The April Schmoozefest is Thursday, April 26 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Loaded Grape at 2915 Battleground Ave. Free snacks, beer and wine will be provided to all business professionals who sign in and wear a name tag while supplies last.
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The Guilford County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education are currently having a study done of building needs for Guilford County Schools.
The tornado coming through east Greensboro resulted in three elementary schools being closed for the rest of the year and the entire student bodies of those schools have been sent to three other elementary schools.
What is startling is that none of the three elementary schools that will take on an entire school of new students for the rest of the year will technically be overcrowded. So three elementary schools in the east Greensboro area can each take on an additional entire Guilford County school without reaching capacity.
Judging from that, it appears the study may find that Guilford County has an excess of classroom space but isn’t making good use of it.
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The City Council held a work session on the 2018-2019 budget on Tuesday. The council heard presentations on the tax rate, which the city is going to try to keep flat; water and sewer rates, which the city plans to increase; improving the hazardous waste program; and participatory budgeting.
It’s pretty incredible that this City Council puts participatory budgeting on par with the tax rate and water and sewer rates, but the city councilmembers who had dozed through the property tax rate and water rate increases suddenly perked up for participatory budgeting.
It should be called non-participatory budgeting because people refuse to participate. They managed to get about 1,200 people to participate last round because they went into the schools where they had a captive audience.
Participatory budgeting is a program whereby the city funds $100,000 worth of projects in each of the City Council districts.
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If you’d like to cast a powerful vote, then the primary on May 8 is the election for you. In some precincts, Republicans will only get to vote in the sheriff’s race. There is no statewide primary and that is the only countywide Republican primary. There is a little more in the Democratic primary. Both the 13th Congressional District and the 6th Congressional District have primaries and every voter in the county is in one or the other. There are also three countywide races – district attorney, Board of Education at large and sheriff.
There is no Republican running for district attorney, so the Democrats will get to elect the new Guilford County District Attorney on May 8.
Still, none of those races are the type that get voters to the polls. This is going to be a primary where the candidate with the largest family might win.
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The 60th annual St. Francis Book Sale is here. The sale has over 50,000 books. On Thursday, April 26 and Friday, April 27, the sale opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 8 p.m. On Saturday, April 28, the sale begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m. So the goal is to sell all those books before 1 p.m. on Saturday.
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Northwest Guilford County is considering a regional water system and a regional water authority. People should be aware that once a regional authority is formed, it reports to no one. And it is at times almost impossible to get a project completed.
Greensboro was desperate for water but it took two major droughts for the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority to start providing water. The first drought got the dam built, and for the second one there was a big lake and no way to get the water to the people. After that a water treatment plant was built.
Authorities look great on paper, but in reality they create a government entity that doesn’t report to anyone, is not elected, cannot be unelected and can do whatever it chooses to do.
