News-Record.com

Good morning and an especially warm welcome to all you local politics junkies, policy wonks and government gadflies. As the name implies, this blog is a descendant of the News & Record's venerable "Inside Scoop" government and politics column that runs every Saturday.

We designed this site for those whose thirst for government and political news just can't be slaked by the daily paper. For those unfamiliar with the format, blog entries are arranged in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry appearing at the top of the page.

At least early on, our content is going to stay focused on the towns and county government inside Guilford County, but that mission may expand a bit as we hit our stride. Please be forewarned: we're here to supplement, not supplant, the daily report that arrives on your doorstep each morning.

Expect to see a healthy dose of the trademark "short but interesting" items that comprise the Saturday column. We'll also use this space to get you news from government meetings that we didn't have the time or space to get into our morning report. And we hope to bring you reports, analysis, memos and other material that we just can't include in the paper.

Scoop's online incarnation will have three primary authors, News & Record staff writers:

*Matt Williams, who covers Greensboro city government. Matt's stories have run the gamut from investigations of the Coliseum's finances to analysis of why businesses have shied away from East Greensboro. And he's even written a few stories about the rise of political blogs in Guilford County.

*High Point government reporter Sue Schultz. You'll recognize her byline from stories on the rebirth of the Macedonia community and the city's planned $73.65 million bond package.

*Mark Binker, who covers Guilford County government and politics. From ball parks to t-shirts, he has followed some of the Triad's most heated political battles.

As needed, we will host guest appearances from state government reporter Eric Dyer and other staffers.

At the bottom of each entry there will be an opportunity for you to join the discussion. Please use the comments feature to talk amongst yourselves or ask us questions. If all goes well, we'll have ourselves an online hangout for those who want to talk about the local political scene.

In fact, let's get started right now. I'll clam up and you can let us know straight away what you'd like to see here. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your input.

Labor Day marks the unofficial kick off of the local campaign season. Conventional wisdom holds that voters tune out the local political scene until after the first Monday in September, fixating instead on races of national importance or last minute summer vacations.

But for those of you looking to get in some summer reading on one of Guilford County's most hotly contested county commissioner races, head to the Internet. All three Guilford County Commissioner District 7 candidates have some sort of web presence. (Find a map of all nine county commissioner district by clicking on this link.)

The story in District 7 until now:

For those of you who may be asking, "Where are Greensboro's 363 billboards?" Inside Scoop has the answer thanks to the city's Planning Department.(Click here to download a more detailed .pdf file)

A few caveats: GIS whiz Katie Herring said the map is based on some old data and shows approximately 60 signs that may no longer exist. She said planning staffers planned to update their information in the near future, as the City Council contemplates more restrictions on billboards.
On that subject, billboard supporters, including Fairway Outdoor's local manager, Dan O'Shea, have pointed out that council member Robbie Perkins, a leading billboard critic, himself benefits from outdoor advertising. They are referring to commercial real estate brokerage NAI Maxwell, whose president is Perkins. The company's "For Lease" and "For Sale" signs are posted outside dozens of properties around the Triad.
When asked about the criticism, Perkins said there's one difference between billboards and his company's "For Sale" signs. "When the building gets sold, my signs come down," Perkins said. He also sends this picture of a fellow real estate company's sign in the shadow of a Fairway billboard.

The agenda for next week's Greensboro City Council meeting is out. Council members will be asked to appropriate money to bridge a million-dollar shortfall in the Greensboro Coliseum's finances.
Also up is a repeat of a zoning case first heard by the council earlier this year.
From our April 21 report:

"...the council turned down a separate request by Centex Homes to bring 48 acres near the interchange of Interstate 40 and Young's Mill Road into the city limits.
Centex wanted the city to annex the land so it could build 132 homes between an older neighborhood and the highway...several council members agreed that the homes would be built too close together compared to the surrounding neighborhoods.
The council voted 6-3 to reject the development, with council members Robbie Perkins, Don Vaughan and Sandy Carmany supporting the plan."

The following info on the upcoming school board meeting comes from education reporter Jennifer Fernandez:

Anyone interested in what the Guilford County Board of Education will be talking about next should check out the board's agenda. Click on Sept. 7 to get Tuesday's agenda. The board meets at 6:45 p.m. at its Eugene Street offices.

