Winston-Salem city council approves civil service board for police and fire employees to request hearings about employment decisions - Greensboro news - NewsLocker (2024)

Winston-Salem’s civil service board got the official go-ahead from city councilmembers in a 6-2 vote on Monday night. A civil service board serves as an extra layer of protection for city employees who disagree with employment decisions. The board gives them the opportunity to request a hearing and plead their case before the five-member board.Actions taken by Winston-Salem’s board will only apply to police and fire department employees. While police and fire department chiefs and as

U.S. Supreme Court upholds law that prevents domestic abusers from owning guns

This piece was originally published by Ariana Figueroa, NC Newsline
June 21, 2024The U.S. Supreme Court Friday upheld a federal law that bars people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning a firearm.In an 8-1 decision on United States v. Rahimi, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion that “our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”“When an individual h

Despite resident pushback, city council approves rezoning for more warehouses in east GSO

Featured photo: A zoning notice sign posted into the grass at 3530 and 3534 McConnell Road. (photo by Sayaka Matsuoka)Out on the east edge of Greensboro on McConnell Road lie nearly 20 acres of verdant land that really put the “green” in Greensboro.But that’s all about to change.On Tuesday night, Greensboro’s city council voted 8-1 to annex the land into the city and 9-0 to rezone it from its current intended use of farming and commercial business to light industria

At the Cosmic Summit, a proliferation of conspiracy theories, distrust in institutions and a yearning for the ‘truth’

Featured photo: Callie Roang leads Sam in a meditation sequence as he lays on the Theraphi table at the 2024 Cosmic Summit. (photo by Sayaka Matsuoka)Ancient lost civilizations, sacred geometry, UFOs, cold fusion, alien technology, thunderstorm generators.At first blush, none of these things appear to have anything in common. But at Greensboro’s Koury Convention Center in mid June, these ideas — most of them controversial — found a home at the 2024 Cosmic Summit.I watched on in

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: Local art over AI art

Featured photo: Screenshot from Downtown GSO’s promo video.
You might have seen it driving into downtown. Or maybe it caught, or rather, assaulted your eyes as you drove down Battleground Avenue. Either way, it’s likely that if you live in Greensboro and have driven around in the last few weeks, you’ve seen the awful Downtown Greensboro billboards that have popped up around the city.And on the off chance you haven’t, I’m here to tell you: they’re truly terribl

In ‘Restless Anahita,’ a photographer captures rare faces of Iranian women, children

Featured photo by Maroupi SaniThe shot is called “Mother’s Little Helper,” but it could also be called “The Persian Mona Lisa.”The similarities between photographer Sia Yazdanfar’s image and the seminal painting by DaVinci are not subtle.In Yazdanfar’s photo, the little girl, 10 years old, stands in three-quarter profile to the right of the frame, caught glancing at the camera from the corner of her dark eyes. Behind her, desert mountains wear patches of

A photographer’s eye wanders back centuries

Photographer Sia Yazdanfar captures the remote cultures of IranFeature photo by Maroupi SaniThe shot is called “Mother’s Little Helper,” but it could also be called “The Persian Mona Lisa.”The similarities between photographer Sia Yazdanfar’s image and the seminal painting by DaVinci are not subtle.In Yazdanfar’s photo, the little girl, 10 years old, stands in three-quarter profile to the right of the frame, caught glancing at the camera from the corner

Proposal would make NC public records and meetings access a constitutional right

Featured photo: Jayron32 of English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThis story was originally published by Lucas Thomae, Carolina Public Press
June 17, 2024A group of legislators are pushing to guarantee the right to access to public records and meetings in the state Constitution, but that proposed amendment likely isn’t headed anywhere during this year’s legislative session.Rep. Pricey Harrison
State Sen. Graig Meyer, D-Or

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FRESH EYES: Jesus is in the midst of Pride

“No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
These are the often quoted words of Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson, one of the mothers of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement. As a Black transgender individual, I find her words to be deeply necessary because of how familiar she was with being relegated to the margins. She and others were tired of living on the edge, tired of being pushed into the shadows, tired of discriminatory laws that failed to prioritize her p

Winston-Salem’s Kaleideum isn’t just for kids — it becomes a social hub for adults on second Saturdays

Featured photo: The rooftop of Kaleideum. (Photo by Gale Melcher)At Kaleideum, the children’s museum in downtown Winston-Salem, peals of laughter echo through rooms filled with games and toys. The sound of footsteps tumble down the hallways, followed by squeals of elation and surprise.But it’s a Saturday night, and the kids are in bed.On the second Saturday of the month, the space opens up to adults for a night at the museum called “Kaleideum After Dark.”The view of downt

EDITORIAL: What are we supposed to do about Republican overreach?

