Author: Scott D. Yost

Several years ago, Guilford County government purchased the former BB&T building in downtown Greensboro, which now houses, among other government services, the Register of Deeds Office and a health gym used by county employees.

 However, on Thursday, Nov.21, at the Board of Commissioners’ last meeting, the commissioners voted to start a bank – loaning out taxpayer money to small start-up businesses and hoping that those businesses will pay the money back.

If not, the county’s taxpayers are out of luck….

This week, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office sent out one of the briefest press releases that’s ever come from that office. Here it is in its entirety: “Sheriff Danny H. Rogers reports that on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, at approximately 5 p.m., an employee of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office was involved in a vehicle collision with a pedestrian on US Highway 29, just north of Cone Boulevard. The Greensboro Police Department is leading the investigation into this incident. There is no further information to share.”…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has been hearing a whole lot from animal lovers in the county lately regarding major challenges at the Guilford County animal shelter, and, at an afternoon work session on Thursday, Nov. 21, the board heard, for the first time in a long time, from Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega, who spoke of some of the challenges – as well as the successes – at the animal shelter.

At a meeting of the Guilford County Animal Services Advisory Board one week earlier – on Thursday, Nov. 14 – board members, shelter staff and volunteers spoke of the immense challenges of handling the large number of animals at the shelter without sufficient funds or staff…

A while back, the Rhino Times suggested in print that it was inadvisable for Donald Trump to...

The staff and volunteers at the Guilford County Animal Shelter are doing everything they can to help the animals and avoid euthanizing the cats and dogs held there – but they are human, not superhuman, and, right now, the shelter is facing a perfect storm of challenges that is overwhelming staff and volunteers alike. …

The Dog’s Day Out program at the Guilford County Animal Shelter, which is being suspended due to a lack of sufficient staffing and funding, was a wonderful program that helped give the dogs at the shelter a day of peace and sanity. It got the animals out of their cages for a day and enabled them to receive a lot of love and attention that it’s impossible for overworked shelter employees to provide in a loud and overcrowded facility.

The program allows the dogs to be taken out of that hectic environment, where the animals are overwhelmed by incessant barking, confined in tight spaces and receive very little human attention…

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources State Historic Preservation Office has issued an eligibility certification for One Center Plaza in High Point – better known in these parts as “Showplace West.”

According to a Tuesday, Nov. 19 announcement by Downtown High Point, “This recognition marks a significant step toward leveraging the North Carolina Historic Mill Rehabilitation Tax Credit for the adaptive reuse of this historic building.”…

On a cold and rainy Thursday, Nov. 14 evening, the Guilford County Animal Services Advisory Board...

In 2018, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to confirm a straight border between Guilford County and Alamance County – after a horrendous decades-long dispute between the two counties – and, on Thursday, Nov. 21, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is ready to settle a similar – though much less contentious – dispute with Forsyth County….

The City of Greensboro’s Office of Community Safety together with the local chapter of Black Men United are inviting area residents and their families to come out to the “Community Giveaway and Resource Event” next weekend – where people will find food, entertainment, and items that are all priced at zero dollars and zero cents.

It will also be an event where attendees can learn how to connect with government services or community organizations that may be able to fill certain needs….

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers is a snazzy dresser. 

When he shows up at a public event, you never know what to expect – he could, for instance, be sporting a purple cowboy hat, a blue paisley bowtie, a silk blue vest and bright white shoes. 

Just one of his many looks.

Anyway, the high sheriff of Guilford County really enjoys making a fashion statement. 

However, the uniforms for the officers and deputies who work for Rogers have to be a little more utilitarian and a little less flashy.  Now, it appears it’s time for those officers to get some new uniforms….

It’s beginning to look a lot like – well, you know.

The day after Halloween, people began hearing Christmas songs all over the place and they will last until New Year’s Eve as it does each year.

