Author: Scott D. Yost

Recently, the Old Guilford County Court House in Downtown Greensboro served as the setting for a very animated and optimistic State of the County speech: Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston delivered the 2025 address before a crowded commissioners meeting room on Thursday, Oct. 30, where he blended storytelling and data with a series of slickly produced video segments showing a county on the rise.

In Guilford County, voters will show up – albeit a small percentage of them – at the polls to cast their votes on Election Day, which, this time around, falls on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Across North Carolina, registered voters in 447 cities, towns and villages will vote in 88 counties, with the 12 remaining counties not having any race to decide. Voters will cast ballots for mayors, council members and, in some cases, boards of education or water and sewer district commissioners…

When Greensboro mayoral candidate Marikay Aubuzuaiter is asked about her priorities should the voters choose her, she isn’t slow to answer.

“Public safety has always been number one on my platform and I’ve never wavered,” she said. “I’ve always supported our Police Department, our Fire Department and Guilford Metro 911.”

However, she said the City of Greensboro has plenty of pots on the stove that need tending to…

Former Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins is hoping to drop the “former” from his title and become the city’s mayor once again. The race will be decided on Tuesday, November 4, by Greensboro residents who are choosing between the real estate broker Perkins and current Mayor Pro Tem Marikay Abuzuaiter…

On Thursday, Oct. 30, there were some signs that a judge may keep food and nutrition money going to recipients along with the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC), but even if that happens, the ongoing federal shutdown has a lot of implications for Guilford County government and county leaders have posted some information that they want residents to be aware of…

Piedmont Triad International Airport saw a solid rise in passenger traffic last month, according...

When the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meets in early December to elect a new chair, the majority of the board will be saying, “Out with the old and in with the – well. In with the same chairman we’ve had for years.”

Chairman Skip Alston told the Rhino Times he intends to run for the seat again – which means he will win the seat again…

The City of Greensboro has brought its Emergency Rental Assistance Program – known as ERAP – to a close this fall after four years of operation and more than $19 million in aid distributed.

The program was created in 2021 using federal funds from the US Department of the Treasury to help renters weather the financial hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. Over its life, ERAP provided rental and utility assistance…

It’s a tough time for some federal transportation security employees who aren’t getting paid due to the federal government shutdown, but that’s not stopping the airport from offering family-friendly Halloween festivities to anyone who wants to come out.

The event is set for Thursday, Oct. 30, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and PTI staff is promising a couple of hours of treats and laughter – along with plenty of Halloween-themed fun…

On Monday afternoon, Oct. 27, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) announced that the November benefits for the 1.4 million North Carolinians who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) –once known as “food stamps” – will be delayed if the federal government shutdown continues….

Guilford County government, which has been attempting to address homelessness in a big way in recent years, is turning things up a notch: The county is establishing a brand-new department solely focused on addressing that issue.

The new department director will oversee funding and resource allocation from Housing and Urban Development and other sources,…

The Greensboro Human Rights Commission is once again asking for the public’s help in finding a local hero.

The commission is now accepting nominations for the “Everyday Champion of Civil Rights Award” – which will be presented during the city’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast early next year. The theme of the 2026 breakfast is “From Words to Action: Advancing the Dream Together.”…

The City of Greensboro will begin relocating its Doorway Project from the former Regency Inn site at 2701 N. O’Henry Boulevard to Pomona Park at 3912 Clifton Road during the last week of October. 

The park is just south of Wendover Avenue and Spring Garden Street.

Launched in December 2022, the Doorway Project holds the distinction of being the first temporary shelter community of its kind in North Carolina. The program is comprised of 30 two-person pallet homes and five RV sleeping trailers – providing the  homeless with temporary shelter as well as with…

The 2nd Annual Melvin “Skip” Alston Golf Classic – which is a big event that raises a lot of money to fight homelessness – is going to have to take place at a later date due to the failure of North Carolina’s weather to cooperate.

