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Both the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will be meeting next week.

So we here at Scoop were having a leisurely morning drinking coffee, reading the papers and mocking the Sunday morning news shows before we decided to check on our e-mail and the blogsphere. And then: holy RSS-reader Batman!

It seems certain parts of the blogspher - namely Cone and Hoggard and Capo (Update: Cone didn't like the honorific used originally in this sentence, so I took it out.) - were all in a tizzy over this link, which doesn't seem to be working any more but has been preserved by Cone here. Google captured the page in early October, though there were fewer votes counted then.

We at Scoop have seen this page before. In fact, it pops up (and disappears) on a fairly regular basis in advance of elections. You can argue with the technological savvy at work here or whether the following explanation should/does hold water. But in the past, the explanation we've gotten from the folks who run the BOE web pages goes something like this:

The Board of Elections wants to make sure everything is going to run nice and smooth election night so they test out their results posting system. They do so with numbers that are way below normal so they won't be mistaken for real results and they don't post a link to the summary pages, so only someone really hunting for them would find them. Obviously, people do find them from time to time.

Scoop will re-inquire on Monday and ask whether a week in advance of an election like this one it's such a good thing to risk getting folks all upset and brewing the conspiracy coffee.

Guilford County Elections Director George Gilbert tells the Inside Scoop that an election results page (captured here by Ed Cone) is just the result of a scripted test vote of all the precincts in the county.

Alert bloggers Mssrs. Cone, Hoggard and Capo found the page on the county's elections web site showing victories across the board for Republicans with only a couple hundred votes cast.

Gilbert said before every election, elections workers are sent out to every precinct to cast a predetermined test pattern of votes which are sent through the system and tallied as if it were election night. Afterwards, Gilbert checks to make sure the correct number of votes are in the right place. It just happened that those results made it onto the web.

Gilbert said the votes cast in the test will be erased, and all the electronic machines must show zero votes cast before they're opened on Nov. 2. He said there are strict safeguards in place to prevent outright fraud, but conceded that nothing is foolproof.

"If you've got dishonest people, I suppose it can be done," he said.

As for the GOP wins in the test ballot, Gilbert promised to spread the love next time around.

"Tell them to look next time and the Libertarians will win them all," Gilbert said.

Kay Cashion will replace Jeff Thigpen on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. A story will be in Friday's paper.

The Guilford County Commissioners will meet on Thursday, Dec. 2, for the final full meeting of the current board. They are scheduled to decide on their incentive offer to Dell. You can see the agenda by clicking here.

Their next meeting will be the morning of Dec. 2, when the new board will be sworn in.

Thursday night, after arguing for hours about several other things, the Guilford County Commissioners argued about where their next opportunity to argue would be held.

As we wrote (here and here and here), Commissioner Bruce Davis wants to have the commissioners' annual retreat outside of the county.

But a memo by County Attorney Jonathan Maxwell quotes state law that say the board "shall not vote upon or otherwise transact public business while in attendance at such a gathering," outside the county limits.

At the commissioners' regular meeting Thursday, Republican Billy Yow said he would not go because without the ability to take votes, the retreat is "going to be a touchy feely thing."

Chairman Bruce Davis responded, "at least you won't be there for us to touch and feel on you."

Other Republicans chimed in, saying they don't know how the commissioners can get anything useful done if they aren't allowed to "transact public business."

Commissioner Trudy Wade said she'd "never been to a retreat with this board where we didn't take any votes."

Democratic Vice-Chairman Paul Gibson voiced support for the out-of-county trip saying there's plenty of consensus building that can happen without taking votes.

In the end, the five Republicans on the board voted against setting the meeting but were overruled by the six Democrats. At least there was consensus within each of the two parties.

On the up side, the School of Government, will not charge the county to rent space for the retreat Rental costs had previously been estimated to be about $500.

(From our soon-to-be county government reporter, Nate DeGraff)

Guilford County's health board has had some wacky meetings of late, what with all the commotion surrounding former health director Ramesh Krishnaraj. Monday's meeting was more run-of-the-mill, though the board discussed the vacant health director post and laid out its 2005-06 budget proposal.

Interested in being health director? You'll be responsible for a 500-employee department with a $30-plus million budget. You'll also follow in the footsteps of Dr. K, who started his tumultuous tenure with a drunken driving charge and weathered a series of closed-door meetings about his performance before finally resigning last fall. Even his resignation was muddied by unclear procedures and possible breaches of North Carolina's laws with regard to contracts and open meetings.

