The Greensboro City Council packed a lot into its one-hour meeting on Tuesday, March 31.
The meeting was held in a nearly deserted Council Chamber, in a nearly deserted City Hall. The meeting was closed to the public, however, the press was allowed to attend and the meeting was broadcast live on the Greensboro Television Network and the video is available on the Greensboro website at City Council Meeting March 31 .
There were 49 items on the Consent Agenda and they all passed.
Greensboro agreed to sell the Maple Street Building, which is now used by Parks and Recreation, to Guilford County for $1.75 million. Under different circumstances this is a sale that would have at least spawned some comment from councilmembers.
But the agreement to sell has now been made without the matter ever being discussed in public.
The council, also with no discussion before the vote, entered into an agreement with Piedmont Business Capital to administer a small business continuity fund program to help small businesses that need financial assistance because of the coronavirus by providing no-interest loans.
The city funded the project with $400,000 for loans and $60,000 for administration.
Ending yard waste pickup on Friday, March 27 was not a popular move with a lot of Greensboro residents. Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that it would have been better if the city could have provided more notice to residents that yard waste pickup was being suspended. She also said that she had received a lot of calls and emails about it.
But the City Council did do something about it. The city has temporarily waived the fees for residents taking their yard waste to the White Street Landfill.
City Manager David Parrish said that the city decided for the safety of its employees that it could not continue to pickup yard, waste which is a labor intensive job, but that residents would be able to utilize the White Street Landfill at no additional cost following the action of the City Council.
The council also temporarily suspended the late fees for city services payments and officially cancelled the Tuesday, April 7 meeting.
The council also took care of a lot of business regarding contracts, grants, budget amendments and other routine city business.
The City Council set a number of public hearings for the April 21 meeting and that will likely turn out to be far from routine, since it is almost certain that the public will be excluded from the next City Council meeting on April 21, and if public hearings are held they will be virtual public hearings.
