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To commemorate Fair Housing Month in April, Greensboro and the Greensboro Housing Coalition are offering several events for tenants and landlords to learn more about their rights and responsibilities.
Click here for more info.
A committee in charge of finding an architect for the new Guilford County jail has asked for more information from Moseley Architects of Virginia, one of two finalists for the job.
A committee member indicated that Richmond-based Moseley, with offices in Charlotte and Morrisville, had made a strong proposal. The other company in the running is HOK, a large firm based in St. Louis.
The county has been looking for a jail architect since last year. The new jail will likely be located behind the existing overcrowded facility along Sycamore Street in downtown Greensboro, though a nearby tract now occupied by the Otto Zenke building at Eugene and Washington streets has not been ruled out. The existing jail will be renovated and remain open.
Next, the committee, composed of county staff and commissioners, will recommend that either Moseley or HOK design the jail. The commissioners could approve the recommendation in May, and then the architect will get to work.
Cost estimates for the jail now being thrown around in county circles range from $50 million to $60 million, though that could change as the commissioners figure out how to come up with the money.
There was a little hubbub among Guilford County commissioners last year over the northwest planning office in Oak Ridge, which doles out building permits.
Commissioners ordered the office closed as part of the annual budget, peeving builders in the growing area. Later, some commissioners expressed interest in keeping the office open if one of the towns in the area donated office space.
I called county planning director Greg Niles for an update, and he left this message on my voicemail:
"We did send a termination letter for the lease at the northwest office. Our lease of that ends the last day of June of this year. We do have some dialogue going with some of our town partners in the northwest and I'd like to kind of broach the subject with the commissioners as to whether or not they would entertain a continuation if an opportunity arose.
"But right now, we are still operating out of the northwest office, and will continue to do so until June 30. And if there’s a change, we we will be sure to let the customers know."
Greensboro City Council will pick up April 18 its discussion on what to put on a potential 2006 bond referendum.
They'll meet at 3:30 p.m., two hours before that night's regularly scheduled council meeting.
What do you want to see as part of the bond referendum? (As a quick refresher, a story from late last month describing some potential projects can be found after the jump.)
I spent part of the afternoon over at the Greensboro Coliseum for the monthly meeting of the War Memorial Commission, the arena's advisory body.
Coliseum officials are still talking with one potential owner about bringing an ECHL team to the coliseum next year. Managing Director Matt Brown spent six hours on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the week of the men's ACC Tournament talking with a person he wouldn't identify about bringing a hockey team back to Lee Street.
The unidentified owner would still have to purchase a team and secure league permission to move the franchise to Greensboro.
The proposed 2006-07 coliseum budget submitted last week to the city manager's office assumes the arena won't have a hockey tenant next year.
Speaking of budgets, the coliseum is currently projected to run a smaller deficit than projected during 2005-06 - about $1.6 million, or roughly $192,000 less than the budgeted deficit of about $1.82 million. An increase in concert bookings and higher attendance for family and consumer shows helped cut the deficit, along with a large increase in concessions revenue.
Next year's projected deficit is about $1.77 million. The slight increase is attributed to the absence of the men's ACC and NCAA tournament games the coliseum hosted this year.
Speaking of the ACC and NCAA tournaments, here are a couple of fun facts from the 28 basketball games the coliseum hosted in March: 10,000 barbeque sandwiches and 90,000 souvenir cups of soda were sold during Greensboro's run as "Tournament Town."
Update (4/7): More from the meeting - including a "Michael Jordan" sighting - at Sandy Carmany's blog.
It almost never fails. We write a story about a drought, and the next day the skies are gray and there's a chance of rain.
According to The Weather Channel's Web site (owned by the same company that owns this paper), there's a 30 percent chance of rain today and an 80 percent chance of rain Saturday. Sadly, that won't be enough to end the drought and ensure a summer of guilt-free lawn watering.
For more information on the drought conditions facing Guilford County and the entire state, click here.
It was always hard to track Judy Mendenhall’s comings and goings in High Point. But with a new transportation terminal named after her, it may get a bit easier.
She was the city’s former mayor and council member, president of the High Point Chamber of Commerce, and executive director of the High Point Substance Abuse Coalition. She even found time to serve as the business manager for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival and the director of development for Westchester Academy.
This month, she will bid farewell to one of her most challenging roles, president of the International Home Furnishings Market Authority, a non-profit group that oversees services to one of the state’s largest economic events the International Home Furnishings Market in downtown High Point.
But her service to High Point isn’t quite done. She will serve on a part-time basis with Open Door Ministries, a non-profit shelter in High Point. Mendenhall will work with the group’s finances.
City officials decided her contributions to the city shouldn’t go unnoticed, and named the transportation terminal on Commerce Avenue - which she lobbied state and federal legislators to put in place – for her namesake. Shuttle buses, taxi services and even school buses will be able to use the new Mendenhall station, which was completed last October.
“When I told my youngest granddaughter in New Hampshire about it, she said ‘Take a picture and send it to me, because no one believes how important I am up here,’” Mendenhall quipped at a recent High Point Economic Development Corporation board meeting.
--written by staff writer Sue Schultz
For two of Greensboro City Council's three budget review committees that are examining the programs and spending of each city department.
The new schedules are below:
Committee C (council members Mike Barber, Dianne Bellamy-Small and Sandy Carmany)
Committee B (council members Florence Gatten, Keith Holliday and Goldie Wells)
Update: Committee C's 8:30 a.m. meeting April 11 has been cancelled.
We could've heard something today from the N.C. Supreme Court on the disputed Guilford County commissioner election.
The players are incumbent Trudy Wade and challenger John Parks. Details here.
