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The architects are lining up for a crack at fixing up War Memorial Stadium, now that the Greensboro Bats/Grasshoppers are moving into their new digs. Back in October, the city asked local firms whether they would like to design the renovation. Three design teams are competing for the contract:

It's not unusual for the Guilford County commissioners to sail through big important decisions but get wrapped up in nasty quarrels over what should be routine matters.

So as you might expect, the commissioners voted to give Dell $7.1 million in taxpayer funded incentives with nary a harsh word spoken Thursday night. But the claws came out during a discussion over giving various staff members raises and bonuses.

Because this wasn't the most salient part of the meeting, we didn't include much about it in our newspaper story today. So in case you missed it on television, we here at Inside Scoop are happy to present a sample of dialog from County Commissioner Playhouse.

Speaking parts in this scene are assigned to commissioners Mike Barber, Carolyn Coleman, Bob Landreth, Jeff Thigpen and Billy Yow. The setting is the commissioners hearing room in the Old County Courthouse Thursday night at the end of the commissioner's regular meeting.

The commissioners emerge from a back-room closed door session after evaluating whether to give raises to some of their top employees:

Billy Yow wasn't the only commissioner mixing it up Thursday night (see the previous post). Steve Arnold also got into the mix earlier in the evening.

Here's the full version of an item concerning a juvenile detention facility that the commissioners (sans Mr. Arnold) supported Thursday. (It was trimmed before making it into the paper).

In other business, the commissioners:

For those of your keeping track, the new Guilford County Board of Commissioners is sworn in today - most of them at any rate.

The new line up includes Democrats Melvin "Skip" Alston, Kay Cashion, Carolyn Coleman, Bruce Davis, Paul Gibson and Kirk Perkins. Republicans Steve Arnold, Linda Shaw, Mike Winstead and Billy Yow are also on board.

Scoop expects (given the statements of a bunch of lawyers and election officials) that Republican Trudy Wade will continue to serve while the disputed election between her and Democrat John Parks is sorted out. Parks holds a slight lead in the vote count but there is a legal question as to whether some of those votes should be tossed.

The commissioners are expected to choose a new chairman this morning and odds are that it will be Davis, a High Point Democrat.

This morning's meeting will also allow outgoing commissioners to impart final bits of wisdom. In that group will be Jeff Thigpen, who is becoming Guilford County's Register of Deeds.

Speaking of Thigpen, click below for the text of an item that appeared in the newspaper version of Inside Scoop today regarding the Deeds office.

The Guilford County Commissioners selected Bruce Davis as their chairman and Paul Gibson as their vice-chairman during a two-hour, mainly ceremonial session Monday morning. The two Democrats were the only candidates for the jobs and were elected along 6-4 party-line votes.

The meeting was mainly an opportunity to say goodbye to outgoing commissioners and swear in the new hands.

Outgoing chairman Bob Landreth made several presentations, the first of which went to Rhino Times Editor John Hammer.

"John you may have more ink than most people. But you quoted me in an article not long ago that I mumbled. No I tried to find a trumpet so that you could hear properly but I found this 1940s hearing aid," Landreth said to a round of laughter. He later added, "I couldn't finding an understanding aid."

More news and vignettes from the meeting will be in tomorrow's paper.

Over at my boss's blog he writes about a story I wrote for today's paper regarding the commissioners closing access to a certain meeting.

A commenter on that blog and at least one caller to my voice mail have asked if commissioners' meetings weren't legally required to be open.

The short answer is yes, if they have six of the 11 commissioners in the room, they do. But the meeting in question here rarely has more than two or three and has never - at least in my experience - gone to six. This is a different sort of agenda meeting than one that was held a few years ago where a majority of the commissioners regularly attended.

The commissioners are acutely aware of the triggers surrounding the six person limit. During budget negotiations in the Spring, members of majority party typically get together to talk about what they want to see in the budget. They'll purposely exclude some members from that meeting or have some leave early and others come late to abide by the letter - if not the spirit - of the law.

Space and time constraints keep us from detailing all of the things that go on during a city council meeting. So here's what we couldn't slip into the story:

More from the City of Durham, where council member John Best has run into some legal complications due to his not paying child support. We wrote a few weeks ago about his legal fund.

