Author: Scott D. Yost

Right now, a lot of local business activity has slowed to a crawl because of the COVID-19 shut down orders, but that’s certainly not the case when it comes to election activity.

You still can’t come to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting, but the fact that it’s being held in the board’s regular meeting room in the Old Guilford County Court House – rather than entirely online – is a welcome sign of a trend back to normalcy in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department announced a big change in the way it oversees detention officers in the county’s two jails: The department is implementing body-worn cameras in both the Greensboro and High Point jail.

A lot of businesses need financial help right now thanks to a devastation of their commerce caused by the coronavirus shut down – and airports are one group where the pain is being felt the most. However, this week Republican 13th District Congressman Ted Budd made an announcement that should help the hobbled airport pay for one project. It’s a nearly $2 million grant for PTI that will go toward an ongoing effort to reduce airport noise in the surrounding neighborhoods.

High Point Economic Development Corp. President Loren Hill announced recently that he would be stepping down from that position at the end of the year, so perhaps it’s fitting that, in his last year, Hill was presented with a prestigious honor for his efforts, the Stanley Frank Economic and Workforce Development Award.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has approved allocating $500,000 of emergency federal COVID-19 relief funds – from the now well-known CARES Act – to non-profit agencies so that those agencies can open extended learning centers for area elementary school children.

One item that will be on the ballot for Guilford County voters to decide in November is a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax. At the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, Thursday, Aug. 27 work session, many commissioners openly expressed their aggravation over the fact that a group of prominent business leaders in the community didn’t sound like they were going to get behind the move and push for the sales tax increase.

Anyone who looked at the state’s COVID-19 numbers on Saturday, Aug. 29 was likely shocked to see a dramatic spike in the number of positive cases reported that day. But, fear not, that jump was highly misleading because, in reality, for reasons that are still under investigation, the state received in a single day roughly 1,000 positive cases from much earlier in August.

After a highly successful career leading the High Point Economic Development Corp., Loren Hill, the organization’s president, is stepping down from that position after two decades.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier this year, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department has been taking precautions to prevent an outbreak in the county’s two jails. On Thursday, Aug. 27, the department reported some good news in that regard. Though the Sheriff’s Department had found a half-dozen jail-related cases among staff earlier this summer, a new round of testing didn’t find any additional cases.

There’s an interesting tidbit about past primary elections in Guilford County and North Carolina that you probably didn’t know.

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced that it’s added an important new information marker to the COVID-19 Data Dashboard – a website that the state uses as a central clearing house for public information about the virus.

Usually, late August is the time of dog days for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. However, in the fascinating year that is 2020, the board will deal with coronavirus, construction and election matters – which are on the board’s agenda for an extremely loaded Thursday, Aug. 27 afternoon work session.

If you think the coronavirus has been rough on you – well, it has been brutal on Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA), which went from a vibrant air travel hub gaining in popularity early in the year to a place where, one day a few months ago, the number of employees working at the airport outnumbered the number of passengers using it.

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department announced that the current average processing time for concealed carry handgun (CCH) permits remains at 90 days.  

A lot of college students aren’t going back to campus this year – many are taking classes from home thanks to the pandemic. However, this week, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department offered a host of safety tips for those college students who do stay on campus to remain safe from crime.

President Donald Trump has a lot of opinions about a lot of things and in a recent interview the president called North Carolina by name as a state that he believes is being kept too locked down.  

For months and months, people across North Carolina have heard instructions about washing their hands and keeping their distance. However, a new public awareness campaign makes it clear that state officials don’t think enough people have heard those messages in Spanish.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but, unfortunately, sometimes trash is just trash – and it may even be trash that can be really hard to legally dispose of.

On Friday morning, Aug. 21, Greensboro businessman Louis DeJoy, the country’s brand new Postmaster General, found himself under attack by Democrats in Washington, DC – in what at times seemed more like political theater meant to make President Donald Trump look bad than it did a US Senate committee hearing to get answers about the US Postal Service’s practices and procedures.