Board members expect to stay put and meet at their regular location. The last meeting was moved to the county courthouse because hundreds of people wanted to have their say about the busing problems at the start of the school year.

Of note on this meeting's agenda: Greensboro police want to create a school watch program similar to their successful Neighborhood Watch. The school board first discussed the proposal back in July, but wanted to hear what principals thought before making a decision.

The link: http://www.guilford.k12.nc.us/boe/agenda.htm

No campaign season would be complete with out candidate forums. This week, an invitation from the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance (web site: www.nwna.org) became the first forum invite we at Scoop have received for the post Labor Day run.

The group has scheduled their event for 7 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 19 at Calvary Church, 1665 Pleasant Ridge Road in Greensboro. According to an e-mail from the group, each candidate will be allotted 10 minutes to address the audience on a topic of their choosing, which will be followed by a 5 minute question and answer period.

Invited to attend are: Senate candidates Erskine Bowles and Richard Burr; House candidates Howard Coble and William Jordan; at large commissioner candidates Roger Cotton, Paul Gibson, John Parks, and Trudy Wade; and at large board of education candidates Dot Kearns and Jim Kirkpatrick.

The northwest neighborhood association is a group of about 500 residents who live mainly in the Colfax area who are concerned about growth issues in Northwest Guilford County. Questions about the forum should be sent to Jennifer Thomas: j-m-thomas@mindspring.com .

High Point's Pig Pen property owners beware.
In 2005, owners of lots that are overgrown with foot-high weeds and populated with trash piles could pay dearly.
The city is looking to beef up its public nuisance code and crack down on properties that create eyesores throughout High Point.

After working a light schedule for most of the summer, the Guilford County commissioners are getting ready to crank up their workload in September. Two upcoming meetings of note:

The Guilford County Prison Farm study committee will meet on Monday, Sept. 13, noon, at the Old County Courthouse, 301 W. Market St., Greensboro. The meeting will take place in the Blue Room.

The prison farm has been a subject of much debate for the commissioners and Sheriff BJ Barnes. Barnes has suggested ways in which to make it more profitable, including installing a golf driving range and selling certain rights related to streams that run through the property.

Two commissioners on the study committee, County Manager Willie Best and Barnes toured the farm last month. This month's meeting continues the committee's deliberations over what to do with the farm property. The committee will eventually make a recommendation to the full board.

Then, on Thursday Sept. 16, 6: 30 p.m. the entire Guilford County Board of Commissioners will meet for their regular business meeting. The final agenda for this meeting will be available on Friday, Sept. 10. That meeting will also take place at the Old County Courthouse, in the commissioner's meeting room.

How far would you go to help a friend in need?
About 600 miles, said about 15 High Point electric workers that headed to Florida to help a former city leader recover from Hurricane Frances.
The city workers headed to Leesburg to help the city's utility director, Lloyd Shank restore power.
Shank was High Point's electric director for about 20 years. In July 2000, Shank left for the position in Florida.

David Hoggard wonders why some of Greensboro's recently milled streets are turning our Chevys' seats into vibrating massage chairs. In a July 12 memo to council members, Deputy City Manager Mitchell Johnson attributes the problem to an aggressive schedule for the contractor hired to repave the streets.

In the memo, Johnson explains the three-step process for putting down new blacktop. First crews mill down the edges of the road near the curb. Then the crew raises the manhole covers and then they put down the new layer of asphalt.

In previous years, the city gave construction crews 30 days between when they ground down the road to when it should be finished. But to save money this year, the city allowed the contractor to do most of the milling all at once as long as the job was done within 30 days of the manhole risers going in.

What happened is that grinding went really quickly but the crews are taking a while to catch up with the rest of the work. Johnson pegged the savings to the city at $300,000 but conceded that the public might think things are awry.

"In reviewing the overall success of this year's process we did not adequately communicate the impact of our new process effectively thus leaving our citizens with the impression that we were well behind schedule since it was plain to see that much of the already milled streets were more that 30 days in process," Johnson wrote.

