Author: Scott D. Yost

Across North Carolina, an average of five people a day lose their lives due to opioid overdose.

Astonishingly, the opioid overdose mortality rate for former jail and prison inmates is over 40 times higher than that of people in the general population – and studies also found that those overdoses among former inmates were the highest during the first two weeks after the person was released from custody.

Which is why the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is happy to see  $225,000 in state grant money meant to grow an in-house jail program created to address that problem…

Earlier this summer, former Guilford County Health Director Dr. Iulia Vann stepped down to take a similar job with greener pastures and more pay than the job she had as the Director of the Health Division of the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services. 

The multi-lingual Vann with her medical degrees was well liked by the commissioners and well respected by those she worked with – so much so that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners recently took the rare step of passing a resolution honoring the newly departed director….

On Monday, Aug. 12, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) sent out notice to kids and families across the state reminding them that – since children are getting ready to go back to school later this month – “vaccinations are an important part of back-to-school success and overall health and well-being.”

State Health Director and Chief Medical Officer for NC DHHS Dr. Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson said it’s critical that students get the required vaccinations before they return to school campuses and start interacting with teachers, school staff and other students….

There’s one thing that just about everyone in Greensboro agrees on: The city should do what it can to help the homeless population.

The homeless are facing a plethora of difficulties in their lives and one current goal of Greensboro and Guilford County government officials is to help them in multiple ways….

Recently, just before the NC General Assembly voted to allow developer David Couch to de-annex nearly 1,000 acres of his land from Summerfield in order to build a housing development with a density higher than the Town Council would allow, Summerfield Mayor Tim Sessoms said he planned to resign from that job….

Tropical Storm Debby arrived in North Carolina early on Thursday morning, August 8, and it brought winds and heavy rains as well as flash flooding to Greensboro and Guilford County. 

While those weather conditions caused a lot of people to stay home, Duke Energy workers ventured out on Thursday in an attempt to restore power to those without it…

