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We had a story in today's (Tuesday's) paper laying out what we thought the big stories of 2008 might be. Now it's your turn.
What will be the hot topics in local government and politics this year? Who should we be keeping and eye on? Have your say via the comments link.
This post by former city council candidate Bill Knight has been getting attention around the local blogsphere. (Publius / Guarino / GSO Politics)
From the post:
A new city attorney must be hired; I do not believe our current city manager is the appropriate person to make that decision. The new attorney selection should be made at the direction and discretion of the City Council.I urge the current City Council to inform Mitchell Johnson that his contract as city manager will not be renewed and to take steps to provide a severance package that is fair and appropriate in the circumstances.
The post and subsequent comments elsewhere stirred up the very edges of a couple memories of conversations I had with folks back when I covered the council full time. If I'm not mistaken, the city manager is the only person the council can hire or fire, which differs from Guilford County or even, say, High Point, where more decisions are directly in the hands of the elected board.
A quick check of the City Charter, seems to confirm that memory. It says:
(More after the jump.)
In our " 8 issues to watch in politics this year" story, we said one of the things we'd watch is whether "local boys and girls make good in statewide races?"
Named were Sen. Kay Hagan, who is running for U.S. Senate, as well as local farmer Steve Troxler, the incumbent agriculture commissioner, Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker who grew up in Greensboro and also is running for U.S. Senate and Bob Crumley, a local lawyer with his offices in Greensboro.
Left of the list was Supreme Court Justice Robert Holt Edmunds, Jr., whose official bio says he's lived in Greensboro since 1957.
Is there anyone else in statewide campaigns we're leaving off the list?
The boss man has written about twitter and how all the cool kids are using it.
Twitter is basically designed as a social networking tool, one of many on the net these days. It basically lets you post short snippets of what's happening and folks who want to keep up with you can "follow" your tweets. Oh, and you can use instant messenger utilities or your mobile phone to follow the feeds.
All of that seemed a bit esoteric to Scoop (How many times a day can we post "Was staring at the ceiling, nodded off, caught self before chair tipped over, went to get Diet Pepsi") but we may have found a use that you folks might be interested in.
We've created a Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/NandRPolitics) that merges the RSS feeds or our three political blogs (Scoop, Capital Beat and Decision 2008) as well as the feed for our Government news page. (Shout out: the feed was created with twitterfeed.com.
If you your a Twitter user, let me know what you think.
Even if you're not a Twitter user, you can use raw link to catch up on our posts if you've been out of town or want to see what we've been up to over night. It's really nothing more than another way for us to get content to you, but some folks seem to prefer it. If you check it out, please let us know whether you find it useful.
The good folks at city hall are holding a news conference on Monday to explain real slow that recycling will go to an every other week schedule here in the big city. From the news release:
WHAT: The City of Greensboro will host a news conference to announce its Every Other Week Recycling campaign.WHEN: Monday, January 7, 10:00 am
WHERE: Fairway Outdoor Advertising
1920 West Lee Street
Greensboro, NCBACKGROUND: Beginning January 28, 2008, the City will begin servicing residential recycling containers every other week instead of weekly. This change allows the City’s recycling collection program to operate more efficiently.
Hmm...given Scoop's wicked diet soda addiction and love of beer, we may need to invest in one of these.
Update: More here and a map of recycling zones here. In an earlier story regarding the city budget, officials estimated the move to every-other-week recycling would save $88,931.
From a City of Greensboro news release:
Greensboro City Council member Goldie Wells has scheduled an organizational meeting of the faith community in District 2 to meet in the Fellowship Hall of the Evangel Fellowship Church of God in Christ, 2007 E. Cone Boulevard on Tuesday, January 15, from 10 to 11:30 am. The purpose of this gathering is to seek solutions to emphasize the importance of a strong sense of family and healthy alternative activities for teens."Please join me and other faith community representatives to discuss what avenues we can provide to channel the energy and talents of our youth and to start working toward a brighter future for our youth, our district and our City," Wells said.
This meeting is an outgrowth of the organized Pyramids Village Merchants Association, which is working to prevent the increase of gang activity.
For more information, contact the Community Relations Division of the City's Public Affairs Department at 373-2723.