But we heard nothing. The Court issued a batch of rulings after its April conference, but the Guilford case wasn't among them.
The next conference is May 4.
City offices in Greensboro will be closed Friday to commemorate Good Friday. The holiday is also jumbling garbage collections schedules.
For a full list of what city services are impacted this Easter weekend, click here.
Greensboro is the lone North Carolina locality among 34 cities vying for a 2006 All-America City award.
The award recognizes residents, businesses, governments and nonprofit groups "demonstrate successful resolution of critical community issues," according to a city news release.
Ten cities from among the finalists will be chosen for the award, which Greensboro won in 1966 and 1991. This year's award winners will be announced in June.
I talked this afternoon with Greensboro City Council member Goldie Wells, who plans to be at Tuesday's council meeting after undergoing treatment last month for breast cancer.
Diagnosed with cancer last month, Wells underwent a masectomy at the end of March. She found out last week that she will not require chemotherapy or radiation treatments, though she will take hormone therapy pills for the next five years.
Elected to the District 2 seat in November, Wells missed a council briefing session March 28 and a council meeting April 4 while dealing with her illness.
She thanked her doctors and credited prayers from friends for aiding her recovery.
"There’s power in prayer," she said. "I have not felt sick or anything, which has been a blessing and a miracle to me."
Guilford County commissioners might award a contract to Moseley Architects of Richmond, Va., to design the new county jail in downtown Greensboro.
A vote could come Thursday, though there's been talk of delaying matter while commissioners discuss the issue further.
The cost? $2.9 million for the design and engineering services, plus an extra $300,000 for environmental assessments and other costs.
The commissioners still haven't decided how to pay for the jail. The total cost could run between $50 million and $60 million.
We'll have a story in tomorrow's (Tuesday's) paper on police response times based on a police department report the city manager's office sent to each City Council member. Copies were also left for the media in the executive offices at the Melvin Municipal Office Building.
We tried scanning in our copy of the report Monday to put it on our Web site, but I'm told that pages of the report kept jamming in the scanner.
We'll try again Tuesday to scan the full report in and make it available online.
You may have seen this story on Greensboro City Council's 8-1 vote to ask themselves to voluntarily take lie-detector tests on whether any of them leaked an investigative report on the police department to the News & Record.
What are your thoughts on the situation?
The city of Greensboro's finance department - for the 31st consecutive year - has won the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.
Here's the city's news release.
Also, the City Council budget committee comprised of Sandra Anderson Groat, Yvonne Johnson and Tom Phillips has canceled its 3:30 p.m. meeting today to review the transportation department. A new date for the meeting hasn't been scheduled.
Got an e-mail this morning from George W. Maschke (home address: The Hague, The Netherlands), referring me and Greensboro City Council members to his Web site.
As you might guess from the site's name, Maschke isn't a big fan of polygraph exams.
The city plans to spend around $5,000 on polygraph exams for eight City Council members who have volunteered to take them to answer questions about who leaked an investigative report on the police department to the News & Record.
The new estimate from Raleigh-based Risk Management Associates is higher than the initial estimate of around $4,000, City Manager Mitchell Johnson said Monday, because it includes what he describes as a "pre-interview." The pre-interview is designed to get a feel for how people react to questions when they're not on the polygraph machine, Johnson said.
Johnson expects to sign an agreement with RMA this week. He's not sure when the polygraphs will take place - he expects the consultants to contact council members individually to set up times for their exams.
Council members have said they plan to pay for the polygraphs from their travel budget. Every council member except Dianne Bellamy-Small has said they will take the exam.
Previous News & Record coverage of the police investigation and the leak probe can be found here.
Update (4/25): Mitchell Johnson said Tuesday that work is underway to schedule council members for their "pre-interviews" this week, with hopes of doing the actual polygraph exams next week.
Fire stations. Libraries. Renovations to War Memorial Auditorium and War Memorial Stadium. They’ve made the first cut.
Greensboro residents could get to vote in November on those and other items after City Council on Tuesday compiled a preliminary list of projects totaling $117 million for an expected bond referendum. Each council member presented a wish list, then council reached consensus on which projects it wanted on the list or wanted to discuss further.
One project not on the list that may come up for discussion is a swimming center, including an Olympic-size pool and seating for 1,500 proposed by residents as part of a new YWCA of Greensboro. The pricetag would be $7.5 million.
The list isn’t final; council members will continue their discussion at 4 p.m. Tuesday. But some council members said it’s unlikely the total cost of the bond package would rise.
“This is the high level. I think we’re going to cut it down,” said Mayor Keith Holliday, who’d like to see the total package closer to $100 million.
The estimated tax impact for $100 million in bonds is 2.25 cents in 2007-08, equaling an extra $37.50 for the owner of a $150,000 home.
The preliminary list follows after the jump - please share your thoughts on what you'd support and what you think is missing.
Over at his blog, David Hoggard isn't too pleased about City Council's preliminary direction on renovation plans for War Memorial Stadium.
Council chose the least-expensive option among three devised by a committee that included Hoggard (who's also a freelance columnist for the News & Record). The $4 million option would leave the stadium with 1,500 seats and would fence off deteriorating seating down the left-field line.
The option recommended by the committee would cost $5.5 million, leaving the stadium with 2,500 seats. It also would involve a more extensive renovation that would include demolishing the seats down the left-field line and replacing them with a raised, paved terrace.
At least for now, no money was included for the committee's recommendation to create a park around the stadium, the former home of the Greensboro Bats.
If you're unhappy about this or any other portion of City Council's preliminary bond list, they'll next discuss the topic May 2 at 4 p.m. at the Melvin Municipal Office Building.
They're out for the May primary.