Durham councilman released from jail

DURHAM (AP) - City Councilman John Best ended his first 24-hour stint in jail for failure to pay child support with a smile on his face and a joke.

"Remind me to call the travel agent," Best said Sunday as he walked out of the jail. "They should have booked me at the Marriott."

Best is the first sitting elected Durham official to serve jail time in recent memory. He will have to repeat the experience next weekend, remaining locked up from 5 p.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday.

District Court Judge Marcia Morey sentenced Best to 30 days in jail. The judge suspended all but two days for falling some $11,000 behind in child support and alimony for his ex-wife, Cynthia. She also placed Best on probation for two years...(more of this story here)

In Sunday's story on the city's race relations project, we promised more information on the Scoop Blog. It's a day late, but here's a list of the 144 city leaders that have pledged to meet up and talk about race relations over the next year. The table has first and last names, and their title or affiliation if we could determine one:

For those of you who set your TiVo boxes or VCRs to catch Guilford County Commissioners meetings every other Thursday night, you're going to have to make do with the Jim Lehrer News Hour this week.

The newly elected commissioners are out at the School of Government in Chapel Hill learning about their new gigs. So the commissioners moved their regularly scheduled meeting to Monday, Dec. 20 at 6:30 p.m.

Read the agenda here. It's not very long and most of the discussion - if any - will probably center on whether to buy a $4 million building for the county's tax and planning departments. ( Find the story on that by clicking here.)

I've gotten a few calls and emails today about Tuesday's story, "Complex remains standing for now," some of which suggest taking tougher action against landowners that callers say are responsible for blight in the city.
Some of those suggested a creative approach that I am certain is not within the power of the city. Arnold Rogers writes, "make Mr. Agapion and his daughter move into these properties and live. Problems would probably get taken care of real damn fast."
The city is pledging to put more pressure on landlords, including filing suit against those who rent out homes that have been condemned.
So what do you think about substandard housing and the approach the city should take? Is an aggressive campaign in order, or are property owners well within their right to do largely what they want with their own homes?
Please leave us your thoughts by clicking the comments link below.

(A note about commenting: Some people who have seldom commented on weblogs and message boards might think there's a lot of complications to actually leaving your thoughts. Here at the Inside Scoop, it's really easy. You don't have to register, you don't have to give us your e-mail address if you don't want to and you actually don't have to put your full name, though it does help. Tell us what you think on this and any other post. We want to hear it.)

Some of you may have read this article and wondered why the commissioners retreat is such a big deal. What are they retreating from anyway?

The party-line government wonk answer goes something like: A retreat is an opportunity for the board, particularly one with many new members, to get to know one another and set policies and priorities for the upcoming year.

Here on earth, the real answer is much more mundane: The retreat is the commissioners' first swipe at shaping the annual budget.

The annual county budget totals nearly a half-billion dollars and provides for everything from public schools to the health and sheriff's departments to paying for elections.

Although the commissioners only directly work on their budget for about seven weeks in May and June, preparations begin much earlier.

In many governments, Greensboro for example, initial budget briefings often happen in December, a full five or six months before the manager presents his recommended budget to the legislative group.

So in theory, the commissioners' retreat would be a chance to give directions to the budget staff like "put more money towards X" or "We don't think Y should be so much of a priority."

Why might Chairman Bruce Davis think a road trip to Chapel Hill might be in order for the commissioners' annual retreat? Well, it seems recent retreats have been less about budget priorities and more about who could get off the best one liner.

Want evidence? Fine. Scoop is reaching back into our greatest hits file to bring you a classic story from Alex Wayne, who covered the county commissioners' retreat last year. (Click the continue link for the story.) Enjoy.

There wasn't much space to explain this in the paper (sorry, unposted), but there was a bit more to the move of Greensboro Community Television from the old Central Library annex on Greene Street to the city's Cultural Center.

Tuesday night, the city council was asked to approve a GCTV's lease in the Cultural Center. GCTV is getting booted from their old space to make room for Elon University's law school.

