The Greensboro City Council meeting schedule this week is odd.
On Thursday, Aug. 11 at 2 p.m., the current City Council, which has been serving since December 2017, will hold a work session and, at 5:30 p.m., the newly elected City Council will be sworn in for about a three-year-and-four-month term.
It seems odd for the old City Council to hold a work session hours before the new City Council is sworn in, but the election only brought about one change to the City Council, so eight members of the old City Council are the same as the new City Council.
District 3 City Councilmember-elect Zack Matheny will be the only new member of the City Council and he is replacing District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling, who ran for mayor and fell a couple of hundred votes short of ousting Mayor Nancy Vaughan.
The 2 p.m. work session has two items on the agenda – an update on American Rescue Plan funds and an update on the Windsor Chavis combined facility.
Greensboro received $29.7 million in ARP funds in May 2021 and $29.7 million in May 2022 for a total of $59.4 million and has approved funding for projects that total $10.9 million. So the City Council has to decide how to spend the remaining $48.5 million in federal dollars.
So far the City Council has approved $859,000 for the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts; $2 million for Affordable Housing Management Inc.; $450,000 for The Servant Center; $2 million for the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship; $60,000 for Royal Expressions Ballet; $2.5 million for Piedmont Business Capital; and $200,000 for Greensboro Urban Ministry.
The City Council has also approved funding for two city projects, $1.1 million for police facility security improvements and one-time bonuses for city employees that total $1.6 million.
The City Council has said that it plans to spend $50 million of the $70 million in Parks and Recreation bonds that passed in the July 26 election on the Windsor Chavis Nocho Park combined facility. The 2016 Parks and Recreation bond included $2 million to spend on planning the project that was estimated to cost $70 million.
Two million dollars to “plan” a project? Surely you jest? Who is planning it, Nancy Pelosi and the three stooges?
Must be nice just to give away taxpayers “millions” just willii nilly. I hope all of you sleep with one eye open. Times will change and KARMA is a bitch
A couple of predictions. In the end the Windsor Chavis Nocho Park will cost over run and will use all of the 70:million bond. Part of the ARP funds will go to councils favorite charity, the ICRCM aka the downtown money pit.
“Work session” wasting tax dollars on frivolous personal projects. Nothing has changed and more of your increased taxes will be pi–ed away on additional worthless projects.
What’s the point in being sworn in? Presumably the oath includes upholding the law, and they won’t do it.