Author: Scott D. Yost

With just a couple of weeks left for people to get their Guilford County property taxes in on time, property owners in the county are behind where they were last year in their payments.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is holding a “Celebration of Life” and tree-lighting ceremony to honor the lives lost in the county through traffic accidents, domestic violence, crime and addiction.

Newly elected Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers is making a lot of changes in the Sheriff’s Department and he said this week that one of the changes he’d like to see is a second Sheriff’s Department office in High Point with much of the same functionality as that in Greensboro. 

A new statistical analysis of county data, done in conjunction with the county audit, shows the continuation of a negative trend that’s been occurring for years: The number of volunteer firefighters serving in Guilford County is dwindling.  

There’s been a lot of press lately about Guilford County’s attempts to address the needs of foster children, but the county is also enhancing efforts to aid older adults who can’t take care of themselves entirely but wish to remain at home.

An October hurricane and the recent December snowstorm have spurred a debate in Summerfield over the need for a Public Safety Committee.  Some say a coordinated volunteer response effort opens the town up to liability concerns, while others argue that the town must have some plan in place when a severe storm hits or when there is another type of emergency.

In what was not a very Christmassy discussion at all, the Summerfield Town Council, on Saturday, Dec. 15, argued over whether or not town employees should get the entire week of Christmas off.  In the end, the council voted 4-to-1 to give staff the extended break – but not before council members bickered over the question just as they have all year long over practically everything.

It’s been ten years since Guilford County took on a massive debt for the school system, the community college system and the jail. The county will be paying off that debt for years to come, but the Republican-led board now in charge is taking a much harder look at what new debt the county accumulates. 

Forget about the fact that Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) has been steadily growing its passenger numbers lately – cargo flights at the airport are through the roof.  

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…”

You might think the founder of Susie’s Fund would be upset about the fact that Guilford County is doing away with the well-known fund set up to help cover the medical costs for injured and abused animals that ended up at the Guilford County Animal Shelter, however, Roberta Wall, who gave the fund its name and helped establish it, said nothing could be further from the truth.

The Guilford County Planning Department is seeing a red hot new trend across the county: Dollar Generals and small stores like it are popping up all over like mushrooms after a big rain in summer. 

County sheriffs are often equipped with guns and Tasers, but new Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers says he’s carrying an even stronger weapon in his arsenal – love.

Guilford County is getting rid of Susie’s fund.

Guilford County gets most of its revenue each year from property taxes, but sales tax revenue is the county’s number two source of income and, for the, 2018-2019 fiscal year, sales tax revenue is running significantly behind projections. 

 “What have you done for me lately?”

You can’t keep the boys down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree, and, more importantly for conservationists, you can’t bring farms back once they’re gone.

Schools don’t like it if you turn in your homework late – and, apparently, Guilford County commissioners don’t like it when the school system and the consultants they hired turn in their study results late. 

The snow and ice from Winter Storm Diego shut down roads around the county and the state but the same cannot be said for the runways at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA), which managed to remain open for the entire duration of the storm through the herculean efforts of airport staff and outside crews that were called in to help.

The Guilford County Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors isn’t known for generating excitement, but that’s exactly what newly elected member Josh Myers and some other board members are trying to produce in 2019.

On Tuesday, Dec 11, at 5:45 p.m., Guilford County announced that it was lifting the State of Emergency imposed by the county two days earlier.  The State of Emergency was declared on Sunday, Dec. 9 and officially ended at 5 pm. Tuesday.

In response to a public records request made after mass firings from the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department two weeks ago, the department has provided a list of the names of all employees fired by new Sheriff Danny Rogers.

In an attempt to drum up more and better press for economic development opportunities in the county, the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance (GCEDA) is bringing a group of journalists in to show them close up why they should write great things about Guilford County and why it’s perfect for business expansion and relocation.

Guilford County is going back to the drawing board and that trip will cost about $35,000.

There’s been a major development in the ongoing battle in Summerfield over Mayor Gail Dunham’s emails.

If you want to come out to a big holiday party at a downtown Greensboro park, this is your chance: Thursday evening, Dec. 13, when Greensboro Downtown Parks hosts its “Christmas at the Park” celebration in Center City Park.

The Guilford County Family Justice Center has been awarded a grant from the Governor’s Crime Commission to the tune of $189,000.  The money is meant to help the county’s justice center be more effective in fighting child abuse and elder abuse.  The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to accept the grant at their next meeting on Thursday, Dec. 13.

