Author: Scott D. Yost

Since you can’t spend early July watching fireworks in a crowd this year, you can watch an online Guilford County Planning Board meeting – meetings which sometimes create some fireworks of their own if the zoning issues turn out to be controversial enough.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department has reported the death of an inmate in the Guilford County Detention Center in Greensboro.

You may have been told in your concealed carry class that you couldn’t wear a mask while carrying a gun in North Carolina, but that was before the pandemic.

The United Way of Greater Greensboro’s annual “MeaningFULL meals” program is taking on a new meaning this year since the local economy has been ransacked by the coronavirus pandemic.

A recent report from county staff to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners shows that a lot of businesses have been taking advantage of the county’s program to give grants of up to $10,000 to small businesses within the county.

These days, apparently, you aren’t even safe from thieves and assailants in the morning hours when you’re just making a trip to a grocery store in Forest Oaks.

The entire nation has been having a serious conversation about race and civil rights in recent weeks, and, at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Thursday, June 18 meeting, the board acknowledged that discussion in several ways – including a move at the very beginning of the meeting.

Many, many things have been shut down in recent months thanks to the pandemic, and one area of activity that’s been hit hard – an area that’s vital to Guilford County – is economic development.

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it’s also unquestionably the thing that county commissioners seek when they’re forced to hold a meeting at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday.

If all the news about the coronavirus and the state of unrest have you tense, one way you might relax and get your mind off of things is by taking a stroll through a new farmers’ market and buying some fresh and healthy food that might just help boost your immune system.

The Apple Store at the Friendly Center in Greensboro is open for business.

For years, the Guilford County Planning Department and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners have been discussing changes to area building ordinances, and now the county has partnered with Stewart, Inc. – an engineering and design firm based out of Raleigh – to hold a “Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Virtual Public Interest Presentation.”

Signs of normal, pre-pandemic life are slowly but surely coming back to Greensboro – even if that pandemic is still not contained – and one sign of normalcy that has delighted area basketball lovers is that the locks on public basketball nets around the city have been removed and now those courts are apparently open for use again.

This year is different than past years in a whole lot of respects, and, even halfway into the year, the unforgettable 2020 is still changing things up.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners hasn’t raised property taxes since 2012, so it was no surprise that the board adopted a hold-the-tax-rate-steady budget at its Thursday, June 18 meeting.

Democratic County Commissioner Skip Alston is continuing his crusade to promote social distancing and that’s exactly what he did at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Thursday, June 18 meeting after county staff had set up the meeting the way it has for decades – with all the commissioners seated behind the dais and less than six feet from each other.

In the movie Brewster’s Millions, Montgomery Brewster, played by Richard Pryor, must spend $30 million in 30 days while following a set of guidelines and, if he can’t do it, he stands to lose a $300 million inheritance.  

There hasn’t been a lot of inflation in the US over the last year, but the price of at least one thing has certainly been going up – the price of a diversity study meant to assess and increase Guilford County’s dealings with minority and women owned businesses.

Guilford County government spends nearly half of its budget each year on school capital projects and school operations, and one Guilford County commissioner is now proposing that the county explore a bold way to reduce one of those costs – by moving Guilford County Schools facilities construction and maintenance operations under the county’s facilities department.  

The High Point City Council was split last month on whether or not to accept the resignation of former High Point City Manager Greg Demko; however, on Monday, June 15, the council was completely united – 9 to 0 to be exact – in offering a contract to Interim City Manager Randy McCaslin to fill that job – for the time being.

Well, one thing that’s certainly true about COVID-19 is that it loosens government purse strings – it makes local, state and federal governments a lot more likely to send money into the economy.

It’s hard to know what’s open and what’s not these days and the best way to find out is usually just to go there and see if there’s an “Open” sign or just a dark empty building with a note on the door.

The High Point City Council voted 6-to-3 last month to accept the resignation of former High Point City Manager Greg Demko, but the main players have shed virtually no light on what led to that resignation.