Update: More from the print edition.
From this weekend's papers:
Here's some information about the every other week curbside recycling. The changes are coming in just three short weeks.
You may remember the tiff between Cary Allred and Howard Coble from a few weeks back. The summary: Allred wants a federal tax law that he sees as unfair to state legislators changed, Coble hasn't gotten on the stick, Allred calls him an a**hole.
Well, Allred further explains himself in a letter to the editor today, and of course he blames Scoop for causing problems:
I simply do not like the fact that he is not being aggressive with this particular issue, which is an obvious contradiction to the 14th Amendment. It is unconstitutional because it does not provide equal protection under the law and instead serves to disproportionately benefit U.S. congressmen.If you had pointed out in the "Scoop" that my beef is that he only has to pay 15 percent and other local and state politicians have to pay 35 percent, then people would have understood this situation better.
Rep. Coble's response regarding this issue was inadequate. He does not have to be a member of the Ways and Means Committee to introduce a bill, nor does he have to be on the committee to make things right or at least express such a stance through the introduction of a bill.
All I have received out of his office are insufficient excuses.
He goes on to call Coble "ineffective" and writes "this is not a personality issue. I'm not running against him, but the little people and the little businesses deserve more aggressive representation."
And yes, Allred like Coble is a Republican and says "I happen to like Rep. Coble." Scoop hopes he never takes this kind of liking to us.
Anyone out there have problems at the DMV this week, I mean beyond the usual.
Scoop's colleague Taft Wireback wrote an update on the Randleman Reservoir today. There's already some discussion going on over at Debatables, where the central questions is whether the folks building the dam have taken to long to tap it. Having a big old new water supply might be useful after all as we are in the midst of a drought.
Here's one bit of feedback from that discussion:
Of course they are moving too slowly. This should have been done in the 1950's with federal money, at 10,000 acres and a recreation lake as originally envisioned. Given the current situation, the others are right -- the main reason that the plant was not done at the same time as the lake was the sheer ineptness of the local politicians.
You really can't lay the long timeframe all on the local politicos. Clearing land, moving roads and jumping through all the environmental hurdles takes time. There have been small matters of upstream sewage plants and the like to deal with as well.
But - you knew there was a but - there has been some feuding over the project. High Point, in particular has had some rough patches with the authority. Consider this excerpt from a July 2003 story about building the very same water treatment plant Wireback wrote about today:
Leaders of the agency building the Randleman Reservoir reviewed the projected costs of their planned water treatment plant Tuesday in response to concerns voiced by High Point officials earlier this year.Led by City Manager Strib Boynton, High Point officials have been discussing whether the city could save money - as much as $12 million - by not helping build the treatment plant. But John Kime, Piedmont Triad Water Authority executive director, and engineers who work for the authority say that High Point 's estimate must be based on inaccurate information.
During the presentation Tuesday, Kime and engineer Joseph McGougan said the initial water treatment plant would cost about $27.4 million to build and would be able to treat about 12 million gallons of water a day.
That plant's capacity, McGougan said, could be increased to 18 million gallons a day for about $1.5 million. This second estimate is much less than the numbers used by Boynton, Kime said.
"That would be good if they'd put it in writing," said Boynton, who did not attend the meeting. When asked if the estimates offered by Kime allayed his cost concerns, Boynton said he would want High Point engineers to review the numbers.
My understanding is that argument is water under the bridge, but I'm thinking local folks might like to see some water in their taps before too long.
So word comes today that Ben Brown is leaving his job as assistant city (Greensboro) manager for assistant county (Guilford) manager. Brown, 67, is in charge of the city's economic development divisions.
Here's our question: Remember the hiring freeze at City Hall? Will Brown's job be frozen? Or will it be considered a "key" position because of it's economic development involvement?
Brown's city salary is $133,957, by the way.
I'm working on a story for Friday's newspaper about a movement afoot among some City Council members not to bring back retired City Attorney Linda Miles for her previously-agreed-upon contract work.
On Nov. 16, Miles signed a contract with the city that would allow her to work up to 1,000 hours for the city in 2008. She would earn $91.50 an hour, or up to $91,500 for approximately 24 weeks of work.
