The agenda for the March 15 Greensboro City Council meeting in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber posted on the city’s website on Thursday, March 10 and has been reposted twice.

It is par for the course for the original agenda to have additions and corrections right up until minutes before the meeting begins.  The first reposting was to correct some figures, but the second reposting is more interesting.

The City Council is scheduled to consider, and almost certainly approve, three items to provide water and sewer to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite.  The agenda originally read “Guilford-Randolph Megasite.”

Although the entire megasite is in Randolph County, Greensboro got top billing in the name, perhaps because without Greensboro water and sewer the megasite would likely be vacant land in Randolph County.

Since Toyota announced in December that it was building a $1.3 billion vehicle battery manufacturing plant on the site, megasite-doubters have turned into megasite believers and the Greensboro City Council, as one would expect, wants to get full credit.

It is after all an election year.

The three items on the agenda allocate over $21 million toward the water and sewer project for the megasite, which is a lot of money for a project that is not only not in Greensboro, but is not in Guilford County – so calling it the Guilford-Randolph Megasite wouldn’t make much sense.

The listed time for the City Council meeting to begin is 4:30 p.m.  However, the City Council is expected to immediately go into closed session.  The main purpose for the closed session is the annual review of City Attorney Chuck Watts.  The City Council only has two direct employees – Watts and City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba.

The public portion of the City Council meeting is expected to start at the usual time of 5:30 p.m., but it may be later depending on the length of the closed session.

When closed sessions end early, the City Council has a policy of waiting until 5:30 p.m. to start the public portion of the meeting, even though legally the public portion could start as soon as the closed session is adjourned.

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