On a related note, the Greensboro Department of Transportation has a handy map showing downtown's new two-way streets and when they plan to finish the projects. Lindsay, Bellemeade, Davie and McGee streets are first on the list and are projected to be converted to two-way this fall.

We here at Scoop are thinking of asking for a week to be named in our honor. Everyone else gets one.

Don't believe us?

On the tentative agenda for the Sept. 16 Guilford County Commissioners meeting are proclamations declaring the fourth Monday in September as "Family Day - A day to eat dinner with your children" and Sept. 19 through 26 as "Ballroom Dance Week." More serious resolutions on the same agenda will declare October "National Breast Cancer Awareness Month" and Sept. 18 at "Guilford County Firefighter Day."

Other business on the tentative agenda includes discussion of a $20,000 grant for the Jamestown Town Library, a report from the committee studying alternate uses for the county prison farm and a rezoning case involving property on Queen Alice Road, west of Scotland Road, in the Sedgefield area.

A full and official agenda will be out Friday. We'll post a link to it once it's on line.

Those who want to get a good look at those running for Guilford County commissioner will have a chance on Wednesday, Sept. 15, courtesy of the Guilford County Council of Mayors. (We got our first forum invite of the fall campaign season last week from another group.)

The forum will take place at the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association located at 23 Oak Branch Dr. in Greensboro, near Wendover Avenue and Clifton Road.

The at-large candidates are scheduled to square off at 6:30 p.m. The candidates for districts 4 and 7 will meet at 7:30 p.m.

All of you holding your breath until the county commissioners take up the urban loop scenic corridor law: please stop, you're going to turn blue.

The commissioners aren't scheduled to take up the ordinance until their second meeting in November, well after the Nov. 2 general election.

The most controversial point of the scenic corridor question is whether to allow billboards along the 44-mile urban loop, sometimes called Painter Boulevard. Greensboro passed a scenic corridor law that bans billboards two years ago.

But more than half of the loop is outside the city limits. A version of the law that the county planning board adopted allows a limited number of billboards along the loop. This has been a sore point with some city officials and residents who want Greensboro's billboard ban expanded into the county.

This morning, we reported on a "community relations project" that Mayor Keith Holliday plans to unveil next Monday at the Greensboro Historical Museum. But city staffers involved in the project are being very tight-lipped about what the project will entail, saying that Holliday is insisting on keeping it secret until Monday's announcement. All they have provided so far is this short press release.

Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project spokeswoman Joya Wesley added that her group was invited to attend Monday's announcement and said she doesn't think Holliday is trying to preempt their work.

Update:(9/10/04) More on the mayor's community relations project here. Also online is a video produced about Rochester's project.

Those who want a chance to hear from and talk to candidates for statewide offices can tune into the N.C. Agency for Public Telecommunications' Candidate Call-in show. According to a post-card we received today (Sept. 9) the first show was on Tuesday (Sept. 7) and featured Britt Cobb, the Democratic nominee for Agriculture Commissioner.

The next show is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 14 and will feature, among others, Superintendent of Public Instruction candidates Bill Fletcher, a Republican, and June Atkinson, a Democrat.

The show is picked up by local public cable channels throughout the state. The regularly scheduled time slot is 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays.

You can find the whole schedule by clicking here. You can find the local cable station that will broadcast those interviews by clicking here.

The Guilford County commissioners' meeting agenda for Sept. 16 is available at this link: http://www.co.guilford.nc.us/agenda.html. One item that may get a lot of attention is IV. C.: "Consider request for $25,000 from Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and Greensboro Sports Commission for bringing track meet to Greensboro."

Sportswriter Jim Young reported in Thursday's News & Record about Greensboro's bid to lure the "Adidas Outdoor Championships" from Raleigh, where the event has been held for the past 11 years. This grant would be part of that effort. The meet would be held on N.C. A&T's Irwin Belk Track.

Local governments regularly purge their inventory of excess equipment and confiscated items through surplus actions. Think of these as big, government-wide garage sales.

Not only are they a chance to get a deal on used stuff of all sorts, the lists of items available are almost interesting. For example, at Guilford County's upcoming auction on Sept. 18, items available include one row boat that "may leak," size 10 Gap boys dress pants, a mailbox with plastic post and a Rockwell 48" wood lathe.

