The Greensboro City Council held its second hybrid meeting on Tuesday, April 20 and first hybrid business meeting.
The meeting held on the third Tuesday of the month is the one meeting each month where the City Council conducts the business of the city.
The “hybrid” meetings have the City Council and staff in the council chambers, but the public and media are not allowed to attend. Participation by the public is done virtually, the same as it was during the virtual City Council meetings.
The first hybrid City Council meeting was held on April 6 and was the public forum meeting, with the main purpose being to hear from speakers from the floor who spoke at the meeting virtually.
At the April 20 meeting, for the first time since March the City Council began the meeting with the traditional moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance.
The mask wearing at this meeting was also noticeably different from the April 6 meeting. On April 6, Mayor Nancy Vaughan wore a mask and was constantly taking it off to speak and putting it back on when she wasn’t speaking. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a person should wash their hands or use hand sanitizer before touching their mask.
But on April 20, Vaughan dispensed with the mask all together, as did Councilmembers Yvonne Johnson, Michelle Kennedy and Nancy Hoffmann.
Councilmember Sharon Hightower started the meeting without a mask but periodically put on a mask during the meeting.
Councilmembers Goldie Wells, Justin Outling, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Tammi Thurm wore masks throughout the meeting even when speaking.
City Manager David Parrish, who is off camera throughout most of the meeting, was not wearing a mask the few times he spoke.
It would appear that a good number of councilmembers are not heeding the advice of Dr. Tony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has advised people to wear masks and social distance even after they have been vaccinated.
An speaking of my recent tax-payer funded $2800 gift payment from Unca Joe, that funded my recently completed vacation in Charleston. Weather was perfect, but we barely had enough cash for all those $100 dinners. Send more, Joe.
And another thing, while in Charleston, for $12, I purchased my favorite over the counter antacid at CVS. The same box at CVS in Guilford College costs $18. I call that predatory pricing, or just downright ugly. My opinion is, that based on my own experience with OTC & RX drug pricing, that I would avoid CVS.
On our return, we stopped to see a friend at Carolina Beach. It was deja vu all over again, as my family vacationed there when I was a mere pup. What de-impressed me, though, was that there were literally scores of parking lots 1-2-3 blocks off the beach cluttered up by meter-mail-heaven machines. You will need a dumbphone, or perhaps LOTS of quarters to feed those things. Lots of street meters, too. All this during the off season, not many people there, especially in those metered spots. I felt under attack by the City of Carolina Beach that preys on their bread and butter tourist trade in such an obvious and ugly manner. No mas.