Hurricane Debby, which hit Florida earlier this week and is now moving up the Eastern Seaboard on a collision course with Greensboro and Guilford County, is on the way – and, while it’s not clear how much damage the storm will do in the Triad, Greensboro officials, Duke Energy and area Emergency Services workers are preparing to respond to the storm that’s expected to bring major flooding over the next two days.
Debby hit Florida as a Category 1 storm on Monday, Aug. 5 causing major power outages in Florida and Georgia. The storm was later downgraded to tropical storm status. Despite that, meteorologists were predicting major problems in the Southeastern US due mostly to flooding. Some places in the path of the storm will see 20 inches of rain from Debby according to forecasts.
In an Associated Press report, Jeff Masters, the founder of the Weather Underground service, said that, although Debby was classified as a Category 1 storm, “It really is worthy of a Category 3 or 4 rating, if you want to talk about rainfall impacts.”
“That’s going to cause a lot of damage,” Masters added.
The forecast calls for a great deal of rain for Wednesday, Aug. 7 and Thursday, Aug. 8, which will be accompanied by high winds. Combined, that will no doubt mean power outages for some Guilford County residents.
On Wednesday, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the city is working with Duke Energy and doing everything it can ahead of time to prepare for the storm in an effort to reduce the potential problems that often occur with weather of this type.
“We’re looking to get a lot of rain,” Vaughan said. “That’s going to mean a lot of trees down.”
The mayor added that the wind and rain together with the trees coming down means that some city and county residents will inevitably lose power.
Vaughan said city workers were already taking flooding prevention measures early this week such as checking for stream impediments.
The mayor added that city officials were also staying in close contact with Duke Energy.
The bad news on Wednesday was that the remnant of Hurricane Debby was picking up strength as it hit landfall for a second time on its way to the Greensboro area.
The good news was that the notoriously slow storm – which has been hanging around and dumping a great deal of water on the areas it passes over – was gaining a little bit of speed. So, it won’t be lingering over the Triad as long as it did over some areas of Florida just after the storm’s original landfall.
Vaughan said she was pleased that former Guilford County Commissioner Hank Henning was now working for Duke Energy, because, as a former government official, he understands the importance of – and does a good job of – communicating with local governments regarding the potential impact of storms.
Henning said that, just as the area’s local governments were doing what they could to prepare for Debby, Duke Energy was getting ready as well.
“Right now, it’s an all hands on deck situation,” Henning said.
He said some people might not realize it, but Duke Energy has its own meteorological unit that keeps a close watch on the weather so the company can effectively deploy its assets in response to storms such as this one.
Henning said Duke Energy was blessed with being a large company so it has an opportunity to bring in help from other parts of the country when one area is expecting storm damage and power disruptions. He added that, currently, Duke Energy was bringing in help from the Midwest to the Triad in order for the company to respond quickly to power outages.
Henning also said Duke Energy tries to respond in the most effective way possible using smart triage strategies during outages; so, for instance, if there’s one household on one road lacking power, but there’s a group of hundreds in a particular area with the power out, the more populus section of the grid will see a response first.
Henning also said that the preparation for a storm like this isn’t something that just happens right before the bad weather hits.
“We stay prepared year-round and work on ways to improve the grid, such as replacing lines and poles, and installing smart, self-healing technology,” Henning said.
So far, Debby has been largely affecting Florida, the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina as well as parts of North Carolina. The Triad area is one part of North Carolina expected to be most affected by the flooding.
Some places have seen “catastrophic flooding” as Debby has slowly creeped up the Eastern Seaboard.
Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said that, sometimes, when this type of weather event hits, the county will declare a State of Emergency. However, Alston added, in this case, so far at least, he hadn’t gotten the word from county staff that that measure would be necessary.
Meanwhile, City of Greensboro staff were doing all they could Wednesday to get ready.
The city’s emergency services workers were preparing for road closures, power outages, flooding and downed trees, while the Greensboro Police Department was getting ready to establish and maintain any needed road closures and detours.
Also, the city’s police officers are preparing to deploy any needed portable traffic control signs, barricades or portable generators.
The city is using social media and the city’s website to update the press as well as area residents of any road and facilities closures.
Greensboro’s Storm Water unit has put together a list of thoroughfares that need to be checked before, during and after any heavy rainfall.
The city’s Water Resources Department and Transportation Departments are also performing flood mitigation activities before the major rainfall arrives.
The city’s transportation service may alter some of its routes due to flooding…

On Wednesday, Aug. 7, the Greensboro Day School announced the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Helen Monroe Preschool – the Day School’s newest building.

The ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 14 from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.  That will be followed by an open house that will run until 12:30 p.m…

Piedmont Triad International Airport doesn’t have the very cheapest prices on airline tickets; however, it does have some other advantages over the states’ larger airports. For instance, it’s less crowded, the parking is more affordable and you don’t have to drive an hour and a half to get there.

Also, PTI is constantly improving its facilities and services…

The City of Greensboro, when it comes to Winsor Recreation Center and the surrounding area, is practicing the philosophy of “Out with the old, and in with the new.”

And, to that end, the city is getting ready to close the center – along with Nocho Park– in order to make way for work crews to transform the location into new, modern, upgraded facilities…

At the Monday, August 5 meeting of the Greensboro City Council, the council members got some good news about the growth and impact of youth sports in the city and the county, and the huge amount of economic impact that it’s bringing to the area…

It has been a rocky road getting there this year; however, after a three-hour discussion at the Monday evening, Aug. 5 meeting of the Greensboro City Council, the council voted in favor of a motion to provide the Interactive Resource Center in downtown Greensboro with $463,000 in order to help accomplish the city’s ongoing goal of addressing the major problem of homelessness in Greensboro.

 Unlike a lot of Greensboro City Council votes on the August 5 agenda, the funding for the Interactive Resource Center wasn’t a foregone conclusion: At a mid-July City Council meeting, the council members voted unanimously to postpone the decision on the proposed funding for the fiscal year – which started on July 1 – after a barrage of complaints regarding the facility and the actions of its users surfaced earlier in the calendar year…

Sticker shock.