Those treasures are mixed in with the typical mix of desks, tables, cabinets, shelves and other office equipment. Oh, and there are a bunch of high-mileage vehicles, including something labeled a "1984 Chev PU." We're hoping that stands for pick up.

For the entire list of items up for auction, click here.

A handful of council members will consider Tuesday whether or not to allow large trucking terminals in north High Point corporate parks.

Aiming for a high-quality image in the developments along I-40, elected leaders are concerned with the industrial appearance of warehouses, docking pads and large trucks littered throughout the corporate parks.

The council's Planning and Development committee will look at proposed changes to High Point's corporate park zoning that could keep the trucking centers out of the area.

Walking through Phil McDonald Plaza outside the Guilford County Courthouse today, I witnessed a security guard waving a metal detector wand over the bed of petunias. He told me it's a favorite place for visitors of the courthouse to stash their drug paraphernalia and weapons when they realize the contraband will be confiscated at the security checkpoint. Enough guns, knives and drugs have been hidden amongst the flora that the security guards do a regular sweep.

So for anyone planning a visit to the courthouse, leave your goodies at home if you're keen on keeping them.

Nobody likes a nosy neighbor, but the folks next door will never know that you can find out how much their house is worth and how much they paid for it.

Thanks to your local governments, you can find out tax values for your house, your neighbors' digs or that house with the "For Sale" sign that you've been eyeing. All from the comfort of your computer.

A dispatch from one of our education reporters, Jennifer Fernandez:

ABC of Guilford County has spruced up its Web site at www.ABCofguilfordcounty.com - and redefined its mission.

The group now touts itself as a "grassroots educational advocacy group" that believes "parents can have a positive impact on the quality of public education."

The previous Web site focused on overturning the Guilford County Board of Education's Feb. 10 vote to begin a controversial reassignment plan this school year with freshmen. Under the plan, students are shuffled via a lottery among Andrews, High Point Central and Southwest high schools to achieve better socioeconomic balance, use of space and to improve academics, school officials argue.

The redesigned Web site notes that ABC started with a "handful" of parents meeting to discuss the plan. More than 200 parents organized shortly after school officials unveiled the plan in January. The majority of parents are from the Southwest High School area. But the group has grown to more than 1,000 members with many of them coming from across the county.

The new Web site is still under construction. One link that has not been carried over from the original site is the group's Yahoo message board, where many lively, and some times contentious, discussions take place. That site can be found at groups.yahoo.com/group/ABCofGuilfordCounty/

Set your TiVos. The county commissioner candidate forum held last night by the Guilford Council of Mayors will be broadcast several times on Channel 8 public access in Greensboro and Guilford County (no word on distribution in High Point).

The at large candidate debate will be shown

It seems that the long-delayed opening of Greensboro's indoor public tennis facility has been delayed again. This time, the courts at the Simkins Indoor Sports Pavilion have too much of an outside flavor. Ann Rolke explains in an email to council members:

"As I understand it, there are so many leaks in the metal roof at Simkins that the courts are unusable when it rains. This is RIDICULOUS!!!!"

The county recently announced that it would divide its Community Development Department in two.

One new department will be called the Community and Economic Development Department and will handle recruiting businesses, looking after the county parks and other assorted tasks.

The other part will handle traditional planning services, such as approving permits and overseeing zoning changes. But what shall we call it?

In a news release last week, the county's current Community Development Director, Rob Bencini, wrote: "development services - planning, inspections, permitting and plan review - will continue to be provided by the renamed Development Services Department, so named to more accurately reflect its land use, permitting and development-based focus."

Not so fast says Commissioner Billy Yow. He says the new name should be Planning and Development.

At Thursday's meeting, he asked Bencini's boss, County Manager Willie Best, if the new name would be "Planning and Development."

"That's correct," said Best.

Whatever the departments are called, the split will happen on Oct. 1.

My story on Thursday's Guilford County Commissioner's meeting can be found by clicking on this link after our page updates sometime around 4 a.m. this morning.

Here are a few notes that didn't make it into today's story:

* The commissioners had a bit of a dust up over appointments to the county's Planning Board. That board has the ability to rezone property, rename streets and several other powers. Their decisions can be appealed to the commissioners, but will stand as law if unchallenged.

