If you were planning on sitting back after work on Tuesday, April 2 with an adult beverage and a bowl of popcorn to watch the Greensboro City Council get yelled at for a couple of hours, you’d better reschedule.
The Greensboro City Council is holding it’s monthly town hall session on Monday, April 1 not Tuesday, April 2 as originally scheduled. That’s right the City Council is holding a special town hall meeting on April Fools’ Day.
Reportedly a number of city councilmembers are going to be at a conference on Tuesday, so the meeting was rescheduled. However, it is highly unusual to reschedule a City Council meeting for the benefit of councilmembers. Meetings are rescheduled for holidays, but councilmembers are usually expected to arrange their schedules around the twice monthly meetings.
The City Council officially meets the first and third Tuesday of every month. The first meeting is the town hall meeting where people are given five minutes to speak about the topic of their choosing. These meetings have become so unruly that the City Council has discussed going to a different format. So even though the meeting is on Monday this month it might be worth tuning in.
The City Council doesn’t do any real business at the town hall meetings, but it does pass resolutions and there are a couple of resolutions on the agenda.
One is in favor of state House Bill 144 which would make it illegal to hold a cell phone in your hand while driving. It would be legal to talk on a cell phone using a hands free device. This is one of those feel good resolutions that no doubt will pass unanimously because no politician wants to be branded as being in favor of distracted driving. But there are a host of other distractions that the legislature could make illegal if it really wanted to eliminate distracted driving. If this law passes then in North Carolina technically it will be legal to read the newspaper while driving, but illegal to hold a phone in your hand.
The Monday, April 1 City Council meeting will start about 5:30 pm in the City Council Chamber. To enter city hall from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. you have to sign in and get a visitor’s badge, but maybe the city won’t be requiring that for those attending a meeting. The city has not informed the public of the changing rules for gaining entry to city hall, and the memo to employees doesn’t mention how public meetings will be handled.
Most of the distracted drivers I see around Greensboro are trying to avoid being seen by the Greensboro Police Dept. since they are driving without a valid registration, required liability insurance, and haven’t paid their share of personal property taxes.