The Greensboro City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 15 will be historic.

The meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m., will be the first meeting since March 2020 that the public has been allowed to attend in person according to the agenda.

The agenda posted on Thursday, June 10 states, “Notice is hereby given that City Council has authorized a partial opening of the Council Chamber. All Regular or Special Meetings and/or Work Sessions for the Greensboro City Council will continue to be held as hybrid meetings.

“Due to capacity restrictions, only a limited number of residents will be allowed inside the Council Chamber. Masks will be required for all attendees. Residents are encouraged to continue to participate virtually. Any resident wishing to speak to an agenda item or as a speaker from the floor must submit comments or a request to speak via https://form.jotform.com/202643500426041. Deadline for submissions will be 5 p.m. the day prior to the meeting. ONLY online registrations to speak will be accepted. There will not be in-person speaker sign-ups. Presentations for Council must be submitted to vitrualcomment.greensboro-nc.gov following registration to speak.”

That notice is on page 13 of the agenda that includes 73 items, so people who do not read the agenda all the way to end could easily miss it.  The agenda also states that it is “under construction” and will be reposted Friday, June 11.  According to an email from City Clerk Angie Lord, what is missing from the agenda is information about the budget items.

The agenda also states that those planning to attend the meeting should enter “at the Governmental Plaza level entrance.”   The door the public is supposed to enter for meetings keeps changing, so this is important information.

Although the City of Greensboro sends out press releases on all sorts of items such as kickball, sewer line smoke testing, flag football and temporary street closures, the first City Council meeting that people can attend in over a year hasn’t rated a press release, yet.

,Also the information on the agenda is lacking in detail.  It states that “only a limited number of residents will be allowed inside the Council Chamber,” but it gives no indication of how many that will be or how they will be chosen.

More information may be forthcoming, but currently according to the agenda a number of people will be allowed to attend a City Council meeting in person for the first time since March 2020.