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Scoop just got its hands on the latest report of fundraising from Greensboro City Council candidates.

In the lead for fundraising in the month of September is mayor pro-tem Yvonne Johnson with $12,945, though the overall lead still rests with at-large candidate Don Vaughan with $34,575 raised this election cycle.

The reports were due in Saturday, and the Board of Elections is still waiting for reports from Florence Gatten, Dianne Bellamy-Small and Janet Wallace.

As before, we've scanned in the reports for you to read and a brief summary of the report:

...just came in from the Board of Elections. They are from:

Republican Guilford County commissioner Billy Yow has been barking up a storm (scroll to bottom) lately about county cell phone bills for commissioners and rank-and-file employees.

He says the county needs to find ways to save money on the handheld devices and hold users accountable for their calls. He even wanted to bar commissioners from using county-provided phones, but couldn't get a majority of the board to go along with him. Most of the board's Democrats carry county cell phones.

Scoop checked into it and found that the county's wireless communications bill has more than doubled over the past five years. In 2004-05, the county spent $475,577 spread over two wireless plans.

The county's overall budget, meanwhile, grew by about 18 percent from 2000-01 to 2004-05.

At its last meeting, the board ordered county manager Willie Best to draw up a cell-phone plan for the county and look at ways to save money on phone plans. That means we'll probably hear more about this soon.

It's not much of a report, to be honest. Just one candidate - incumbent Mayor Becky Smothers - has passed the $3,000 threshold in fundraising or spending that mandates a finance report. The first round of campaign finance filings for High Point City Council candidates were due earlier this week.

Check out all her donors here.

Her largest single contribution came from High Point University President Nido Qubein, who gave $1,000. He gave the same amount to Smothers' 2003 campaign.

There are also several contributions from realtors and real estate developers, including $300 from the N.C. Realtors PAC.

Scoop has been eager to keep abreast of campaign comings and goings from the candidates' web sites. In the first campaign since Howard Dean's Internet strategy, many candidates started web sites and blogs to share their views.

But a look at the candidates' sites is like a trip in the Wayback Machine.

... we don't know yet. We're not expecting a result in the race for state NAACP president between Greensboro's Melvin "Skip" Alston and Goldsboro's Rev. William Barber until after 6 p.m. Voting was supposed to wrap up by 3 p.m. but got started late so their keeping the vote open late.

We'll definitely have a story in tomorrow's paper. Time permitting, I'll also post an update and let you know who won tonight.

Update: More on this race: here, at Capital Beat.

The Rev. William Barber of Goldsboro will be the new president of the North Carolina NAACP. He defeated Melvin "Skip" Alston of Greensboro, a Guilford County commissioner who has held the post since 1996.

More in tomorrow's paper.

In other news from the election, County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman was elected first vice president of the group.

Just a reminder: Polls are open today. Learn more about the candidates here.

Early word on turnout is that it's pretty slim. My colleague Eric Swensen saw three voters at the polls over a period of two hours. Primary turnouts are typically low, and with rain, no mayoral race this year and no overarching issues (think baseball stadium) it's not surprising.

Does it have to be this way? Greensboro could opt to have an election/runoff system like Raleigh's vote today, where if a candidate tops 50 percent in October, they win outright on the spot. That would make the first vote a little more meaningful. Or there could be no primary like in Guilford County's smaller towns and save everything for a November general election.

Thoughts?

We goofed in our results box today on page B1. The accompanying story was correct, and Luther T. Falls Jr. indeed advanced to the general election Nov. 8 with a second-place finish in the District 1 primary. Falls had 231 votes, or 23 percent, and finished behind incumbent Dianne Bellamy-Small. Charles Coffey, with 140 votes, was the third-place finisher and is eliminated.

The error occurred when the story moved from one newsroom desk to another. The results for Falls and Coffey were accidentally flopped when page B1 was assembled.

We goofed in our results box today on page B1. The accompanying story was correct, and Luther T. Falls Jr. indeed advanced to the general election Nov. 8 with a second-place finish in the District 1 primary. Falls had 231 votes, or 23 percent, and finished behind incumbent Dianne Bellamy-Small. Charles Coffey, with 140 votes, was the third-place finisher and is eliminated.

