The City of Greensboro has announced that the 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18 Greensboro City Council meeting will be a virtual meeting.

The meeting was going to be what the City of Greensboro calls a “hybrid” meeting.  A limited number of people are allowed to attend a hybrid meeting and appear before the City Council in person.  However, councilmembers and the public are also given the option of participating in the meeting virtually via Zoom.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan actually chaired a hybrid meeting virtually in November.

However, this meeting has not reverted from hyrbrid to virtual because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases, but because of the weather, or to be more precise the winter storm Izzy, which dropped about 3 inches of ice and snow on the area Sunday.

Vaughan said that the Greensboro Field Services Department, which is in charge of plowing the streets, was concerned about a refreeze on Tuesday night, Jan. 18, that would make driving extremely hazardous.

Vaughan said that the goal was to keep traffic off the streets as much as possible on Tuesday night and that included members of the City Council, city staff and people attending the meeting.

In the past two years, the city staff has gotten plenty of practice at holding virtual meetings and the City Council likes the virtual work sessions so much that Vaughan says they may continue to hold work sessions virtually even after COVID and Izzy are no longer issues.

There is no public forum – also called speakers from the floor – at the Jan. 18 meeting, but those planning to speak on an agenda item, according to the press release, “must submit a request to speak using this online form .”

And “Presentations for Council must be submitted via email to virtualcomment@greensboro-nc.gov after registering to speak.”

The meeting officially begins at 5 p.m. but the City Council plans to go into a closed session immediately after opening the meeting and the public portion of the meeting is expected to begin at 5:30 p.m. or sometime thereafter depending on how long the closed session lasts.

The meeting can be viewed on the Greensboro Television Network (GTN).  Both the agenda and live stream are also available on the City of Greensboro’s Council Meetings webpage .