George Hartzman has a piece that reveals city of Greensboro leaders expressed embarrassment over the fact that Randall Kaplan has not built his downtown hotel. This is after he had spent many years lobbying the city for money to build an adjacent parking deck. Taxpayers are spending $43 million on […]
Category: Greensboro Political Culture
Greensboro Determined To Borrow More Bond Money In Spite Of State’s Warning
You would think they would rethink their longstanding borrow-and-spend pattern after getting warned by the state that their reserves are getting too low. But this News and Record article suggests the city council is hell bent on proceeding with a proposed bond issue. Borrowing bond money, of course, encourages the […]
Greensboro City Council Members Scapegoating City Staff For Their Own Negligence
An interesting pattern is developing. Readers might recall that the city of Greensboro has gotten itself into trouble with the state because it allowed its financial reserves to fall well below what is ordinarily expected. The city council has been publicly and overtly blaming city staff for failing to inform […]
Greensboro Placed On Short Leash By State Of NC
We had reported here previously about our local units of government having inadequate financial reserves according to the state of North Carolina’s guidelines. Now, we learn that the state is requiring the state to get special approval whenever it pursues financing such as using bonds. Let’s review a bit of […]
Greensboro Seeking Flexibility From State
The news is that the city is seeking a city charter revision from the NC General Assembly that would enable it to sell city land below market value to private entities. The only interested buyers would be developers hoping to do something with the property. Here is an obvious question. […]
Greensboro Leadership Pretends To Be Trying To Fix The Crime Problem
There has been a string of violent incidents in the city of Greensboro during recent weeks. One of these was a particularly high profile incident downtown. The city tends to respond much more quickly when bad things happen downtown. The City Manager, Trey Davis, is trying to make it appear […]
Hazardous Conditions, Massive Cost Increases At Parking Garage City of Greensboro Built For Political Donors/ Insiders
Readers will perhaps recall the saga of the parking garage for which Randall Kaplan– the husband of former Congresswoman Kathy Manning– sought public funding. They have been longtime political donors and insiders. It was Kaplan’s vision to build a downtown hotel and to have the city taxpayers pay for its […]
Our Local Governments’ Costly Mishandling Of Responsibilities
There were recently a few stories that cast a highlight on serious mistakes made by the city of Greensboro and Guilford County. The state Local Government Commission has issued a warning to the city of Greensboro because it has not been meeting the state’s fund balance requirements. That commission determines […]
The TV Interview The City Of Greensboro Did Not Want To Happen
George Hartzman rightfully casts a spotlight on the effort by city of Greensboro officials to prevent Fox 8 from broadcasting an interview with a citizen activist who has been critical of the city. Although I am not a big fan of Fox 8, they are to be commended for exposing […]
A Justification For Another Greensboro Tax Increase
The city is placing a bond issue on the ballot for $41.5 million for multiple projects. City leaders are admitting they will need to raise property taxes further to service this debt. Recall they had just raised property taxes nearly 20 percent less than two months ago; and nearly 60 […]