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Guilford County voters can cast ballots at nearly a dozen early-voting sites prior to Election Day.

Check this schedule for early voting dates, times and locations.

According to a press release from the city:

Mayor Keith Holliday and City Manager Mitch Johnson will give an update regarding the Greensboro Police Department.
WHEN: Friday, October 6, 10:30am
WHERE:Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 West Washington Street, Plaza Level Conference Room

Back on Jan. 2 - just seven days before Greensboro Police Chief David Wray resigned - the city hired a media consultant.

The consultant is Mark Weaver from Columbus, Ohio. According to the contract, the city pays him $200 an hour, but is not allowed to spend more than $10,000. I'm still checking to see how much money taxpayers have spent on this service, but I'm told Weaver was used infrequently.

Pat Boswell, the city's communications director, said she spoke with Weaver earlier this week about the upcoming press conference, but that he didn't charge her.

The contract says the city "desires to receive the benefits of the knowledge and expertise of the consultant to provide review of communications strategy in a critical public trust issue ..."

Heck, if I remember that period correctly, we were offering our "knowledge and expertise" for free!

I'll let you know the total cost as soon as I get it.

There’s lots to say about the press conference at City Hall, led by City Manager Mitchell Johnson, about the ongoing investigation into the police department scandal and former Chief David Wray. We had several folks there, and will update soonest, but let me just throw this out:

Willy Hammer, publisher of the Rhino Times, asked Johnson if tension between Johnson and Wray had anything to do with a rumor that they dated the same woman. Some members of city council, as well as city staffers, laughed out loud.

Johnson patiently explained he started dating his wife when he was a freshman (presumably at UNCG, where he graduated) and married in 1987. He vehemently denied he has ever had an extramarital affair.

Hammer pressed him further, saying he never implied there was an affair, just "dating."

Johnson then said, with a self-effacing grin, that his wife is the only woman he has ever dated.

I was embarrassed the question came up. My colleagues and I always are struggling against an image people have of the media as – how to put this kindly - being obnoxious. That question didn’t help.

Disabled bus riders have a different type of protest scheduled for the next Greensboro City Council meeting.

Riders and supporters of the Specialized Community Area Tranportation service will hold a silent protest at 5 p.m. Oct. 17, just 30 minutes before the start of the council meeting.

The meeting is held on the second floor of the Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 W. Washington St.

Since June, some SCAT riders have made regular visits to city council meetings to complain about the elimination of their $35 unlimited monthly pass. Some have accused council members of being unfair to disabled people.

During the event on the 17th, protesters are urged to stand or raise their hands in silent opposition to the fare increase. According to a press release: "We are concerned that the magnitude of the SCAT paratransit fare increase will have a negative impact on many disabled people's ability to function independently and integrate successfully into the community."

Information: Claire Holmes at 987-4649.

Dale Wyrick has been named the City of Greensboro's director of the field operations department.

It's OK. I didn't know what that means, either.

His department includes solid waste collection, right of way and street maintenance services, and Wyrick will oversee those divisions. He has been interim director since the department was created in January.

He has worked for the city since 1994. He starts his new job Monday and his salary will be $102,667.

In care you missed it, Lex Alexander runs down the zany Internet political scene up in Rockingham County.

Guilford County commissioner Paul Gibson says he'll seek the board chairmanship for next year.

Commissioners choose a chairman during their first meeting in December, but the campaigning often starts well before then. Gibson, a Democrat, says he hasn't started rounding up the five other votes he'll need from his fellow board members to win the post.

"Do I have six votes?" he said. "I don’t have a clue."

The current chair, Democrat Carolyn Coleman, faces re-election this fall. In an interview earlier this week, she didn't say whether she'd seek another term as chairwoman if she wins.

"I'll think about it," she said. "Right now, I've got to get this election won."

It's no surprise that Gibson wants to the chair the board; he talked often about it during his 2004 campaign. But he says he hasn't cut any deals with anyone to get the post, as Democrat Skip Alston has suggested.

