At the end of the Tuesday, March 15 City Council meeting, Mayor Nancy Vaughan thanked Sen. Thom Tillis and 6th District Congresswoman Kathy Manning for funding for Greensboro included in the Omnibus Budget Bill recently passed by Congress.
According to a press release, the City of Greensboro received over $10 million in funding for workforce development, an innovation district, public safety and transit services in the massive federal budget bill.
The city received over $3 million in transit funds and a portion of that money will be used to purchase four electric buses to replace older diesel buses. Greensboro currently has 17 electric buses in its 55-bus fleet and was the first transit system in the state to make the move to electric buses when it added 10 electric buses to the fleet in early 2019.
The major savings in electric buses for the city is not in fuel costs, as many people assume, but in maintenance costs. The plan announced in 2019 was to convert the entire fleet to electric buses. The addition of four electric buses will bring the fleet close to 50 percent electric, or almost halfway there.
Greensboro received $3 million for a computer-aided dispatch system at Guilford Metro 911.
The city also received $3 million for the Greensboro Innovation District, which is a designated area designed to attract new businesses and create high paying jobs.
And Greensboro received $1.6 million for workforce development initiatives including technology and support services.
Vaughan thanked both Democrat Manning and Republican Tillis for the funding in the Omnibus Budget Bill that was passed with bipartisan support by the House and Senate this month.
The federal budget bill totaled over $1.5 trillion, so $10,000,000 for Greensboro, although much appreciated, is hardly a drop in that $1,500,000,000,000 bucket.
Now go piss it away and line all your corrupt pockets with it.
How many $ to rat hole projects and pockets?
Where did the Federal govt get the money to give to our city? (He said rhetorically) Take a guess.
They borrowed it, of course. Almost every citizen knows our representatives in Congress will “NOT” vote for a balanced budget, since if they do, there would be no borrowing from the Federal Reserve which continues to increase the national debt. Politicians love to be seen as “Daddy Warbucks” doling out grants to states and local governments, which is really a way to pay back those who elected them to office. You see how this works?
We are all living on borrowed time.
Wow, perhaps we can get some repairs to our streets that are in deplorable condition!
Dave, repairs to streets, filling of potholes, and eliminating ruts and bumps in the roads don’t garner ANY attention by the elected class. Heck, they can’t even do it right as evidenced by some pothole “fixes” on New Garden Road near the fire station. They want ribbon cuttings, welcoming new companies with cash gifts, money for non-profits, etc.
Almost forgot, the big push to have sidewalks all over Greensboro seems to have halted. Why? Most of the money spent on this program put sidewalks in areas where there is little to no walking pedestrians. All you need to do is look at West Friendly Avenue from Guilford College Road out to the Hwy 68 bridge.
The survey of citizens on funding for city projects under the American Rescue Plan can been here from August last year (https://greensboro.abalancingact.com/greensboro-recommended-budget-fy-2021-22)
Initially the council wanted top spend about 70% on new parks & recreation projects and of course, those favored by the elected class like (always looking for a handout like Yvonne, et al). In the current data it shows our citizens have spoken on where to spend the “free” money, so it remains to be seen if our politicians will do what we asked them to do. My recommendation? They will do what THEY want, and not what we asked them to do. Can’t wait till the election.
The sound you hear “Cha Ching” is the sound of money being doled out to the so-called non-profits.
Greensboro. . . . .the place where politicians know more about how to spend your money than you do.
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“Free money! Free money!!1 Roll up, roll up, get your free money here – but only if you’re in the Parasitic Sector. Those rubes in the Productive Sector can work for their money, the fools! Don’t they know that they should “work” in the sector that robs productive people of their money? It’s Easy Street here, boys. We have created a system of universal extortion. Everyone is forced to hand over their moolah – or else we send a man with a gun on his hip to go get ’em. It’s great! For us.
We’ve got more money than we know what to do with – literally. But shh…. don’t even think about giving some of the plebs any of their money back in tax relief. If they ask for tax cuts, just tell ’em they’re greedy.
Ha, ha, ha…. “