The City of High Point is telling residents to hold their horses before getting in the car – and that’s especially true for people who live on smaller streets. 

On Monday, Dec. 10, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department released a list of the names of 25 employees fired by new Sheriff Danny Rogers and his staff.  With the entire list now public, many are attempting to read the tea leaves and discover why, out of 631 employees in the Sheriff’s Department, those 25 were dismissed.

On Sunday, Dec. 9, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Alan Branson declared a State of Emergency for all of Guilford County due to the major winter storm Diego.  Branson said he did so after conferring with Guilford County Emergency Services officials.

Guilford County Emergency Services staff had their hands full thanks to the tremendous amount of snow dumped on the county and its roads on Sunday, Dec. 9. 

Passenger traffic is up at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) and that means something else may need to go up as well – the number of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents.

The Guilford County Animal Services Advisory board met on Thursday, Dec. 6 and got a strong message from some animal lovers who spoke from the floor: Find a way to use social media more effectively.

The Guilford County Animal Shelter is right on track – the only question now is where to get $15 million to pay for it.

By now, just about everyone knows a whole lot about Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers, but they might not be familiar with the man who is, as of Monday, Dec. 3, the second most powerful law enforcement officer in the department’s chain of command – brand new Chief Deputy Edwin Melvin.

Everyone knows that Greensboro with all of its streets is busy during snow storms, but Guilford County doesn’t maintain any streets, so do county employees just get a day off when it snows?  Not hardly what many citizens don’t realize is that Guilford County government goes through a great deal of preparation to assure that services are maintained when the white stuff falls.

New Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers has promised all kinds of changes for the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department – but one of those changes will be very visible right away: the new uniform policy. 

Guilford County officials were hoping to have the kiddie train at Northeast Park up and running in time for the Christmas festivities at the park, but that is not to be once again this year.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership, a regional economic development group with a goal of promoting a 12-county area in central North Carolina including Guilford County, laid out its “Carolina Core” regional branding effort in August, and now it’s gearing up for a big rollout of the initiative meant to draw a lot of attention to the central part of the state.

On Thursday, Dec. 6, the all-important 911 emergency call system in Guilford County – and in other areas across the southeastern United States – went down, with calls to 911 failing to go through or being redirected to other phone numbers. State emergency response officials say that the widespread outage, which lasted several hours on Thursday, appears to have been resolved and there is now a widespread investigation into the reason for that rare failure.

Let’s face it, not much work gets done between mid-December and New Year’s Day. That’s as true for local governments as it is for other sectors of society – however, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Alan Branson is clearly already thinking about 2019. He said this week that Guilford County government is going to have a busy year ahead, and added that the year will bring a lot of financial challenges.

Guilford County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman who lives in Pleasant Garden and others in and around the town are saying they want their section of the county to see its fair share of development. Coleman has brought the issue up recently at several county commissioners meetings and she said this week that, while projects – industry, new restaurants, new retail, etc. – seem to be popping up all over the county, the same isn’t true of Pleasant Garden and southeast Guilford County.

Guilford County government just flushed $421,000 in taxpayer money down the commode.

New Vice Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said this week that the county is starting to move the needle in the right direction when it comes to the number of foster children in the county’s care, but he added that the problem is still enormous and it is something Guilford County has to make one of its top priorities in 2019.

On Wednesday, Dec. 5, while people across the country paid their final respects to George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States, local leaders were doing so as well.

Former Summerfield Town Councilmember Todd Rotruck said this week that Guilford County is stonewalling him on a public records request he submitted months ago. He said he is having a great deal of trouble getting a response to what he said is a straightforward request for information that he needs in order to continue his legal battle to regain his council seat.

Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen has been chosen by the Greensboro Regional REALTORS Association as the winner of the association’s 2018 Public Service Award. The honor was announced at a ceremony on Tuesday, Dec. 4 at the association’s headquarters at 23 Oak Branch Drive in Greensboro.

The Vital Records section of the Guilford County Register of Deeds Office was shut down Monday afternoon by a frightening event in which quick-thinking deeds’ staff and a deeds’ customer may have saved a man’s life.

It’s still early December, but it’s beginning to look a heck of lot like Christmas in Greensboro – and that was especially true at the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina where, on Tuesday, Dec. 4, an area real estate company dropped off 105 bikes for kids to find on Christmas morning.