Another highly evident sign that the season is upon us is this: The Guilford Merchants Association’s very popular selfie sleigh will return for the fourth year to High Point Public Library on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 5:30 p.m….

When it’s finally finished, it should be a sight to behold and a beehive of activity.  That will come later, but the first physical step in the process – the breaking of the ground – will take place later this month.

The City of Greensboro is inviting everyone in the community to come out and celebrate the Windsor Chavis Nocho Community Complex at the groundbreaking from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Windsor Recreation Center at 1601 E. Gate City Blvd….

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston had a goal of ending homelessness in Guilford County before it turned cold in 2023 and that obviously didn’t happen.  Then the goal changed to doing it before it turned cold in 2024 –and it’s already getting cold and that admittedly lofty goal obviously isn’t going to get met this year either.

In fact, the situation may be getting worse since the resource center for the homeless in downtown Greensboro has ended its nighttime hours and there are as many homeless in the city as ever who aren’t sure where they will stay on cold winter nights…

Greensboro’s Downtown Greenway has a brand new website with all kinds of features and the site looks really, really good. It uses very high-quality photos, vibrant graphics and interactive features that provide a wealth of information about the Greenway and the events taking place there.

Downtown Greenway Project Manager Dabney Sanders said she’s thrilled with the finished product.

“I am so pleased to share that after many, many years of hanging on to our old website – we have finally launched a new one, www.downtowngreenway.org,” she wrote in an email on Wednesday, Nov. 14…

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, many Greensboro residents were very alarmed to find in their mail a letter from the city that created the impression the water coming into their homes was contaminated.

The ominous-sounding letter, which came under the letterhead of the City of Greensboro Water Resources Department, shows the homeowner’s address in bold letters and, in all caps across the top states “YOUR SERVICE LINE IS OF UNKNOWN SERVICE LINE MATERIAL.”…

Piedmont Triad International Airport is adding a little something special over the next couple of months for people flying in and out of the central North Carolina airport that often plays second fiddle to airports in Charlotte and Raleigh – which often offer more flight choices and lower fares.

That competition drives PTI to make some special efforts every now and then, and this holiday season it’s offering musical entertainment and other benefits for flyers….

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, soon-to-be President Donald Trump, who’s been announcing this week his nominees for various positions in his new administration, said he has chosen Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as secretary of defense for the United States.

Before taking a job as a Fox News host a decade ago, Hegseth served in the Army National Guard – with tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

He later joined Fox News, where, for the last decade, he has been best known for co-hosting “Fox & Friends Weekend” – the network’s weekend morning show….

The City of Greensboro’s leaf police are not out to get you, but instead, to teach you.

According to Greensboro officials, the city’s “first priority is to educate residents on the proper way to collect and prepare the leaves for pickup. This approach has been successful, and residents have promptly complied with the new rules. As a result, no fines have been issued.”

That Sunday, Nov. 10 press release from the city added that, on the other hand, intentionally placing leaves on or beyond the curb line in front of your property may indeed lead to fines being issued….

You’ll probably want to think twice about driving drunk or impaired in Guilford County over the holidays since there’s a special task force set up in the county just to catch you and get you off the road. 

A DWI arrest may also mean that your car is seized and sold – with the proceeds going to school funding.

The objective of the Governor’s Highway Safety DWI Task Force Grant that’s being given to Guilford County is “to provide programs which address traffic-related issues such as unrestrained drivers and passengers, especially children, speeding, motorists driving while impaired, and community education on these issues.”…

Some racist comments, allegedly made by Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, have caused a...

Action Greensboro – a part of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce that acts as a “catalyst for public-private partnerships” meant to help the city grow – has been awarded the top honor for “Best Communications Strategy in Economic Development” at the very high-profile 2024 City Nation Place Awards…

As if Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston doesn’t have enough irons in the fire – between running his several businesses, running Guilford County, overseeing the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, helping put on a charity golf tournament and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade each year – Alston now has been dubbed with a new duty: being a member of NC Governor-Elect Josh Stein’s transition team…

Professional hockey is coming back to Greensboro in the fall of 2025, and one of the steps in the process needed to make that happen was for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners to vote to approve money to upfit the Greensboro Coliseum so that it will be a fitting place for the coming hockey team to play their games in the East Coast League.

