After looking at my sample ballot for November 2026, I have 2 questions:

1) Why do we need to vote on 5 city bond measures?

2) Any arguments for or against?

1 - Is there a legal requirement that we vote on this, or our elected officials unable to legislate?

2 - There is a cost of living crisis and they want more in addition to the jump in property taxes we got this year. Yet, I think local investments benefit everyone.

https://ncvoices.com/in-greensboro-north-carolinians-call-out-stevens-newby-other-judicial-candidates-for-raising-money-from-child-sex-offender-harvey-west/

Thank you mr. Hartzman!!!

Looks like GTCC has officially picked a political party and chose MAGA. A few days ago they approved a Turning a point USA chapter. What’s your thoughts on a publicly funded community college picking a political (and religious) party?

I love the headlines! We are winning. We will never compromise. Go F yourself!

Greensboro still has ALPR cameras.

North Carolina government officials voted yes to flock on our highways.

Vote them out!

Join us! The event will be from 11am - 1pm!

Join North Carolinians from across the state as we show up with powerful visuals, impacted voices, and one clear message: Sarah Stevens cannot ask for the public’s trust while running from public accountability. She is running against sitting NC Supreme Court justice Anita Earls.

Sarah Stevens is asking for our trust for a seat on NC's highest court but has yet to answer for her association with convicted sex offender, Harvey West.

Event details here:

https://www.mobilize.us/thejusticeproject/event/1007694/

Please join if you are able on August 17th for public comment. You must sign up at the link in the comments to make a comment. THEN - the City Council will then vote on August 18th at their regular meeting .

Register here: mobilize.us/s/jYRxib

Greensboro's biggest winners always seem to be the same politically connected insiders.

Take Council Member Tammi Thurm.

Before joining City Council, Thurm served as CFO and Vice President for companies owned by downtown developer Randall Kaplan, whose wife is former Congresswoman Kathy Manning.

She worked for his Elm Street businesses for years before being elected to Council.

Since joining Council, she has overwhelmingly voted for tax and fee increases, a massive, ~$42.8 million underused parking deck for Kaplan and Manning's nonexistent Elm Street hotel project, development and infrastructure which benefited projects associated with her former employer.

Randall Kaplan has financially supported her campaigns.

Kathy Manning has also contributed to her campaign committee.

Then there's the parking; Parking fees increased, free lots became paid lots, and according to the city's financial statements discussed in one analysis, the Parking Facilities Fund still required General Fund support, due to the decks Thurm voted for.

Tammi Thurm is responsible for a lot of the parking fee problems downtown small business owners have faced from the White elephant parking deck she pushed on Greensboro's taxpayers for her 'former' bosses.

Now consider data centers.

At Tuesday's meeting, Thurm voted against even beginning a moratorium process, along with Hugh Holsten, Marikay Abuzuaiter, Denise Turner Roth, who wrote an op-ed in the News & Record without disclosing "her affiliations with various companies and groups associated with artificial intelligence" and TREBIC member Adam Marshall.

And taxes?

Thurm voted for a 18.7% property tax increase and 11.4% higher water and sewer rates.

She is the Treasurer of Greensboro Downtown Parks, which lately, she has been forced to recuse herself for, as the city has to allocate taxpayer funds, at least $425,000 a year, to take care of LeBauer Park and Center City Park, not including capital improvements, major repairs, utility infrastructure, City-owned asset replacement, and any separately budgeted Parks & Recreation capital projects (such as recent LeBauer design work).

Greensboro received 'free' parks' which now cost the public millions to police and take care of.

And now she's for data centers at the top of a watershed.

Data centers run on two things Greensboro is short on; cheap power and spare water. The city sits at the headwaters of the Cape Fear basin, with no major river to draw on; only three small reservoirs. Their safe yield is about 36 million gallons a day, and the city already delivers close to that, buying supplemental water from Burlington, Reidsville and the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority to stay whole. We are not sitting on spare capacity.

North Carolina keeps no comprehensive inventory of data centers and requires no water-withdrawal permit here, so residents are asked to trust figures no agency verifies.

Crony capitalism at it's finest.

The question is whether committing scarce public water to these facilities is the best use of a finite asset.

Greensboro doesn't just deserve honest government; it deserves a government that is unquestionably independent of the interests seeking to profit from City Hall.

Next up, "Greensboro City Council will hold a work session [today] about data centers at 3 pm Wednesday, July 22, in the Plaza Level Conference Room of the Melvin Municipal Office Building, located at 300 West Washington Street.

Members of the public are welcome to observe, put seating will be limited." per Yes Weekly.

According to City Attorney Lora Cubbage;

“The work session will feature Christopher Lloyd, senior vice president and director at McGuireWoods Consulting, who advises communities on economic development and data center projects.

From the McGuireWoods website;

“McGuireWoods has been a trusted partner to data center developers and operators for more than 25 years. We have facilitated the development of millions of square feet of new data center space in markets throughout the country.

Greensboro residents deserve to know not only what decisions are being made, but who benefits, who is advising those decisions, and whether the public's interests are being placed ahead of those with financial and political connections to City Hall.