That’s something Guilford County property owners have experienced in recent years when their annual property tax bill has arrived in the mail.

Guilford County property tax bills were already plenty high a few years ago; however, in recent years, the 7-to-2 democratic-majority Guilford County Board of Commissioners led by Chairman of the Board Skip Alston has been spending and spending taxpayer money at an unprecedented rate – and that’s led to a dramatic increase in the property taxes being paid by Guilford County homeowners…

The members of the Greensboro City Council currently have a whole lot of things on their plate when it comes to the Interactive Resource Center in downtown Greensboro – which has been the subject of many complaints from residents who live near it and the business owners who run businesses in the area…

Usually, when you think of the High Point-Thomasville HiToms, you’re thinking about the baseball team that’s been around since, well, almost forever. However, this week, the HiToms announced that the organization will be all about High School Football later this month. 

The HiToms just announced the schedule for the fourth annual “Triad Kick-Off Classic,” which will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 14 and Friday, Aug. 16…

Beginning on Saturday, Aug. 3, Guilford County Animal Services (GCAS) is pausing the intake of dogs at the animal shelter due to positive cases of Canine Parvovirus.

The suspension of the intake of dogs, meant to help contain the spread of the virus, includes all strays and owner surrenders to the Guilford County Animal Resource Center.

The county made the announcement the evening of Friday, Aug. 2 – the day before the cessation of canine intakes. Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega was scheduled to provide more details at a press conference on August 3…

The Summerfield Town Council kicked off the month of August – usually a very low-key month for local governments – with a special called Thursday, Aug. 1 meeting that showed the intent of the town to fight a legal battle against the State of North Carolina’s recent decision to de-annex nearly 990 acres of the town.

 The move to hire outside legal help seems to be the start of a potential effort to get back the land that the town lost on July 1 – just weeks after state legislators voted to honor the wishes of developer David Couch…

Guilford County government has been vocal and proud of the fact that it has had, in recent years, a perfect AAA credit rating across all three major credit rating agencies but that rating could become less than perfect because one agency, Fitch Ratings, has revised the way it evaluates the credit strength of local governments and has therefore placed Guilford County “Under Criteria Observation….

Guilford County Manager Mike Halford is on a quest to turn Guilford County into a top-notch county that people think of as on par with – or even more important than – Wake County and Mecklenburg County whenever they think about North Carolina. 

Halford wants the county to have the highest paid employees and the best school system in the state, and he also wants Guilford County to invest in a new public relations department director who’ll make the county look – well, professional, and one who will also put a positive spin on any problems the county government encounters or creates…

One Step Further’s Traffic Diversion Program tries to keep teens in Guilford County out of trouble; and, to aid in that effort, on Thursday, Aug. 1, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners accepted a grant from the NC Department of Public Safety that will assist in funding that program for fiscal year 2024-2025, the 12-month period that just began on July 1, 2024…

Anyone who has ever visited Myrtle Beach South Carolina knows that crimes – like underage drinking, drug use, noise violations, traffic violations, etc. – take place quite often on the Grand Strand.

Last week, however, was probably a bad time to commit any crimes out in the open because a slew of sheriffs from North Carolina were in town…

The Town of Summerfield has been through a whole lot lately, including a fierce political battle that ended with about 990 acres of the town being sliced off by the NC state legislature, a move that developer David Couch requested in order to develop the property into a new residential and mixed-use community with a density higher than many Summerfield residents want to see…

In recent years especially, many Greensboro residents have had issues, concerns and suspicions about the oversight – or lack thereof – of some actions carried out by the Greensboro Police Department.

Well, now those who do have those concerns will get a chance to interact directly with the nine-person council charged specifically with oversight of the police department…

If you have a parking ticket you owe the city for, and you don’t have a lot of money but do have a lot of new school supplies sitting around, you’re in luck: The City of Greensboro is, for a limited time, accepting new and unwrapped school supplies as payment for parking tickets that are issued between August 1 and the last day of October, better known as Halloween…

Guilford County commissioners and Guilford County staff members recently attended a national conference of county officials and, this year, Guilford County brought back several awards – including a very big one for the Guilford County Adult Resource Team.