Though it won’t be an NHL team, it will be very high-quality hockey; and, in the past, Greensboro residents have shown solid support for pro hockey in the city….

While, recently, many people – including Donald Trump’s own campaign team – thought Trump was taking the wrong tack by going way off topic at rallies, swaying to music for nearly 40 minutes on stage, and traveling to states in the final days that weren’t battleground states, Trump – as he has so many times in the past – proved each and every one of his critics wrong and demonstrated that there was a method to his madness.

And so, once again, Donald J. Trump will be president of the United States…

On Wednesday, Nov. 6, Creative Greensboro announced that it had awarded $285,000 to 15 local arts and culture nonprofit organizations through its “Sustaining Creativity: Community Partnership Grants Program.”

Founded five years ago, Creative Greensboro is the office of the City of Greensboro that supports arts and culture. The office attempts to offer sustained support for arts and culture by growing resources, fostering “cultural equity and arts participation” for all – as well as by meeting other goals…

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is chock full of Democrats who despise past and future president Donald Trump; however, there is a sort of agreement on at least one issue – the value of buying local.

 While Donald Trump wants people to buy American-made goods (and will use tariffs to make that happen), in the same vein, the Guilford County commissioners want you to buy locally produced goods whenever you can – especially during the upcoming holiday season….

The quarter-cent sales tax option has been put on the ballot a half dozen times before in Guilford County and it has failed every time; and it’s likely to fail this time – as it should. 

Yes, the county commissioners have pledged to use that money to pay school salaries and, yes, most people will not notice the increase in the cost of their daily purchases, and yes, one big benefit is that much of it – supporters say 40 percent, but that number is questionable – will be paid by people who live outside the county.

It is also true that the teachers, teachers’ assistants and many others in Guilford County Schools are underpaid, and the school system’s “classified” workers – such as cafeteria workers, bus drivers and janitors – are woefully underpaid…

As if the Guilford County Board of Elections and the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office didn’t have enough to do during the most intense and important election in the history of the United States Of America, they also have to weed through hundreds of jail inmates, see which ones are legally eligible to vote and which ones are not, and then facilitate the process while those inmates are in custody.

According to information provided by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, in order to preserve an inmate’s voting rights while in jail, the Office has put in place a comprehensive process that helps inmates vote if they want to vote…

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers assured voters on Monday, Nov. 4, that his office is committed to ensuring that county residents can vote safely and securely.

Speaking at an afternoon press conference, Rogers addressed recent reports of election-related threats circulating in the community and he outlined the measures that his office is taking to protect voters.

He also reaffirmed the commitment of the Sheriff’s Office to uphold every citizen’s constitutional rights…

Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump has been making a whirlwind tour of battleground states recently, and that meant that, on Saturday night, Nov. 2, throngs of Trump fans got to see him in person in Greensboro yet again – as the former president tried to make sure he finishes strong in the state that’s become almost as important as Pennsylvania in the 2024 presidential election.

And Trump’s elated and enthusiastic fans weren’t disappointed: They cheered loudly at his applause lines, laughed at his jokes, called out “We love you!” at times, and booed whenever he said the name, Kamala Harris…

Hopefully, if you run a business in Guilford County, you properly reported and valued all the property you have inside, or use for that business.

Because, on Thursday, Nov. 7, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will approve spending nearly $1 million to hire outside auditors attempting to find companies in the county that cheat on their taxes or that underpay them simply because they made calculation errors or honestly mistakenly undervalued property, etc…

The City of Greensboro’s Parks and Recreation Department doesn’t want area residents to feel left out of competitive sports just because they face a physical challenge.

