It’s not known how much of a pay increase the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will provide county staff in the upcoming 2021-2022 county budget, but new Guilford County Manager Mike Halford has made it known in a very public way just how appreciative he is of the effort county staff has put in over the very trying last year and three months.
Halford made it a central theme in the annual budget message that he gave to the Board of Commissioners this month when he presented his proposed $617-million county budget.
“Thank you to the entire Guilford County employee team,” Halford’s Budget message stated. “I am so proud of my fellow Guilford County employees for all their work over the last year to help our 540,000 residents navigate the pandemic. Just like the rest of our community, COVID-19 affected our employees’ professional and personal lives in ways none of us could have imagined a year ago. Nevertheless, they continued to provide quality services to our residents and their colleagues with incredible professionalism, patience, and empathy.”
According to Halford, teams of county employees have spent more than 200,000 hours responding to the coronavirus pandemic in the current fiscal year – which began on July 1, 2020. That includes things like investigating COVID-19 outbreaks and contact tracing, collecting and testing over 24,000 sample specimens in Public Health’s internal lab; and administering 112,000 doses of vaccine at three county-run vaccination sites this year.
Halford stated, when he addressed the Board of Commissioners, that these efforts were on top of the regular services that had to be provided “every day by our 2,600-plus dedicated team members.”
For example, he noted, while addressing the pandemic in calendar year 2020, county responders answered 78,000 calls for emergency medical services, and social services staff processed nearly 150,000 applications and recertifications for Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition benefits.
County employees also, Halford said, assisted 9,000 survivors at the Guilford County Family Justice Centers. The county has two centers – one in downtown High Point and one in downtown Greensboro. After the pandemic hit, domestic abuse and other family conflicts that the Justice Centers address increased.
The county’s planning department, Halford said, conducted 38,000 building inspections and the county’s Board of Elections successfully put on a presidential election in a pandemic.
“I truly appreciate all their work and am grateful I am able to serve alongside them,” Halford said of the county’s 2600 employees.
To see what a pandemic, and lock-down decrees by polys drunk with power, can do; you might take a look at what was described perhaps eight or ten years ago as the “Paris of the U.S.” – Asheville.
After all this national publicity, Asheville has been bombarded by money looking for places to park. Housing & real estate spiked well before the current boom. All these new residents from worn-out socialist states brought their politics with them. What was a conservative state like Texas is now our swing state. Even Idaho is shifting blue. People are that stupid to believe all the propaganda from the LEFT, and their mouthpieces. Ignorance, apathy, and sloth is rampant.
Before the election last Fall, the city of Asheville passed a resolution to pay reparations to African-Americans for injustices from the 18th, 19th, & 20th centuries. The very next day, the Media crowed and goodied about it. I suspected that the real reason was to assuage the potential rioters to pass over Asheville, in order to save the inner city charm.
However, this weekend, I noticed that Asheville has lost their charm regardless. While looking for parking, I noticed what looked like construction at the square. Today, I read that a civil war monument had been removed. I guess they left the pig, which is appropriate. The city was raft with empty store fronts, and even more populated by tourista traps. Many of the stores open looked like that they needed more inventory – probably were close to being wiped out. Thank you, Roy Boy. Only one busker. Oh, there was one man that for $5, who would write a personal poem just for you.
There are plenty of mountain destinations we can visit: Floyd, Blowing Rock, Brevard, Cashiers, Highlands, cabins everywhere The Land of the Sky? No mas.
One more note on Asheville. Of many of the stores open, were carried political messages on the front door, or in the window. Political messages have a tendency to annoy more or less half of your potential customers. Religious views have the same tendency. So if you are dumb enough to do either, or both; you automatically exclude the majority of your potential customers. Having been in sales, you cannot be successful if you preach your beliefs to strangers. The same would apply to a business.
An example would be a BLM sign. Whether they admit it or not, most people know BLM is basically a Marxist organization, whose prime goal is the destruction of the very Republic the allows them the freedom to express their views. Try that in the Soviet Union. Do you speak Gulag?
I don’t think many of the downtown Asheville independent merchants have any idea of economics or marketing.