Author: Scott D. Yost

November means a lot of things to a lot of people, but, for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), the month is known as Family Engagement Month – and this week the NCDHHS announced a host of new early learning resources for families with young children.

ck group The Who sang, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – and those lyrics are about 89 percent true of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, which, on Monday, Dec. 5 will usher in the new version of the board that will only have one new county commissioner out of nine seats: Board of Education Member Pat Tillman will trade in that title to take over the seat of District 5 County Commissioner Justin Conrad.

City of High Point officials have been excited about a lot of new things coming there over the years – mostly large new businesses that bring a lot of new jobs – however, High Point leaders have rarely been as excited as they are right now about the new soccer team, Carolina Core FC, that’s coming to town.

In 2022, a truly amazing confluence of events came together to make it the year when Guilford County government spending – and future commitments to spending – reached levels never seen before in the county.

Recently, county government leaders in North Carolina got together to set the “Legislative Agenda” for counties across the state for the fiscal year 2023-2024.

The High Point Human Relations Commission is now accepting nominations for its annual Humanitarian of the Year Award.

Last week, the Guilford County Sheriff’s department put out a media alert about a missing teenager with cognitive issues, and, this week, on Tuesday, Nov. 22, the department asked for the public’s help locating another person with similar issues.

Each year, before Thanksgiving, the High Point Economic Development Corp. (HPEDC) likes to look back and take count of the successes it’s had in the previous 12 months.

A lot of people in the Greensboro area know Kersey Valley best for its Halloween Spooky Woods events; however, Halloween is now in the rear-view mirror and it’s time for holiday events like Kersey Valley Christmas.

At the Thursday, Nov. 17 meeting of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, District 3 Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad – who’s stepping down from the board after serving eight years – received a whole lot of praise from his fellow commissioners.

It’s a good thing the Guilford County Board of Commissioners told county staff a few months ago to widely advertise the sale of the old Monticello Community Center property at 5009A NC-150.

Last week, Republican NC State Rep. Jon Hardister was re-elected by his peers in state government to the seat of NC House Majority Whip.

The salaries of government employees are a public record, and anyone who wants to know how much a local or state government worker is making can simply ask, and, by law, the questioners must get a very quick answer.

From March 1999 to March 2020 – over more than two decades, that is – former Guilford County Security Director Jeff Fowler served in the role as the head of security for the county.

On Sunday, Nov. 20 at 1 a.m., deputies from the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department went to Colfax to investigate an attempted breaking and entering at Colfax Gun and Ammo at 9420 W. Market St.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has a very nice and warm practice of honoring county citizens who live to be 100 years old; however, on Thursday, Nov. 18, the board did something novel: It honored a county woman who was 102 – and who was as spry as the other attendees in the meeting room who were on average less than half her age.

If you were worried that Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers wouldn’t be able to continue to afford his habit of buying flashy cowboy hats and silk vests, worry no more. Rogers will have plenty of money to buy those hats, purple vests and anything else he wants.

Those who work in the Greensboro Fire Department were all smiles just after 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17 when the department received a very nice gift from the Kiwanis Club of Greensboro: a giant check for $50,000 that will be used to support the purchase of a Fire Education Safety Trailer.

At a 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17 work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, the Town of Summerfield’s plan for a new town hall ran into a surprising and solid brick wall when town officials came to the county to ask to use $2.2 million of American Rescue Plan Act money to buy a historic school and convert it into a town hall.

The residents of Greensboro and the surrounding area are, on average, getting older – in large part due to all the Baby Boomers in the area – and that means that there’s an increasing need for adult care facilities.

District 4 Guilford County Commissioner Mary Beth Murphy is joining a select group of elected county officials from around the country who’ll be working together to reduce racism in government and enhance racial equity.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department sent out word on Wednesday, Nov. 16, that it wants area residents to be on the lookout for a woman they describe as an “endangered missing person” with cognitive issues.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has scheduled a work session for Thursday, Nov. 17 at 4 p.m. in order to, among other things, vote to permit the Town of Summerfield to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money previously allocated to water system projects in the town to instead buy a former school building to use as a new town hall.

The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority – the board that runs Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) – usually meets toward the end of each month; however, this month, thanks to Thanksgiving, the board met on Tuesday, Nov.15.

You may not have committed any crimes, but the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is still coming after you – and any other good people in the county. The department doesn’t want to arrest you, but instead it wants to hire you and put you to work as a detention officer.

Guilford County Commissioner Kay Cashion had an interesting experience on Election Day 2022 – a day that saw her get reelected to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners’ only at-large seat for another four years.