"Skip's the dealmaster. He knows all about that," Gibson said. "I have not talked to anybody about 'Will you support me?' or 'I’ll do this if you do that.'"

The Willow Oaks project has won an Outstanding Planning Award from the N.C. Chapter of the American Planning Association (NCAPA).

The category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama.

No. It was the "Outstanding Planning: Implementation, Large Community" category.

The $90 million Willow Oaks housing development on McConnell Road, the former site of Morningside Homes. That public housing development became notorious for drugs, crime and the November 3, 1979, Klan-Nazi shootings that killed five anti-Klan protesters.

It was built with a combination of city and federal tax dollars, and private money.

Our final story on the 11 bond projects runs this Sunday. It's about the $5 million Parks and Recreation Bond.

David Hoggard is a Parks and Recreation Commission member, so I asked him a question that comes up frequently in relation to several of the bond items: Why can't these city departments pay for the projects out of their regular budget allotment?

His answer is long (you know the Hogg!), but worth reading:

"I've gone through a few budget cycles with the P&R department and have seen how tight their budget is. So I guess the "real world" answer to your question is the obvious one: They don't have that kind of cash laying around.

"When you hire a contractor to put a $100k addition on your house because of the growth of your family, you'd better have one of two things in place when they finish the contracted work: cash in the bank or a line of credit to draw upon. It can easily be argued that paying cash upon completion is the more fiscally responsible of the two options, but that would have required a multi-year savings plan to have previously been in place.

"If you had anticipated that you would be needing that 100k addition 10 years ago, then you should have been putting $10k aside during each of the 10 previous years. But the fact is, you didn't know your family would become THAT big SO fast, and even if you did have such a twinkling in your eye, your income over the past 10 years did not throw off enough to put the $10k away annually anyway.

"But now you find that your need for the addition is immediate, your annual income has grown, and you will soon be paying off the loan you took out to fix the kitchen five years ago, which will free some cash up to pay the new loan off without severely impacting your current budget.

"So it goes with the projects that are to be completed with the P&R bond. Sure, the projects CAN get done if the bond fails, but we will have to immediately start asking for that extra $10k in our annual budget until we can save enough to get them funded and started ... in, say, 10 years... at which time even more facilities will be needed ... which will require us to start saving for those now as well ... which will also require an increase in the P&R's annual funding.

"So, I guess the real question to the voters is this: Do we need additional P&R facilities right now and in the foreseeable future? If the answer is 'yes,' then we either have to start a savings plan tomorrow and defer the projects (such a savings plan may require a tax increase), or we can take out a low interest loan now and undertake the projects now to save on construction inflation (such a loan may require a tax increase also).

"If the answer is 'No, we don't need additional P&R facilities,' that is certainly a voter's right to hold that opinion - but they will be wrong."

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Carmany's latest post

UPDATE: This e-mail to Greensboro101 was sent to us anonymously:

"Due to the irresponsible posting of the link to the RMA report on Greensboro101, I no longer wish to be affiliated with Greensboro101. Please de-link me immediately.

"http://sandycarmany.blogspot.com/

"Sandy Carmany"

***

By now, you know the RMA report is available on Greensboro101, a Web site that posts information from a bunch of blogs. Roch Smith Jr. is the site adminstrator, but he says he didn't post the report onto the site.

Here's something new to chew on:

When I told Greensboro City Councilwoman Sandy Carmany this morning that the report was available on Greensboro101, she said, "This makes me lose all respect for them." Carmany also said she would be willing to make that same comment to Smith.

Smith's response to us: "I regret that the result of the city's failure to adequately respond to the public clamor for information is a personal attack towards me from a council member."

UPDATE: Ovittore blogs his resignation. So does Sue.

Four members of the Greensboro101 advisory board have resigned over the posting of the RMA report on the Web site, according to two former members.

According to Sue Polinsky and Cara Michele Forrest, they resigned from the board during a hastily called meeting today. They said Jay Ovittore and Ben Hwang also resigned.

