The regular first Tuesday of the month meeting of the Greensboro City Council is being held on Wednesday, Aug. 2 beginning at 5:30 in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber.
The meeting was postponed to Aug. 2 to enable members of the City Council to attend National Night Out events on Tuesday, Aug. 1.
The first meeting of the month is primarily devoted to the once-a-month public forum, also called speakers from the floor on non-agenda items. It had become the practice of some regular speakers, after they had their three minutes at the podium, to create enough disturbance to be ejected from the meeting.
A new policy passed by the City Council at the Tuesday, July 11 meeting bans people who have been ejected from a meeting from attending a City Council meeting in person for three months. People who have been banned from attending the City Council meetings in person may still participate via Zoom.
Also on the agenda for the Aug. 2 meeting is a resolution for the City Council to approve a whole list of legal documents that will allow the city to lease portions of public property and public rights-of-way downtown.
If approved, the city will lease public property and rights-of-way downtown to restaurants. Mayor Nancy Vaughan has been advocating that the city find some alternative revenue streams, but this won’t be one. The leases are for restaurants to lease the portion of public property or of public rights-of-way that they are using or will use for outdoor dining, and the cost is $1 a year for the two-year leases.
The purpose of the leases is to formalize arrangements that were made during the COVID-19 restrictions that were done under the auspices of a state of emergency.
When indoor dining was severely restricted by Gov. Roy Cooper, restaurants were allowed to utilize the public rights-of-way downtown to create additional outdoor dining areas.
The city has decided that increasing the outdoor dining availability in downtown Greensboro is beneficial to the city and that formal leases are required “to promote effective infrastructure management.”
Will this take away parking that the general public normally is able to use and require patrons to pay to park in the many parking garages the city owns in downtown?
So this will, theoretically, increase city revenue.
Are few years ago Mandate Mayor was against tables blocking sidewalks because it creates narrow areas that lead to confrontation and unsafe flow of pedestrian traffic. But what ever her cabal wants……
Leasing of ‘PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY”? What hayto “Rights” in this country? You have em back to sell to you as privileges. If it’s “public” how can they lease it?