Council Holding Work Session On Parking And Transit Thursday

The Greensboro City Council has scheduled a virtual work session for Thursday, Feb. 24 beginning at 2 p.m.

Work sessions are more informal City Council meetings where the City Council receives reports from staff on topics and theoretically discusses the issues in some detail.  Before COVID-19, work sessions were usually held in the Plaza Level Conference Room with the City Council and city manager sitting at a large conference table.  Votes are rarely taken at work sessions, but the council does try to reach consensus on action to be taken.

This will be the first work session the City Council has with City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba, whose first day of work for the city was Feb. 1.

The two items on the agenda are “Transit Services Update” and “Parking Discussion.”  Presumably at some point prior to the meeting, the actual reports that will be presented to the City Council will be posted on the city’s website.  However, at this point the total amount of information available are the items on the agenda.

Councilmembers and, in particular District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling who is running for mayor, have repeatedly noted that not having access to the reports in time to go over them and ask questions of staff before the meeting makes having an in-depth discussion difficult if not impossible.

Parking, particularly parking in downtown Greensboro, is a huge issue.  The lack of available parking in the South End area of the downtown was discussed in regards to the recent approval by the City Council to sell 3 acres on Gate City Boulevard and South Elm Street to Lidl for the construction of a grocery store and a surface parking lot.

During that discussion, it was said that the City Council would have a work session on parking in the area.  However, there is no indication on the information available at this time that this is the work session where it will be discussed.

As far as the transit services update, Jaiyeoba, before becoming the director of planning and development in Charlotte, was the director of the Sacramento Regional Transit District and this will be the City Council’s first opportunity to hear his thoughts on the Greensboro Transit Agency, which provides public transportation in Greensboro.