🧵 In Today’s Edition

1. Irish Good wants to bring her experience with the city to a District 2 council seat
2. Denise Roth was to go from City Manager to City Council Member
3. The Agenda
4. What We’re Reading

Irish Good Wants to Bring Her City Staff Experience to District 2

“Greensboro has been my home my entire life,” said Irish Good.

After a 35-year career with the city’s fire department and in People & Culture (formerly Human Resources), she’s now seeking a seat on the Greensboro City Council in District 2, where she’s lived for over 40 years.

Good was one of the more than 40 applicants who vied for the at-large council seat left vacant by the death of Mayor Pro Tempore Yvonne Johnson in December. The council ultimately chose Jamilla Pinder to finish Johnson’s unexpired term. Now Good is one of five District 2 candidates looking to follow Dr. Goldie Wells, who is retiring from council.

Read the full story here.

— Gale Melcher

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Denise Roth served as Greensboro’s City Manager from 2011 to 2014, gaining a reputation for concentrating on solutions and avoiding political squabbles. That reputation only grew when she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the deputy administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration and rose to lead the agency.

Roth faced criticism for that same steady, apolitical hand after President Donald Trump’s election, when she chose to leave the role without ending a lease for a luxury hotel from which she believed Trump should have voluntarily divested.

In this year’s paradigm-shifting city council election, Roth looking to take her experience as city manager to an at-large seat on the council.

Read the full story here.

— Joe Killian



We’re halfway through September. Tomorrow is the Greensboro City Council’s second regular meeting of the month, followed later this week by a work session. The Guilford County School Board meets today in a closed session, and the High Point City Council is holding two committee meetings.

Let’s dig into the decisions being made by local leaders this week.

City of Greensboro

City Council meeting

Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 5:30 p.m. @ Melvin Municipal Office Building in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber, 300 W. Washington St.

In addition to the 19 zoning requests the council will review, which will include public hearings, there are 17 items on the consent agenda. They include:

  • The sale of 2701 A N. O’Henry Blvd. for $350,000 to DHIC, Inc., a nonprofit affordable housing developer, 54 units will be developed for senior (55+) housing and 60 units for families. The land was previously occupied by the Regency Inn, which fell into disrepair over the years and was once used as a temporary winter shelter for unhoused people. 

The general business agenda includes:

  • Approving a contract and $656,000 bid with Envision Company, Inc. for CVB hockey office restroom renovations, which include the replacement of existing ceilings and new mechanical, electrical, and plumbing installations. These renovations are included in the agreement between the Greensboro Gargoyles and Oak View Group—the private management company selected last year by the city to manage the Greensboro Coliseum Complex and Tanger Center.
  • Putting $114,000 toward steel and equipment for additional improvements related to the hockey team.
  • Approving a request from the city’s water resources department to sole-source purchase CLARIFLOC C-6257 sludge dewatering polymer from Polydyne, Inc. The city’s T. Z. Osborne Water Reclamation Facility uses fluidized bed incineration to dispose of biosolids, a sludge which has to be dewatered before being incinerated. A polymer solution is mixed with the sludge so it will clump, making it easier to separate solids and water.

City Council work session
Thursday, Sept. 18, at 2 p.m. @ Melvin Municipal Office Building in the plaza level conference room, 300 W. Washington St.

This meeting was postponed from Sept. 11.

Guilford County 

Board of Education
Monday, Sept. 15, at 5:30 p.m. @ Guilford County Schools Community Education Center, Rooms 214 & 216 at 2703 E. Florida St.

This is a closed session. The purpose of the meeting is to consider confidential student matters protected by state and federal law, according to an email from Guilford County Schools’ Director of Media Relations Gabrielle Brown.

City of High Point

City Council Transparency, Engagement, and Communication meeting
Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 9 a.m. @ 211 S. Hamilton St.

This meeting’s agenda hasn’t been posted yet.

City Council Finance Committee meeting

Thursday, Sept. 18, at 4 p.m. @ 211 S. Hamilton St.
This meeting’s agenda hasn’t been posted yet.

Links to local board meetings and agendas:

Guilford County – Board of Commissioners

Guilford County – Board of Education

Greensboro – City Council

Greensboro – City Calendar

High Point – City Council

-Gale Melcher

What We’re Reading

Not Her Finest Work: Guilford Technical Community College fired Lisa Greenlee, a part-time English instructor, for comments she made last week after the killing of conservative political figure Charlie Kirk. The move came after an audio recording, purportedly of Greenlee speaking in class about the assassination, circulated online. “Tell me that wasn’t karma doing her finest work,” the voice on the recording says of Kirk’s shooting. “Yeah, I’ll praise the shooter. He had good aim.” The News & Record has the story.

A Bad Bet: The National Collegiate Athletic Association is investigating former student athletes from North Carolina A&T State University and five other campuses for alleged violations of sports betting rules. Fox8 has more.

Dancing In The Street: Thousands descended on downtown this weekend for the North Carolina Folk Festival. The News & Record has a great photo gallery capturing the energy and big moments, from break dance battles and singer-songwriters to UNCG Chancellor Frank Gilliam introducing Saturday night headliners Arrested Development.

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Joe Killian is The Assembly's Greensboro editor. He joined us from NC Newsline, where he was senior investigative reporter. He spent a decade at The News & Record covering cops and courts, higher education, and government.

Gale is a Report for America corps member and Greensboro-based reporter for The Assembly. She previously covered local government and community issues for Triad City Beat. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from N.C. State University.

Sayaka Matsuoka is a Greensboro-based reporter for The Assembly. She was formerly the managing editor for Triad City Beat, an alt-weekly based in Greensboro. She has reported for INDY Week, The Bitter Southerner, and Nerdist, and is the editorial/diversity chair for AAN Publishers.