“I have just been notified by the golf course that they are forecasting 100 percent chance of rain on Monday,” Alston told the Rhino Times on Friday, Oct. 24…

At a Thursday, Oct. 16 work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, Commissioner Pat Tillman proved that he really looks through the detailed presentation materials handed to the board when staff gives the board information.  This presentation regarded the county’s new $12.3 million master plan for parks and greenways.  The commissioners haven’t adopted the plan yet – at the work session they were just being briefed on it…

The Greensboro Fire Department has a new recruit – but this one has four legs rather than two, and also a tail and a mission to support firefighters’ mental health.

Thanks to a donation from the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, the Greensboro Firefighters Foundation has purchased a therapy canine that will be joining the department. The move is meant to bolster emotional resilience and promote mental well-being among the men and women who often face very tough situations…

On Monday, Oct. 20, former Guilford County commissioner, former Board of Education member, and unfaltering education advocate Dot Kearns passed away at the age of 94.  

She was the first woman to ever serve on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners – as well as the first woman to chair that board.

Three years ago, Kearns, an alumni of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro told UNCG Magazine that she ran for the Board of Commissioners “hoping…

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston will deliver his 2025 State of the County address on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 4 p.m. in the commissioners’ meeting room at the Old Guilford County Court House.

The theme this year is “One Guilford: Measuring Our Success, Planning Our Future…

On Thursday, Oct. 16, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners adopted the schedules, standards, and rules to be used in the next scheduled reappraisal of real property in Guilford County. Those are now open to examination in the office of the Tax Department pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 105-317. 

While those rules will determine how houses and businesses are valued in Guilford County, the really important information will come next June when the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decides whether or not to lower the tax rate so that property tax bills don’t skyrocket with the increased tax values….

n Wednesday evening, Oct. 22, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the City of Burlington will host what they’re calling a “major economic development announcement.”

The event will take place at Impact Alamance in downtown Burlington and will feature a who’s who of state and local leaders.

The details of the announcement itself are being kept under wraps – at least officially – but the project in question is an $860 million distribution center expected to bring 505 new jobs to Guilford County…

On Thursday, Oct. 16, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners voted to support a request from the Dolley Madison Woman’s Club of Greensboro to place a monument to Dolley Madison in front of the Old Guilford County Court House in downtown Greensboro.

The vote came as the Woman’s Club marked its 50th anniversary….

Early in the morning of Saturday, Oct. 18 – in a game that had started at 10:30 p.m. Friday against California – the UNC Tar Heel Football team fumbled on the first play from scrimmage allowing California to score a touchdown immediately.

 Then, at the very end of the game, when a Tarheel…

On Thursday, Oct. 16, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners sat through a long and detailed work session in the third-floor conference room of the county-owned Truist Building in downtown Greensboro. The subject was the future of county parks – and in the end the commissioners approved in principle the Guilford County Parks, Trails and Open Space Master Plan…

President Donald Trump certainly has his share of rabid supporters, but, if you didn’t know, he also has a critic or two. 

Or millions and millions. 

Those who are angry with the administration and who oppose actions Trump has taken in his second term are gearing up to show their displeasure in a local and nationwide “No Kings” protest that will take place in Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem, Lexington and…

The Piedmont Triad Business Collaborative – formerly known as Piedmont Triad MED Week – is a regional initiative that’s “committed to the growth, sustainability and long-term success of small businesses in the Triad.”

The organization offers workshops, networking, recognition and year-round support to entrepreneurs and small business owners….

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is reporting that, on Tuesday, October 14, at just after 6:50 a.m., Sheriff’s Office detention staff at the county jail in downtown Greensboro discovered 71-year-old Tracey Johnson “unresponsive” inside his cell.

According to a statement regarding the death from…

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is getting a whole lot of new guns – 341 brand-new Glock 47 pistols – to replace what county law enforcement officials say are worn-out sidearms now being carried by deputies and detention officers.

According to an agenda item set for the Board of Commissioners’…

The City of Greensboro’s Community Relations Division has put out its latest annual impact report and, according to the report, the top concerns residents raised were these: code compliance violations, homelessness and panhandling, speeding and traffic, parking problems and zoning disputes.

