The Greensboro City Council settled on a $135 million bond referendum at the Monday, June 7 work session.
The plan is to put the bonds on the ballot at the same time as the City Council election.
The question that nobody knows the answer to yet is when that City Council election will be held. It appears the City Council election will be delayed until March, but the legislature hasn’t made a final decision.
But the City Council has agreed that whenever that election is held bonds totaling $135 million will be on the ballot.
Councilmember Justin Outling was alone in speaking against going ahead with the plan to put $135 million in bonds on the ballot. Outling said, “We should determine what to do with the ARP [American Rescue Plan] money first.”
Outling said that the $59.4 million in ARP money gave the city “a ton of flexibility.”
What the City Council determined at the June 7 work session was the totals for the different bonds that make up the package but will be voted on separately.
The lion’s share of this bond package is listed as $70 million for Community Services and Parks and Recreation with $50 million of that going to the Windsor-Chavis-Nacho park joint facility, which is combination of the Windsor Recreation Center and the Vance Chavis Library across the street.
Councilmember Sharon Hightower said, “I’d prefer see $80 million.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston had said the county would like to participate and that she thought they could raise the additional funding needed from other sources.
The other $10 million of that bond is slated to go for the Battleground Parks District.
The bond package will also include $30 million for housing and community development, $15 million for transportation and $20 million for public safety.
The public safety bond will be further broken down so there will be a bond for the Fire Department to renovate and build fire stations and a separate bond for the Police Department to finish the police headquarters building and purchase a new CAD dispatch and record management system.
Assistant City Manager Larry Davis said the city had recently been informed that the public safety bond would have to be divided into two bonds and he did not have the figures on how that would be broken down, but the total for those two bonds will be $20 million.
“$70 million for Community Services and Parks and Recreation with $60 million of that going to the Windsor-Chavis-Nacho park joint facility”
We can’t even find streets in Greensboro that don’t have pot holes and they want to spend this kind of money on parks and recreation facilities?
Time to vote ALL of the council out of office and get rid of their mindset that community groups should get all the funding. . . . .just like Skip & Earl just got $250,000 more on their museum.
The City is flush with Socialist cash. As normal, they will spend every dime of it, and all they can finagle including yet another bond package that has to be paid back in the future, plus interest. Then, of course, they will need even more cash.
Pardon all the sinicasism. Does anyone have much to say about our city council that is positive?
Sharon Hightower is asking for $135,000,000, to be strapped on our backs and has the audacity to whine that she wants an additional $10,000,000.
Why not? A few million here, a few million there, the run for re-election. The American way.
It is time for an overhaul of all members of the city council!!!!Vote all out including the mayor!!!!