Author: Scott D. Yost

If you build it they will come.

On Wednesday, Jan. 2, some Guilford County commissioners, Greensboro City Councilmembers and county and city staff met in the Old Guilford County Court House in downtown Greensboro to discuss a proposed Cure Violence initiative and see whether the program, if approved, should be placed administratively under the non-profit One Step Further Inc.

Talk of the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite may have died down since the site was passed over by a Toyota-Mazda project almost exactly one year ago, but there are still high hopes for the site, and area leaders say it remains very attractive to large automotive companies and others.

The New Year of 2019 is bringing a lot more to Guilford County than new calendars:  It’s also bringing the start of a discussion about a giant new school bond referendum that some say could amount to a request for a billion dollars.

The squeaky wheel may be the one that gets the grease, but the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has been as quiet as a mouse when it comes to what the county, through official channels, is asking state legislators for in terms of favors, wishes, funding – you name it.

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers said that despite the way former Sheriff BJ Barnes publicly attacked him after he won the sheriff’s race, he loves Barnes and wishes the best for him.

The early bird may get the worm, but Guilford County Board of Education Member Byron Gladden hopes the early announcer gets the school board seat. 

High Point is starting 2019 on the right economic development foot.  

Jail population numbers included in the latest Guilford County audit show that, for the most recent complete fiscal year, 2017-2018, the number of inmates held in the county’s two jails is almost exactly the same as it was 10 years ago when the county decided to build a giant 1,032-bed $100-million jail because the jail population was expected to “skyrocket” over the next decade.

The big High Point downtown baseball stadium project promised new jobs for area residents – and the team that will play there is now delivering on that promise: The High Point Rockers baseball team has just announced a slew of new jobs that it’s looking to fill.

January is a time when everyone typically gets back to work after taking off a month and a half, but Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, the City of Greensboro and the United Way of Greater Greensboro are asking everyone to see the month as something else as well – a time to sign up to mentor kids who need guidance during the most important stages in their lives.

The saying goes, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid,” and Guilford County officials are hoping the State of North Carolina will be one of those forces that comes to its aid in the county’s bold new mental health initiative.

Guilford County officials have a major plan to recreate the delivery of mental health services across the county and they would like some help paying the bill.  In early 2019, the county will ask the state for some financial backing for the plan, which state officials have already said they admire greatly.

This week, State Rep. Jon Hardister said he certainly can see the NC General Assembly getting on board.  He said that could even be done without adding any new money to the state budget since the budget already includes funds to enhance mental health services in North Carolina.

“The money in the Dorothea Dix Fund goes to mental health,” Hardister said, adding that the county could apply for a grant from that fund.

Two weeks ago, Guilford County announced that it had entered into an agreement with Cone Health system and Sandhills Center, with the blessing of state officials, to completely reshape the way mental health services are delivered.  That’s all well and good but the plan calls for, among other things, a new county building estimated to cost about $20 million.

Hardister said that in his mind it’s certainly a worthy cause for state backing.

“It is not rare for the General Assembly to support mental health at the local level,” he said. “We all recognize that it’s a problem.”

He added that Guilford County, Cone and Sandhills are making a “substantial” move to address the problem and the state would certainly like to help the endeavor be successful.

Guilford County Commissioner Jeff Phillips, who’s been the county’s point man on the project, said he’s been very pleased at the way the state has received the idea so far. 

Phillips said his interactions with Hardister, Rep. John Faircloth, State Senator Rick Gunn and others had been very positive.

“I’ve been very encouraged by those conversations,” Phillips said.

He also said one of the big pluses about this particular issue is that it’s not really political: Both Democrats and Republicans are highly interested in improving mental health services.

“Whether you’ve got a D or an R beside your name, that doesn’t matter,” Phillips said.  “It’s sort of like the Family Justice Center and domestic violence  – everybody agrees that’s an area we need to focus on.  And this is an area where everyone agrees we need to do better.”

The issue is likely to be addressed by the General Assembly in the spring.

No matter how you slice it, 2018 was a very good year for High Point, the county’s second largest city. 

Newly released data from the US Census Bureau for 2017, along with new analytics tools provided by the bureau to parse that data, have created an interesting snapshot of Guilford County’s workforce based on the most current information available.

One year ago, the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority dropped a bomb out of the clear blue sky onto area citizens: The name of Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA), the Airport Authority announced, was being changed to Central North Carolina International Airport.

The Guilford County Animal Shelter just got some bad news: It’s losing its medical director – who was also the shelter’s only veterinarian. 

According to Guilford County Commissioner Jeff Phillips, the county is pushing back on a state-imposed requirement that Guilford County buy new election machines at a cost to county taxpayers of $7 million to $8 million.

There is often strong tension between real estate developers and government inspectors and that can be due to any number of reasons.

An ongoing question about the availability of diverse housing options in northwest Guilford County gained new steam this week when Bill Jones, a lifetime Stokesdale resident, announced he was stepping down from the Town Council and leaving town because of a lack of housing in his price range in Stokesdale.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane – no, it’s Greensboro Zoning Man.

People used to call former President Barack Obama “No drama Obama,” but the former president and his administration have nothing at all on Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Alan Branson and the rest of the county commissioners.

