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The Guilford County contract with Nexsen Pruet for county attorney representation has another bonus: Jonathan Maxwell, the former county attorney who retired in 2006.

Maxwell was succeeded by Sharron Kurtz, who resigned suddenly in December.

Now he works on a contract basis with Nexsen Pruet. From the RFP response in the firm's paperwork for the county:

"Mr. Maxwell has been a valued colleague of the Firm for many years and would be retained on a contract a contract attorney basis if our proposal is accepted in order to supplement the Firm's service to the County with his deep knowledge, experience and connections in the County Attorney area."

Wonder how much impact those couple sentences had in determining which firm would get the county's business?

There’s a story floating around that some council members would like Bob Morgan to be the next city manager.

Morgan certainly has management experience. He was town manager in Farmville and then Carrboro for 22 years before coming to Greensboro in 2002. And council members have had nothing but praise for him since he took over as Interim City Manager in March.

Of course, Morgan’s got to want the job. And so far, he hasn’t indicated that he’ll put himself in the running.

Scoop checked up again with him on Friday, and his opinion on the matter had not seemed to change. However he did say he was enjoying his time as city manager.

So perhaps there is some truth to the story. Keep watching the city council’s manager recruitment process to see how things go.
 

Bill Knight will take on the incumbent mayor in this year’s city council election, he will announce this Wednesday.

Knight lost a bid for an at-large council seat in 2007. This time he’ll seek a higher office, challenging Mayor Yvonne Johnson, who plans to seek re-election.

The retired CPA and consultant has made a hobby out of watching city business over the last few years.

“I’ve been here all my life,” he said. “I understand Greensboro.”

Knight said he hopes to run an issue-based campaign, focusing on things like crime and restoring trust in the community.

But more on that later this summer. Candidates can officially file their intentions with the board of elections July 6.
 

If Steve Arnold could have it his way, Guilford County Schools wouldn't see any more money than is proposed in the county's 2009-10 budget.

Arnold, vice chairman of the Board of Commissioners and one of the main architects of the county's budget this year, said that he needs to see what GCS needs to spend the money on.

The dispute is over $3 million that's proposed to be cut from the GCS budget next year to maintain school facilities. That's the topic of discussion today at a 3:30 p.m. meeting for a joint committee on the budget and education.

"We have been asking for the information on the maintenance and capital needs of the budget," Arnold said this morning.

What about the county making up for state cuts leading to fewer teaching jobs?

"I don’t think so," he said. "I think that all government units, especially on state and local levels, are very strapped for resources right now. And we are examining our priorities. And clearly they're doing that on the state level, and locally we’ve done that as well ... and we are funding our school system in total of over $180 million."

Arnold said that he wants to see if there's a list of prioritized projects that schools need first for maintenance. And he's interested in seeing GCS expenses for legal costs. He said that all he received in response was a figure that shows the GCS attorney's salary, without any other legal-related costs.

"I am appalled, I’m just appalled and astounded of the lack of political acumen of the school board and school administrators," Arnold said, "and they show up at a work session, and they make desperate pleas for money when they should have been in touch with us, with open arms, six months ago."

Arnold said a few more things about the relationship between the school board and the commissioners, which is, historically, not all that great. And then went back to the funding questions.

"Instead the county always has the impression, and it’s justified, that the school system is trying to hide something," Arnold said. "And for the most part, I’m sure that they're probably not. It’s an impression that they give which is very hard to get away from."

Similarly, we here at Scoop have been looking for some figures from the county, on the severance packages and retirement packages offered to county employees. And the true expense of turnover in the county attorney's office.

Even though we've asked in the past about how those public funds were spent for staff changes, layoffs, retirement and the attorney's office, firm answers have been hard to come by. The questions have been largely ignored by the county, in fact.

And now, the attorney's office stands to receive an extra $250,000 in the county's budget update, though what that means was not thoroughly explained. The update calls it money "to address current and future legal needs of County."

Arnold said that, though he's not sure, the increase may be related to a change that went along with combining the attorney's office again. But there was $750,909 in the transfers in the original budget message for bringing positions to the reformed attorney's office from other departments, such as social services, the sheriff's office and so on. That's simply moving one pile over from another department.