 That team earned a national award for reducing non-emergency 911 calls by connecting residents with county health and human services staff, as well as with other county staff and services, in order to address their needs better and more efficiently than emergency responders could…

In June, the City of Greensboro launched a new initiative – the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program – that’s meant to make Greensboro neighborhoods safer and, on Tuesday, July 31, city leaders announced that residents were really taking advantage of the offering.  As of the end of July, over 200 city residents have applied to take part…

The 2024 presidential race won’t have a North Carolina personality near the top of the ticket this time around.

 For a while, it looked like North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper might be the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with current Vice President Kamala Harris – now a presidential hopeful.

However, on Monday, July 30, Cooper, who was considered to be on the short list of VP candidates, pulled his name out of contention….

Guilford County government acquired the former Erwin Montessori School late last year and now the county is planning to reduce it to rubble – completing a job that a tornado started years ago for the now unused old school on East Bessemer Avenue.

In 2018, the school – along with two other schools in the city – was badly damaged by a tornado, and the school has been abandoned ever since…

Several months ago, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners agreed to move forward on a recommendation from the county’s Women and Children’s Residential Recovery Committee to use a building at Gibson Park to develop a substance abuse treatment center meant to help pregnant women and women with children.

After that decision, the county put out a request for proposals from service providers to create a plan for the recovery center and operate the program…

On Thursday, Aug. 1, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will accept a state grant from NC Department of Public Safety that will assist the county in funding a transitional living program for those 18 to 21 years of age who might otherwise be homeless. 

The initiative will be part of the county’s “Youth Focus Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Transitional Living Program” for the Guilford County area during fiscal year 2024-2025, the fiscal year that just began on July 1…

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum in downtown Greensboro got a special guest on Thursday, July 25. Nationally known civil rights advocate Al Sharpton – a good friend of the museum’s co-founder Skip Alston, who’s also the chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners – was in Greensboro for an event at the Koury Convention Center, and, when Sharpton said he wanted to check out the museum, Alston was all ears and very accommodating…

The City of Greensboro announced on Thursday, July 25 that Cone Health system plans to donate $5 million toward the construction of the Windsor Chavis Nocho Community Complex – a place where people can come to interact, learn about wellness, study, exercise, check out books, swim, and do a lot more things than anyone could ever do at a traditional “library.”…

If you’d like to have a say in how Guilford County looks in the year 2045 – well, you’re in luck because Guilford County officials want to hear from you.

The county is hosting a series of community meetings this year to get input from area residents in order to help shape Guilford County’s Comprehensive Plan Update.

There are a lot of people who have a lot of complaints about how the City of Greensboro handles a whole lot of issues. Some residents don’t like the way the city is madly in love with the idea of putting rarely used bike lanes on heavily traveled, relatively narrow roads, or the way the city’s voice-controlled automated electronic water bill payment system works (“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please repeat that”).

Others who live in Greensboro complain about potholes while still others don’t appreciate the city’s mad love affair with sidewalks and with four-way stops and the desire to put the stops at every intersection they can find…

A public-private partnership between the City of Greensboro and other development partners has led to an upcoming grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Greensboro apartment home community..

This week, a contingent of Greensboro and North Carolina economic development leaders traveled across the pond to jolly old England in order to strengthen ties and learn more about the UK headquarters and operations of a big economic player at the aviation megasite at Piedmont Triad International Airport…

Robbie Perkins, who served as the mayor of Greensboro from 2011 to 2013, told the Rhino Times he intends to once again seek the seat currently held by Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan – who announced earlier this year that she did not intend to run again in 2025.

Perkins, who’s been in the commercial brokerage business since he graduated from Duke University with a BA degree and MBA in the late 1970s, is a well-known figure in Greensboro.

