About last night ...
Hi. Guest poster Lex Alexander here. What with all the election coverage and the news about the RMA report leak, you might have forgotten that there was an actual, and fairly substantive, Greensboro City Council meeting last night.
Well, there was. The highlights:
- Southwest park: A long-awaited city park in southwest Greensboro is now reality. The city officially annexed and zoned about 29 acres at the foot of Shimer Road, south of its intersection with Hilltop Road, for the park.
- More shopping near Four Seasons: Koury Corp. won rezoning of its property north of Vanstory Street between Veasley Street and Pinecroft Road to Shopping Center zoning. Preliminary plans for the site call for about 82,000 square feet of shopping space, two 7,000-square-foot restaurants and a 3,400-seat movie theater.
- Another crackdown on sexually oriented businesses: The council cleaned up some language in its ordinance on sexually oriented businesses, continuing toward its goal of forcing such businesses that are located within a certain distance from other such businesses or from schools, churches, etc., to move or close. If you were watching on TV or the Web, you know that a lot of material was read into the record, laying out the factual and legal basis for what the city is trying to do. That's all to make sure the ordinance stands up to a legal challenge.
- Historic property: The council designate the W.N. Nelson house at 903 Bluford St. as a Historic Landmark.
All the votes were unanimous, 7-0, with Diane Bellamy-Small and Goldie Wells absent.
Before the business meeting, the council also adopted a resolution honoring the memory of the late Cassadra Coleen Shelton, a businesswoman, civic volunteer and religious leader who died a few weeks ago at the age of 41. The brief, low-key conversation between her father, Ralph Shelton, and Mayor Keith Holliday, who lost his own daughter, then 14, to a brain aneurysm in 2002, belied the weight of the emotion in the room. Even council member Tom Phillips, known on occasion for his gruffness, briefly looked as if he were about to tear up.