The most amazing thing about the newly announced giant deal to completely reshape mental health care in North Carolina is not that Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center are doing something radically new, or that they’re building two new facilities devoted to state-of-the-art mental health care, or that they are perhaps turning Guilford County into a mental health care model for communities across the country to emulate.

Are you getting very upset over how much you’ve spent on Christmas presents?  Does having to spend time with your mother-in-law, brother-in-law or obnoxious cousins over the holidays really get your blood boiling?  Has the stock market roller coaster caused your heart to skip a beat?

On Friday, Jan. 25, it would probably be wise to stay out of Greensboro’s O.Henry Hotel because there will be a dead body in the bar and a killer on the loose. 

Stokesdale Town Councilmember Bill Jones, who has served on the Town Council since 2011 and has family roots in the Stokesdale area that pre-date the Civil War, has announced that he’s stepping down from the Town Council and moving out of Stokesdale. 

State Rep. Jon Hardister is drafting legislation for introduction in 2019 that’s meant to help prevent school-age children from falling victim to human trafficking – a problem Hardister and an increasing number of others say is a fast growing threat in North Carolina.

Usually, it’s the Guilford County health department inspecting others, but in a few weeks the tables will be turned and the department will be the inspected rather than the inspector.

The number of 911 calls in Guilford County has been increasing at a rate about four times faster than the population. 

The Town of Oak Ridge is finding this out about traffic circles:  Some people love them and some people hate them.

Lots of people hope the New Year, 2019, will bring something better for them – but Town of Summerfield residents in particular are really, really hoping that 2019 will be a better year for their town than 2018. 

High Point officials have high hopes for a new cooperative furniture effort in downtown meant to help bring young innovative furniture makers together in a cooperative workspace.

A recent audit of Guilford County government shows that building permits in unincorporated Guilford County and the county’s small towns increased in fiscal 2017-2018 over 2016-2017 – but not by as much as one might think given how hot the national economy was during that time period. 

Calvin Graham, a 56-year-old inmate being held in the Guilford County jail in downtown Greensboro, died in the county’s custody on Christmas Eve.

The City of High Point, long known as the “Furniture Capital of the World,” is taking steps to transform its downtown – a downtown that in the past has largely been known for its furniture showrooms.  But something surprising happened in 2018: High Point’s downtown saw an influx of new furniture businesses and showrooms.

Anyone who drives down a busy street like Battleground Avenue in Greensboro has no doubt noticed the increase in the number of vaping shops around town, but Guilford County health officials are now on an all-out mission to discourage teens from the practice, which eliminates the smoke of cigarettes but still delivers nicotine to the blood stream of the user.

Better late than never.

That’s what people say, anyway, and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has just found out that on Thursday, Jan. 10, the board will finally get some new information regarding the status of a $1-million school facilities study.  The Board of Commissioners paid half the cost of the study, so it has a vested interest in the results.

Christmas is a time when some people drop a dollar or two in the Salvation Army bucket or try to help out those less fortunate in other ways,

Christmas Eve isn’t the time anyone should have to worry about a wastewater spill, but that’s exactly what High Point Public Services officials had on their hands on Monday, Dec. 24.

Over the last decade, the Guilford County School system has added twice as many employees as it has students. 

Most people stopped donating to Susie’s Fund a long time ago, but the fund keeps giving to the news cycle

The Piedmont Triad area doesn’t lead the entire planet in many categories but one that it likely does lead in is creating highly ballyhooed long-term strategic plans that are never looked at again once they’re published. 

Now that all the initial drama has passed from the seismic shift in leadership at the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, new Sheriff Danny Rogers says he’s getting down to the nuts and bolts of reshaping the department and he said that his new leadership model can be summed up in two words – “fairness” and “structure.”

In May 2019, the brand new stadium in downtown High Point opens and that’s when the heated competition begins – not the one between the new High Point Rockers and whatever team they’re playing, but the intense battle between the Rockers and the High Point-Thomasville HiToms, a longstanding and storied baseball team that for the last 20 years has owned baseball fans in the High Point area.

People have all sorts of New Year’s resolutions for 2019 but the main resolution of brand new Minority and Business Women Enterprise (MWBE) Director Cynthia Barnes-Phipps is to have Guilford County spend more money with woman and minority owned businesses.

Guilford County Health Director Merle Green said that Guilford County is trying to get out ahead of a trend that could have very bad repercussions for public health:

While many Guilford County citizens were running around stores this week collecting last minute gifts for friends and family, groundwater inspectors from the Guilford County Division of Public Health were running around neighborhoods in west Greensboro collecting well water samples to see if they’re contaminated – and, if so, to discover how much contaminant those samples contain.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 20, Greensboro City Council members, Guilford County commissioners, Cone Health officials and others involved in the effort to bring a chapter of Cure Violence to Guilford County met to discuss the best way to make that happen.

There’s been a lot of joy and mutual congratulations around the plan by Guilford County, Cone Health and Sandhills Center to reshape the nature of mental health care in Guilford County and have Cone take over the job. 

Some Guilford County animal lovers feel like the county’s plan to spend down Susie’s Fund, phase it out and start a broader fund to help the animals at the Guilford County Animal Shelter in more ways, isn’t a good plan – and they’ve been letting the county know it on Facebook, comments and in emails.