It could be called the City of Greensboro Complaint Department because it’s the primary contact for complaints and requests….

After years of talking about Guilford County’s stubbornly high infant mortality rate, the Board of Commissioners has decided to stop wringing its hands and start swinging hammers – with a new county task force and a public push that the chairman says won’t let up until the numbers turn around.

The kickoff meeting of the newly established Guilford County Infant Mortality Taskforce is set for Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 4 p.m. in the John H. McAdoo Conference Room on the third floor of the former Truist building at 201 W. Market St. in Greensboro.

With prices skyrocketing higher every time we go to the store, the series of events Greensboro has planned for families this fall might actually come in very helpful since we may all be on the verge or having to catch our own meat and forage the woods for vegetables…

There was something of a taxpayer revolt at the Thursday, Oct. 1 Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting, which was meant to be a hearing on the county’s schedule of values – the standardized rates and guidelines used to determine market value for the 2026 countywide property revaluation.

However, rather than a hearing on the methodology being used to arrive at property values…

Cecil Brockman, a six-term Democrat serving Guilford County’s District 60, was arrested on felony charges of statutory rape as well as indecent liberties with a child – and now leaders from all across the political spectrum are calling for his immediate resignation.

On Thursday, Oct. 9, Brockman was taken from a Guilford County jail cell to a hospital due to an undisclosed medical emergency…

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office says that two more people have been arrested in connection with the death of 36-year-old Amber Marie Schimmelpfenning – a homicide case that’s gotten more disturbing the deeper investigators dig.

On Friday, Sept. 19, sheriff’s detectives were notified that Schimmelpfenning’s missing Chevrolet Avalanche had turned up at a home…

Guilford County held its Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, primary municipal elections – and the results are a stark reminder that, when it comes to only local politics, the vast majority of people simply don’t show up.

When 111 of the 113 precincts in the county finished reporting late Tuesday night , the tally was 22,208 ballots cast out of 210,515 registered voters – a turnout of right at 10.5 percent….

The two candidates left standing in the race to be Greensboro’s next mayor are a former Greensboro mayor and a Greensboro City Council member. After the polls closed on Tuesday, Oct. 7 and the votes were tallied, the voters had narrowed the field to two familiar names: Robbie Perkins, who’s served as the city’s mayor before, and Marikay Abuzuaiter, who currently serves on the Greensboro City Council….

The Carpenters once had a nice song called Rainy Days and Mondays – and while rainy days will continue in the future, Mondays will not, at least not for the printed edition of the News & Record.

The announcement came in the form of an email to print subscribers on Monday, Oct. 6, with the paper notifying readers that, starting the week of November 3, the News & Record will stop printing on Mondays. It will still publish Tuesday through Sunday, but the first day of the work week will now be digital only…

Years ago, sometimes the homecoming celebration of North Carolina A&T State University would be scheduled on the same weekend as Halloween and, whenever that happened, it was almost impossible to even walk down Elm Street – and it could literally take an hour or more to get your car out of a parking deck…

It’s well known that southerners hate parking decks, but a new move by the City of Greensboro that’s meant to draw more people downtown on the weekends will require using a deck if you want to nab some parking savings.

The City of Greensboro has just released a major 10-year strategic plan to completely overhaul the city’s downtown and make it more appealing,…

Guilford County is losing its top attorney to Charlotte – and the Queen City won’t waste any time swooping in.

On Thursday, Oct. 3, Guilford County announced that Guilford County Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite is leaving on Halloween to become Charlotte’s new city attorney. Her last day with Guilford will be Friday, Oct. 31.

Leslie-Fite only came aboard in Guilford County in 2022 after the county spent months searching for a permanent replacement for longtime County Attorney Mark Payne…

On Saturday, October 11, the Triad Area Out of the Darkness Project will hold its annual Community Walk – bringing together volunteers, survivors, families and others in order to fight suicide by walking, talking and connecting.