This new job posting lays out the requirements for his replacement. The last two permanent directors have been doctors, but that prerequisite has been dropped this time around. Non-doctors still need a master's in public health administration and five years administrative management experience in health programs or services.

The board hopes to find a new director by July.

The board also laid out its budget request for the 2005-06 fiscal year. The proposal calls for a budget increase of about 4 percent, from $33.8 million to $35.3 million. Pay raises and other wage-related expenses account for most of the jump.

The proposal must be submitted to the county by the end of next week, and board members and staff promised to keep working on it until then. The board of commissioners will probably vote on the budget in June.

UPDATE: After the closed-session, Commissioners Chairman Bruce Davis and Jenks' attorney Seth Cohen got into a verbal sparring match (click here to listen) later joined by Commissioners Linda Shaw and Billy Yow.

In front of newspaper and TV reporters, Cohen accused Davis of slandering Crayton. A minute into the recording, Shaw steps in to point out that Davis was late in paying his own taxes. Later, Yow says that Davis can't carry himself as an elected official, to which Davis responds by turning the insult around and repeating the charge against Yow.

The three-minute recording is somewhat muddled but well worth listening to.

From our county government reporter Nate DeGraff:

GREENSBORO - The N.C. Department of Revenue presented the findings today of its weeks-long inquiry into suspended Guilford County tax director Jenks Crayton.

The state found "no evidence of any wrongdoing" by Crayton as it relates to his duties under the state's property tax statutes, according to a one-page letter to county attorney Jonathan Maxwell from David Baker, director of the property tax division at the N.C. Department of Revenue.

The commissioners were in a private meeting this afternoon with state revenue officials to hear findings of the full report.

"It's wonderful; it's what we expected," said Seth Cohen, Crayton's attorney. "I don't see how the Department of Revenue's report could be stronger."

Democratic commissioners ordered the inquiry after receiving numerous complaints about Crayton from current and former tax department employees, though the commissioners have declined to name names. Crayton has been accused of giving property-tax favors to Republican Steve Arnold and unduly influencing a board that hears property-tax appeals.

Democrats also have fielded complaints about Crayton's management style, though the state inquiry has not addressed those issues

Bonus material: Read Baker's report online here.

My friend and colleague Nate DeGraff reported in an info-box with his county commissioners story from Thursday that the county has agreed to go with computerized touch-screen machines.

Folks who support a paper-based system are none to happy with that decision.

For context, here's what some other counties are doing:

• The Charlotte O reports that Mecklenburg County has gone with an electronic system similar to Guilford County's choice.
• Buncombe County - and I kid them because I love 'em - wins the "Back to the Future" award. Commissioners there have decided to hand count paper ballots for the May primary, according to the Citizen-Times.
• Carteret County, the site of the really bad debacle in the 2004 election, has chosen an optical scan / paper-based system.

For previous coverage on all of this, click here and/or click here.

Apparently the newsroom has gotten a few calls about an item that ran on A9 of the paper today saying that David Churchill lost his re-election bid for Clerk of Court. Fortunately for Churchill, those were only the Kids Voting results. (Click here to see them.)

While the youngsters would have booted Churchill, their parents and other grown ups elected to keep him in office. He took just over 59 percent of the real vote. We had the results from the vote that actually counts on A1 in Wednesday’s paper.

For those who don’t know what Kids Voting is, click here for more information.

Hot off the virtual presses over at the School of Government is this year's edition of County Salaries in North Carolina.

Fascinating stuff, I guess. You can look up what Guilford County would pay a PIO - that's public information officer or flac - if the county had one. Or you can comparison shop what different places pay Spanish interpreters.

But who am I kidding. Everyone is going straight to the county commissioners' salary table, right?

Guilford County commissioners took a step Thursday toward resolving some lingering confusion about exactly where the Guilford-Alamance county line is.

The disagreement involves a fairly small slice of land that includes 27 parcels of property, but it has meant big headaches for some property owners.

Commissioner Carolyn Coleman said some property owners in the area have told her they have received tax bills from both counties. The line has also caused uncertainty about voting and school attendance.

Commissioners passed a resolution Thursday asking the state to survey the area. The results would then be used by the counties to come to a final agreement.