But it quickly turned into a discussion about the merits of the public access channel, which is funded by a surcharge on the cable bills of city residents. Tom Phillips started out by saying that the channel's programming was "awful" and questioned why the space wasn't given to other arts organizations. Don Vaughan, an attorney, questioned whether GCTV fit the legal requirements to be given space in the center.

Although the council eventually voted 6-2 to approve the lease (Phillips and Vaughan voted no), the message from the council was that when the contract with Time Warner Cable expires in three years, there will be no more funding for GCTV.

"You're not going to get any money out of this council in 3 years unless you dramatically change the programming that you've got," Robbie Perkins said.

We'll have more on this to come.

In case you haven't heard, Dell has picked Winston-Salem for its new assembly plant.

Go read our coverage here.

What does this mean for you? Guilford County and Greensboro taxpayers are off the hook for the combined $12.4 million their governments offered the company. But if you're in Winston-Salem or Forsyth, get ready to shell out $30 million in incentives. The city-county utility commission there will donate about $7 million in land.

Go see analysis of the various offers here.

One of the many unknowns in the derby for Dell has been what exactly High Point was offering to lure the company here. The city never held a public hearing on their proposed incentive package, unlike Guilford County and Greensboro.

So, in a lot of the reporting you've seen so far (and will see tomorrow) you'll see a lot of references to Greensboro and Guilford County offering more than $12 million. But the references to High Point's offer will be very squishy, if it's mentioned at all.

Well, now that the chase is over, it looks like High Point is (finally) going to tell everyone what it was willing to pony up. This came via e-mail from Loren Hill, head of High Point's economic development arm:

-----Original Message-----
From: Loren Hill [mailto:Loren.Hill@highpointnc.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 3:59 PM
Subject: High Point news conference on Thursday

Members of the media:

Following the news that Dell has selected a site in Winston-Salem, Mayor Smothers has announced that a news conference will be held on Thursday, Dec. 23, at 9:30 a.m. The City of High Point and the High Point Economic Development Corp. will discuss the incentives package that the City had proposed to Dell.

The news conference will be held in the City Council Chambers on the third floor of the High Point Municipal Building, 211 S. Hamilton St.

--Loren Hill
-------------------------------------------
High Point USA -- Where Technology & Tradition Thrive:
North Carolina's International City
Loren Hill, President
High Point Economic Development Corporation
P. O. Box 230, High Point, NC 27261

It looks like Gov. Mike Easley, or at least the boys over in his press office, have a little extra time on their hands with Christmas approaching.

From a press release sent out Thursday afternoon:

"By the powers vested in me as governor of this great state, I am hereby lifting the ban on reindeer coming into North Carolina on Christmas Eve and during the early morning hours on Christmas Day," Easley said. "This temporary reprieve only applies to 'flying reindeer' who are pulling Santa's sleigh across our state borders to bring toys and goodies to all the good little girls and boys."

In case you're wondering, North Carolina has an importation ban on reindeer and other similar critters to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease.

Read the whole press release here.

Matt's computer is sick, but he's still hard at work. As if you needed proof, here's Mr. Williams' latest offering:

Over the past few weeks, a good hundred or so members of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce have emailed the city council in support of economic incentives for Dell Computer's manufacturing plant. Although Dell decided to pick Winston-Salem instead, the council said they have gotten the message that incentives are no longer a dirty word.

But earlier this month, one business owner bucked the trend and sent a message to council members saying he'd rather have lower taxes than more incentives:

Scoop was browsing on Guilford County's homepage when we ran across something that we hadn't seen before.

It turns out you can look up the health inspection grade of your favorite restaurant online - at least if it's in Guilford County.

The grades posted were from inspections done between 9/28 and 12/28. They include everything from sit-down places to school cafeterias to sports bars and gentlemen's clubs.

Hey, they even posted the grade for Skip's Dog House, owned by county commissioner Melvin "Skip" Alston.

The N.C. Board of Elections has ordered a news statewide election in the Commissioner of Agriculture race.

Candidate, winner of the first round and Guilford County farmer Steve Troxler said he will appeal that ruling to Superior Court.

Temporary story on the ruling here. More will be in tomorrow's paper.

Updates after the jump.