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Morning, gang.
A few big announcements from the City of Greensboro since our last newsletter.
First, last Tuesday morning, the City of Greensboro announced the Greensboro Coliseum will get a new name for the first time in its 65-year history.
Then, in a special Friday meeting, the city council appointed a new manager.
These are big moves for the city and not without their twists. We’ll get further into them in this week’s The Thread, as well as a look at the effort to improve conditions for working families in Greensboro.
But before we get into all that, we want to remind you there still are plenty of opportunities to help our friends and family in western North Carolina as they recover from the heavy damages of Hurricane Helene.
Locally, Feed The Hunger is organizing meal pack-a-thons October 8-12.
“I have been in contact with the mayor of Asheville,” Mayor Nancy Vaughan said at last week’s Greensboro City Council meeting. “I think everybody was in stunned disbelief at the devastation that happened.”
The City of Greensboro is helping Asheville source pipes and equipment it needs after water and sewer lines were destroyed, Vaughan said.
“I know we will stick with them through this recovery as will most of the people in North Carolina,” Vaughan said. “One thing we do really well in Greensboro and in North Carolina is, we rise to adversity.”
– Joe Killian
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New Name for Coliseum, New Manager for City of Greensboro
The City of Greensboro got a new city manager last week and its iconic coliseum got a new name.
In a historic deal announced last Tuesday, First Horizon Bank acquired naming rights to the building for the next ten years. The move comes after the retirement last year of Matt Brown, who was managing director of the coliseum since 1994. While the city resisted naming rights deals under Brown—and for all the years since it opened in 1959—it was a priority for the Oak View Group, which is now managing the venue.
“This was one of the things OVG wanted to do,” Mayor Nancy Vaughan said at last week’s city council meeting.
While the terms of the deal weren’t initially disclosed, Vaughan said the contract is for $1 million a year for ten years with an “escalator clause.”
“Those naming rights, they were expensive dollars and they go right to the bottom line,” Vaughan said. “With the money OVG is able to raise, it helps offset the amount of money we have to transfer from the general fund.”
There was more big news Friday, as the city council unanimously voted to appoint Nathaniel “Trey” Davis as the new city manager effective immediately.
Previous City Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba resigned under a cloud last March. The city ultimately paid more than $200,000 to settle claims of unwanted touching brought by an employee who reported directly to Jaiyeoba. The city also paid $45,000 in legal fees. Those costs were in addition to the city giving Jaiyeoba a three-month severance package.
Chris Wilson has served as interim city manager since Jaiyeoba’s exit. Davis has been an assistant city manager for five years.
“I am honored by the level of confidence the City Council has shown in my leadership ability,” Davis said in a statement after the vote. “Greensboro offers an exceptional quality of life. As we prepare for continued growth, I look forward to working with our leadership and employees to focus on supporting our infrastructure, economic development and public safety as a whole.”
– Joe Killian
Read this newsletter online or contact The Thread team with tips and feedback at greensboro@theassemblync.com.
New Initiative Helping Working Families
If Cecelia Thompson has her way, conditions for working families in Greensboro are going to improve in the next year.
Thompson, executive director of Action Greensboro, wants the city to become North Carolina’s first Family Forward NC Certified community, with at least 50,000 people working for a certified employer by 2025. To become a certified workplace, businesses must share information about their current workplace policies, including those on parental and medical leave, flexible work hours, child care, and breastfeeding.
Future Ready Greensboro, a partnership between Action Greensboro, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, and the NC Early Childhood Foundation, is working to make that happen.
“We talk about neighbors and faith-based organizations and your family unit, you know all the traditional support systems around a family,” Thompson recently told The Thread. “But in many ways, we have not included the role of the employer in supporting parents and caregivers in the workplace.”
Work-life balance issues push many parents—particularly women of color—out of the workplace. A 2023 report on workers in Guilford County found that just seven percent of local employers offer paid parental or family leave.
The difficulty of finding child care and inflexible workplaces make life difficult for families in the state and nationally. A 2021 survey of working parents found that 40 percent of parents surveyed were considering leaving a job because it lacked flexibility.
As the issue intensifies due to North Carolina’s ongoing child care crisis, local communities are trying to find solutions. Greensboro in particular is looking to become a statewide leader in supporting working families. Launched earlier this year, the initiative aims to increase the number of local businesses that have family-friendly policies and benefits in place for employees.
So far 56 certified employers covering some 18,500 employees are officially part of the Future Ready Greensboro initiative, Thompson said. Participating employers include Volvo, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Procter & Gamble, and local companies like Charles Aris, Inc..
As the network grows, employers in the initiative are coming together to learn from one another.
Last month, dozens of Future Ready Greensboro participants and interested employers gathered to hear more about North Carolina’s economy and how joining the initiative could be beneficial. Speakers included representatives from the NC Early Childhood Foundation, First Bank, Procter and Gamble, and Graham Personnel Services.
Over the course of the event, speakers argued that helping parents, particularly with child care, is vital to the future of the state’s economy.
“Child care is probably one of those most pronounced barriers that hold people back from employment,” said Chris Chung, the executive director of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
According to Thompson, Greensboro is currently 37% of the way towards covering 85,000 employees, with more businesses continuing to join the initiative.
If the city succeeds, Thompson said, Greensboro will become an attractive option for working families looking for their next home.
“We know the labor market is challenging,” Thompson said. “And so we need to be providing all the things that we can to attract top talent to our community and to our employers.”
— P.R. Lockhart
Correction: The original version of this story misspelled the name of Cecilia Thompson, executive director of Action Greensboro. It also used outdated data on the group’s Family Forward NC goals. We regret and have corrected these errors.
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What We’re Reading
Elections 101: Last week Triad City Beat sat down with Charlie Collicutt and Tim Tsujii, the elections directors for Guilford and Forsyth counties, for a wide-ranging discussion of the elections process.
Around the State
In Junaluska, A Historic Church Gathers After the Storm
This historically Black community just outside of Boone has weathered quite a bit over its 200 years.
The Evolution of Jeff Jackson
He’s known as the TikTok lawmaker. But Jackson’s path from adolescence to Afghanistan to Congress winds through politically complex territory.
In Meat Camp, Neighbors Fled Rising Waters, Landslides
Residents recount riding out the storm as Hurricane Helene devastated their rural mountain town of 2,300.
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