A surprisingly large number of Greensboro residents truly enjoyed getting and reading the City of Greensboro’s print periodical – the “At Your Service” newsletter – that came included in water bills. But, alas, the city has announced that Greensboro residents should no longer bother looking for it.
That’s because the last issue was the 2023 summer newsletter.
The long-running one-page, front and back publication was actually good at what it was supposed to do: inform the public.
It was short, simple, to the point, often colorful, and always written in a conversational style.
At Your Service alerted Greensboro residents of changes in city rules and regulations and helped them get to know new city leaders as well as employees in key positions. It also informed residents of upcoming community events, warned of safety hazards around town and alerted people about upcoming traffic changes and potential travel delays.
And it did much more.
A lot of that same information is now being posted online; however, many people will never bother to check the city’s website – so Greensboro citizens will likely be less informed as a whole.
While there won’t be any future issues of At Your Service, the city has preserved all of the past issues online. Replicas of all past print newsletters can be viewed there – dating back to the first issue in 2009.
At Your Service started out as a monthly newsletter 14 years ago, but it was later relegated to six issues a year. Later, it became a quarterly offering.
The first issue – January, 2009 – explained how anyone could now pay their parking tickets online, gave notice of an increase in water rates for the New Year, and noted problems with the etiquette of some passengers on city buses.
“Riders are encouraged to observe simple courtesies on buses such as not eating, not talking loudly on cell phones and not blasting music,” the first At Your Service advised.
With this gigantic savings , will my taxes be reduced?
Of course not….just keeping the population more in the dark
That money is going to buy more busses.
The streets are a mess, with potholes and broken pavement, we’ve lost loose leaf pickup, the police department has gone to Hell, the city still hasn’t fixed the broken ketb in front of my house that I was told they’d do 16 years ago, now we’ve lost an informative little news letter in the water bill (though the “facilities” charge is still there) and the city council gave themselves a raise.
With a 30% increase in taxes I am beginning to wonder just what the Hell I’m getting for my money!?!
I just guess it hasn’t gotten bad enough yet.
My taxes had a hugh increase; no leaf pickup… now no newsletter. What is next? A new city council?
A less informed electorate is an advantage for our local politicians