Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Council Agrees

I flipped on the Channel 13 re-run of Tuesday's City Council meeting after my 7-10 p.m. class this evening and listened to councilmembers' comments about our trip to Greenville, SC.

All I can say is, oh my.

I heard Councilman Robbie Perkins saying it is time downtown Greensboro considered instituting design standards, and recommended that we emulate the meticulous attention to detail in streetscaping that we saw in Greenville. He especially liked their "pocket parks" and crypto-parking schemes, and spoke in favor of issuing bonds to finance "public-private partnerships" without referenda. Perkins said it was important for elected officials to be willing to take some criticism in order to push these efforts forward.

Councilwoman Yvonne Johnson seconded all of what Perkins said, adding that she particularly enjoyed Greenville's commitment to public art and innovative retail.

Councilwoman Bellamy-Small said she would like to ensure that housing downtown would be available to people with a range of incomes, and praised the many water features in downtown Greenville.

Mayor Holliday, the fourth and final Greenville day-tripper on the council, said he thought everyone who visited Greenville felt very positive and had a "can-do" attitude about Greensboro's future.

So I guess all the answers to the questions in my earlier post about Greenville would be lots of "yeses" and a few "maybes."

And that ain't bad. Not bad at all.

Now, to bed. I have an 8 a.m. meeting in less than 6 hours. Ugh.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why did the city "leaders" choose the opening day of the CCG for this trip to Greenville? "NICE" support in a CRITICAL year.

David Wharton said...

I would guess that it had something to do with the availability of the mayor and city staff in Greenville, who basically devoted their day to us.

But since I wasn't in on the planning of the trip, I don't really know.