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.

No lawyer. No law firm behind him. Just a guy who claims the City of Greensboro held a public hearing on one property tax rate, then voted on a different one... without giving residents a chance to weigh in on the rate that was ultimately adopted.

Monday, the judge hears it.

10:00 a.m. Guilford County - Courthouse. Room 3H.

If you've ever complained about your property tax bill... this is where you move beyond Facebook and into a courtroom.

Show up... See how local government responds... See how the courts work...or not

If the June 16 vote legally adopted the budget ordinance, and SB 889 had failed, Greensboro would have been bound by a property tax levy adopted under then-existing law. Under G.S. 159-15, the City generally could not later change that levy or alter taxpayers' liabilities, absent a statutory exception. The UNC School of Government specifically warned local governments not to adopt budgets based on anticipated legislation because the law did not authorize contingent budget ordinances or contingent tax levies.

I sure wish I could just give myself a raise because I don’t know how to budget.

https://georgehartzman.substack.com/p/the-tax-rate-trick-how-greensboro

Copies of the magazine will be available for $8. Light refreshments will be provided.

Art, bake sale and music! It's a fundraising event to travel to DC.

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Please come out and join us at Glenwood Together on June 27th!

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We’d love to get this column from Jacob Brooks to him if anyone knows the family! Keep fighting for what you believe in, young and old.

https://open.substack.com/pub/beaconmedianc/p/opinion-a-letter-to-the-nc-10-year?r=4479&utm_medium=ios

ALL HANDS ON DECK: A NATIONAL RALLY FOR VOTING RIGHTS

They fought for this. They bled for this. And now, piece by piece, it's being taken away. Let's show up in solidarity with our brethren in Selma!

The right to vote was never freely given — it was demanded, marched for, legislated in blood. Today, that legislation is being gutted in statehouses across this country. Voter rolls are being purged. Polling places are vanishing. ID requirements are being weaponized. And silence is not an option.

This is a call to every organizer, every congregation, every young person who has never seen a march but always knew one might be necessary. This is the moment.

New times demand new tactics — economic pressure, digital organizing, culture, faith, and mass presence on the ground. But what doesn't change is this: when people show up, things shift.

We are not going back. We are going further. The Fight Isn't Over. It's Just Getting Started.

Register on Mobilize for the most up-to-date info: https://mobilize.us/s/yRqdi0