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We’ve been talking to people, anyone who might know anything, about the layoffs expected this week in Guilford County.

And if we knew, we’d tell you.

For now, the word is that interim County Manager Brenda Jones Fox has the final say on layoffs, based on input from human resources manager Sharisse Fuller and commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston and Vice Chairman Steve Arnold.

And when Scoop asked recently for information on the layoffs from February, we received a copy of the county’s layoff policy, a sample worksheet for judging positions and an e-mail from Fuller praising staff work on compiling the list.

That doesn’t reveal much of the methodology behind cutting specific positions, but the legal department said it hopes to get more information to us.

Commissioner Billy Yow is fed up with the secrecy in the county lately.

“Tell me what you see happened in the open,” he says, referring to layoffs and the way in which the county lost a manager, attorney and deputy manager — all suddenly and quietly — in December. “Did you see the manager in the open, the deputy in the open, the attorney in the open?”

Get ready to protest

In just a few short weeks, the first zoning case eligible for the newly restored protest petition could go before the City Council.

The state legislature restored protest petition — a tool to help landowners fight neighboring rezoning cases — to Greensboro this month.

The city legal department determined the process would apply to cases that were approved by the zoning commission March 9. There was only one case — a rezoning on Rankin Place — that will go forward to City Council because it was in an historic district, City Planning Director Dick Hails says.

City staff has sent out letters reminding abutters that the case will be before the council on April 7.

The letter contains a brief explanation of protest petition, Hails says.

The protest forms will be available on the city Web site, greensboro-nc.gov, starting this week. Protests must be submitted to the city clerk by 5 p.m. on the Thursday before the City Council meeting.

The first protest petition deadline will be April 2.

By the way, if you were a protest petition supporter, blogger Keith Brown invites you to a celebratory event at Natty Greene’s, 345 S. Elm St., at 7:15 p.m. April 2.

Too young for City Council

An ambitious N.C. A&T sophomore hoped to pick up the District 2 council seat later this year during the Greensboro election.

But it looks like Bernard Foster will have to wait another two years.

Foster, 20, is about 10 days too young for the 2009 City Council election.

Foster is a political science major who was inspired by the crime around his campus to get more involved in city government.

“Something inside of me said I had to do something about it,” he says.

Foster turned in his election committee paperwork and was ready to run when election officials uncovered the error. He will be 21 by the time new City Council members are sworn in at the end of the year. But that isn’t soon enough to meet elections guidelines.

Candidates must by 21 years of age as of the Nov. 3 municipal election. But Foster isn’t giving up. He says he will fight to change the rules and see if he can get on the board this year.

Staff writers Gerald Witt and Amanda Lehmert contributed.