The Greensboro City Council will hold the first business meeting of the new year on Tuesday, Jan. 16 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber.
The first City Council meeting of the new year on Jan. 2 was fairly raucous, with two controversial items on the agenda – the end of loose-leaf collection and a resolution concerning the conflict in Gaza – as well as the monthly public forum.
At the Jan. 16 meeting, the City Council gets down to business as usual, handing out money to fellow councilmembers, or, to be more precise, nonprofit organizations run by councilmembers.
There are no public hearings on zoning or annexation requests, which with the current housing shortage in Greensboro is not good news.
However, the City Council is expected to approve three $300,000 three-year contracts with nonprofits for the Community Violence Intervention and Interruption Project.
One contract for $300,000 is with One Step Further “for the Community Violence Intervention and Interruption Project (CVIIP).”
The executive director of One Step Further is At-large City Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson.
Since 2019, One Step Further has run the Cure Violence program for the City of Greensboro, called Gate City Coalition. Johnson was on the committee that recommended that One Step Further receive the contract to establish a Cure Violence-type program in Greensboro.
According to the agenda, One Step Further will work with the city’s new Office of Community Safety and, in particular, with the violence prevention coordinator in that office.
The City Council is also expected to approve a second three-year, $300,000 contract with the nonprofit Unifour One for the same Community Violence Intervention and Interruption Project.
According to Unifour One’s website, “Unifour One is a non-profit, non-partisan, advocacy and education organization headquartered in Greensboro, NC.”
There is no mention on the website of crime intervention and interruption, but the Unifour One Facebook page does have posts about registering to vote.
The final $300,000 contract on the City Council agenda for approval is with AWOL Outreach Inc., also for the Community Violence Intervention and Interruption Project.
The website for AWOL Outreach lists three programs education, family and networking. Under the heading “Our Programs” there is no mention of crime intervention and interruption.
In my experience Non-profit meand paying each other a paycheck with no oversight
Increase taxes, eliminate services, offer City Employees a raise at 3 percent when inflation is 8 percent (that’s not a raise). Risky business decisions City Council. How can you continue to assume these risks?
Wow. SMH. Here’s people in need of financial help but they are giving themselves money. Homeless evictions, price of food, medical bills water bills and property taxes and heating bills. People are losing their jobs. And their livelihoods. They need to get of behind and get off their behinds and work for these people that are in need than helping themselves
Want to keep getting less and less – while paying ever increasing more and more? Please just keep voting for these incumbent circus-clowns!
Ok got to learn to type with my glasses on…In my experience Non-Profit means to write each other a paycheck with no oversight. In my opinion money is spent because if they have extra they loss it but if its all gone they just ask for more. Makes money disappear with no oversight. Lots of nice houses and SUV floating around government
Happy New Year! 900k pissed away with no results. Pet projects are great. Think about how you will vote when the time comes.
It’s apparent these folks are graduates of the (National Socialist) Democrat Party School for Fleecing the Taxpayer.
Another reason I’m glad I don’t live in GSO.
Does this serve all communities of Greensboro? Can we say that the districts that pay the most taxes are the districts that receive the least services? Johnson group has repeatedly failed the city of Greensboro. Why not use that money to FUND our police department?
Once again the council GAVE money without public input. Corruption, malfeasance, negligence to the citizens of Greensboro again.
Appears these programs are scamming the citizens of Greensboro. Criminal charges?
The only way to change this is thru the ballot box.
The reason this keeps happening is the “get out the vote” crowd in east GBO and elsewhere who will tip the balance. Once in o ffice, the democrats give out city money to those groups. See how this works?
Naw. Does it really work that way?
All I read was money will be given to non-profits ran by themselves… in over words with no oversight everyone will just write each other a check for a job well done.
Hmmmmmmm. How many GPD officers can we hire for $900,000? This IS biz as usual. Like, if you don’t like it, sue us.
Why is this not surprising? They should not be allowed to be a part of a program that is being given money by the City Council.
Stay tuned for two additional council members coming to the trough… Hugh Alston and Zack Matheny who also manage tax payer funded non profits while sitting on the city council.
Yep. Keep running those empty trolleys.
More money for the grifters and their families. Guess that’s the cost for getting out the vote.
Ugh! So tired of this. And they still think we think something is actually being sone and that they track the spending to the penny. Not!
When this happens in Third World countries, we call it what it is : CORRUPTION.
And it is also a First World Problem! Maybe they are assuming…. Vote them out
A quick dive into Cure Violence and like programs on Google will show the cities that have in acted these programs show little or no results for the money, much like Greensboro.. We have the highest homicide rate this city has ever seen.Hiring more police would help. We should spend the money one loose leaf pick up at least you can see results.
I believe all charitable organizations receiving tax dollars should have published reviews of their annual 990 filings including salaries, number of employees/clients served, amount of income received from other sources and how funds are shown to make a difference. There’s so much overlap it’s concerning. Accountability matters.
You can check out program coat, salaries, and find balance reported on the Form 990 on Guidestar.com. I always check out before I give and when I curious like in the case. You will have to log in with email but I’ve been doing this for years and don’t receive any spam or emails from them.