Registration begins at 9 a.m. at Triad Park in Kernersville.

Organizers say the event is all about creating a healing community and encouraging people to talk openly about mental health and any suicidal thoughts.

Darren Shell, co-chair of the Triad walk, has been involved since 2017 and has chaired the event in recent years. He said personal loss led him to get involved…

The Guilford County Black Caucus is holding two public forums this month to give voters a chance to hear directly from the candidates running in Greensboro’s municipal elections.

The first forum will take place Thursday, Oct. 9, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in downtown Greensboro. That event will feature mayoral and at-large candidates….

Greensboro residents who want to know more about the future of their downtown will have several chances in the coming weeks: Downtown Greensboro, Inc. has scheduled a series of GSO35 “pop-up” events where the public can hear details about the 10-year plan as well as offer feedback.

The plan, called “GSO35: Downtown in a Decade,” attempts to lay out a vision for a downtown that’s welcoming, livable, connected and prosperous. As the Rhino Times reported last week, it grew out of input from more…

As of midnight last night, the government of the United States of America is shut down.

The longest shutdown was 35 days in 2018 and 2019 during the first Donald Trump administration, but these are very rare and alarming political times unlike anything the nation has perhaps ever seen before – so, in this case, it’s easy to imagine this shut down setting a new record and then some.

While Piedmont Triad International Airport activities and many government operations…

The federal government has once again ground to a halt, but air travelers in the Triad can rest easy at least for now: Piedmont Triad International Airport will remain open, the planes will keep flying – and passengers shouldn’t expect to see their vacation flights or business trips canceled because Congress can’t get its act together.

PTI officials announced on Wednesday, Oct. 1 that the shutdown won’t bring immediate operational changes. Unlike some federal agencies, PTI itself isn’t funded through the annual appropriations process that Congress failed to renew…

In recent years, vaccinations have become a huge subject of debate; however, that isn’t stopping the state of North Carolina, along with federal officials, from vaccinating some recipients without their consent or knowledge.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is working alongside the US Department of Agriculture to help prevent the spread of rabies; and, beginning in about two weeks, Wildlife Services will be distributing oral rabies vaccine to wild raccoons in western North Carolina…

This year’s municipal election isn’t expected to bring a great deal of controversy – but next year’s midterms certainly will: Accusations and court filings will be flying leading up to, during, and after the 2026 election.

Still, every year – and before every election – county election boards across North Carolina are required by law to show that their voting machines are in good working order.

Forsyth County, for instance, is publicizing that process in advance of its November municipal election. The Forsyth County Board of Elections announced it will begin testing its machines on Thursday, Oct. 2 in Winston-Salem….

When the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meets on Thursday, Oct. 2, the commissioners will be asked to sign off on some reshuffling of a whole lot of school bond money – a move the Board of Education has already approved.

The request comes in regard to the massive $2 billion in voter-approved school bonds that are currently funding new schools, additions and needed repairs across the county’s school system…

Bur-Mil Park will once again be the place to be this October when Guilford County Parks hosts the 21st annual Fall Fest – a free community event that always draws families from across the county each year.

The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11 at 5834 Bur-Mill Club Road in Greensboro. Admission is free, and organizers say that this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever.

High Point University under the leadership of President Nido Qubein has been growing like kudzu, spreading across the city and drawing attention far outside of North Carolina’s borders. The latest sign of the university’s momentum is the announcement that the university has secured nearly $200 million in philanthropic gifts from families, estates and foundations.

In the last quarter alone, HPU received $37 million in new donations.

That brought the total to more than $195 million in recent philanthropic investments – money…

Awhile back when Guilford County government needed an interim manager for about two weeks, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners picked Clerk to the Board Robin Keller for that position. The headline we ran in the Rhino Times was “From Lowly Clerk To Top Of The Guilford County Government Heap,” which we thought was fairly humorous.

However, we heard an earful from clerks around the state and from others that it was a very bad headline because clerks are extremely high up on the local government chain and do vital work.