilford County properties came out about a month ago, and while many homeowners were stunned by the Tax Department’s new appraisals – in some cases jumping as much as two-and-a-half times higher than in the 2022 revaluation – the early appeal process appears to be moving along relatively smoothly.

So far, as of Tuesday, March 17, there have been just under 5,000 residential property owners who’ve called or written in to challenge their values….

A multi-agency law enforcement effort resulted in the arrest of a 22-year-old man wanted for a lengthy list of criminal charges after authorities located him at a residence in neighboring Forsyth County.

According to a press release issued Monday, March 16 by the Greensboro Police Department, officers with the department’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Team worked alongside agents from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is expected to lend its formal support this week to a regional water planning effort that local leaders say will be critical to managing the Piedmont Triad’s rapid growth in the coming decades.

At their Thursday, March 19 meeting, the commissioners are scheduled to adopt a resolution backing a newly completed Master Planning Study by the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority (PTRWA)…

Downtown Greensboro, Inc. (DGI) President and CEO Zack Matheny announced this week that he will step down from his position after leading the downtown development organization for just over a decade.

Matheny has served as the head of DGI since 2015 – during a period when that nonprofit group expanded its programs and increased its role in organizing major downtown events and initiatives….

The Trump administration thinks that “green” is a four-letter word; however, for the City of Greensboro and one department in particular, nothing could be further from the truth.

According to a newly released annual report from the city’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience, Greensboro officials spent much of 2025 pushing forward with…

Guilford County residents will have an unusual chance this weekend to take care of several chores at once – recycling hard-to-dispose-of items, safely getting rid of old medications, shredding personal documents and even donating food – all at a single community event.

Guilford County Environmental Services, the Town of Pleasant Garden…

Everything old is new again.

The City of Greensboro is reminding residents of that fact with a series of history-focused events taking place this month that celebrate everything from the Revolutionary War to the city’s own museum history….

If you want to understand what Greensboro firefighters actually do in a year, the numbers tell the story pretty well.

In fiscal 2024–2025, the Greensboro Fire Department responded to 41,313 incidents, saved more than $221 million in property and answered nearly 25,000 medical calls. Firefighters also tested more than 15,000 fire hydrants, educated over 25,000 children and installed hundreds of smoke alarms across the city…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has been spending money like crazy in recent years, but the good news is that they are not running out largely due to the big rise in tax bills property owners saw after the 2022 revaluation, when the board decided to keep the tax rate the same even though that meant people’s tax bills would go up 25, 30, or 35 percent or so….

The City of Asheboro has announced that Thomas D. Carruthers will become the city’s new city attorney beginning April 6 – bringing more than two decades of legal experience to the growing Randolph County city. That experience includes years advising municipalities across North Carolina and previously serving as city attorney for Greensboro….

What began as one of the closest elections in North Carolina political history has now shifted slightly – though the outcome still isn’t officially final.

In addition to being one of the closest races in history, it’s also one of the most important.

After provisional ballots were reviewed and counted on Friday, March 6, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page (pictured above with Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers)…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners took a break from budgets, tax debates and policy discussions on Thursday night, March 5, to recognize one of the state’s most successful high school athletic programs – the Grimsley High School football team.

The meeting at the Old Guilford County Court House included a special presentation honoring…

The meeting room in the Old Guilford County Court House was packed on Thursday night, March 5, as Guilford County residents turned out in very large numbers to deliver a blunt message to county leaders – don’t turn soaring property values into soaring tax bills.

The crowd began gathering well before the meeting of the Guilford County Board of…

In a remarkable exchange on Capitol Hill this week, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis delivered a blistering critique of Kristi Noem during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday, March 3.

The hearing, which stretched for hours and focused largely on immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security’s recent controversies, became notable when Tillis – a Republican – unloaded some of the harshest criticism of the day on a member of his own party’s administration…

Never think that your single vote doesn’t matter.

In the Republican primary for North Carolina Senate District 26 this week, longtime Senate leader Phil Berger trails Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page by just two votes – an almost unbelievably narrow margin that could ultimately be decided by a handful of ballots once the official canvass and any recount are completed…

Guilford County commissioners are set to vote  to approve, on Thursday, March 5, a budget amendment that would add $250,000 to the county’s Juvenile Detention budget and authorize payments to the State of North Carolina for housing certain Guilford County juveniles in state-run detention facilities….

Property owners across Guilford County are beginning to receive their 2026 reappraisal notices, and for many residents the new assessed values are significantly higher than in the previous cycle. Those values will be used to calculate property taxes once commissioners set the new tax rate later this year….

As homeowners across Guilford County open their 2026 revaluation notices and see sharply higher home values, state lawmakers in Raleigh are taking a closer look at whether North Carolina’s property tax relief system needs an overhaul.