According to government editor Eddie Wooten, the error occurred when the story moved from one newsroom desk to another. The results for Falls and Coffey were accidentally flopped when page B1 was assembled.

We apologize for the error.

Roch Smith asks where we can get precinct reports for Tuesday's primary vote.

We've got them here at Inside Scoop, fresh this morning from the Board of Elections. You can read the report here in Excel spreadsheet format.

A note: Last night, Elections Director George Gilbert passed out printed copies of the spreadsheet that included results for all the precincts. This morning, when I asked for the electronic version, I was told that precincts with fewer than 10 votes had their results consolidated into a single entry. The reasoning is that it would be possible, for instance, to find out who was the lone person that voted in the North Deep River precinct and know who that person voted for.

But with the paper copy in hand, I was able to reconstruct the consolodated precincts. I understand the thinking behind consolidating results, but we generally opt for full disclosure when possible.

As many Scoop readers know, Greensboro City Council elections are non-partisan. In fact, Scoop's written about that fact before, here and here.

Of course, there are some folks who think adding partisan seasoning to the political stew would spice things up around here and maybe draw more interest and/or turnout to elections.

The chief proponent of this theory is Marcus Kindley, the local Republican Party Chairman.

Kindley's most recent post on the topic drew this response from JW, who begs to differ.

The primary argument in Guilford County against making the City Council partisan is that they shouldn't do anything to emulate the County Commissioners, a partisan body that sometimes gets too tied up in partisan wrangling to take care of business. And frankly, the commissioners have obliged those who use that stance as recently as this week.

Kindley seems to have drawn fire from folks who I think sympathize more with Democrats than they do with Republicans, or at least with the local and national Republican organizations. And it strikes me that their tone implies that the GOP, or at least one Republican leader, is sort of whacky for even suggesting such a move.

But here's the thing:

Skip Alston took about 90 seconds at Thursday's Guilford County commissioners meeting to address his failed attempt to win another term as state NAACP president, a post he'd held since 1996.

Alston lost the election to Rev. William Barber, a Goldsboro minister. Another Guilford commissioner, Carolyn Coleman, was elected the group's first vice president. More on this at Allen Johnson's place.

I've provided a partial transcript of Alston's statements below, paraphrasing some parts because my recording is kinda crummy. He made his remarks at a point near the end of the meeting when commissioners can pretty much talk about anything they want.

"And as far as the NAACP election, I am happy with the election. Everybody wants to win, of course, but the gentleman that is now the president, I totally support him 100 percent. I know him very well. He’s going to do an excellent job for the NAACP. Mrs. Coleman is the first vice president of the NAACP. And I’m going to support them 110 percent.

"So there's no malice whatsoever with me and the NAACP. And I've always said: it's not the person that’s at the top, it's the people that’s at the bottom that matters."

He talked about the organization's goals of fighting racial discrimination and promoting fairness and justice.

"So I don't want anyone to think that Skip is ... hurt or in mourning or anything. That’s not the case whatsoever ..."

"And sometimes," he added near the end of his remarks, "change is good."

He closed by reminding everybody that he still serves on the state and national NAACP boards.

At Tuesday night's city council meeting, at-large candidate Joel Landau asked the council to make more information available to residents about the items they discuss at their meetings.

Specifically, Landau wants the city to make available the "backup information," a packet of information that council members, department heads and members of the media are given on the Thursday before each council meeting.

Most members of the public routinely get only the agenda, a 2-3 page listing of the items to be considered and a one sentence description of the item. See the latest agenda here. But along with the agenda, we are given a photocopy of information that explains what each item on the agenda is. For the most recent meeting, it was 70 double-sided pages (140 pages if it were a PDF).

Any resident could request to get the backup information, but Landau wants to make it as accessible as the agenda for folks who want to see it. For instance, a recurring agenda item is the approval of loans or grants made by the city, but only in the backup material is the listing of who is getting money and how much.

Newly appointed City Manager Mitchell Johnson told Landau that most of the backup material is available on the web (if they do, I can't find it anywhere) but that some things might be technically difficult to post, such as maps.

Landau sent out a press release about his appearance, and I republish it here for the record.

Landau: City should disclose spending on loans, grants

GREENSBORO -- When it comes to spending taxpayers’ money, Greensboro City Council ought to be more open and accountable to the residents they serve, says city council candidate Joel Landau.