"I'm glad that we finally decided to deal with it," Coleman said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What: Guilford County commissioners meeting

When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Old County Courthouse, 301 W. Market St., Greensboro

Click here for full agenda and live video of the meeting.

What's going on? Bond orders for all the bonds included on May 6 referenda are up for a vote. The order handles the business of how the bond money would come to the county if voters approve referenda for any of the packages that include $412 million for school construction, $45 million for Eastern Guilford High School, a $115 million jail, $79.5 million for GTCC or $20 million for parks and recreation.

Want to be heard? Speakers can address the board on non-agenda items regarding county business for three minutes at the start of the meeting. A signup sheet will be available near the lectern.

What's next? If commissioners approve the bond orders, a public hearing on all the bond referenda would be scheduled for Feb. 21.

On TV: Cable channel 13 in Greensboro and other areas of Guilford County outside High Point; cable channel 8 in High Point.

We know that the Internet is truly a fine repository of extremely useful information.

So if you happen to run across a site that shows Guilford County Commissioner Billy Yow listed as the local commander of the militia, he's got one very colorful thing to say:

"I don't know ... about that," Yow said Friday afternoon.

We don't either, to be honest, other than what we saw online. And you know you can't believe everything you see online.

Several public hearings, five on the bond referenda, are on next week's Guilford County Commissioners agenda.

Each side will get 20 minutes to argue their point, and three minutes apiece for rebuttal. With breaks, that ends up being roughly an hour for each public hearing.

As Chairman Kirk Perkins went over the main points of the agenda in a Tuesday briefing, he mentioned that the Feb. 21 meeting could go until midnight. He said that as he also looked for other items to table until a March meeting, to streamline the upcoming agenda.

Anyhow, it's not like the public hearings next week will mean much for the fate of the bonds. The referenda are on the May 6 ballot, when people can really decide if they want the big packages or not.

I don't have an e-version of the agenda yet, but you can expect it here once I do.

Read it here.

I'm working on a preview for the Thursday meeting that will outline a bit about each bond deal. If you go or watch at home, then you'll have some detail on what each bond package would do.

Nothing about the upcoming public hearing should alter the fate of the bonds, but it is an official chance for the public to speak out ahead of the May 6 referenda.

Anyone planning to come out for the public hearing? Any pet bond projects in mind? Which ones do you think will pass, and why?

From Decision 2008:

Guilford County released figures this past week on what could happen to the property tax rate if all or some of the bonds passed in the May 6 primary. Check out the county release here.

Keep in mind that those figures consider the property tax rate impact in a world that asks only taxpayers to foot the bill for the bonds. Which could happen. Property taxes pay for more than half of the county's annual budget. Speaking of revenue, your May 6 ballot will include another decision on adding a quarter-cent sales tax that county officials estimate would generate more than $15 million in its first year.

The sales tax can't be designated for a use until (and if) it passes, but the tax could help pay for a good number of projects.

Here's the agenda for Thursday's county commissioners meeting. And if you want to go, here's the skinny:

What: Guilford County commissioners meeting
When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Old County Courthouse, 301 W. Market St., Greensboro
On TV: Cable channel 13 in Greensboro and other areas of Guilford County outside High Point; cable channel 8 in High Point.
What’s going on? The board will consider buying about 63 acres valued at $522,000 for a purchase price of $318,800 to use as open space beside another tract the county bought in 2007. Commissioners will get a look at getting another 19 acres of open space land near Northeast middle and high schools for $59,400. The land is valued at $120,000. They may also decide to offer a 1920s-era house for donation to anyone who wants to move it from property on 211 South Edgeworth St., the proposed site for a new county jail. The building would be transferred to Preservation Greensboro Inc., which would help find an owner who could pay to move the house off the site.
Want to be heard? Speakers can address the board on non-agenda items regarding county business for three minutes at the start of the meeting. A sign up sheet will be available near the lectern.
What’s next? The open-space purchases could be accessed by the public shortly afterward if approved. As for the house, it’s not completely free: Any takers must scrounge up about $100,000 to pay the estimated cost to move the building.
Live video

For the first time in his short tenure as chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, Kirk Perkins instituted the 3-minute time limit for commissioners during discussion on agenda items.

The move happened during a heated discussion on the board's voting procedure that had been brought up in previous meetings. In short, the board was tying to pin down whether a commissioner should have his or her vote counted as a "nay" during decisions made when that commissioner isn't in the meeting room.