Commissioner Carolyn Coleman had proposed appointing Dan Reynolds, one of the board's alternate members, as a permanent member. Reynolds is from the High Point area and Coleman said the board needed a High Point representative.

My colleague Lanita Withers recently penned this item regarding city and county plans to crack down on unlicensed vendors at this year's N.C. A&T homecoming celebration on Oct. 9.

At Thursday's County Commissioners meeting, it was apparent that the move "to organize an off-campus gathering that has never had official oversight" has attracted some unfavorable attention from some heavy-hitting politicians.

As Lanita wrote, "For years, the celebration of N.C. A&T's homecoming has spilled out of Aggie Stadium and into jammed streets around campus, where folks hawking fish sandwiches, rib platters and homemade pound cake have cashed in."

We know, we know. You opened your Saturday paper expecting to see the Inside Scoop newspaper column and it wasn't there.

Fear not. We've moved Inside Scoop to Monday to make way for a new transportation column that debuted today. Click here to check out Fast Forward now.

And remember to visit Inside Scoop at its new home in your Monday paper.

If you've been thinking that something's in the water in Jamestown, you're right. For 50 years now.

Now while some may argue that it's a secret Communist plot, Jamestown this year marks more than 50 years of continuous fluoridation of their water supply. The Centers for Disease Control and the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors awarded a certificate to the town for its service to the teeth of its water customers since 1953.

We learn more about the benefits of fluoride from an explanation of the award, which was presented to Guilford County Health Director Dr. Ramesh Krishnaraj:

"North Carolina has long been a leader in water fluoridation. In 1949, Charlotte became the first city in North Carolina to fluoridate. At that time they were the largest city in the world to fluoridate. Today, 84 percent of North Carolinians who are served by community water systems receive the benefits of fluoridated water."

Here's what we didn't have time or space to include in the paper(unposted) from last night's council meeting:

From our education reporter Jen Fernandez:

The Guilford County Board of Education will honor member Garry Burnett at its meeting Thursday. Burnett, who was completing a four-year term on the board, died Friday of a heart attack.

The board also has changed the time of its meeting, moving it from 6:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. And the end of the agenda now includes time to discuss the vacancy created by Burnett's death. His term ends this November; Burnett was not running for re-election.

Although the meeting will start earlier, the public will still be able to address the board at the usual time, about 6:45 p.m. The public comment period usually comes at the beginning of the meeting.

This meeting will be at the board's High Point offices, 900 English Road. To check out the agenda, click on Sept. 23 at www.guilford.k12.nc.us/boe/agenda.htm

The Two Arts Chicks gallery is offering a local candidates' forum Thursday night (Sept. 23) at their gallery: 609 S. Elm St. in Greensboro. According to an e-mail sent announcing the forum, reservations are suggested, so call 273-9885 or email voterman@earthlink.net to let them know you're coming.

"Meet the candidates" time will start at 6:30 p.m., and the forum is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m.

The Two Arts Chicks website is www.twoartchicks.com .

From our colleague Marta Hummel on the business desk:

Co-Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Jim Black, will speak at a Chamber of Commerce lunch at noon Thursday, Sept. 27, at the O. Henry Hotel, the Chamber's Allen Purser said.

Black is expected to analyze the past session and talk about issues that the house will cover in the upcoming year, he said.

Black became co-speaker in 2003 and is serving his ninth term in the General Assembly.

For folks in Latham Park, the sight of sewage shooting up out of manholes is an all-too common sight when a moderate to heavy rain comes around. Almost year ago, the city agreed to upgrade the sewer pipes running along Buffalo Creek at a cost of $42 million. At the time, state environmental officials were threatening to crack down on the city if it didn't volunteer to fix the problem. The project is now well under way. More from the city's Water Resources Department:

"Residents in the Latham Park area are invited to attend a public meeting to discuss the North Buffalo Creek stream restoration project scheduled to begin in 2007. The meeting will inform residents about construction impacts in Latham Park, solicit public input on the stream restoration design, and review the proposed route of a new sewer line. In order to address sewer overflows in the Latham Park and Lake Daniel Park areas, the stream restoration is part of the comprehensive North Buffalo Sanitary Sewer Project approved by the Greensboro City Council in 2003. As part of the project, more than nine miles of pipe and the construction of three new sewer pump stations will be added to City utility infrastructure."