Landau, an at-large candidate, spoke on the importance of accountability in spending at the city council meeting Tuesday. He pointed out that the elected body habitually approves an agenda item for “loans and grants,” yet fails to provide any details about where the funds are going so that residents can decide if their money is being well spent.

“I think citizens should have easy access to seeing how our money is being used,” said Landau. “My suggestion is that when the meeting agenda is posted on the city council website, have a link to the attachment listing the loans and grants.”

At the conclusion of his remarks, Mayor Keith Holliday asked the city manager Mitchell Johnson if it would be possible to follow the suggestion. Johnson replied that there would be a problem posting some attachments on the Internet, such as maps. Landau later said he was disappointed in the lackluster response.

“That was the end of the discussion,” he said. “However, I know from running a business that if you run into technical issues, that’s your cue to talk about how to solve them. I didn’t see any acknowledgement last night that there was a problem.”

Landau also asked the city to take the lead in informing residents about upcoming primary elections. The Oct. 11 primary election drew just 4.3 percent of voters.

“The low voter turnout in last week’s primary election was an embarrassment to our city,” Landau said. He suggested that the council consider alerting residents of upcoming elections through postcard mailings or inserts in water bills.

Landau, 54, is running on a platform which stresses open, accountable government, and citizen involvement in the decisions that affect their lives and neighborhoods. Voters can find out more about him at www.joellandau .com. To schedule an interview or speaking engagement, call 336-315-5440 or email scheduler@JoelLandau.com

I'm pretty sure that Davis is the only blogger on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. Not much up there now, though it appears he got started just a few days ago.

Jeff Thigpen, the county's Register of Deeds and a former commissioner, also maintains a blog.

In the last minutes of Thursday's seemingly interminable Guilford County commissioners meeting (it lasted five hours), Republican Mike Winstead brought up this unannounced nugget: What about term limits for county commissioners?

Winstead, who's approaching his one-year anniversary on the board, spoke favorably of term limits and asked for the board to discuss them sometime next month. Commissioners can't impose term limits; the board would need to ask the General Assembly to pass a law.

(The two longest-serving commissioners are Republican Steve Arnold (elected in 1990) and Democrat Skip Alston (1992). Commissioners serve four-year terms.)

If Winstead starts pushing for term limits in North Carolina, he's facing a mammoth uphill legal battle with the state constitution as his chief adversary. I asked Bob Joyce, assistant director at the Institute of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, for his take on Winstead's idea.

"I think that it would be unconstitutional for the General Assembly to impose term limits on county commissioners in North Carolina," he said.

His colleague, local government expert David Lawrence, agrees.

"We think that the state constitution is standing in the way," he said.

Both men referenced a 1992 N.C. Supreme Court decision, Moore v. Knightdale Board of Elections, in which the court struck down a law that required an office holder to resign from that position before filing to run for another office.

For the rest of the story, I'll turn you over to a 2002 letter from Joyce that was prompted by an inquiry from the N.C. School Boards Association. The group was asking about term limits for school board members. Joyce told me the same legal principles apply for county commissioners.

A portion of the letter is found below.

As some may know from John Robinson's post a while back, I'm taking leave from the paper and city government coverage to train as an Air Force pilot.

Here's the deal as briefly as I can explain it. I go for two years full-time to train. They teach me to fly, then I come back to North Carolina as an Air Force reservist piloting KC-135 aerial refueling tankers out of Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro. After I return from training, I'll spend most of my time as a reporter and 6-8 days a month as a flier.

Today is my last day at the paper before training, so I would like to thank you, dear scoop readers, for sticking with us this last year. My colleague Eric Swensen will be taking over coverage of Greensboro city government, so please contact him if you know something he's be interested in. You can reach him at eswensen@news-record.com.

I am in the process of setting up a blog of my military training, and when it's up and running, I'll have Eric post it here.

synerG, the young professional wing of Action Greensboro, is hosting a forum at 7 p.m. Thursday for Greensboro City Council candidates at the Greensboro Historical Museum, 130 Summit Ave.

The forum will focus on the place of young professionals in Greensboro, how the city can attract and retain young professionals and how to get young professionals to take on leadership and government roles in the city.

The forum will be preceded by a 6:30 p.m. reception.