The Greensboro City Council agenda for the Tuesday, Oct. 20 meeting has an item that was the source of much controversy earlier this year.
Items 36, 37 and 38 on the agenda are for an Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) for $242,000. Most of this JAG funding goes to the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) and these grants had been routinely accepted for years. However, in January of this year one speaker from the Working class & Homeless Organizing Alliance (WHOA) complained about some of the language in the grant stating that by accepting the money Greensboro would agree to cooperate with federal agencies. The speaker’s interpretation of this was that the GPD would have to turn over information about immigration status to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Assistant City Manager Trey Davis explained to the City Council that the Greensboro Police Department didn’t obtain immigration information from people it detained or arrested and as a result the GPD had no such information to turn over to ICE.
The majority of the City Council expressed concerns about cooperating with ICE. The result was that Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilmembers Michelle Kennedy, Sharon Hightower, Yvonne Johnson and Tammi Thurm voted not to accept the $250,000 grant from the US Department of Justice for the GPD.
What the City Council discovered when it turned down the $250,000 in JAG money is that the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department and the High Point Police Department got to split the money that the GPD would have received if the City Council had agreed to accept the JAG.
When this latest JAG application was on the agenda for the August 18 meeting of the City Council, it passed unanimously.
So the three agenda items related to the JAG funds could pass without comment, or if a member of some organization complains again, it could become controversial and Guilford County and High Point could once again become the beneficiaries of Greensboro City Council action.
The status of everyone coming into this country should be known. Period.
Ignorance of the city council continues to cost us the taxpayer. Even when it is explained by the Assistant City Manager the ignorance prevails. Listening to a person who has NO knowledge of the facts in fear of loosing a vote instead of your employee?
BUT you the council can GIVE a councilwoman 500K and not request/ demand transparency or accountability for OUR money you so graciously gave away. The majority will vote you out of office, unfortunately not soon enough!
Cannot wait until the year we the people can vote this council out of office.
Sounds like a great chance to DEFUND the Greensboro Police Department!
Isn’t that what the majority of council wants?
We have the dumbest bunch of nut jobs on our city council that could ever be on it. We need to clean house and put at lest half way smart people on there. Every thing these idiots to if it’s refusing to take money to giving away tax payer money, they suck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It appears that the City of Greensboro wants to be an entity to itself, so they should stop taking any funding from the Federal Government or State Government. It appears they want to be a Sanctuary City. The Council wants to tell the police how to do the nuts and bolts of their job and I doubt any City Council member has the expertise to tell them anything about enforcing the laws. It is a shame that the Constitution of the United States means nothing to some.
These women on the city council indicate there preference as pertaining to there alliance to some voodoo Democratic philosophy or socialist party.They are the same type that said stand down and don’t interfere with BLM when they riot and burn your town down .I thought Greensboro would care more about protecting our town.As is the problems in Oregon /Washington is led by mostly Democratic leaders .It seems that those leaders could care less about their constituents would fend for themselves.Also these leaders also want to cut police funding.The good people of those communities will have to pick up the load and try to rebuild the buildings that were destroyed by these thugs did to them .We can and need to turn back to Christ and begin praying for all our leaders so that Christ will smile on us again. Another thing that all Dems have done is remove God from all state and federal venues.