For those of you who don't know, there are three constitutional amendments on the Nov. 2 ballot. You can read ballot language for all three by clicking on this link.

The second measure on the ballot would let governments set aside money collected for certain types of civil penalties for use by schools. The third measure has to do with the terms of magistrates. Neither seems very controversial.

But we have ourselves a campaign over the first amendment on the ballot. And despite being well organized and well heeled, backers of the rather prosaically dubbed "Amendment One" are doing their best to make sure the opposition isn't heard from much, at least on the web.

(Update on 9/26/04: A link to our story on Amendment One can be found by clicking here.)

From Jennifer Fernandez on the education desk:

As the Guilford County Board of Education reviewed his performance into the early morning hours Friday, Superintendent Terry Grier sat down the hall in a room full of administrators, regaling them with stories of his exploits as a child and as a superintendent in previous districts.

He seemed unconcerned about the deliberations going on behind closed doors as he laughed and joked with some of his top officials, including Chief Financial Officer Sharon Ozment, Chief Information Officer Terrence Young and Chief Academic Officer Peggy Thompson.

In an interview for his upcoming election, U.S. Rep. Howard Coble criticized Iraq war planners for not anticipating postwar security problems. Saying he was trying to be as generous as possible to the Republican administration, Coble said "the post-invasion strategy was inadequate at best."

"We're there now and don't appear to have a good strategy," he said.

But he said there's plenty of blame to go around, including the Congress, intelligence agencies and the Clinton administration. Coble said he still backs the decision to go to war.

Here's what we wrote about his position on Iraq two years ago when President Bush asked Congress for authorization to go to war.

"U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, a Greensboro Republican, said he opposes an invasion of Iraq unless Bush is able to get other countries involved.
"If the president says we're ready to go, I would lean in favor of going," Coble said. "But I hope we could be assured that our neighbors around the world are able and willing to assist us."
If possible, Coble said he would avoid war altogether if thorough inspections of the country showed that Saddam wasn't developing weapons of mass destruction."(Sept. 7, 2002)

This morning, we had a story about the Greensboro Transit Authority raising rates for some disabled users of the SCAT van system. Basically, folks who want to get picked up or dropped off more than three-quarters of a mile from a regular bus line have to pay twice the normal amount for a monthly pass. This map shows the areas that are within that federally-mandated buffer.

If you want to read more about red-light cameras, you can read the city-sponsored study or the executive summary.

The city-sponsored study comes to different conclusions than a wider study of accidents at intersections done by A&T researchers. You can get that one here.

And if you're really curious about the city's call for architects to come up with plans to fix up War Memorial Stadium, you can read the Request For Proposals here.

Well, at least you can do the first part. Guilford County has a schedule and list of places where you can vote early, and you don't need an excuse to do it. The early voting will start Oct. 14 and go through Oct. 30.

At their last meeting on Sept. 16, the County Commissioners decided to establish a committee to decide what should be done with their Inmate Welfare Fund.

This fund is a repository for the money collected from inmates when they pay for items from the jail store (called "the canteen" by Sheriff's Department officials), make collect calls and purchase other services.

The fund has been a source of conflict for the Sheriff, BJ Barnes, and some commissioners. Barnes has been using the money to pay for repairs and equipment that some commissioners, most notably Melvin "Skip" Alston, say doesn't relate to inmate welfare. Alston argues that those repairs, such as buying new paneling for the jail's elevators, should come from county tax dollars.

The new Inmate Welfare Fund committee is supposed to come up with a policy for using the money, presumably to avoid the frequent and prolonged fights over the fund that have become a regular feature at commissioner meetings this year.

The committee's first meeting will be Oct. 11 at 10 a.m. at the Old County Courthouse, 301 W. Market St. in Greensboro. The Sheriff will sit in on meetings but not be a voting member. The commissioners on the committee are Alston and Bruce Davis, both Democrats, and Republicans Linda Shaw, Mary Rakestraw and Billy Yow.