The agenda for the Tuesday, March 15 meeting of the Greensboro City Council beginning at 4:30 p.m. is far more normal than the Feb. 15 agenda, which had no public hearing items.
Since the City Council only holds one business meeting a month, the meeting on the third Tuesday of the month is usually packed with public hearing items, including annexation and rezoning requests. But last month there were none.
The March 15 agenda has 12 public hearing items that include 10 items having to do with annexation and original zoning. Since the City Council is required to hold a public hearing both for the annexation request and for the original zoning request, the 10 public hearings are for five annexation and original zoning requests.
The announcement that Toyota would be building a battery manufacturing facility at the Greensboro Randolph Megasite was made in December, and three items on the agenda deal with construction at the Megasite.
One of those calls for the City Council to approve reimbursing the North Carolina Department of Transportation up to $20 million for “the cost of the work to install water and sewer utilities in the building pad area.”
There is a second item to make the budget adjustments in the Water Resources Capital Project Revenue Bond Fund in order to make that reimbursement.
The City Council is also being asked to approve a contract for professional design services for water and sewer service to the Megasite with HDR Engineering Inc. for just under $1 million.
In keeping with the current City Council policy on public meetings, the City Council meeting is open to the public with limited capacity, and people who wish to speak at the meeting are required to leave after their agenda item has been voted on.
The public is, however, “encouraged” to participate in the meeting via Zoom rather than in person. Councilmembers also have the option of participating in the meeting via Zoom.
So we’re gonna pay a mil for a Civil Engineer to design the water & sewer part of the development. A mil would pay ten $100,000 engineers’ salary for a whole year. Can I get a job @ HDR?
A million here, a million there; first thing you know we’ll be talking about real money.
How gracious of her highness our Mandate Mayor to allow commoners a moment of public speaking time as demanded by state law before being removed from her presence immediately. However pack em in at our 100 million dollar Broadway roadhouse just blocks away. So sad citizens disturb our elected leaders so much they can’t stand the sight of them for more than 2 minutes..
Best of luck, Toyota. The wrenches in the system won’t begin until after they give you the money.