Thank you. I will do that
Wake up Greensboro Voters! it’s time to drain the Greensboro City Council and Guilford County Board of Commissioners. We have one giant conflict of interests on both governing bodies. Let’s see the Greensboro has wasted over $2,000,000 on Yvonne Pet Project originally known as “Cure the Violence” and it has produced not measurable results. In fact, crime is out of control in Greensboro and our crime rate is at an all-time high!
Then we have Zack Matheny sitting on a city council that votes on his livelihood. You see, Yvonne needs Zack’s support and Zack needs Yvonne support! Although they tell you they recluse themselves on votes for issues involving their entities, do they really? Yvonne can’t afford to vote against Zack’s agenda, and Zack can’t vote against Yvonne’s agenda and insure the livelihood of their pet projects.
Would love to know how many times these two votes have countered each other? That is on the first vote as Zack Matheny has been known to flip flop on his stance depending which way the wind is blowing? ala. Greensboro Leaf Collection issues.
Then, you got Skip Alston as Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners repeatedly wasting Guilford County Tax money on the Civil Rights Museum and the Dudley High Boosters Club!
The leadership in downtown Greensboro smells and it’s time to drain the Greensboro Swamp! It’s up to you voters!
Jim Donaldson
The swamp will never be drained as long as there are districts. Certain districts keep sending the same incompetent and self-serving people to City Council. The most effective way to drain the swamp is with term limits. Certain districts may continue to send incompetents to City Council, but at least it will be different incompetents, which may result in a more effective City Council.
74 homicides, one of which was a police officer. Doesn’t seem like the violence interrupters are working. This money could have been funding some take home cars.
There’s a million dollars down the drain! I wonder if the contracts met MWBE goals (lmao!!)
I’d like to think we can vote this council and mayor out, but politics are so polarized now that with Greensboro being a “blue” city, it looks like we’re stuck with left-leaning nonsense. People used to at least consider the qualities of individual candidates but now they vote straight party tickets no matter who the candidates are. I have a friend who voted for Rogers for sheriff when he ran against Barnes. I asked why he did it and he said, “I don’t know who was running. I just voted for the Democrat.” This sort of thinking is why our nation is circling the drain.
“And that’s the way it goes”.
I’m surprised they don’t fund these causes with forgivable loans which sound so much better than direct payments…
When do you bring up conflict of interest? Where is the expectation of accountability? What is this money being spent on? What do you do Nancy Vaughn? Unbelievable!!
Three easy steps to get money– 1. Get elected 2. Head up a non-profit 3. Ask your cronies to support you.
Do we know how much of the money is used for the actual purpose of the non profit and how much is administrative cost?
Interesting article here on Triad Conservative Website about the sad state of leadership in our City and State. I must object to the comments that suggest NC Attorney General Josh Stein and Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan don’t support our local Police Dept.! They do in fact support the Greensboro Police Department, that is the corruptness of our Greensboro Police Department and it’s Chief John Thompson! All three have been made aware of citizen’s concerns about a Feb. 23, 2023 armed robbery by two off duty Greensboro Police Officers of a known local drug dealer near Golden Gate Drive. For some reason none of these officials will address this as I have contacted all of them. To the best of my knowledge the Greensboro Police Dept incident report on this crime has mysteriously disappeared from the GPD incident website? Why? Also, to the best of my knowledge criminal charges were never filed against any of these three involved and the black female Greensboro Police Officer involved continues to work for GPD? The other black male Greensboro Police officer resigned immediately when he got caught up in his lies about the incident.
Wake up citizens of Greensboro and the State of NC. Your current leaders are not serving in your best interests, only theirs!
Jim Donaldson
The Annual Fleecing of Taxpayer $$$$$
All of the people who are saying that this money should be used to hIre mORE PoLiCe OFfiCeRs seem to be forgetting that recruitment is a huge problem because NO ONE WANTS TO BE A POLICE OFFICER. I don’t see y’all signing up for the academy or suggesting that your sons and daughters join the force. It’s not exactly a popular profession at the moment. It doesn’t matter how much money gets thrown at them.
That being said… councilmembers should not be able to fund their own non-profits. That’s a different issue. The current work-around is for the councilmember to recuse his or herself from the vote. Chuck Watt’s is just a lazy City Attorney that thinks he is god’s gift to this world, so he lets them run amok and shrugs it off. And it’s probably why they like him so much. Go figure.
Chuck Watts is liked by City Council because: He is Black, his father was a well-known Black doctor in his day, and he is a bona fide member of the Black community in Durham. It would be interesting to know the number of days that Atty. Watts shows up to the city’s legal department in any given week since it is believed that he has not moved to Greensboro from Durham, which was part of his original contract. Atty. Watts is way, way overpaid compared to other city attorneys in much larger cities than Greensboro, and that are faced with far greater challenges than Greensboro. Thank City Councilmembers for Atty. Watts’ salary that is paid with taxpayer money.
Back in the day, taxpayers watched how their tax money was spent. Greensboro City should not be paying tax money to nonprofits; by doing so, the government is deciding which nonprofits are worthy of taxpayer money. That is not the role of government. Local nonprofits are side hustles for some councilmembers and their family members.
Hey Hammer look into the “violence interrupter” who got arrested recently.