Author: Scott D. Yost

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.

Longtime Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Tim Mabe – who has served for over three and a half decades under three Guilford County sheriff’s – posted an emotional statement on Facebook – just before new Sheriff Danny Rogers was sworn in. In that post, Mabe poured out his thoughts on the department and his dismissal from it, and it generated a big reaction from community leaders and others.

Forsyth County is considering the purchase, preservation and development of about 215 acres of Duke Energy land to establish a new public park with roughly two miles of lakefront along Belews Lake – an area that’s very popular with Guilford County residents.

On Monday, Dec. 3, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners held a morning meeting to conduct a swearing-in ceremony and, though that sounds as though there’s something new on the way, the board was exactly the same old board after the swearing-in as it was before: Six commissioners were sworn back into their previously held seats for another four years.

It’s good to be the king – and Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Alan Branson must also believe it’s good to be the chairman.

Guilford County commissioner swearing-in ceremonies are always a jovial affair, however, on Monday, Dec. 3, the commissioners had an unusually elevated level of fun – with just about every single commissioner getting solid laughs at some point in the morning from the cheery audience in the Old Guilford County Court House.

Guilford County Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Alan Branson has already served one year as chairman, but some county residents may still not know much about the man who is now, for the second year in a row, the most powerful elected official in Guilford County government.

Guilford County government wants to hear from you.

The Guilford County health department likes to catch health problems early – especially when it comes to school children, and under a new program – Ready for School, Ready for Life – that department is going to start helping those children really early on. Specifically, county health workers are going to get involved before a child is even born: They’ll step in when the parents are just starting to think about conception.

Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) is trying to get a runway rehabilitated but now it has to go back to the drawing board at a cost of $133,000. 

A rose by any other name is pretty much still a rose but there’s a lot more to a name change when it’s the result of a merger of a national law firm and one of North Carolina’s best known firms.

When Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers is sworn in on Monday, Dec. 3, most eyes will be on Rogers, however, there’s a lot of subtext in his swearing-in ceremony since the man doing the honors – former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Frye – has been a major advocate for the themes of racial justice that Rogers says will be important in his administration as sheriff.

Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers has his backers and his detractors, however, whatever anyone says about him, this much is true: Even before being sworn in, Rogers has brought a great deal of statewide and even some national attention to the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department.

For the second year in a row, Forbes magazine has named North Carolina as the country’s Best State for Business.

Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers is now hitting back hard at his critics – especially Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes – and is adamantly defending his move to fire 28 employees in the Sheriff’s Department.

Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Colonel Randy Powers, one of the nearly 30 employees who has been told that as of Dec. 3 when Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers takes over he will no longer have a job, is expressing his concerns over what he said is the wholesale dismantling of effective Guilford County Sheriff’s Department programs that have been carefully put in place over the years to keep the county safe.

Guilford County staff is getting things ready for a huge day on Monday, Dec. 3 when newly elected officials will be sworn in in Greensboro and High Point – and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will elect a new chairman.

If you have some home additions or structures on your property that you never listed with the Guilford County Tax Department, you might want to do so because they’re probably going to catch you in February anyway.

The High Point Rockers baseball team – which will play ball starting in May in the new downtown stadium in High Point – has hired a high profile former major league player to help lead the team: the 1987 World Series Most Valuable Player, and 1988 Cy Young Award winner, Frank Viola.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. That’s what every community wants and the good news according to the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance (GCEDA) is that Guilford County is bringing those jobs in.

High Point Mayor Jay Wagner and City Manager Greg Demko say the city’s downtown is seeing tremendous investment – and that there’s much more to that story than just the new baseball stadium project.

Mars may need women but Cone Health needs nurses.

New Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers has selected Steve Parr, a Republican who ran against Sheriff BJ Barnes in the 2018 Republican sheriff’s primary, to be one of his top right hand men in the new Sheriff’s Department.

The satisfaction level at the Tuesday, Nov. 27 meeting of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority was sky high thanks to new numbers that show a dramatic uptick in the number of seats on passenger flights serving the airport.

Does he or doesn’t he?

That is: Does District 3 Republican Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad want to be chairman of the Board of Commissioners for the next 12 months? Conrad, who is now vice chair of the board, has been talking and meeting with commissioners from both parties this week and everyone seems to agree on one thing – the job is Conrad’s if he wants it.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said on Tuesday, Nov. 27 that Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers is conducting a “bloodletting” – defined as an indiscriminate massacre – of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department by firing a huge number of officers, including many who play key leadership roles in the department.

Planes have been known to land on golf courses in an emergency, but that is by no means an ideal situation. Planes do much better traversing flat slabs of an asphalt runway and that’s the reason Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) just closed Pleasant Ridge Golf Course, an 18-hole par-70 public course at 1518 Pleasant Ridge Road.

The list carried around by Santa Claus tells who’s been nice, but a new list that came with Guilford County’s latest audit shows who’s been nice for the county’s bank account.

The head of economic development for the Piedmont Triad Airport (PTIA) has flown the coup.

Guilford County Sheriff-elect Danny Rogers is already shaking things up, even when it comes to his swearing-in ceremony – which will be held in High Point rather than Greensboro, the county seat, as has been the practice in the past.

Hanesbrands Inc. is opening a 340,000-square-foot distribution center in High Point to support and distribute its Champion brand of products – something that adds to a string of recent business recruitment successes for High Point and Guilford County.