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Scoop bumped into Dan Lynch downtown at Chik-fil-a this morning and came away with a few interesting points about the incentives request from LabCorp in Thursday's Board of Commissioners meeting:

• It was the first request to go to a public hearing for the Board of Commissioners all year. By this time last year, Lynch said, the county had seen four or five such requests. He's right. A quick search shows that FedEx Ground, Ozark Automotive Distributors, Precor and ConvaTec all went before commissioners last year.
• The county's competition is Danville, Va., which, like Greensboro, was a home to major textile and tobacco manufacturing, processing and headquarters. Both areas have been especially hard-hit in the tough economy and are working to recover as best as possible by attracting diverse employers and creating a better-educated workforce. Lynch said that he's heard that the Danville incentives package is about three times larger than North Carolina's incentive plan. When we called Danville City Manager Lyle Lacy about the incentives, he said that he wouldn't comment.
• Some commissioners who voted against the incentives seem to think that LabCorp will come anyway. When we talked with Commissioner Kirk Perkins yesterday, he said that the believes the company will locate here. The vice president of LabCorp who attended the meeting, Brad Morton, said that Greensboro's biggest competition is whether the company chooses to even open the billing center. In this economy, Lynch said, there are plenty of companies looking to make moves and open new centers, but fewer are actually going through with action.

Sometimes the person you’d like to see take a job isn’t even in the running.

Hence the write-it category for elections.

Here are some of the folks who got the write-in nod during the recent City Council elections.

For Mayor of Greensboro:

-- One vote each for local notables, the Rev. Cardes Brown, newspaperman John Hammer, bloggers (and former political candidates) Ben Holder, Ryan Shell and Roch Smith Jr., and former police chief David Wray.

-- One vote for Luke Skywalker, who saved a galaxy far, far away from the dark side.

For City Council at large:

-- 18 votes for Jorge Cornell, Latin Kings gang leader who didn’t survive the October primary for the race.

-- 10 votes each for Ryan Shell – another at-large candidate who didn’t make it out of the primary – and Joel Landau, who ran in District 4.

-- 4 votes for Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney icon. One vote went to his girlfriend, Minnie Mouse.

-- One vote for Meb Kaflezghi, Eritrea-born long-distance runner who won this year’s New York City Marathon.

-- One vote for Pooh Bear, a.k.a. “Winnie the Pooh,” a.k.a. “Silly Old Bear,” beloved children’s book character and cartoon star.

-- One vote for Jimmy Buffet, who has wasting away in Margaritaville.

-- One vote for “Racksraw.” No first name was listed, but Scoop guesses this voter was angling to send a vote to Mary Rakestraw, who ran in District 4.

-- One vote each for “Someone Better,” “This is Stupid,” and “Not Robbie Pirkins” (sic).

In the District races:

-- 15 votes for Jay Ovittore, who did not make it out of the primary for District 3.

-- One vote for “None of the Above,” “ Nobody” and “Anybody but Them” in District 3.

-- One vote for Santa Claus in District 5.

One other note. Salvatore Leone received one vote for at-large and another for District 5. He is either someone local that Scoop hasn’t met yet, or the don of the Leone crime family based in Liberty City, the fictional metropolis on the video game Grand Theft Auto.

What: Greensboro City Council meeting.

When: 5:30 p.m. today

Where: Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 W. Washington St., Greensboro

Watch it: Time Warner Channel 13 or www.greensboro-nc.gov/citygovernment/council.cq

How to speak: Sign up before the meeting. Speakers have up to three minutes for items not on the agenda. The speakers-from-the-floor section is limited to 30 minutes.

On the agenda: Officials from the North Carolina Department of Health will explain the findings of a cancer analysis conducted for the area around the E. H. Glass and White Street Landfills.

The City Council will be asked to rezone land at the corner of West Cornwallis Drive and North Elm Street to allow for condominiums to be built.

The City Council will be asked to provide $373,000 to the Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings to create 373 jobs at a new Greensboro location over the next three years.

The City Council will consider ways to bridge a $6.1 million funding gap in order to build a new aquatics center at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The City Council will consider spending $2 million to buy 17 acres for a new park south of Hilltop Road.

A quick perusal of Guilford County's home page turned up a few interesting links that the average citizen might be interested in.

First a citizen guide to the county's 2010 budget planning. It's a guide that's been filtered through county halls, and a lot of it we have reported, but there's good recap-type information for wonks out there. Skip to page 4 to read the stats: lower sales tax revenue, more unemployment, higher demand for food stamps.

And as low-lying parts of the county begin to pool with rainwater from the remnants of Ida, the county is asking for public input on its natural hazard response.

Here's a message Mayor-elect Bill Knight sent along on Facebook:

Many thanks to each of your for your words of encouragement and support.

The November 3 election result was an emphatic yes to the need to restore forward thinking leadership in Greensboro's city government.

There is a renewed sense of pride and a "can do" spirit at work that we can capture and use as a springboard.

The new City Council is made up of an energetic group of individuals who have expressed a desire to quickly move forward and address the pressing issue of lagging economic growth. The business community is eager for a city government that will enthusiastically help it find solutions to complex regulations.

We have the good fortune of a new city manager who brings experience and innovation to city government. We are entering a win-win situation that can be exploited to build momentum for us all. Let's go forward together and not miss the opportunity.

Bill Knight
Mayor-elect
City of Greensboro, North Carolina

We're running a story on prayer in Guilford County Board of Commissioners meetings, given that the issue is winding through District Court for Forsyth County commissioners.

From the Winston Salem Journal:

Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp made the recommendation to U.S. District Court, which will rule on an issue that surfaced more than two years ago after several people filed a lawsuit against the county.

If the court upholds Sharp's recommendation, it would issue an injunction to prevent sectarian prayer.

