Guilford County Commissioners Mary Beth Murphy, Frankie Jones and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston began a Wednesday, March 15 Town Hall-style meeting in Sedalia by asking the people in the audience to let them hear any concerns about how the board was running the county.
The trio of commissioners certainly got what they asked for.
The event started with a 6 p.m. reception at the Sedalia Town Hall, which isn’t a large meeting space and was filled with about two dozen audience members along with county staff and commissioners.
At 6:30 p.m. the three commissioners opened the meeting with comments. That was followed by county staff informing the attendees about the county’s budget practices as well as informing them about the services that the county does and does not provide.
During the second half of the one-hour meeting, residents got to speak their minds and some spoke on various issues such as the quality of schools in the county, the need for more mental health services and the increase in property taxes that resulted from the countywide revaluation of property last year.
“My tax bill went up 30 percent,” one woman complained, referring to the fact that, even though the Board of Commissioners didn’t increase the tax rate in 2022, the board also did not vote to adjust the rate down to a revenue neutral level after revaluation.
Former Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson spoke about several issues including the problem of crack houses operating in the county and the growing response times of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department..
Branson said that Sheriff’s Department response times were critical because, in certain cases, Emergency Services could not respond before law enforcement made the environment safe.
Will anything change? Don’t bet the farm.
Former commissioner Branson is exactly right. Calls where the environment is too dangerous for first responders to go into, they must wait for the Sheriffs office. Increased response times can be attributed to lack of staff. Lack of staff can be attributed to poor allocation of resources such as special teams for traffic, personnel assigned to taking photos of the sheriff for public relations purposes. When I left office the average response time anywhere in the county was less than 10 minutes and going down. We don’t know what they are now, nor the crime rate. So much for transparency, though that seems to just be a campaign promise.
Sounds like more wasted time.
Worthless libtards. Two one-term wonders and a career swamp rat.
Boy, the way Glenn Miller played
Songs that made the Hit Parade
Guys like us, we had it made
Those were the days
And you knew who you were then
Girls were girls, and men were men
Mister, we could use a man
Like Herbert Hoover again
Didn’t need no welfare state
Everybody pulled his weight
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great
Those were the days
People seemed to be content
Fifty dollars paid the rent
Freaks were in a circus tent
Those were the days
-Composer Lee Adams-
the gone circus provided a ‘place’ for ‘freaks’ that we need back – sort of a societal pressure release valve ?
Once again a pointless, poorly written, incomplete story catering to the right-wing nut jobs that use this rag as gospel.
So why don’t you actually take issue with whatever you have a problem with, instead of just casting aspersions?
C’mon, give it a try, Einstein.
Funny thing, I didn’t know anyone force’s you to read the Rhino
Sedalia is little Greensboro, is little Portland.