And those layoff/retirement costs?

"I haven't asked that question," Arnold said. "And I think those are in personnel costs or are in retirement costs … I’ll ask that question and let you know if I have an answer when I see you later."

By later, he meant the work session planned for today.

So here are just a few more questions.

Is that $250,000 for expenses related to a contract with an independent law firm, or increased legal expenses of another sort? And if so, what would those increases in legal fees be related to? Litigation? A potential contract for an outside attorney?

So many questions. Is there anything that you, dear reader, wish to know?

Sen. Don Vaughan, a Greensboro Democrat, will host a town hall meeting next week. The details:

• Where: Greensboro Central Library, 219 N. Church Street
• When: June 11, 6 p.m.
• What: Says Vaughan: "I would like to hear your concerns and ideas regarding the 2009 Session of the North Carolina General Assembly? This will be the first of a number of Town Hall meetings which will be held during the remainder of the legislative session."
• Also: For those unable to attend, e-mail comments to don.vaughan@ncleg.net or call 919/733-5856

Our friends at The Onion scooped Scoop on this one.

And this guy may have the muscle it takes to win District 2.

Looks like two more council districts will have contested elections this year.

At Mayor Johnson's campaign kick off Sunday, Jim Kee, co-chair of Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, said he may run for the open District 2 seat. He’ll join Ryan Shell, who has already announced his intentions to run in that district.

District 2 Councilwoman Goldie Wells plans to retire this year.

On Sunday Daron R. Sellars and Luther Falls Jr. also said they plan to run for the District 1 seat held by T. Dianne Bellamy-Small. Falls challenged Bellamy-Small two years ago, but lost in the primary.

Blogger/government wonk Ben Holder says over on Ed Cone's blog that he’s moved to Greensboro and wants to run for District 1 as well. He’s holding a press conference Tuesday before the council meeting.

Bellamy-Small has not said for sure whether she plans to run for reelection.
 

Mayor Johnson handed over keys to the city last week to motivational guru Zig Ziglar and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The pair and other notables, like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani , were at the Coliseum for the “Get Motivated!” event.

“It was fantastic. (Powell) was a very warm person and so was Zig Ziglar,” Johnson said. “I just can’t tell you how genuine and kind. It was likt you’d known them for a long time.”
 

The big table in the center of city hall's plaza level council room was decidedly empty come 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

The staff members were there. The journalists had there with laptops ready.

But most of the city council members -- the guests of honor of this and every council briefing -- were MIA.

Councilman Mike Barber took the opportunity to chastise the absent members for not showing up to one in a series of three briefing sessions when council members will give the staff key recommendations about the budget and other financial issues.

"Over the last few months, it's as though the council meetings aren't important enough to attend," he said.

Mayor Yvonne Johnson and Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small were the other two members in attendance when Barber made his comment. Councilman Zack Matheny and Councilwoman Trudy Wade both came a few minutes late.

There was no explanation or excuse offered as to why the other four members were absent -- although Scoop knows that at least two council members were out of town traveling.

Barber has a point. Briefings in March and April were cancelled by council, sometimes because people were too busy to attend. As compared to the regular, twice-monthly council meetings, briefings are not as well attended. That means council members who don't attend miss that chance to speak candidly with and give direction to the staff.

The issue made Scoop wonder, who has the best attendance record on council?

Anyone care to guess?

We'll scare up an attendance roster and get back to you on that.

In case you are one of the only people who has not read the Risk Management Associates report into the Greensboro Police Department's employee woes, now you can get it in court.

The consultant report has been the source of much controversy over the years. It's been leaked, withheld by the city and refuted by writers. A heavily redacted version was released earlier this year by a Guilford County Court judge, but all the meaty stuff was cut out due to the North Carolina personnel law.

Now any member of the public can dig right into it, thanks to Police Officer Julius Fulmore's lawsuit against Greensboro.

The report, which discusses issues involving the former police chief and other officers, was one of the attachments included in last week's lawsuit filing. You can read those documents at the U.S. District Court in Greensboro or via PACER if you have an account.

No super secret, inside sources required.