The City of Greensboro announced Tuesday, March 24 that city hall would be closed to the public beginning Thursday, March 26, and that there would be no public comment period at the Tuesday, March 31 City Council meeting.
City hall at 300 W. Washington St. had been operating on reduced hours, open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Beginning Thursday, the only people other than employees who will be allowed in city hall are people paying a water bill or signing up for water service, which may be done from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and can only be done in person at city hall. However, people are encouraged to use alternate methods of handling business with the city, such as by phone, online, email or the US Postal Service.
Water cut-offs for non-payment of bills has been suspended.
The City Council meeting scheduled for March 31 at 5:30 p.m. will not have a public comment, period generally referred to as speakers from the floor. It will be broadcast live on GTN and streamed on the city’s website at http://www.greensboro-nc.gov and Roku.
The City Council postponed its scheduled meeting on Tuesday, March 17 to March 31, and the agenda for that March 17 meeting includes two rezoning requests that attracted a good number of people to the Zoning Commission meetings. During this time when gatherings of over 50 people have been outlawed by executive order from Gov. Roy Cooper, that could create a problem if people attend to speak on those items.
City Councilmember Justin Outling said, “My understanding is that everything for which a public hearing is required is not going to be discussed or voted on at the meeting.”
Since public hearings are required for rezoning requests, that means all the rezoning requests on the agenda would be continued to a future meeting
Outling said that he expected the meeting to consist of the Consent Agenda, which are considered noncontroversial items and are all passed with one vote, and any other items that need to be passed but don’t require public hearings.
Outling noted that because the City Council had a public comment period at the meeting on Monday, March 2, the city could legally forgo a public comment period at this meeting.
