The Greensboro City Council is scheduled to hold its yearly two-day retreat this week, virtually.
The retreat is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11 and Friday, Feb. 12 and presumably can be viewed by going to the city website and to the City Council calendar page at greensboro.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and clicking on the video for the date. When the video is streaming the link will say, “In Progress.”
The primary purpose of the retreat is to set the council goals to direct City Manager David Parrish and staff on developing the budget. For the 2020 retreat, the city hired a facilitator to help the City Council establish long term goals and then they were supposed to set short term steps to achieve those goals.
The City Council could do that again this year with a virtual facilitator, but no information has been released about the retreat other than the times they will held on Thursday and Friday.
There is no agenda available to the public. The information that is available is that the meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11 and 9 a.m. to noon on Friday, Feb. 12.
City Councilmember Justin Outling has delayed “Java with Justin” from noon on Friday, Feb. 12 to 2 p.m. This is Outling’s monthly meeting with constituents, which because of the coronavirus is currently held virtually at www.Facebook.com/JOutling. If you don’t have time or the inclination to spend over 10 hours virtually with the City Council, Outling will no doubt include a brief summary of the retreat at his meeting.
One might assume that because of the effect the coronavirus restrictions have had on revenue, that the City Council would spend a good amount of time discussing the 2021-2022 budget, which it will approve sometime in June.
Having the budget projections and recommendations before the meeting would be helpful to any Greensboro resident interested in the topic, but they are not currently available.
With 2020 setting a record for homicides, 61, along with an increase in both aggravated assaults and assaults with a firearm, one might also assume that the City Council would discuss crime and the Police Department and perhaps the Cure Violence program run by City Councilmember Yvonne Johnson. The purpose of Cure Violence is to reduce violent crime and in particular homicides, and so far has cost the city about $900,000.
The city has not spent $900,000 for Cure the Violence. Where did you get that number?
Meeting minutes. And for the record the only thing it has cured is the budget for “cure the violence.”
Ben you should pay attention to the city meeting That was voted on several months ago. Not fake news.
The Mandate Mayor and her either complicit or incompetent staff love to disenfranchise citizens. No agendas have been proper for months(years) as Greensboro is now ruled by Mandate and Missive with zero input or discussion from the public (as legally required) or even proper notice or having information on what is being considered.
Our city is hemmoraging money on performance arts center and shuttered businesses. Shootings seem to occur weekly if not daily. Our Mandate Mayors response? Hair discrimination ordinances and money to fix stakeholder(council member and cronies/donors)properties damaged in protests that were allowed to desend into violent riotous vandalism with almost zero arrests.
I would hope sitting City members would have a governance policy that requires them to opt out of “any” state or federal funds that are sent to the city. Current sitting council members have their hands in the pie with various community help groups, organizations, etc, for a LONG time, even if not made directly to them, it probably comes back to them indirectly.
In fact, why not have a policy which states no sitting member of the City Council, nor their immediate family (to include grand children, and spouses or their children, etc) can accept any funds which are disbursed by the City. This has become a “feeding at the trough” for many of Greensboro’s politicians.
This sounds like the usual “mushroom” approach to council business !
Tax and spend…tax and spend. Nothing to see here folks. THE DEMOCRACTS ARE BACK.
City council hiding somethings?? Come on Election Day! Cure for Violence is money handed to councilwoman Johnson by ALL city council! That money,$900K should have been used for the police department and city employees. Used for city services to the indigenous. Instead it is given to a city councilwoman who does not have to explain or show where the money goes. Fraud? Corruption?