Guilford County government has been expanding its veterans’ services, and the county – which paid a lot of respect to local veterans in many different ways this month – has announced a new location for its Veteran Services office in Greensboro.

It’s been nearly two months now since the unexplained disappearance of a Guilford County man, but the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, other law enforcement agencies, friends and family are all continuing to search to find out what happened to Stuart Lee Carter.

The Saturday, Nov. 19 “2022 High Point Holiday Party” is being put on by Furnitureland Rotary Club along with Bethany Medical and The Lenny Peters Foundation. 

Now that the 2022 General Election is over and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is set...

On Thursday, Nov. 10, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper appeared in a primetime slot on CNN, and Cooper used the opportunity to weigh in on the recent election. Cooper went after former President Donald Trump and Republican gubernatorial candidates in other parts of the country, and also lauded President Joe Biden’s accomplishments and argued that Biden should be the Democratic nominee in 2024.

There are plenty of very nice women named “Nicole,” but Duke Energy is reminding everyone in Guilford County that the storm Nicole is a completely different matter. On Friday, Nov. 11, the storm is expected to bring some strong winds and heavy rains to the county as it passes through North Carolina.

Former Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson, a Republican who lost the at-large Board of Commissioners race in the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election, has filed a complaint protesting the participation of a limited liability corporation (LLC) in the election. Branson filed the complaint with Guilford County Board of Elections and the NC Board of Elections alleging that the Pleasant Guardians LLC had violated state election laws in its support of his opponent.

As anyone who follows the local news at all knows, incumbent Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers was elected on Tuesday, Nov. 8 to serve another four years in that office.

Scammers are still calling up Guilford County residents, claiming to be with the county’s Sheriff’s Department and attempting to separate those people from their hard-earned money.

It’s a jump that’s been made plenty of times before in Guilford County – from the Guilford County Board of Education to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. And soon-to-be District 3 Commissioner Pat Tillman managed to navigate that move just fine as others before him have.  On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Tillman pulled in enough votes, 52 percent, to give the Republican Tillman a win over Democratic contender Derek Mobley.

It turns out that spending a lifetime working to keep a community safe may help you win county commissioner races.  That proved to be the case, at least, for former Guilford County Emergency Services Director Alan Perdue, who now serves as the Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 2 representative – and who’ll continue to get to do so after the results of the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election.

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers, who surprised a great many people by winning that seat four years ago in a race against long-time former Sheriff BJ Barnes, won a majority of the vote this time around to hold that office another four years.  In the Tuesday. Nov. 8 election, Rogers, a Democrat, pulled in 56 percent of the vote, more than enough to defeat Republican Phil Byrd – who had the endorsement of Barnes and of a lot of other Republicans who wanted to see Rogers ousted as the county’s sheriff.

Tuesday, Nov. 8, Democratic Guilford County Commissioner Kay Cashion defeated former Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson for the nine-member board’s only at-large seat.

In February, Democratic Commissioner Frankie Jones was selected by the Guilford County Democratic party to fill the vacant seat of longtime District 7 Commissioner Carolyn Coleman who passed away in early 2022.  The people who live in that district must like the job that Jones has been doing – on Tuesday, Nov. 8, nearly 80 percent of the District 7 voters cast a vote for Jones over Republican challenger Kenny Abbe.

Some old trees in downtown High Point are about to be replaced by younger, sexier models.

It’s a little more challenging for people held in the two Guilford County jails to vote, however, for many of them it’s still legal to do so. Some inmates do go to the trouble of casting votes just like the county residents who are free to move around as they please.

Last week, the North Carolina Republican Party made one of the most massive public records requests in the state’s history. The GOP sent a records request to all 100 county Register of Deeds offices asking for every death certificate of anyone who had died from early September until 10 days after the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election.

Especially right before an election, it’s hard to find warm, cuddly, feel-good stories out of Guilford County government. However, one unquestionably occurred on Thursday, Nov. 3, when Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega brought a kitten to a work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners as a visual aid (one might say “prop”) – to use during a report to the board on the county’s animal shelter operation and the needs of Animal Services.

The 2022 holiday season at High Point Theatre has announced the lineup of concerts and performances that will kick off this month and wrap up by the end of the year.

In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about a need to make sure that dead people don’t vote – and, apparently, the North Carolina Republican Party is attempting to investigate very deeply into that concern in the upcoming election. 

The Town of Stokesdale has had its own water system for years, and now, thanks to a number of new grants, it has several million dollars to spend on that system.