The next Schmoozefest is Thursday, March 22 from 6 to 8 p.m. at
the Community Theatre of Greensboro at
520 S. Elm St.

Free snacks, beer and wine will be provided to all
business professionals who sign in and get a name tag while supplies last.

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It looks like the plan for the mess the city created when is closed Cotswold Avenue is going to be somewhat alleviated by putting a roundabout at the intersection of Old Battleground Road and Cotswold Terrace.

The question city councilmembers should be asking is, why is the Greensboro Department of Transportation (GDOT) reacting to the outrage of residents in that area after the road has been closed. When Cotswold Avenue was built 20 years ago, GDOT knew it was a temporary road. As the Outer Loop moved closer, GDOT knew it was going to be closed and the traffic through the neighborhood it was built to alleviate would be back, but worse because of the development in the area. So why wasn’t anything planned? Why is the city reacting when it knew this problem was coming and something would have to be done?

The only unknown was the exact date that Cotswold Avenue would be closed. There was never any doubt that it would be closed, and an approximate date has been known for years.

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North Carolina temporary license plates have, in large print, the date the temporary plate expires. I was behind a car at a stop light recently and noticed the expiration date on the temporary tag on an old car read, “02-31-18.” It seems to me that would make it a permanent temporary tag.

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The Greensboro City Council would much rather pontificate on topics like gun control over which it has absolutely no control than deal with issues that it legally controls – like traffic lights. Talking about traffic lights is not going to get you any face time on television and probably won’t get you any new Facebook friends either, so why would anyone on the City Council be concerned?

But it’s time Greensboro recognized that traffic lights are to control traffic. If there is no traffic there is no need for the light.

I drove to the office at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning. At four intersections I sat waiting for the light to turn green without a single car in sight. What possible good does it do for anyone to sit in their car, pouring pollutants into the air, waiting, not for traffic but for the light to change?

I think the reason the traffic department refuses to flash traffic lights at night in Greensboro is mostly ego. The traffic department enjoys telling people what to do and doesn’t trust drivers to make good decisions on their own.

So few people are affected, it’s hard to get together a large rowdy crowd to attend a City Council meeting, which is how you get the council to take action.

I can’t enlist support from all the other people who had to wait through lights at empty intersections on Wednesday morning because there weren’t any. I was driving the only car I saw at any of the intersections.

But as soon as I arrived at my destination, no doubt there were other cars sitting at the same intersections waiting for the lights to change.

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All the Page High School students at the last City Council meeting talking about parking and traffic problems at Page brought back a lot of memories, especially when they mentioned the Sherwood Swim and Racquet Club parking lot.

My junior year, which would have been 1970-71, was the first year I could drive to school and I helped get Page students the right to park in that lot. Since my family was a member of Sherwood, it made sense to me. It turned out to take a lot more work than I imagined. But I also never imagined that a project I started over 45 years ago would still be going today. Maybe I should get some royalty payments.

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The city calendar on the city website doesn’t list the Greensboro City Council meeting on Tuesday, March 20. The City Council meeting isn’t listed on the all inclusive calendar or on the “Meetings Calendar.”

What’s going on with that? The city lists “Easy Being Green Storytime at McGirt-Horton Branch,” “Pickleball Social” and “Knitting Club for All Ages” to name very few of the many offerings, but not the City Council meeting.

Either the City Council doesn’t want the people of Greensboro to know when it is meeting, or someone needs to pay a little more attention to meetings that may be important to the future of the city than the “Pickleball Social” – not that there is anything wrong with pickleball, but I have a feeling that the pickleball social is not going to bring 1,000 new jobs to Greensboro and the Greensboro City Council on March 20 may.

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According to U.S. News & World Report, North Carolina is the 23rd best state in the country to live in.

Bitter cold winters were evidently considered a plus, since Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont were all in the top 10.

As far at neighboring states go, Virginia is ranked 20th, Tennessee 26th, Georgia 31st and South Carolina 42nd. We lost the Toyota-Mazda plant to Alabama, which is ranked 46th.

The people of the US don’t appear to agree with the listings, since, for example, Vermont is ranked as the ninth best state to live in but is third in population decrease in the country, only behind West Virginia (47th) and Illinois (35th).