That’s why the department’s “Adaptive and Inclusive Recreation” arm is partnering with the UNCG Community and Therapeutic Recreation unit to hold an event that will show people the possibilities of competition with a disability….

Everyone in the Piedmont Triad region who owns a TV knows very well who Eric Chilton is.  Chilton – who’s also known for his excellent beach music band’s performances over the years – is, after spending most of his 58 years in the broadcast industry, opening a new chapter in his life.

 He’s just taken a job with the City of Greensboro….

When you take a job with a local government working with its Water Resources Department, you probably don’t plan on doing recovery work in another part of the state; however, a group of City of Greensboro Water Resources workers was doing just that in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

After the storm struck on Friday, Sept. 27, the City of Greensboro Water Resources Department acted quickly to do what it could for the western part of the state…

It’s a good thing for the Democrats that they replaced President Joe Biden with the much younger Kamala Harris because on the campaign trail – especially in these closing few weeks – they’ve needed someone to keep up with the breakneck campaigning pace of Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump.

To cite one example: Trump just spoke in Greensboro not long ago and now his campaign has announced that the former president is returning to the city two days after Halloween.

Trump will hold a rally in Greensboro on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m.  Doors will open at 3:30 p.m. at the Greensboro Coliseum at 1921 West Gate City Blvd. in Greensboro…

While right now the United States of America is more divided than ever when it comes to the national election, things are actually quite copacetic at the local level between most leaders in Guilford County – regardless of their political party.

Certainly, local elected leaders sometimes disagree on issues, but those discussions are, for the most part at least, very civil.  No one is calling another leader’s supporter “garbage” or saying that their political opponent is “retarded.”…

In the 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is a battleground state.

That’s good and that’s bad.

It’s good, of course, because it means that your vote for president actually matters; but it’s bad because it also means that, every five seconds, your iPhone buzzes as you get yet another text from one of the candidates telling you why you should vote for them – and every night your TV viewing is filled with a blizzard of political attack ads. 

Recently, in the final days of the campaign, North Carolina has been the chosen site where much of the war of the words between the two parties has taken place…

ome people absolutely love Halloween – which, according to some studies, is the number one night of the year for random hookups among young people – while others think Halloween is clearly a satanic celebration.  Then there are those who fall in between: They don’t think it’s the night of the devil, but they still don’t look forward to a bunch of random kids knocking on their door asking for treats.

However, mixed as the feelings may be, a new High Point University poll found that, across the state, the majority of people are celebrating Halloween this year…