Councilman Zack Matheny said earlier today he will probably make a motion at Tuesday night's meeting that the council vote not to bring back Miles. Instead of paying Miles, he said, the city manager needs to get busy finding her replacement.
I got a copy of the contract today. It says "either party upon 60 days written notice may cancel the contract." So I called back Matheny and asked whether that would be part of his motion, or if he would move that the contract become null and void. Matheny said he would get back to me.
That raises an interesting question: What can the council do about this contract? City Manager Mitchell Johnson is responsible for hiring/firing the city attorney (although some council members want to change that, too). He entered into the contract with Miles. Can the council order him to nullify the contract?
I'm still reporting this story, waiting on calls back from the city attorney's office, etc.
For discussion:
UPDATE: Matheny called from the other end of his flight with this clarification: He thinks the motion may not be necessary because the issue is going to resolve itself. He said that if Mitchell Johnson moves quickly enough on finding Miles' replacement, there won't be any need for her services. He still believes the city needs someone new in that position.
Yesterday, I explained here about a plan Councilman Zack Matheny had for Tuesday night's council meeting: He was going to ask the board to block the return of retired City Attorney Linda Miles.
About an hour ago, Matheny called (from an airplane that was about to take off) to say he had changed his mind. That motion was no longer necessary, Matheny said, because City Manager Mitchell Johnson was going to move quicker than expected to find Miles' replacement.
Meanwhile, I've talked to four other council members - Sandra Anderson Groat, Mary Rakestraw, Trudy Wade and Mike Barber - who say they support Matheny's original plan to block Miles' return.
So an idea that had five votes now has four. Strange ... it's usually not the person who came up with the motion who causes that motion to fail!
We'll have a detailed story in the paper tomorrow. You'll find a link to Miles' contract in my original post (linked above).
Following on the heels of this story regarding the state's purchase of land near the Haw River State Park from a would-be developer, the following news release came from the North Carolina Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources this afternoon:
RALEIGH - Officials with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Bluegreen Corp. have reached an agreement for the state parks system to acquire 692 acres near the headwaters of the Haw River in Guilford and Rockingham counties to expand the developing Haw River State Park. The agreement is subject to approval by the governor and the Council of State.
Total price is $14 million according to the release. (Anyone out there have a sense of whether that's a fair price or not? The comment lines are open.)
Update: Click here for a fact sheet on the Haw Deal.
More from the news release, after the jump.
Continue reading "State announces its end of the Haw purchase: $14 million" »
Here's the latest agenda for the Jan. 17 Guilford County Commissioners meeting. There are a bunch of budget amendments in various departments, which often just get voted in one big action. Agenda .pdf file here.
There are a few interesting issues down the agenda, particularly on adopting a new economic development policy.
The commissioners are also expected to discuss the proposed guidelines in their annual retreat on Monday. That's significant because this is the same board that voted against giving tax incentives for an RF Micro expansion last year. The company decided to expand anyway.
We talked with Rob Bencini, the county's economic development director, about some highlights in the proposed plan:
-Emphasize high-paying jobs, such as those that pay within 90 percent of the average wage in the county, which he said is $17.12 an hour.
-New businesses should have a minimum healthcare match for its workers.
-Go after "green" businesses. Bencini said we could recruit ethanol and biodiesel companies to locate here, especially since there's a tank farm in the county.
There are several others, but we'll get into those once the commissioners have had a chance to digest the plan. But Bencini believes that the plan could be one of the most progressive set of guidelines around.
Could this be a new day for economic development policy? Will we see more discretion with handing out the money than we have before?
Are there any other items from the agenda that jump out at you? Let me know, and we'll be sure to check 'em out, too.
You might've seen the display on the state lottery in today's paper. If you want to see some more numbers from the lottery, check this out link to the county-by-county statistics.
And this link shows where the money goes.
When it comes to planning for the money, state budget officials will make a prediction on the expected revenues, and then only know what's actually earned when the lottery's fiscal year ends. Money that's doled out in 2007-08, for example, is from ticket sales that happened in 2006-07.
On Wednesday, City Manager Mitchell Johnson sent a memo to employees detailing how he intends to reduce the size of the staff by 49 positions, as he was ordered to do by the council.