In recent months, when a commissioner wasn't in the room, their vote was counted as a no - even if they had to leave for an emergency. In many boards the vote of a commissioner who isn't present is counted as neither for nor against the issue.

On Thursday, they changed that, and made a commissioner's absence mean that there wouldn't be any vote recorded for them, which aligns the rules with the board's past practice.

But they had a lengthy debate along the way that resulted in the re-introduction of 3-minute time limits for commissioners to speak on issues at a meeting.

We're working on a bond story to look at the county's current debt load and find some estimate of the extra cost to run and staff all the stuff that $670 million in bonds would need.

Voters will decide on the bond referenda in the May 6 primary.

Working on that story led me Thursday to Michael Halford, director of Guilford County's budget management and evaluation office, to chat about about the upcoming 2008-09 budget process.

Halford's early projection for a 2008-09 budget - with no cuts from this year's budget - requires a property tax rate increase of 3.95 cents per $100 valuation.

In the 2007-08 budget, taxes for the owner of a $200,000 home went up about $60. Based on Halford's first estimate, that homeowner would pay another $79 on the property tax bill in 2008-09.

FYI, the 2008-09 budget planning is still in its early stages, Halford said. Guilford commissioners will approve the budget sometime this summer, after the bond votes.

What do you think of that potential property tax rate increase, though?

Also, are there any things that you want to know about when it comes to the bond referenda?

Bond packages include $412 million for school construction, $45 million for Eastern Guilford High School, a $114 million jail, $79.5 million for GTCC or $20 million for parks and recreation.

Guilford County Commissioners are holding a work session tomorrow to hear presentations on open space, an efficiency program and a few other things
at 3 p.m. in the Old County Courthouse, 301 West Market St.

How to handle open space has been a question lately for the board. Earlier this year, they turned down plans to purchase an easement on a working farm. One reason for the down vote, some commissioners said, was that the public couldn't access the land.

Then, in their March 6 meeting, the board approved the purchase of open space in two tracts of land. The public could eventually get to those places, though. One tract is located next to two public schools, and another adjoins existing open land the county bought in 2007.

During those discussions, some commissioners have asked whether public money should be used to protect open space and debated on how it should be spent.

The efficiency study is based on a request from the board to County Manager David McNeill. Commissioners asked the staff to make a list of consultants to review county employees and find places where the county could consolidate jobs within departments or combine them with other jurisdictions.

There could be no new taxes for Guilford County taxpayers this year, after county commissioners asked for a 2008-09 budget proposal with no property tax rate increase in a Tuesday work session.

The zero-tax budget may not be what the board adopts this summer, but it is a step toward two goals most politicians agree on: efficient government and no new taxes.

The marching orders for County Manager David McNeill came at the end of a discussion on hiring consultants for a county efficiency study. Along with the zero-tax increase budget, they asked McNeill to form a panel to advise the county on places to streamline the bureaucracy.

McNeill will also submit his recommended budget to the board on May 15, which he does each year.

Early projections from Michael Halford, Guilford County director of budget management, show the county's property tax rate rising this year if the county services stay at the same rate.

In the 2007-08 budget, taxes for the owner of a $200,000 home went up about $60. Based on Halford's first estimate, that homeowner would pay another $79 on the property tax bill in 2008-09.

"If you want a zero-tax increase budget then say, 'This is what you have to cut out, this is what we will eliminate'," Commissioner Skip Alston said to McNeill.

Here's the full agenda for the Guilford County Commissioners meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday in the Old Guilford County Courthouse.

Why 1 p.m.? So the board can catch the next episode of "My Name is Earl"?

No. The time is pushed to the afternoon so that members can attend the GTCC 50th Anniversary Gala (Black tie optional).

Even with the earlier meeting time, the gala kickoff at 6 p.m. means the board still may need to hustle if they plan to get out in time to get gussied up and head over. Though it would be interesting to see a black tie commissioners meeting.

As for the agenda, Southwest Park stands to get $651,484 for some restrooms and picnic shelters, paid for with previously unused bond money. And the board of elections wants the OK to buy 59 more voting machines to beef up its arsenal for the 2008 election.

Does anything on the agenda pop out at you?

Currently it's up to the Guilford County school board to figure out when and how to build schools, though county commissioners chairman Kirk Perkins is open to the possibility of that changing.

