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We couldn't get a few items in the dead-trees account of Thursday's Guilford County commmissioners meeting, so here's some additional tidbits for your review:

- Sheriff BJ Barnes defended his decision to equip school officers with Tasers. The commissioners couldn't do much about it anyway because the sheriff controls what weapons his officers carry.

Also at the meeting was freshly anointed Democratic sheriff's candidate Berkley Blanks. It'll be interesting to see how the Taser issue affects the general-election campaign.

More on Tasers in schools here.

- And in what is becoming a regular feature of these meetings, the commissioners released 26 positions from the countywide hiring freeze enacted in February. This batch includes a dozen social services caseworkers, a dentist and a psychiatrist.

There's all sorts of fun data in the latest compilation of county salaries put out by the UNC School of Government.

You've got salaries for the Guilford commissioners (now second-highest in the state since Mecklenburg has pulled ahead), the county manager, county attorney, sheriff ... all your five-and-six-figure favorites.

Some salaries are curious (Johnston County has the highest-paid health director in the state?), but in general the salaries correspond to the county's population.

Coming soon to a webcast near you: Skip Alston, Billy Yow and all the rest of your Guilford County political favorites.

The county wants to buy computer gear that allows video of county meetings to be broadcast online. If commissioners approve the $75,000 web services contract next week, searchable meeting minutes, agendas and videos would be available, too.

Government diehards have been watching the commissioners for years on the local-government access channel, but this would be the first time the board's meetings would be broadcast on the Internet.

Greensboro has a similar system. So do Mecklenburg, Onslow and other North Carolina counties.

If the commissioners approve the contract, the meetings could be online by September.

After a big tax increase last year, Mecklenburg County cut property taxes for 2006-07.

From the Charlotte Observer: "The reduction, (county commissioners) say, is possible because of an increase in the value of property in the county, because of proceeds expected from the lottery, and because they are putting less money into a pay-as-you-go savings account for construction."

Mecklenburg's pay-as-you-go account allows the county to pay for some construction with cash instead of debt. The account is similar (sort of) to the Legacy Fund proposal that's been kicking around Guilford County for years.

Speaking of Guilford, commissioners have increased property taxes four of the past five years, and the county manager has recommended another tax hike for next year.

Some of interest to local folks who may not read our capital blog:

“Sit-In Movement, Inc., a non-profit organization, has secured a grant from Save America’s Treasures in the amount of $148,152 to preserve the historic former F. W. Woolworth Store located at 134 South Elm Street, Greensboro in Guilford County.”

Click here for more.

Guilford County is auctioning off all sorts of goodies on Saturday, from lawn mowers to pocket knives to undercover cars.

Sale starts at 9 a.m. at the Agricultural Center at 3309 Burlington Road in Greensboro.

A median built on Hill Street has done more than divide two sides of the street. It has highlighted a divide among neighbors who use the street to get to and from their homes.

Some neighbors in the area complain that the median, which reduced the street from two lanes each way to one lane northbound and two lanes southbound, increases the buildup of traffic in the neighborhood.

But Marsh Prause, a member of the board of directors of the Westerwood Neighborhood Association, which led the effort to have the median built, said the project promotes the walkability of the neighborhood and slows cut-through traffic.

Do you live in the neighborhood or drive through? What do you think?

Hi, readers of the Inside Scoop. I'm Margaret Banks, the new city government reporter. I'm taking over for Eric Swensen, who departed recently to edit a medical journal in Virginia.

I've been at the paper for more than 11 years (plus I worked three years at two other papers), and in that time I've covered a little bit of everything. Some of you who remember seeing the picture that ran with my religion column (1998-2001) may be asking this: Margaret, how can you, a mere slip of a child, already have 14+ years of experience in journalism? Simple: I was 12 when they hired me.

But I digress. I'm looking forward to covering city government, and I hope to post frequently on this blog.

We'll have two city-related stories in the paper tomorrow: One outlining the bond projects that will appear on the November ballot, and another that will reveal how much our city property taxes will go up.

Looks like National Night Out, scheduled for Aug. 1, will push the city council's public hearing on the bonds back to July 31.

The hearing will be your chance to talk about the 10 (make that 11, once the council approves the library bond next week) items on the ballot in November.

Any initial thoughts? The sit-in museum? The old stadium? The swim center? Surely someone has something to say about these projects.

The city council spent Tuesday morning hashing out what order 11 projects should be listed on the November bond referendum.

Here's the order they tentatively agreed to:

1. $24.5 million for fire stations
2. $5.2 million for public building renovation
3. $10 million for economic development
4. $$8.6 million for libraries
5. $5.3 million for the Greensboro Historical Museum
6. $36 million for War Memorial Auditorium
7. $5 million for parks and recreation
8. $850,000 for neighborhood redevelopment
9. $5.5 million for War Memorial (baseball) Stadium
10. $9 million for a swimming center
11. $5 million for the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (needs $5 million in matching funds)

The final order won't be settled until July 18. Keep this in mind: The way I worded this isn't necessarily the way they'll appear on the ballot. Council members will discuss that later.

Why all this talk about what order bond items appear on the ballot? There's a science to it, says Councilwoman Florence Gatten, a long-time political consultant. Lead with something strong, something with plenty of support, she advised. Then place other popular projects between the not-so-popular ones to garner maximum attention.

End with something you don't want overlooked, she added.

Funny stuff today at the beginning of this morning's televised Greensboro City Council meeting (the one where they passed the budget).

Councilman Mike Barber read a resolution - which the council approved 9-0 - congratulating the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team on its Stanley Cup win earlier this month. You might remember the Canes played at the Greensboro Coliseum for a couple of years.

The resolution contained a few, uh, overstatements that made this southern girl snicker. Like the Stanley Cup being described as "the most prestigious and coveted trophy in all of professional sports."

Anyway, Mike Barber finished up by saying: "The television audience at home can't see this, but the entire Hurricanes team is in our audience and we will present this to them."

Recent history tells us this about Greensboro’s property tax rate: It's not likely to rise during election years.

Council members have raised taxes four times since 1996. In fact, they voted Tuesday to raise the rate by 4.75 cents, one of the largest increases in a decade or more.

Of those four increases, only one of came during a year when their seats were at stake – in 1997, when the board raised the rate by a penny.

Since '97, the council has boosted taxes only in non-election years.

That may be true, says Mayor Keith Holliday. But the inference that it happened for political reasons is wrong, he says.

Tax increases have more to do with circumstances, he says. Past bonds come due and need paying off. The economy weakens and growth falls flat. The state jerks funding and the city has to make up for it.

Citizens trust most elected leaders not to make decisions based on votes, Holliday says.

"I’m not going to say people don’t think about that,” he said, "but that’s not doing the people’s work."

Last year – an election year – Holliday pushed hard to keep the tax rate flat. He ran unopposed.

Attending last night's county commissioners meeting (the one where Manager Willie Best was fired):

Mitchell Johnson and Ben Brown - manager and assistant manager, respectively, for the City of Greensboro - there to lend support.