What’s not on the agenda at the two-day virtual Greensboro City Council retreat this week is as telling as what is.
Two items that are supposed to be high on the City Council’s priority list are missing from the agenda – public safety and economic development.
First, there is no report from the Police Department and no discussion of what might help slow the dramatically increasing rate of violent crime. When the City Council reviewed the goals that it set at the 2020 retreat, it was noted that the goal was to reduce violent crime by 20 percent in two years.
In 2020, violent crime increased in Greensboro by 11 percent, which sounds bad, but it’s actually worse. Homicides increased by 36 percent from 2019, and 2019 set a record for homicides at 45, which was broken by 2020 with 61 homicides during the year. Even worse news is that so far in 2021 there have been almost double the number of homicides during the same period in 2020.
Aggravated assaults were also up 18 percent in 2020.
But there is no report from the police chief on the crime rate or how to reduce it on the agenda.
Councilmember Justin Outling once again asked about the staffing study that was supposed to be done last year to determine if the Police Department has staffing needs. Outling once again received the answer he has received before – that it was being worked on.
The City Council stated last year the goal was to reduce violent crime by 20 percent by 2020, but it didn’t take action to move toward that goal as the number of homicides kept increasing.
The absence of any discussion or presentation on econonmic development is also glaring. One of the stated goals in 2020 was to raise median household income by 15 percent by 2025. A reasonable way to accomplish this goal would be to recruit employers with higher paying jobs to Greensboro. In the chart presented at the retreat, Cary has a median household income of over $100,000 while Greensboro’s median household income is $48,974. That’s a lot of disparity for a city less than 80 miles away.
Increasing the median household income is a stated goal but, like reducing violent crime, the City Council set the goal and then showed so little interest that it is not even having a report on economic development at this two-day retreat.
Mandate Mayor is sinking Greensboro into a really bad place. When more time is spent trying to raise taxes and give funding to Council members and stakeholders (donors) projects and largesse.
For shame.
The article says homicides increased by 36% in 2020, but the screenshot at the top of the article says that was for all types of violent crime. Homicides, in that screenshot, went up 12 %.
I love ya, John, but do better. The snowflakes will pounce on stuff like that.
That chart has mistakes on it, but was the one displayed at the meeting. The correct chart shows homicides up by 36 percent and violent crime overall increased by 11 percent not 36 percent as that chart indicates.
I’m not surprised. Greensboro definitely isn’t what it used to be, as reflected in its lack of leadership.
Maybe the reason economic development isn’t addressed is because there is no one charged with pursuing economic development within city government?
Can’t just leave that to the Chamber of Commerce can we?
And would more jobs result in less killing? Just asking.
Greensboro must and needs to keep the violent crimes and homicides increasing in order to validate their reasoning to keep transferring our tax money to a City Council member for the “Cure the Violence” worthless program. All our citizens of Greensboro should be mad as hell with what is going on in our City. If a criminal is paid for his crime he will commit more crimes in order to get more money. How simple is it to understand this human nature process. Stop paying criminals for their crimes and the crime rate will decrease. And the tax payers will be better off too.
So what in the hell was on their agenda??
News and Record article states that there have been “five more homicide detectives hired.” They just transferred more patrol officers, thus leaving the vacancies in patrol-you know-the officers that are on the street and answering calls.
“In the chart presented at the retreat, Cary has a median household income of over $100,000 while Greensboro’s median household income is $48,974. That’s a lot of disparity for a city less than 80 miles away.”
That statement completely disregards the reasons why Cary is so successful. The first is they are flooded with major technology, drug, and research companies which require $100,000 + people with advanced degrees. Greensboro is no where near that type of economy.
If the current city council was run by business leaders rather than liberals who want to give money away to favored friends and commmunity groups, the business leaders would turn our city around.