Johnson says in the memo he has asked department directors to find "identify 2 percent of their workforce that they would recommend to cut from their budget that would have the least impact on work plans.
"Each department must identify at least one position to be deleted," Johnson wrote. "Clearly, some of these positions may be vacant but others may not."
Laid-off workers would be "notified at the appropriate time and would be subject to the Reduction in Force policy of the city," he noted.
Johnson says the cuts have to be in place by June 30.
City Manager Mitchell Johnson said Friday he wants to have a new city attorney hired within 90 days.
In a memo to City Council members sent Friday, Johnson also said the city will hire a recruting firm, which will get input from members of the council. He placed an ad on the city's Web site on Friday.
"While this is obviously a fast schedule, I believe it can be achieved with the help of a recruiting firm and my clear focus to get it done," he wrote.
The memo doesn't mention any of the recent flap about whether Linda Miles should return. Previous blog entries here and here.
The subject will no doubt come up during the meeting Tuesday night.
Oh, one bit of understatement in Johnson's memo: "I want to thank Council for their feedback over the last few days with regard to moving foward with the search for the new city attorney."
Feedback? That's one way to put it.
Now this is hilarious.
Greensboro City Councilman Robbie Perkins gets an excused absence from Tuesday night's meeting.
On Saturday, Perkins was riding his bike on Owls Roost Trail, having himself a good old time. He was going up a hill when he hit a wet spot and tumbled off his bike.
"It wasn't a spectacular fall, but I hit wrong," he said.
Wrong enough to mangle his left wrist.
Perkins was about two miles deep into the woods, so he had to carry his arm and push his bike back to civilization. He said two good samaritans from Danville (in town just to take advantage of Greensboro's wonderful parks, Perkins bragged) helped him along the way.
He'll get a plate inserted into his wrist during surgery late Tuesday afternoon, about the same time the council meeting will begin. On Monday, he seemed to be in some pain, but was thankful it wasn't his dominant right arm.
The Duke graduate intends to select royal blue as his cast color of choice.
An interesting side note to Robbie Perkins' broken arm: How will this impact the discussion about the future of Linda Miles? Perkins would have been her most vocal supporter at Tuesday night's council meeting, which he will skip in lieu of surgery.
Will this embolden Miles' opponents? Or will members agree to keep Miles in place for 90 days, during which time City Manager Mitchell Johnson has pledged to find her replacement?
Interesting discussion scheduled for Tuesday's council meeting. Because of recent annexations that will bring 10,000 more people into the city, the City Council must rearrange its five voting districts.
On the table for discussion are:
* Six plans proposed by city staffers.
* One plan proposed by Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small (District 1).
* Four plans proposed by Councilwoman Trudy Wade (District 5)
The council will look at those 11 plans Tuesday night and hold a public hearing - ambitious for a meeting that's already cram-packed with business.
Click here to see the maps (this will take forever to load, by the way). The redistricting documents are on pages 101-115.
In the board's annual retreat, the commissioners heard a bit about two new taxes they could put to voters in May and then reviewed two more bond projects that could appear on that same ballot.
They'll likely decide in their Thursday meeting whether to put a request from Guilford County Schools for $457 million in bonds on the May ballot.
If they vote for the school bonds, then voters will choose whether to fund 27 projects such as a new Jamestown Middle School for $28 million, a $58 million high school near Piedmont Triad International Airport, and $7.7 million in heating improvements, along with others.
The same goes for a $115 million bond package for a new Guilford County jail. That would compliment the aging Guilford County Detention Center. The county already has an architecture firm designing the jail.
If voters approve either project in May, the county's property tax rate would probably increase, according to figures that Michael Halford, the county's budget director, provided in the meeting.
That's if the board does nothing to find money elsewhere in the budget, which could also happen through a quarter-cent sales tax or a land transfer tax applied whenever someone buys or sells property -which they could also put on the May ballot.
On Monday morning, the board didn't seem too keen on letting the voters choose their own fate on the taxes. The bond issues may stand a better chance of going to a public vote.
If you say you're going to be there, show up
Guilford schools Supt. Terry Grier was on the agenda to pitch $457 million in bonds, but didn't make it to Monday's retreat for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.