PHOTO: White supremacists guard a confederate statue in Lexington, NC, December 2021. [File photo]It’s all coming together for Republican officials in North Carolina, who by their actions seem intent on dismantling key tenets of good government including ethical oversight, transparency and education.ProPublica, which has of late gained traction by reporting shocking ethical lapses in the US Supreme Court, turned its eye to the GOP-majority NC Supreme Court this week. In the investigation,

NC Supreme Court secretly squashed discipline of two GOP judges who violated judicial code

This report was first published by Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
June 17, 2024Last fall, out of public view, the North Carolina Supreme Court squashed disciplinary action against two Republican judges who had admitted that they had violated the state’s judicial code of conduct, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decisions.One of the judges had ordered, without legal justification, that a witness be jailed. The other had e

GALLERY: Thousands celebrate Juneteenth in Winston-Salem over the weekend

Last week, thousands of community members gathered in Winston-Salem across the city to celebrate Juneteenth ahead of the national holiday on June 19. On Saturday, June 15, people gathered in Innovation Quarter for the Juneteenth festival that included live music, food trucks and vendors.Photos by Maaroupi Sani

LGBTQ+ employees can’t be misgendered or denied bathrooms at work, new federal rules say

This story was produced by The 19th and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.LGBTQ+ workers who are misgendered by their employers or blocked from accessing restrooms consistent with their gender identity will now get additional workplace protections as a result of new guidance issued April 29 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.It’s the first time in 25 years that the EEOC has issued new rules on workplace discrimination — a change precipitated in part by the 2

The GSO2040 plan says East Greensboro is for industrial use, but residents say they don’t want more warehouses

Featured photo: A zoning notice sign is posted into the grass at 3530 and 3534 McConnell Road. (photo by Sayaka Matsuoka)A property’s “highest and best use.” That’s what was being debated during a Greensboro zoning commission hearing on May 20. The properties in question — 3530 and 3534 McConnell Road — could be annexed and rezoned from their current use of farming and commercial business to light industrial if approved by city council on June 18.Driving along

Featured photo: Demolition work tears into the former advertising and design office section of the News & Record on May 29, 2024, as seen from South Davie Street.Between the 1970s and 2020, the Greensboro News & Record operated out of their headquarters at 200 E. Market St. in downtown Greensboro. The complex churned out daily editions of the Greensboro Daily News and The Greensboro Record until consolidating to the single News & Record paper in 1984. Over the decades, the paper staf

Residents push back during contentious public meeting about Bingham Park and White Street Landfill

Featured photo: Resident Malinda Pagett voices concerns at Wednesday’s meeting about Bingham Park and White Street Landfill. (Photo by Marielle Argueza)“If you’re going to be disruptive, then you can leave.”That’s what the city of Greensboro’s Communications and Marketing Director Carla Banks told a crowd of more than 50 residents on Wednesday night during a contentious meeting to discuss the city’s plan to use White Street Landfill in East Greensboro as

Downtown Greensboro’s Place for Play Turns 25

Miriam P. Brenner Children’s Museum
220 N. Church St. GSO
336.574.2898
mbcmuseum.com/Twenty-five is an important number. It’s a quarter of a dollar. It’s the birthday when a human brain is fully developed. And it’s also the number of years the doors to the Miriam P. Brenner Children’s Museum (MBCM) have been open!Over the last two and a half decades, MBCM has carried out its mission to engage all children and families in hands-on learning experiences which contribut

‘The ultimate job’: Black fathers reflect on parenting, masculinity, raising sons

Featured photo: James Phillips and his family. (courtesy photo)In 1965, just five months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, white American scholar Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a report titled, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” which in subsequent years became known as the Moynihan Report. In a case for racial justice, Moynihan wrote that the rise in Black single-mother families was due to “ghetto culture” and that wi

Featured photo: Joseph Wilkerson has worked to publish a magazine for Greensboro’s Juneteenth festivities for the last four years. (courtesy photo)Joseph Wilkerson III is an artist, community activist and organizer who has lived and worked in Greensboro for decades. As part of the city’s official Juneteenth celebration, the fourth one on the books, Wilkerson helps to create and distribute magazines that serve as a guide to the events. In our conversation, Wilkerson talked about his h

Evictions plague renters across the country. In Greensboro, a grassroots group is pushing the city to fund a solution.