If Perkins should win, Greensboro would have the same mayor it did before Vaughan began her long tenure in that job. Perkins served as the city’s mayor from 2011 to 2013.  At that time, the term lasted for two years; now those elected mayor serve for four years…

The change of Democratic presidential candidates at the top of the ticket isn’t causing the Guilford County Board of Elections Department any headaches. It happened well before it would have any impact on the process for the creation of and the sending out of ballots by Guilford County Elections Director Charlie Collicutt and his staff…

Greensboro’s Servant Center has acquired the Holden Heights building at 1915 Boulevard St., which will be used to house the city’s first medical respite center meant to support veterans and the homeless.

City of Greensboro funding for the acquisition of Holden Heights will total $1.5 million – $450,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds as well as $1,050,000 in federal Community Development Grant money…

At a Thursday afternoon, July 18 work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, the board finally had a discussion it had been putting off for a long time: whether or not to raise the pay of sheriff’s deputies and detention officers, and, if so, by how much, and – if so on top of that – whether or not the pay for detention officers should be the same as that of officers in the field, all else being equal…

 Boom Supersonic – which, as its name suggests, is making airplanes that fly faster than the speed of sound – was booming with announcements on Tuesday, July 23. 

That’s very good for Guilford County and the surrounding area because the company has built a key manufacturing plant at Piedmont Triad International Airport…

Former President Donald Trump may not have exactly followed through when he said he was going to have a unifying message for the country on the evening of Thursday, July 18; however, just hours before Trump spoke that night, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners did, in no uncertain terms, call for unity and non-violence for those living inside and outside of Guilford County…

After the Thursday night, June 27 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Rhino Times ran an editorial with the headline, “Opinion: Trump Loses First Presidential Debate In A Big Way.” Trump supporters who read the headline but not the article thought the headline was nuts because, well – as was clear to everyone watching that night – Biden was obliterated in the debate…

The Greensboro City Council is postponing a special meeting that had been scheduled for Tuesday, July 23 regarding the Bingham Park remediation project. A new date for the meeting hasn’t been set yet.

Here was the reason for the postponement given in a press release: “City Council in consultation with City staff would like to continue its due diligence of exploring additional precautionary measures to ensure optimum safety as it relates to the potential remediation and disposal process. As such, new potential additional safety measures have been presented, which will need to be further evaluated.”…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners was so busy in June finding money for things like donations to pet-project non-profits that the commissioners are tightly connected with, giving money to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum and funding the county’s new and expanding Public Relations Department and MWBE Department, that they were forced to leave some fairly trivial and non-essential items out of the new budget, such as having ambulances and Emergency Service vehicles that don’t break down…

Former Guilford County Tax Director Francis Kinlaw used to be displeased whenever the Rhino Times wrote that he was “the nicest person in Guilford County government” because – though Kinlaw was in fact the nicest person in the government – he wanted to project an image of meanness since he thought that might help raise the tax collection rate.

For people who live in Guilford County and think that court cases move through the court system slowly, it might seem as though the only thing slower is the movement of the elevators in the counties’ courthouses in downtown Greensboro and downtown High Point.

Several years ago, Guilford County officials began discussing the need to fix the very old and very slow elevators – something courthouse users have wanted to see for many years….

It seems that the Greensboro City Council is always handling at least one hot potato – and usually more. 

Right now, some of those hot potatoes include the contamination at Bingham Park, whether or not to put contaminated soil from the park into the White Street Landfill, and, of course, front and center, what to do about the Interactive Resource Center (IRC) – the downtown Greensboro homeless center that has been the subject of a myriad of complaints from nearby businesses and residents….

This week, NC State Rep. Ashton Clemmons ­a Democrat representing District 57, which covers much of Guilford County, put out a social media post announcing that she plans on resigning from her NC House of Representatives seat later this summer.

Clemmons is taking a job with the University of North Carolina school system…

The Greensboro City Council will meet to discuss what can be done to eventually reopen the contaminated and closed Bingham Park in order to make it safe for parkgoers again.  The soil in the park was discovered to be badly contaminated and now the big question for City Council members is how to dispose of all that chemical lacked soil…