At the end of the presentation by his stand-in, Guilford County school board Chairman Alan Duncan, Commissioner Kay Cashion had one question.
"The agenda said Grier would be with us. Where is he?"
Someone in the in the crowd joked "San Diego."
"He's in the district today," Duncan told Cashion, referring to Guilford, and added that he was taking care of school business.
"We all have jobs, and we're all here," Cashion deadpanned.
Tough act to follow
Money requests from schools, parks, GTCC, and the library all went ahead of David Grantham's presentation on $115 million in bonds for a new jail.
Vaudeville had a rule: Never follow an animal act or a child act.
Grantham, head of the Guilford County Property Management, seemed to have a variation of that in mind when he went to speak.
"I've got to follow libraries and schools with the jail," he said, and chuckled at the irony.
Commissioner Billy Yow saw it another way.
"That's after-school day care, that's what it is," he said.
From the City Council meeting: To my right, even as I type, Jordan Green of Yes! Weekly and John Hammer of the Rhino Times are having an extremely cordial discussion about public records law - and how boards often try to work around those rules.
Green and Hammer may hold different views about the Wray Fray, but they're rising above that to have a pleasant conversation about something all reporters care about.
Certain bloggers could learn a thing or two from these guys.
There are going to be some very disappointed people with the Greensboro Minimum Wage Campaign: Their movement is over.
On Wednesday morning (too late for the print edition), the council decided not to accept the group's petition - because there's nothing the council can do for them anyway. It's a state issue, not a local one.
Nonetheless, the minimum wage group had been dutifully collecting more signatures, since the Guilford County Board of Elections told them they didn't have enough.
So all you folks out there collecting signatures, thinking your new deadline for collecting signatures is Friday ... nevermind.
I'm still waiting to hear back from three commissioners, but it sounds like Guilford County voters will have a bunch of bond choices ahead of them in the May 6 election, with the option to add a quarter-cent sales tax on top of that.
The bond proposals:
-$115 million for a new jail
-$457 million for schools
-$79.5 million for GTCC
-$20.2 million for county parks
The Board of Commissioners will meet tomorrow, which is the cutoff point to get that stuff on the May ballot. Here's tomorrow's agenda.
And there appears to be good support for the quarter-cent sales tax referendum, which would add $15.7 million to the county's revenue.
Things don't look so clear on a proposed economic development incentive policy, though. It's a set of guidelines that give businesses and economic developers an idea of what the commissioners are looking for before they hand out any tax rebates for industries locating here.
Problem is, commissioners need to get on the same page with what they want in the policy.
While it does aim for green industries, technology-based jobs and higher wages, some commissioners feel that it leaves small business in the dust. Then there are commissioners who are generally against any tax incentives for businesses.
If you were writing the policy, who would receive the incentives and what would they get?
UPDATE: Here's the link to the policy draft on the county's website. And the current policy.
Some members of Greensboro City Council, as well as some citizens, have wanted to see the so-called "Black Book" from the Wray case for many weeks now. That book, you might remember, is a photo lineup containing pictures of several black male police officers.
Last night, the council released an e-mail from Senior Deputy Attorney General Jim Coman about why he's not going to let folks see the black book.
"I declined to make the 'black book' available because the original is in the possession of the SBI and is intended to be used as evidence at the criminal trial of at least one of the defendants (emphasis mine)."
I assume he means the criminal trial of either former Special Intelligence Sgt. Tom Fox or former Detective Scott Sanders. They face charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Sanders also is charged with hacking into a computer issued to another local officer by the federal government.
Coman said in the e-mail he asked City Manager Mitchell Johnson, City Attorney Linda Miles and officials with the police department not to release this information. They have complied, he wrote, and "apparently have been criticized in some circles" for doing so.
Coman writes that the "case is proof of how difficult it is to protect the rights of the accused and to keep the city leaders and the public informed."
Click here to see the entire e-mail.
So it turns out that the City Council did see a copy of the "Black Book" last night. Mayor Yvonne Johnson said today the council looked a copy of the infamous photo lineup during its closed session last night. She declined to characterize what she saw, as have other council members I've talked to today.
I'm in the early stages of reporting this. More in the paper tomorrow.