At a regional meeting for the state commissioners association, he heard about what Wake County is considering: taking the responsibility, planning and execution of building schools away from the school board.

"And it hit a bell with me that in Guilford County, (the board of commissioners) could take care of school construction projects," he said. "We could take that from the school board and they could concentrate on educating kids."

In a way, the Board of Commissioners has a say over what the Board of Education can build. The commissioners decide how much county money schools receive each year - which takes about 40 percent of the county's approximately $550 million budget.

The idea is far from fruition in Guilford County. But taking on school construction did intrigue Perkins, he said after the meeting he attended Wednesday in Raleigh for North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.

The NACC represents county boards across the state and advocates on their behalf to the state legislature.

The meeting Perkins attended gives commissioners across the region an idea of what state legislators will be asked to focus on from the counties as the General Assembly goes into another session May 13.

Perkins said that with the presentation on school construction, other topics such as state road funding and Medicaid funding received time.

The Web site for the Guilford County Sheriff's Office has a county leader asking questions about whether it crosses a line with regards to the upcoming vote on bonds for a new jail.

The site contains a link to another site, asaferguilfordcounty.com, which makes a case for a new jail. It cites a report that concluded additional jail space is necessary, shows photos of "overcrowding" in the current jail and photos, some grisly, of injured officers and inmates, and notes that the state has warned the county it must address jail overcrowding.

Government employees are restricted in what they can and can't do when it comes to bond issues.

When acting as a private citizen, they are free to advocate however they wish. In an official capacity, however, the standard is different.

For Guilford County commissioner Skip Alston, an opponent of the jail bond, Sheriff BJ Barnes crossed the line.

"He's doing it in the name of the Guilford County Sheriff," Alston said. "In my opinion, it is advocating."

Alston's fellow commissioner Billy Yow, who along with Barnes is among the members of the "Jail Bond Committee," said Alston's attack is off base.

"All the "T's" have been crossed and all the "I's" have been dotted," Yow said during a meeting of the board of commissioners.

Barnes couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

Gary Bartlett, the executive director of the N.C. Board of Elections, said elected officials can engage in education and even "issue advocacy" when it comes to bonds. Basically, that means they can talk about the issue, but must stop short of saying "vote for the bonds."

The Web site doesn't appear to state its support for the bond quite so clearly. In fact, much of the information is explicity couched in terms of education. "We at the Guilford County Sheriff's Office would like to assist you in making an informed decision about the up-coming Jail Bond," Barnes stated in a letter on the Web site's front page.

Ultimately, Bartlett said, if someone makes a formal complaint, the board will investigate. If that happens, the fact that the information is linked from the sheriff's office Web site could add another wrinkle.

"It would put it into a gray area," he said.

The $115 million jail bonds will be on the May 6 ballot, along with several hundred million dollars worth of bonds for schools and parks and recreation.

Billy Yow might have you think that.

Yow, the Republican two-term District 5 Guilford County Commissioner, is using a touch of the boardroom friction he gives District 8 Democratic Commissioner Melvin "Skip" Alston to help introduce his campaign website. A profile photo of Yow in apparent disbelief gazes across the site's banner to a shot of Commissioner Skip Alston, who has a raised eyebrow.

Scoop called Yow today to ask what he's trying to say with the image.

"When you look you see Skip (Alston) sitting over there. And without me, you see, he's a loose cannon," Yow said. Yow added that voters in his district should vote for him at least to keep Alston under control.

So we called Alston to see what he thinks about that.

"I have heated exchanges with all of them," Alston said about the board. "It’s not just Billy that I vent my frustration out with, and I can't say that anything is specifically aimed at Billy (Yow)."

Disagreements between the two have been noted before as the board sparred over budgeting, the jail and other issues. But the Board of Commissioners has 11-members, and most votes are decided by a greater margin than the two votes that Alston and Yow might use to cancel each other out.

Three reasonably-sized projects have been approved since February for an intersection near Forest Oaks.

We ran a story today about that and a community group involved on the ground level in the planning process - and how they got a bit of what they wanted out of the deal.

It reminds me of my hometown and how grocery stores soon pooped up on every corner in a bunch of expansion (that seems unending). Where there were farms there are now shopping centers and residential developments.

And it's happened around the Triad, too. Though what hit Raleigh and Charlotte in past years is beginning to show up here.

So development is coming, like it not. If you had a developer buy 60 acres across from your backyard fence, what would you like to see them do with it? How would you make that known?