A bill filed in the North Carolina General Assembly – House Bill 432 in the 2025-26 session…

Guilford County Sheriff’s Office investigators have arrested a 56-year-old Greensboro man on multiple felony charges related to the alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.

Sheriff Danny Rogers announced on Friday, Feb. 27 that on Monday, Feb. 23, Child Crimes Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Investigative Unit began investigating a…

The passing of Jesse Jackson has prompted tributes across the country – but in Greensboro, it’s also personal.

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said Jackson wasn’t just a national civil rights icon to him…

The City of Greensboro will host a “Black Balloon Day” event on Friday, March 6, from 4 to 6 p.m. at LeBauer Park, located at 208 N. Davie St., to honor lives lost to overdose and to support families that have been impacted by substance use.

A press release from the city states that the event is being organized by the city’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) team in partnership with the Guilford County Division…

Commissioner Pat Tillman told the Rhino Times he believes Guilford County commissioners should seriously consider adopting a revenue neutral tax rate in the wake of the sharply higher 2026 property revaluation – and he also said he thinks he may already have four votes lined up to try.

Tillman, a Republican member of the nine-member board, said he’s been flooded with calls, emails and texts from concerned residents since the new property values were released…

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is investigating another in-custody death at the county’s detention facilities – the latest in what appears to be a growing number of jail deaths over the last year.

The Sherrif’s Office announced on Monday, February, 23 that Scott Alan Fanter, died in the early morning hours after experiencing what authorities described as a medical condition while in custody at the Guilford County Detention Center in High Point….

The City of Greensboro will host a series of Community Budget Sessions beginning Thursday, March 5, giving residents a chance to learn how the city’s annual budget is developed before it’s adopted.

If you want to learn where all your hard-earned tax money goes and what it’s used for, this is your chance to learn a little about that and also a chance to offer some input…

With City of Greensboro Police Chief John Thompson set to retire at the end of February, the city has announced that Assistant Chief Chris Schultheis will step in as interim chief.

According to the city’s press release posted Friday afternoon, Schultheis will assume the role of Interim Chief of the Greensboro Police Department effective Friday, February 27…

Guilford County officials have informed the Rhino Times that if county commissioners were to keep the property tax rate exactly the same under the sharply increased 2026 revaluation, the county would take in about $175 million in additional revenue every year.

That’s the number.

The last time the county underwent…

Many Guilford County homeowners were stunned when the new 2026 revaluation numbers went live.

Some properties jumped far more than the 40 to 45 percent average increase county officials had previously projected. Some properties spot checked by the Rhino Times included homes that more than doubled in value compared to 2022.

Since those new numbers were posted, county officials say they’ve heard from a lot of concerned residents…

When the Rhino Times warned people that their housing values could go up by 50 percent or more in the new revaluation, it turns out that warning wasn’t anywhere near strong enough for a lot of homeowners in the county.

County tax officials have previously told the Board of Commissioners that overall property values were expected to rise roughly 40 to 45 percent on average compared to the 2022 revaluation…

Everything old is new again. 

While measles had basically become a thing of the past for the US, now there’s growing concern over the rapid rise in cases and that has North Carolina health officials very worried.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday, Feb. 17 that there have been 22 confirmed measles cases in North Carolina since late December 2025 – and state health…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners plans to enter into a new $4.445 million agreement to provide School Resource Officers in local schools – a multi-year pact that would continue the county’s financial commitment to placing deputies in public school buildings across Guilford County.

The proposed interlocal agreement between the county and the Guilford County Board of Education would cover 16 School Resource Officers along with supervisory support over a three-year period….

If you’re a Guilford County homeowner and you don’t enjoy financial shocks, you might want to sit down before you log on to your computer on Tuesday, February 17.

That’s the day that the Guilford County Tax Department will post the new 2026 residential property values online.

At the same time, the county will begin mailing letters to every residential property owner stating the new assessed value of their home….

When people first started putting erasers on the other end of pencils there was a huge debate about whether it was a good idea or not because many thought it would encourage people – especially school kids – to be less vigilant about mistakes.  However, when it comes to issues like deaths by drug overdose or infection, Guilford County health officials want to make sure that one mistake doesn’t mean the loss of a life….

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is again asking for the public’s help in an ongoing homicide investigation stemming from a fatal shooting in McLeansville in October of 2024.

In a press release issued Thursday, Feb. 12, Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers said the case remains active and ongoing.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded on Oct. 21, 2024, at about 6 a.m. to a 911 call reporting an “unknown problem, man down” at 4925 Harvest Road in McLeansville….

The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce announced a change in leadership this week, with Geoff Foster officially stepping into the role of chair of the Chamber’s Board of Directors during the organization’s Annual Celebration.

The event was held at Topgolf Greensboro and it brought together business and community leaders in an attempt to reflect on the past year of business life in Greensboro and look ahead to the future….