There’s an old saying – “Loose lips sink ships” – and it’s apparent that there’s something else that loose lips can do: Sink, or at least deal a severe, perhaps fatal, blow to the effort of a presidential nominee to become president.
There is a week to go before the close of what is absolutely and unquestionably the most important election in the history of the United States of America – and, in the final days of the election, in a race with razor-thin margins nationally as well as in the seven battleground states, one off-color joke by a B-list comedian told at Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump’s major campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York is having very severe negative repercussions.
On Sunday night, Oct. 27, the comedian told a joke that could possibly take the election away from Trump and hand it to Harris.
In his joke, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, known primarily for his comedy podcast “Kill Tony,” said the following: “There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now – I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
At the rally, Hinchcliffe also made some other remarks that didn’t go over well at all with the Puerto Rican people, and other jokes came under attack from both Democrats and Republicans alike, such as a watermelon joke while referring to a black man in the audience.
Those who love Trump and those who hate him do agree on at least this one thing: Trump’s statements are often incendiary and produce a political backlash that can hurt him and his efforts.
However, nothing ever seems to damage Trump: His base is his base forever and they are with him come hell or high water.
But even many of Trump’s most devoted MAGA fans agree that he often doesn’t do himself any favors when he says something beyond the pale – such as many of the remarks he’s made this year about his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris that are so extreme they’re turning off women voters in droves.
Given the state of the presidential race today, it seems crystal clear that, if Trump had just stayed on message and talked about his economy versus President Joe Biden’s, and his immigration policies versus Biden’s, and his foreign policy versus Biden’s, then he would have strolled easily into the White House once again – against either Biden or Harris – without breaking a sweat.
However, instead, for nearly a decade now, Trump has been making inflammatory statements – though none of that seems to have hurt him in the least. Here he is, once again, as the person favored to be the next president of the United States.
So, it would be the height of irony if the thing that finally took him out of the running was a single joke that didn’t even come out of his own mouth – but, instead, was a joke that came out of the mouth of someone else, someone who most Americans had never even heard of until last Sunday Night.
But the damage was obviously very real.
JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, when asked about the controversy, said, “I’ve heard about the joke – I haven’t actually seen the joke that you mentioned,” and he added that it’s time Americans develop a thicker skin, stay focused on the issues and not get caught up on a single joke someone told at a rally.
On Tuesday morning, on an ABC News’ show, Trump was asked about the “floating island of garbage” comment, and Trump, like Vance, said he didn’t know anything about the comedian or the joke.
“I don’t know him; someone put him up there,” Trump said. “I don’t know who he is.”
Trump added that he hadn’t even heard the joke.
The problem though, is that even if Trump and Vance haven’t heard the joke, there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican Americans who heard it loud and clear – and they are raging mad about it.
One problem for the Trump campaign is that Puerto Rico is actually a beautiful island filled with kind people who take extreme pride in their homeland.
So, not surprisingly, many of them were absolutely furious at the remarks.
The state of Pennsylvania – considered the most critical battleground state in this election – has more than 400,000 Puerto Rican residents, and about three-fourths of them are registered voters.
While Trump didn’t make the joke, most of his supporters agree that the former president’s best response would have been to – as soon as he took over the mic at the rally – let everyone know that he did not appreciate the joke and he did not agree at all with the comedian’s assessment of the island or its people.
Next best would have been if Trump had made a public statement after the rally disavowing the joke.
Trump campaign spokesperson Daniella Alvarez did state on the day following the rally, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,”
However, the Puerto Rican people want to hear that same sentiment directly from Trump himself.
In a letter to Trump that was also posted on social media the night after the rally, the archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roberto González Nieves, wrote: “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”’
However, one of the things that makes Donald Trump Donald Trump is that he never apologizes.
In the letter, the archbishop wrote that Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Ricans “not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”
And highly popular Puerto Rican Pennsylvania radio personality Victor Martinez said on CNN on Tuesday, October 28, that the callers to his show were getting angrier and angrier every day that an apology from Trump didn’t come.
“I have described this as a ‘Gift from the gods [for the Harris campaign],” he said. “I mean, what are the chances that Kamala Harris is at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia at the same time that this is happening in the Trump campaign rally in New York. This has definitely gotten to the Puerto Rican community in the entire state. I mean, we have about 500,000 Puerto Ricans here in the state of Pennsylvania. Allentown, where I’m at right now, where Trump is going to be tonight, is about 55 percent Latino – and about 45 percent are Puerto Rican.”
That’s in a pivotal state where the margin of victory by either candidate could literally be measured in the hundreds of votes.
Martinez added that other cities in that battleground state also have large Puerto Rican populations. He said there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans in other battleground states as well, and he noted that there are 100,000 in the highly contested state of North Carolina. (The actual number is closer to 115,000.)
“This definitely is going to have an impact,” he said.
“One of the things that I heard the most this morning from my audience, and we broadcast our morning show through five radio stations in the state – so we have about 250,000 Latinos that listen to us in the state of Pennsylvania. I specifically asked the audience, ‘OK, what about if Trump today all of a sudden decides to apologize, all of a sudden decides to distance himself from the comedian? Would that be OK? Would you take that into consideration? Overwhelmingly, everybody was like, ‘No, too late; the train has left the station.’“
He added, “He could have done it Sunday night Monday or even this morning – and for him now to say ‘I don’t know the comedian; I didn’t even hear the joke’… I’m pretty sure by now he heard the joke and I’m pretty sure by now he could have personally said something to the Puerto Rican community.”
Martinez stated: “Donald Trump doesn’t himself acknowledge the fact that this was wrong, that this is unacceptable.”
He also stated that Puerto Ricans are a very proud people.
“Once you offend our island, our beautiful island in the Caribbean, you are messing with us,” he told CNN. “I’m telling you – if you know anything about Puerto Ricans – you don’t mess with our island or our flag. Those are sacred to us.”
Highly influential Puerto Rican superstars were also extremely upset.
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican music icon with 45 million social media followers expressed his support for Kamala Harris after the rally, and Ricky Martin, another musician with millions of social media followers, posted, “This is what they think of us. Vote for Kamala Harris.”
Cenk Uygur, the main voice on the Young Turks YouTube channel, stated, “You’re a week out from the election. This is a massive rally in Madison Square Garden that the entire press is going to pay attention to, and you didn’t bother vetting the comic… This is doing a lot of damage.”
He added that he’s worried about the safety of the comic.
“So,” Uygur continued, “if Trump loses, people on the right think that it’s because of this guy then I worry about him getting attacked by the right – like, what did you do? You cost us the election. Don’t do that – he’s just the comic, OK? But this is not a good moment for the Republican campaign, or for Trump, and, just as I told you, the one thing that could cost them. My intuition is that Trump is leading, but he juggles live hand grenades and this hand grenade just blew up on him.”