It didn't take former Greensboro City Councilwoman Sandy Carmany long to put her government skills to use: She's Pleasant Garden's interim town clerk.
Carmany blogs about it here. She's a native of Pleasant Garden; Town Hall is just a couple of blocks away from the house she grew up in.
Another former City Council member, Don Vaughan, is the town's attorney. After Carmany expressed to him an interest in the job last week, the wheels started turning. They offered her the job Monday night. On Tuesday, Carmany said she worked at Town Hall from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Here's Pleasant Garden's site.
Carmany said she'll probably apply for the actual town clerk job (minus the interim) once she gets settled into her new gig a little better.
Yesterday, I left messages with Deputy City Attorney Becky Jo Peterson-Buie about Seth Cohen's comments in this story. This afternoon, Peterson-Buie left a message on my voice mail with the following comment:
"The city of Greensboro does not comment on pending litigation."
This afternoon, I filed a public information request with the city asking for the following pieces of information:
* Copies of the CAD report Scott Sanders generated to create the 19 names of the officers listed in the “black book.”
* The names of the 19 black officers who were working the day and time the alleged sexual assault occurred.
* The two-page memo Tom Fox and Scott Sanders wrote summarizing the rationale behind the “black book.”
Few people have battled flames for longer than Johnny Teeters .
After a career stretching over part or all of five decades, Teeters, the city's fire chief, announced Monday that he plans to retire at the end of the year.
The 66-year-old Teeters, who joined the department in 1964 and became chief in 1999, said during a press conference that firefighting was the perfect career for him.
"I've never had one day where I came to work and didn't enjoy it," he said.
City Manager Mitch Johnson had high praise for the outgoing chief.
"Johnny ... will be leaving the department at the top of its game," he said.
Teeters will be on the job until December, and Johnson said the city probably will conduct a national search for his replacement.
Don't know what to do about that dry rotted spare tire? Looking to finally get rid of the washing machine that's been hanging out on your (or your neighbor's) back porch? Did you know that nail polish remover is considered hazardous waste?
All those questions and more about garbage and recyclables in Guilford County can be answered with this helpful guide, released Monday. Download .pdf file
The guide points out the recycling locations in the county, and shows where to take stuff like old batteries (Ecoflo, Inc., 2750 Patterson St.), tires (Guilford County Scrap Tire and White Goods Collection Facility, 2138 Bishop Rd.) and other stuff such as yard waste and recyclables.
It also lists contacts for garbage pickup and recycling facilities in other towns across the county.
Greensboro, High Point, Guilford County, Greensboro Beautiful and the Guilford County Department of Public Health teamed up to produce the guide with the financial backing of Volvo Trucks North America, which gets a section to discuss its interest in environmentally safe hazardous waste disposal, recycling and, of course, to plug their trucks.
On Tuesday Guilford County Commissioners met with big-time community advocates from Action Greensboro for a meal, washed it down with local beer, wine and tea, and watched a video together.
Their mission: increase wages in the area, build community pride, attract young professionals and advocate for the community.
The video outlines some of the town's strengths such as the well-attended baseball park, a rise in downtown living, shops and entertainment and the big jobs such as the HondaJet plant.
And then, citing a study that Action Greensboro had done in 2007, the video outlined a few problems: we need higher-paying jobs, we have a high number of manufacturing jobs still and we need greater tax base growth.
"Things are not as rosy as appearances would have us believe," the video's narrator said.
Continue reading "Video: Greensboro's great, but board should shape up" »
Because apparently we don't have enough fun and games with our own city council, the City of Charlotte is exporting its honorables to us. From a release fresh out of my e-mail:
Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory and the members of the Charlotte City Council will take a bus and walking tour of Greensboro, North Carolina, as part of their annual planning retreat being held at the Grandover Resort Wednesday, January 30 - Friday, February 1, 2008. The Tour of Greensboro will be conducted on Thursday, January 31 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Highlights of the tour will include a visit to the Southside Neighborhood area, the Depot, and various Downtown locations, particularly to look at the variety of housing stock and economic development projects in Greensboro.
Would it be skeptical of me to suggest that Charlotte's interest in the Gate City and the accompanying publicity has something to do with McCrory's nascent bid for governor? Well, there, I did it anyway.