Guilford County government, like many other things in the state of North Carolina, is gradually starting to return – somewhat – back to the state of things in the days before the pandemic.

On Tuesday, June 9, the Greensboro City Council agreed to cut $500,000 in funding for the school resource officer (SRO) program that serves Guilford County Schools – well, that news went over like lead balloon among Guilford County Commissioners.  

After the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, some cities and counties across the country are looking at defunding their law enforcement departments. Guilford County is not one of those places.

First, Guilford County government offered financial help in the form of grants to local businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, and, this week, the county announced a similar program to help area nonprofits.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners Tuesday, June 9 work session didn’t waste any time getting started.

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum has put out a YouTube video that addresses the major topic in the air right now – “Protesting in 2020.”

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has announced that on Thursday, June 18, it will conduct a public hearing on a proposed new UPS project.

Given the current protests over the death of George Floyd and related events, there’s no better time than right now for law enforcement agencies to attempt to close the gap between the department and the communities it protects.

Our long national nightmare might not be anywhere close to over, however, one good sign that things are improving is that, on Monday, June 8, High Point Mayor Jay Wagner terminated the city’s State of Emergency and lifted the city’s curfew.

The coronavirus has put a big damper on college and high school graduations, but it hasn’t stopped them, and, this week, Say Yes Guilford celebrated the graduation of the first Say Yes Guilford class that received scholarship money and other help from the organization.

With all sorts of emergencies happening all around us these days, the state could use a lot more emergency responders, and, on Monday, June 8, North Carolina got thousands of them in one fell swoop.

Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston knows how to make a point and he made one at the start of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Thursday, June 4 meeting, which was – after an eleventh hour change of venue – held at the Bur-Mil Club in Greensboro.

The world has been through a global pandemic and now riots but, somewhat remarkably, the people in Guilford County have been paying their property taxes at a rate higher than last year. 

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners ended their Thursday, June 4 meeting at about 7:30 p.m. – just in time to avoid a legal question that had been brewing for days leading up to the meeting.

On Thursday, June 4, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decided not to allow any in-person speakers at a meeting that night, and also decided to move the meeting. The location of the meeting, which was scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m., was not set by 2 p.m. on Thursday.

On Wednesday, June 3, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department sent out a press release announcing that an arsonist or arsonists had set fire to the Guilford County Courthouse at 201 S. Eugene St. in downtown Greensboro.

With the world opening back up a little now, Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) has started to see its passenger numbers going back up.

This week, High Point Mayor Jay Wagner and the rest of the High Point City Council released a statement on the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed.

On Tuesday, June 2, the City of High Point evacuated and closed the High Point Municipal Building – the heart of that city’s government operations – after an employee in the building tested positive for the coronavirus.  

The High Point Market Authority, which puts on the world-famous furniture market, has had to make some big adjustments thanks to COVID-19.

Tenants who haven’t paid rent or made mortgage payments just got yet another reprieve from being thrown out of their homes, due to an 11th hour, Saturday, May 30 statewide extension of a moratorium on evictions that will allow occupants to stay in place for at least a few more weeks.

Given the fact that the world’s economy has been virtually shut down for two months, it’s been difficult for local economic development officials to – well, develop the economy.

At a time when businesses and services in the area are opening back up after the coronavirus pandemic’s initial hit, the City of High Point has announced that, due to COVID-19, the city is completely shutting something down.

Recently, Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston has been raging against fellow Guilford County commissioners because six of them – five Republicans and one Democrat – voted to limit a school bond referendum to $300 million on the November ballot while the Guilford County Board of Education had requested a $1.6 billion bond referendum.

On Friday, May 29, the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association was one of many voices across the nation commenting on the highly disturbing death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis restaurant security guard who was killed by a police officer kneeling down on his neck for an extended period of time.

June used to be the time for summer fun and drinking Corona at Jimmy Buffet concerts.

The concealed carry permits process is about to open up in Guilford County.