On Monday, Oct. 28, there was a nice downtown ceremony at which Guilford County government...

On Tuesday, Oct. 29 High Point City Manager Tasha Logan Ford announced the name of the city’s new fire chief: current Interim Fire Chief Brian Evans.

His job as chief is effective immediately. 

 This continues a long-standing tradition of the City of Greensboro, Guilford County government and the City of High Point selecting new leaders from their own ranks rather than hiring outsiders…

It’s too late to do it for this election, but with all this talk of election fraud and ineligible voters that former President Donald Trump has been asserting over the last four years, it’s good to know that any registered voter in Guilford County, if they believe someone has registered to vote unlawfully, is free to submit their evidence and get the case heard by the Guilford County Board of Elections…

Ever since 2021, City of Greensboro leaders have been debating about turning the former Regency Inn in Greensboro into a place that provides affordable housing units, and, now, after four years and many twists and turns for the project, the city is demolishing the facility…

According to a legally required announcement before local governments in North Carolina can hand out taxpayer dollars in the form of incentives, an unnamed company is “considering an expansion at the Gallimore Dairy Road facility in Greensboro in addition to other options within the United States for a projected investment of $305,000,000 in personal property and the creation of 109 new jobs by December 31, 2027.”

The code name for the project is “Project Electro,” and the clearly very rich company is asking for $2,618,623 from Guilford County taxpayers, which the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will award to the company immediately after the public hearing, no matter what anyone says at the hearing…

Voting and voting early is the new craze in North Carolina – and in many other states around the county – and, at this rate, a very, very large percentage of the electorate will have voted by the time former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris make their closing arguments to the American people on Monday night, Nov. 4.

As of 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, over 2 million voters in North Carolina – a state with a population of 10.4 million – had cast ballots in the 2024 General Election, according to preliminary numbers just released by the NC State Board of Elections…

Economic Development Guru Loren Hill is something of a legend in these parts, and, if you look at how many major companies have chosen to locate in High Point, Guilford County and North Carolina in the last three decades, it’s astounding how many of those successes Hill had a hand in…

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

That’s the advice offered by an unknown source in the 1850s, and, nearly two centuries later, that has been the philosophy of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners when it comes to attempting to get county residents to vote a sales tax increase on themselves in the form of a quarter-cent sales tax hike that would apply to most things sold in Guilford County….