Sharp rejected the county's argument that its policy of allowing clergy to give any kind of prayer on a first-come, first-served basis is fair.

Sharp found that the "overwhelming frequency" of references to "Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ or Savior" in the prayers at commissioners' meetings indicates that the board demonstrates a "preference for Christianity over other religions by the government."

The magistrate judge's recommendation doesn't end the lawsuit, which was filed in March 2007. The county has until Nov. 27 to file an objection to Sharp's recommendation. Chief District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr. would issue the actual ruling.

 

We spoke with the ACLU today, which has a copy of the Magistrate's opinion on their home page.

As for here, Greensboro has a moment of silence before meetings and High Point has a non-sectarian policy. Prayers before Guilford County can often include sectarian comments, usually Christian comments - which you can see yourself in the video meetings.

When we spoke to Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston, he said the he doesn't see a policy change ahead for the county.

"I don't like the moment of silence or anything of that nature," he said. "I like to pray before meetings."

Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston  appeared in peak form during a tour of the High Point University campus Thursday.

The commissioners met at the university instead of the Old County Courthouse for their regular meeting.

Serious as he can be in political situations, Alston also has a goofier side he shows sometimes.

He brought that along as he rode around campus with Commissioner Bruce Davis , County Manager Brenda Jones Fox , assistant manager Sharisse Fuller  and facilities director Fred Jones  on a eight-person golf cart.

“I don’t like being on a golf cart without my clubs,” he said as he got on board, to which Fox and Fuller replied with peals of laughter.

He carried the mood into the university’s student center, which has game systems, an arcade, billiards table and an air hockey table. There are also a series of fun house mirrors on a wall next to the message, “Choose to be extraordinary.”

Alston made a point to stop before two mirrors as the tour shuffled by. After seeing that, numerous libraries, renovated classrooms and top technology around the well-landscaped campus, Alston appeared impressed.

“For those who have not had the opportunity to come out and tour the campus in the last couple of years,” he said, “it would be good to come out and see and tour and see what makes this university one of the state of the art in the entire country, bar none.”

What: Guilford County commissioners meeting
When: 5:30 p.m.
Where: High Point University, 833 Montlieu Ave., High Point
On TV: This meeting will not be televised live. A tape will air at a later date on cable Channel 13 in Greensboro and other areas of Guilford County outside High Point and cable Channel 8 in High Point.  A video of the meeting should be posted online within two business days.
What’s going on? Check the address. The county commissioners are going on a road show to High Point University. The agenda will be light, with a few small items for commissioners to review and an update on the H1N1 virus in Guilford County from Merle Green , director of public health.
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.
Full agenda: www.co.guilford.nc.
us/commissioners/granicus
What’s next? Commissioners will have conversations among themselves to choose the next chairman and vice chairman. Several commissioners have said to expect Melvin “Skip” Alston  and Steve Arnold  to keep their position as chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

Over the past few weeks, we've worked on a few stories needing deeper information from Guilford County. The first is one we ran Sunday about the county's debt load.

Now, we're working on what the county's new incentive policy does and how it would operate. Who accepts applications? How does the process work?

In both cases, responses from the county to information requests have taken some time.

Here's the part where we say that reporters understand that some responses to info requests take time to gather. And we know that the world doesn't revolve around us. But the world - the government world - does revolve around the people that it serves, and people are able to ask questions about how things work.

Lately, we're asking questions about the county's bond debt and how $1.3 million would be spent.

We heard from the county about the bond debt on Friday, when they gave us a handy excel spreadsheet to show how county debt would look like in coming years. Unfortunately, it came after deadline for our story, and at least a week after we had first asked for information. Along the way, though, they pointed us to certain areas in current plans and procedures to show us where to get figures for a picture of what county bond debt could look like. And we know that finance and budget office employees have been busy lately with audits and a sooner than usual budget planning for the county.

They often let us know about their work load when we make information requests that may be more complex than usual.

For example, this: All department heads must have their budgets into County Manager Brenda Jones Fox by the end of October. Usually budgets are due after the first of the year.

So, we understand how some delays in getting back to us may arise.

Greensboro was similarly responsive, relative to their workload.

Speaking of Fox, we've been hoping to hear back from her on how the $1.3 million incentive program would work. Nearly two weeks ago we sent her an e-mail (along with then-county attorney Matt Mason, and deputy manager Sharisse Fuller) asking about some basics on the program.

When we saw her at the commissioners meeting Thursday, Oct. 15 -the day after e-mailing her questions- Fox said she would get a reply to us.

Since then, we haven't heard from her.

We did catch up with Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Steve Arnold the other day to ask about what he knew of the policy and how it would work.

We're also seeking answers to questions such as how the policy would work with county staff, which is something that county staff is often best-suited to answer.

As for the incentive policy, expect to see a story on that later this week.

And if you have any questions, as always, drop us a line: gerald.witt@news-record.com

More than one City Council member has said the board is getting along much better since they – nearly unanimously – agreed to hire new City Manager Rashad Young.

Just to test that issue, it seems, the council started its regular Tuesday meeting with a row over trash disposal.

A group came to ask the council to consider a pilot project on an alternative way to dispose of trash. Councilman Mike Barber accused Mayor Yvonne Johnson of bringing the group in as an attempt to block the council’s plan to ask for RFPs on the trash issue.

Barber was in support of the request for proposal, which was requests by another group that had an separate proposal for how the city should handle its trash.

The mayor said she had not, as Barber accused, arranged for the group to visit the city landfill.

After much back and forth about the intentions of the group and how the council should proceed in regards to trash, Councilman Zack Matheny got his turn to speak.

“Rashad,” he said to the new city manager, who was attending his first meeting, “welcome to Greensboro.”

“Are we having fun yet?” Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw asked.