Town meeting report
I'm just back from a town meeting at the Greensboro Historical Museum hosted by Greensboro's District 2 representative, Goldie Wells.
Among her goals is building a strong district by building strong neighborhoods. She encouraged the more than 75 people who came out for Monday's meeting to get to know their neighbors and get involved in their neighborhoods, for instance, through neighborhood watch programs to combat crime.
Wells and four other council members - Mayor Keith Holliday, Sandra Anderson, Yvonne Johnson and Dianne Bellamy-Small - also took audience questions that ranged from concerns about dilapidated housing in certain neighborhoods to the value of the city's Comprehensive Plan and city efforts to attract jobs.
An audience member questioned whether the time and money spent developing the Comprehensive Plan was worth it, given its frequent amending by council.
Holliday defended the plan, saying that it's not amended as often as it appears. If an average council meeting has 4-5 zoning cases, he said, only 1 or 2 usually involve amending the comp plan. The plan, he said, "is a road map, not a doctrine."
Wells hit again on the need for neighborhoods to organize if they see a development or comp plan amendment they don't like and lobby the council to reject it. "Band together - prove your point," she said.
A couple of attendees asked what the city is doing to bring jobs to the eastern side of the city.
Johnson talked about the need to have development-ready sites around the city with necessary infrastructure like water and sewer lines in place, while Bellamy-Small spoke of the need to use incentives to not only attract big businesses like Dell, but smaller businesses. Businesses will also be attracted if the crime rate drops and the area's look is improved, Bellamy-Small said.
Monday's forum is the first of several planned that will involve council members, said Donna Newton with the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress.
The next forum is scheduled to feature Bellamy-Small, Newton said, though she didn't specify a date.
Update: David Hoggard has his own report from the meeting.