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It’s like Mad magazine, only with a Greensboro flavor.
The blogger Beth at Greensboring.com has created a slide show featuring fairly ordinary pictures of Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday. But Beth yucks it up by putting funny captions underneath.
Such as a befuddled-looking Holliday asking, "Why is no one paying attention to me?"
And the mayor at his stiffest saying, "Look important. Look important."
Warning: Mild profanity.
Hey, Scoop remembers something about Greensboro being named a finalist for a prestigious All-American City designation. Whatever happened with that?
Nothing. Consider it a victim of a tight budget year.
Brian Cockman, a city spokesman, said Greensboro was indeed one of 34 cities selected as finalists for the honor.
But the city opted not to send a delegation to the California-based competition this year, he said, because of budget constraints.
Cockman went alone to the West Coast, where he observed how other cities presented themselves.
The new goal? Making Greensboro an All-American City in 2008, the city's bicentennial year.
Tomorrow, we'll have a story that looks at the fallout from comments made by Marcus Kindley, chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, about homosexuality.
The N.C. Advocacy Coalition, a gay rights group, is demanding an apology from Kindley over comments that homosexuality is "as natural as pedophilia."
Read Kindley's comments here.
If you'd like to see some of what NCAC Executive Director Matt Hill Comer has to say, click here.
Oh, and make sure to read my story tomorrow, for cryin' out loud.
The N.C. Advocacy Coalition, the gay rights group founded by Matt Hill Comer, continues to push for an apology from Marcus Kindley. This press release deals with the chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party's appearance on Murphy in the Morning this a.m.
This one shows that another gay advocacy group has joined the discussion.
We'll have this brief in the paper tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend, everybody.
Forsyth County commissioners are ready to name a new county manager, and it isn't interim Guilford County manager David McNeill.
Forsyth commissioners are "focusing their search" to Granville County Manager J. Dudley Watts, according to a news release issued Friday. Longtime chief executive Graham Pervier announced earlier this year that he was retiring Oct. 1.
Watts has the commissioners' backing and should be appointed July 24, commissioner David Plyler said Friday.
McNeill was named Guilford's interim manager after Guilford commissioners fired Willie Best June 29. Some of Best's supporters on the board claimed he was ousted to keep McNeill, then Best’s deputy, from leaving to take the Forsyth job, among other reasons.
McNeill interviewed for the Forsyth post but has declined to comment on it publicly.
A few weeks back, we wrote about how Greensboro City Council members were putting careful thought into the order in which the 11 bond items should appear on the November ballot.
They're putting just as much thought into how the bonds should be named.
On Tuesday night, the council will consider making the following changes:
$9 million Aquatic Center Bonds = $9 million Swimming Center Bonds
$5.5 million War Memorial Stadium Bonds = $5.5 million War Memorial Baseball Stadium Bonds
$5.2 Municipal Building Bonds = $5.2 million Public Building Renovation Bonds
For those of you who think this word worry is much ado about nothing (please note our second Shakespeare reference), I have one word: natatorium.
Just a reminder that several members of Greensboro City Council will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the Truth and Reconciliation's report on the Klan/Nazi shootings. It'll be held in the plaza level conference room at City Hall.
The meeting is open - anyone can show up to listen. But only council members will be allowed to talk. We'll have an article about it in Wednesday's newspaper.
You neighborhood activists - and I certainly don't mean David Wharton - might be interested in visiting this part of the City of Greensboro's Web site.
There's information there about Neighborhood Conservation Overlay districts. NCOs would give neighborhoods more control about future development without going to the extreme of becoming an historic district. My assistant, Jim Schlosser, wrote about this subject on July 13.
There's a mistake in my article today about the council's discussion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report.
I said that Tom Phillips declared he wouldn't read the summary report. I should have typed full report instead of summary report. He read the executive summary a while back, and I've quoted him saying that in the past. He has said he didn't see anything in the executive summary that made him want to read the full report.
I'm the latest in a long line of city hall reporters who have learned the hard way that Tom will hold you accountable for every single word in your story. He believes, like we do, that every story should be 100 percent accurate. That's a good quality for him to have.
We'll run a correction in the newspaper tomorrow.
Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday is a frequent critic of this newspaper. This morning, during a break at the city council's monthly briefing session, he shared his latest concern (in a friendly, nonaggressive manner, I should add).
Last week, the city council discussed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report on the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings. The mayor took exception to this headline: 'City finally joins "truth" dialogue.' He said the word finally smacked of editorializing, and readers shouldn't see that on presumably objective news pages. Things like that erode the public's trust in the newspaper, he said.
Hey - it was either blog the mayor's comments or the discussion on Land Development Ordinance Module 1B.
In 2004, the city set out on this ambitious program to inspect the 62,000 rental units.
Here's some data on first inspections for 2005 and 2006.
Tax man Jenks Crayton, who was suspended last year, is still drawing fire from his bosses.
County commissioner Paul Gibson told Allen Johnson that he wants Crayton out as Guilford's tax director. Gibson's stance is significant because he was one of the Democrats who helped reinstate Crayton following a state investigation last spring.
"A terrible, terrible manager," Gibson said of Crayton, who has held the job since 1997. "I don't think he has any people skills. I'm still getting calls from employees over there."
Crayton is serving a four-year term that ends June 30, 2007. Sometime before that, commissioners will face the prospect of reappointing him, and Gibson says Crayton won't get his vote.
Remember this? Something about sun, surf and thousands of county officials?
But nobody's going to Hawaii for this year's National Association of Counties annual conference. Instead, county leaders will travel to Cook County, Ill., home to Chicago, which will host the event in early August.
So far, Democratic Guilford County commissioners Kay Cashion, Bruce Davis and Paul Gibson have registered for the conference. Davis and Gibson, you'll recall, went to Hawaii last year. The trip cost taxpayers about $6,000.
This year, airfare, conference registration and hotel reservations are costing taxpayers about $3,900 - and counting. (Cashion hadn't finished her bookings as of early this afternoon, according to county staff.)
We'll keep you posted.
Friday update: Cashion's hotel and flight reservations are in, totaling about $1,550. Looks like this trip's going to cost taxpayers well over $5,000.
Those totals don't include potential expenses such as taxi rides and food. We'll give you the final tally when the commissioners return from the trip and file their expense reports.
Guilford is among 32 counties that raised property taxes this year, according to the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.
Sixty counties kept taxes steady, including Durham, Cumberland and Forsyth. Mecklenburg and six other counties saw tax decreases.
Guilford's rate hike, which adds $18.70 to the tax bill for the owner of a $100,000 home, was the county's fifth tax increase in six years.
GREENSBORO — Want to sound off on the 11 bond items on the November ballot?
The Greensboro City Council will hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Monday on the proposed items, which total about $115 million worth of projects. They are:
• $36 million War Memorial Auditorium Bonds
• $24.5 million Fire Station Bonds
• $10 million Economic Development Bonds
• $9 million Swimming Center Bonds
• $8.6 million Library Facilities Bonds
• $5.5 million War Memorial Baseball Stadium Bonds
• $5.3 million Greensboro Historical Museum Bonds
• $5.2 million Public Building Renovation Bonds
• $5 million Parks and Recreational Facilities Bonds
• $5 million International Civil Rights Museum Bonds
• $850,000 Neighborhood Redevelopment Bonds
The hearing will be held in the council’s chambers, Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 W. Washington St.
Here's the story from today's paper on the Commission on the Status of Women.
What do you think should be the commission's focus?