Greensboro’s economic development community lost a key player in the city’s efforts to bring new business to the area, David Ramsey – who for years has been putting in a lot of effort in Greensboro’s efforts to attract new industry as the executive vice president of economic development for the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce – has taking a job with general contractor Landmark Builders. Ramsey has been named the company’s new director of business development for the Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem market.

Right now, the national polls have Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden out ahead of President Donald Trump. However, Friday, Aug. 21, Republican Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson said he is confident Trump will not only arise victorious, but will do so in convincing fashion in November.

A group in High Point is looking for some willing high school students to help beautify the city.

This week, the NC Board of Elections made changes meant to help the absentee voting process run more smoothly.

You wouldn’t think that financially challenged families would need any encouragement to seek more help during these very challenging times.

No one needs any more potential problems with people voting in the upcoming election. However, Cathy Bencini and her husband, former High Point Mayor Bill Bencini, came across one when trying to help Cathy’s 96-year-old mother vote from a nursing home.   Her mother is a resident of Pennybryn at Maryfield in High Point and the problem came when the two were attempting to help the mother vote in the upcoming election.

At the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Thursday, Aug. 20 meeting, the board is set to approve the acceptance and distribution of a large federal/state Home And Community Care Block Grant.

There’s no doubt going to be a lot of anxiety this year for North Carolina’s teachers and other school personnel.

The meeting-style of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has undergone several transformations since the start of the coronavirus crisis earlier this year. At first, the board met in the Old Guilford County Court House with no press or members of the general public admitted.

Recently, basically out of the blue, Guilford County began advertising to hire a new director of Health and Human Services, a position that will oversee the giant department that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners combined into one about seven years ago.

In response to the fact that a half dozen Guilford County detention officers recently tested positive for coronavirus, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is implementing a new program that will provide COVID-19 testing for all detention officers, all members of the jail medical staff, as well as every inmate – in both the county jail in Greensboro and the one in High Point.

For the months this year when protest and the pandemic have gripped the county, the number of pistol purchase permit applications more than tripled.

Guilford County didn’t exactly win the lottery when it came to federal funding in the first federal COVID-19 relief program earlier this year.

This week, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department reported that six Guilford County detention officers tested positive for COVID-19 during July and August.

This weekend, Irving Park became a very rowdy place as a mass of angry protesters gathered outside the home of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Country Club Drive.

Earlier this month, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners approved the purchase of a $420,000 thermal imaging camera system that will be put in place in a half-dozen county buildings that are used heavily by the public.

The NC Department of Public Safety, Division of Emergency Management (NCEM) and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced on Tuesday, Aug. 11 that the state is offering a new, expedited reimbursement program meant to expand sheltering options with proper social distancing in communities across the state.

It used to be that people didn’t want to have a scarlet “A” on their clothes, and, soon, Guilford County citizens who wish to enter a county building won’t want to have a scarlet dot on their head that could also cause them to be shunned like Hester Prynne.

A previously hot war over access to public documents in Summerfield has turned into a cold war that appears no closer to resolution after arbitration.

It used to be that, whenever economic incentives requests came before the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, a major debate ensued.

Dogs are man’s best friend and friends tend to share things.

Pandemics are, as a rule, bad for the mental health of just about everyone.

The Guilford County Planning Board will hold its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, August 12 at 6 p.m. to hear a host of rezoning cases that would allow for more land in the county to be put to a “higher” use.

A lot of Guilford County business has been put on hold due to the state regulations implemented to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson got his foot stomped on by a 3,500-pound bull this week when he was trying to get the perfect photo for his reelection campaign in his county commissioners District 4 race.

COVID-19 has meant that a lot of people are getting paid despite a lack of work.

Guilford County government got a $93.7 million federal grant earlier this year to address COVID-19 fallout and to battle the spread of the disease, and now the Guilford County Board of Education has plans for $10 million of that total.

Just because there’s a deadly pandemic raging all around you doesn’t mean you can’t keep up with the latest in literature.

With the damage the coronavirus has done to small businesses, those businesses need all the help they can get.

If you’ve seen videos of airports in China and across the world where special cameras detect people with elevated temperatures and flag those individuals – well, that same service is likely coming to a Guilford County government building near you.