Author: Scott D. Yost

Guilford County government is about to attempt something akin to repairing or replacing a jet engine while the jet is in flight.

It’s not the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrilla in Manila, but it might be called the Showdown in Downtown or the Battle of the Blue Room. 

The next time you enviously eye someone being chauffeured around town in style, it might not be someone wealthy – in fact, it might not even be a human being. 

They say “Better late than never” and, apparently, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners – after waiting nearly a half a year – will finally get the results of the $1 million school facilities study that they’ve been waiting on. 

Former Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes may have lost the election in November, but he certainly hasn’t lost his desire to engage in the public debate on law enforcement matters.  

Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers is getting rid of a lot of the old practices from the Sheriff’s Department as it was run under former longtime Sheriff BJ Barnes, but there’s one tradition he’s decided to continue and put his own unique spin on: Rogers and his new department will use the Guilford County Sheriff’s Citizen Academy as part of a broader effort to bridge the divide between the Sheriff’s Department and the county’s citizens.

The expression “killing two birds with one stone” sounds negative in a way, but officials with Guilford County Schools are nothing but positive about a new program being implemented in 2019 that’s meant to do just that.

At the Thursday, Jan. 10, Guilford County Animal Services Advisory Board meeting, Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega said that 2018 was a year of progress for the shelter in a number of ways. 

This week, the Summerfield Town Council voted 4 to 1 to retain attorney Gray Wilson, with the Winston-Salem firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, to defend the town as well as Town Councilmember Dianne Laughlin – who’s being sued by former Summerfield Town Councilmember Todd Rotruck over the seat that Rotruck lost and Laughlin now occupies.

Highway US-421 should be very proud of itself because it’s expected to move up in the world and get a name change that will start with “Interstate.”

Given all the good things that happened at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) in 2018, years from now area citizens may very well look back on the year and say it was the one when the airport finally took off.  In many ways, over the past 12 months, PTIA has started to look like the Little Airport that Could.  There’s no question, at least, that the airport thinks it can, thinks it can.

Last week, when the NC Attorney General’s office authorized former Summerfield Town Councilmember Todd Rotruck, on behalf of the state, to sue sitting Town Councilmember Dianne Laughlin to remove her from the seat that Rotruck formerly held, there was a lot of confusion all around to say the least.

The more the merrier.  Apparently that even goes for juvenile detention centers.

Meetings held by Guilford County commissioners and staff to set the agenda for upcoming Board of Commissioners meetings are almost always low-key affairs, however, at a Tuesday, Jan. 8 agenda meeting, Chairman Alan Branson and Commissioner Skip Alston got into a lively back and forth over the amount of work that would go to black-owned firms in a proposed contract for a $14.4-million county construction project.

Guilford County and Cone Health have banged out a contract that covers exactly who’s responsible for exactly what in the coming joint effort in which the county will hire Cone to provide the county’s mental health services. 

Ennis-Flint, Inc., the largest manufacturer and supplier of pavement marking products in the world, plans to open a new manufacturing plant in High Point. 

They don’t give out prizes at county fairs for growing universities, but if High Point University were a pumpkin, there’s no question HPU President Nido Qubein would take home the blue ribbon in the Most Impressive Growth category.

Summerfield Town Councilmember Dianne Laughlin spoke recently about the lawsuit filed against her by former Summerfield Town Councilmember Todd Rotruck in an attempt to win back his seat on the council, which would, of course, remove Laughlin from the position she now holds.

The Guilford County commissioners sound like they’re starting to believe they are trapped in the play “Waiting for Godot.”

In a rare move, the NC Attorney General’s office has authorized former Summerfield Town Councilmember Todd Rotruck to bring suit against Summerfield Town Councilmember Dianne Laughlin

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.