We're doing a story on the $671.6 million in Guilford County bonds that people will vote on in the May 6 primary.

So as we report this story, what kinds of things would you like to know about the bonds? Do you wonder if this a good time for bonds, considering the economy? Do you think that the schools, parks, jail and college are needed now - no matter what?

What questions and answers would help you make a better choice on the bonds? E-mail us or post a comment below, and we'll try to get to them along the way.

This could become a situation similar to the kid caught chewing gum in class, when the teacher asks if there's enough for everybody.

A few weeks ago, Guilford County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman asked for an estimate on quarterly mileage reimbursements for volunteers on the county's nursing home advisory committee and the adult care committee.

Apparently the committemembers put a bunch of miles on their cars in the duty of running around and checking up on nursing homes and adult care facilities. They don't receive any per-mile reimbursement, and gas isn't getting cheaper, she noted.

County Manager David McNeill gave a cost estimate today: $10,000 a year.

The conversation is expected to continue next week in the county commissioners meeting.

But if those boards receive reimbursements, who else should? Is this an all-or-nothing deal for the other advisory boards and commissions? And where would the money come from?

Those were a few questions that Vice Chairwoman Kay Cashion and others had.

Questions that, McNeill said, only the board can answer.

Of the 60-plus advisory boards and commissions the county uses to run its business, just a few receive money. Planning board members receive $10 per meeting, for example. Here
are the others.

Could this kind of money be spread to all the boards, or is it fair to help those people putting miles on their cars to do the business of making sure our elderly are being treated well? Or is that simply the sacrifice someone makes to be a volunteer?

What if every volunteer was compensated for thier time on a board? What would change? What if nobody was?

Scoop found Guilford County Commissioner Steve Arnold by phone Thursday, who said he might be ready to talk sometime about the bankruptcy proceedings and other things he’s facing lately.

Arnold used words like “politically fatal” to describe how he’s handled talking about the case so far. Which is to say that Arnold hasn’t spoken much on it at all.

When Scoop asked Arnold if he’d be available soon — he does have another court date May 8 — he said that he may get back to us sometime around then.

We're looking forward to the conversation. Arnold said that he's got some factual information that he wants out there, and that our reports were a little off.

"I can point out all kinds of mistakes and various issues that were wrong," he said.

Well, that can happen when we don't get someone's side of the story, or they don't want to talk.

Inside Scoop is always open.

Guilford County's health department saw its initial request to improve access to healthcare in the 27406 ZIP code reduced by half to $250,000 in preparing the 2008-09 budget, according to Merle Green, director of public health.

That reduction could be a harbinger of more lean times for other county departments as County Manager David McNeill works on his recommended 2008-09 budget. The Board of Commissioners will review the budget in May and approve it in June.

This year's budget season could be especially difficult, considering that voters may approve up to $671 million in bonds, and the board already asked McNeill to make a budget with no property tax rate increase in addition to the one he'll recommend.

Any new bond will likely cause the county's property tax rate to rise.

Along with the county department requests, several community groups traditionally receiving funding were cut from the current 2007-08 budget and hope to get back on the books in 2008-09.

And one more thing could hold sway for some board members. The election itself.

The May 6 primary will settle the bonds decision and three races for commissioner. But two At Large commissioners and the District 4 race will be settled in November, after the budget is approved.

Oh, and everything seems to be getting more expensive.

In all those factors, are there any issues that you hope are covered in our work on the 2008-09 budget? List them in comments, or e-mail me.

A half-hour of recognitions preceded the regular business in Thursday's Guilford County commissioners meeting, and they spanned from naming bridges to hearing bagpipes.

In a somber moment, the board named the Eugene/Elm Street bridge over I-40/85 in honor of L.E. Pace, a state trooper who died while on-duty in 1963.

The High Point Central High School Men of Valor Excelling program was recognized for receiving the President's Volunteer Service Award.

And then there were bagpipes. Redhead Commissioner Linda Shaw (she's a Republican, too)read the proclamation recognizing April as national Scots, Scots-Irish Heritage Month. Bagpiper David Thomas serenaded the board. (The bagpipe starts at 37 minutes in the video.)

Also, May is now the month for foster care awareness and mental health month. And The week starting May 4 is arson awareness week.

Update: Here's today's story on the 2007-08 county budget. What do you want your board of commissioners to fund?