Polinsky and Forrest said they were concerned about possible legal ramifications for publishing the report. Polinsky and Forrest say they have declined to read the report on principle.

"This is not good for Greensboro," Polinsky said of the appearance of the report online.

President Bush will be in town Wednesday and as happens when the gold truck rolls through Mayberry (yes, Eddie, I’m stealing your line) we at the paper get a touch excited.

The News & Record homepage will have updates throughout the day from our team or reporters, photographers and web personnel in the field. You can consider this post an open thread, so feel free to comment on our coverage, what you’re seeing and hearing, the President’s remarks, etc...

A presidential visit like this is a peculiar kind of Kabuki. Protocol, security precautions, a ridged schedule, and some very definite political and policy goals conspire to suck whatever spontaneity there is out of the day. The folks the President might meet at lunch, the kids and teachers at Falkener Elementary school, and yes, even us scrubby media types, are all just bit players on the outlandish stage that a sitting President brings with him anywhere he goes.

The truly impromptu, off the cuff moments will be the rarest of the day.

The county-commissioner-meeting-setting extravaganza continues!

After several commissioners said they couldn't make the meeting on Oct. 24, chairwoman Carolyn Coleman says she's canceled it and is looking at Nov. 14. Other commissioners want Nov. 8, but Coleman says she's going to take a few days off following the Nov. 7 election.

Billy Yow is on Coleman's case.

If and when the meeting is held, commissioners will select a handful of finalists for the job of Guilford County manager.

Earlier this week, a guy named Tony Wilkins sent some e-mails to Guilford County administrators about District 9 county commissioner Carolyn Coleman. He Cc'd local media outlets, including Scoop.

Wilkins said he was requesting documents about Coleman's county salary being withheld from her pending a disability hearing. If the county didn't comply with his request, he wrote, "pursuit of legal remedy will be forthcoming."

Turns out, Wilkins is working on the campaign of Coleman's Republican election opponent, local fire chief Vernon Ward. Ward has the support of Republican commissioner Billy Yow, who unsuccessfully tried earlier this year to get the commissioners to release documents related to the deferment.

The vote was 9-to-2 against. But Yow is still trying.

"It's just a hunch I got," Yow said in an interview, " … and it seems awfully suspicious that they got a dying need to keep this hid."

If you're a homeowner, maybe, just maybe, your property will be assigned a different (read: higher) tax value sooner than expected.

Guilford County's next revaluation of properties is scheduled to take effect in 2012. But after listening to Thomas Ross of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation discuss the benefits of more frequent revaluations last month, there was talk among county leaders of moving the date up.

With more frequent property appraisals, he said, the county can capture growth in the tax base more regularly. More frequent revaluations would keep tax values closer to what properties would fetch on the market.

But many taxpayers with homes gaining value would likely see their property-tax bills go way up with the next revaluation, even though the overall tax rate would go down. On top of that, the county commissioners would probably set that tax rate higher the "revenue-neutral" rate, which most people would consider a tax increase. That happened after the last revaluation.

The following is the (verbatim) text of a news release Scoop received today:

****
SUBJECT: David crawford Has pick to Re-run for the City Council now

MESSAGE:
David crawford Has pick to Re-run for the City
Council of Greensboro n.c. in 2007! Crawford had
campaigned on a conservative platform, saying
that he wanted to see city taxes on businesses
lowered And he wants to make city government more
accountable for how it spends money."As citizens,
we can't find out where it's going," he said,
"because we're not in a position to find out."

If You can Make a ONE-TIME donation to David
crawford For City Councle Today it will help
alot! Contributions can be mail to : David
Crawford 5603-B west friendley Ave #221 ,
Greensboro n.c. 27410. Contributions are not tax
deductible for Federal Income Tax Purposes, must
not be from corporate accounts or contributions
from foreign nationals. David Crawford is now a
Candidate for City Council in Greensboro N.C.

Here's a snippet on the city's latest attempt to smoke out the leaker of the RMA report.

Check the paper tomorrow for a more complete story. Check here for more background on the investigation.