After Tuesday, when most bonds in Guilford County received the nod from voters, you can likely count on a couple things happening in the 2008-09 budget.

Some commissioners will likely mention that voters could have made things easier in by passing the quarter-cent sales tax. Property tax may well go up. And there could even be more cuts.

All that comes at a time when food stamp claims are increasing at the Department of Social Services, the Sheriff's Office was required to add 28 deputies at the beginning of the year that will be permanent positions and many of the community groups that were cut in last year's budget want to get back on board.

One Soopster mentioned after tonight's Primary results came in that "the real election begins tomorrow."

Nay. Budget season begins tomorrow.

Now all those things that Guilford commissioners talked about - particularly tax increases - are going to come up.

And the referenda that passed only technically gives the board the clearance to issue the bonds. They don't have to, and they don't have to issue them for the full amount.

Soon we can see what the commissioners think about this upcoming budget season.

Most of the time, we simply ignore the calls asking for us to investigate the great ketchup famine of 1996 or the relationship of some elected official to Area 57.

This morning was a touch different when a caller asked about who pays for these bonds, particularly the school bonds.

The caller wanted to know what happened to the North Carolina Education Lottery proceeds that were intended to build new schools. Then the caller implied that people who don't own property in Guilford County are probably the folks who voted for the bonds, because renters don't have to pay property tax.

We reported last year that the North Carolina Education Lottery wasn't putting up the revenue that was expected. Here's a handy .pdf showing the breakdown from the 2006-07 ticket sales.
While the lagging lottery isn't the only reason bond supporters used to justify that the schools needed the money, it is one of many factors.

As for the property-owners-only-pay-property-tax argument, it's true only to the extent that the person who owns the land pays the property tax bill. Rest assured, every time rent goes up for a person, a part of that increase also goes to cover higher property taxes.

We caught up with Guilford County commissioners this week to see what they think now that the dust has settled on the May 6 votes for $671 million in bonds and the quarter-cent sales tax.

Guilford voters approved all the bonds except for the $20.2 million for parks. And they refused the sales tax.

But few commissioners managed to hold closely to what the voters wanted in their districts.

Below is the list of what commissioners said they wanted before the election, which excludes at-large commissioners John Parks and Paul Gibson:

District 1, Bruce Davis: No to the $412 million school bond and jail bond. Yes to other bonds. Undecided on sales tax.

District 2, Steve Arnold: Yes on Eastern Guilford. No to the other bonds and sales tax.

District 3, Linda Shaw: Yes to bonds and sales tax.

District 4, Kirk Perkins: Yes on bonds and the sales tax.

District 5, Billy Yow: Yes on the jail bond and sales tax. No for the other bonds.

District 6, Kay Cashion: Yes on bonds and the sales tax.

District 7, Mike Winstead: Refused to give his position on the bonds or sales tax.

District 8, Melvin “Skip” Alston: Yes to Eastern Guilford. No to the other bonds and sales tax.

District 9, Carolyn Coleman: Did not comment.

Six votes will pass Guilford County's 2008-09 budget. There's 11 members on the board, and a simple majority will make the budget go.

Let the lines be drawn.

County Manager David McNeill will present his budget to the Board of Commissioners on May 22. There are no new members on the board, so each will go into next week's meeting with an idea of what they want in the county's $550 million budget. Some said they want funding for community organizations. Others want more money for schools. And some want no new taxes, no matter what.

But what do you want to get funded? Contact your commissioner, or post a comment down here.

Commissioners tell us all the time that voters contact them and say this or that. But we'd also like to hear from you after you talk with your elected representative. What did they say? What do you want? It is your tax money, after all.

Also, in a conversation with Chairman Kirk Perkins today, he said that things going unfunded this year may come back to haunt the county later. So saving now may mean paying more for it later.

Because there's an expected property tax rate increase with the bonds that passed. We've been giving averages out for these bonds lately, but here's how it breaks down for the next couple years: In 2008-09, there will be a property tax rate increase of about $70 for the owner of a $200,000 home. In the following year, 2009-10, that homeowner will have another increase of about $100. Then, in 2010-11, that homeowner will pay an extra $16 on the tax bill.

That number fluctuates because bonds are issued and paid on different timetables and the property tax increases this year and next will go to cover those bonds. And while they are intended to cover the bond payments, what happens when the bonds are paid down? Who ever heard of a local government lowering taxes?