Featured photo: Keep Gate City Housed launch party on April 7. (Photo by Gale Melcher)Courtroom 215, located in Greensboro’s Guilford County Courthouse, can feel like a machine, spitting out judgments as quickly as fresh eviction cases are filed. For those unfamiliar with the civil court system, it can be daunting, especially without legal help navigating the process.Unlike criminal court, where defendants have a right to an attorney if they cannot afford one, there is no federally u

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: Talk to your dads

Featured photo: Me with my dad and my sister in Japan back in October 2023.
I talk to my mom a lot.We play tennis together no less than three days a week and my sister, my mom and I have a group chat where we send funny videos and news articles for discussion.But I don’t talk to my dad as much.Growing up, my dad was like a lot of other dads. He worked long hours while my mom stayed home and raised me and my sister. So naturally, we grew close to my mom and had an easier time talking with h

How activist-artists in Greensboro established Juneteenth as a city holiday a year before the US declared it a federal holiday

Featured photo: Vendors sell Juneteenth-themed shirts during the 2022 festival. (photo by Carolyn de Berry)Princess Johnson, a dancer and owner of Greensboro-based Royal Expressions Contemporary Ballet, did not grow up celebrating Juneteenth. Even as a Black woman who grew up in the South, the holiday was something only a few people in her circle celebrated.“I didn’t know what it was exactly. Growing up in the United States, everything’s about the Fourth of July,” she sai

Activists and educators in Guilford and Forsyth counties push for increased funding for public schools in county budgets

Featured photo: Members of the Forsyth County Association of Educators protest for more public education funding. (photo by Margaret Ritsch)Educators, staff and allies in both Guilford and Winston-Salem/Forsyth public school districts marched and rallied this past week, outraged by the loss of millions in public school funding from the state just as the NC General Assembly has expanded the voucher program to benefit even the wealthiest families.“We’re experiencing a crisi

Forsyth County community project aims to ‘map prejudice’ and address the area’s history of racist real estate practices

Featured photo: A map of Winston-SalemIt’s June 1945.The end of World War II is on the horizon with Germany’s surrender a month prior. In North Carolina, HG Thacker and Paul Hemrick have just signed off on the sale of several plots of land in Forsyth County, with a stipulation in the deed stating that ownership and occupancy of the property must be “limited exclusively to people of the white or Caucasian race.”It’s a chilling example of how the phrase, “All me

EDITORIAL: Stacking the deck for Mark Robinson

People really don’t like Mark Robinson.Sure, some people like him — it’s how he was elected as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor a couple years ago. But after a term laced with his hateful and insane rhetoric that includes labeling all LGBTQIA2S+ North Carolinnians as “filth,” calling for a ban on all abortions in the state with the suggestion that women “keep their skirts down” as an alternative to unwanted pregnancies and spearheading a moveme

Almost a decade into America’s e-scooter experiment, what have we learned?

This story was first published by Grist and then Stacker.When the sharing economy took off in the 2010s and upended entire industries, the firmest proponents of the model heralded it as an economic revolution that would help slash emissions. Of all the ideas that emerged and dissolved over the years, shareable electric scooters seemed to possess the most promise for climate. Almost anyone with a smartphone and a credit card could grab one and ride it down the block or across town, eschewing auto

GALLERY: Volunteers work to restore gravestones in Greensboro’s historic Green Hill Cemetery

On Thursday, June 6, dozens of volunteers gathered at Greensboro’s Green Hill Cemetery to participate in Atlas Preservation’s national project to preserve and restore gravestones and monuments at cemeteries and graveyards.The cemetery is one of 56 sites across the country that is part of the initiative.Located just north of the downtown business district between Battleground Avenue, Wharton Street, and Hill Street, Green Hill Cemetery opened in 1877 and is the oldest and most h

Want to access summer meals? Here’s how

This story was first published by by Mebane Rash, EducationNC
June 4, 2024During the school year, more than 900,000 students rely on the nutritious meals and snacks served in public schools across North Carolina, according to a press release from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI).What happens when school is out during the summer?N.C. Summer Meals ProgramsN.C. Summer Meals Programs provide nutritious meals at no cost for children and adolescents ages 18 and younger. Registration and

GALLERY: Dunleath Porchfest returns to Greensboro

Featured photo: A large audience at one house during this year’s Dunleath Porchfest (photo by Maaroupi Sani)On Saturday, June 8, the Dunleath Historic Neighborhood in Greensboro celebrated their annual Dunleath Porchfest, a grassroots music and performing arts event in which neighbors offer their porches as performance venues, and performers offer to share their talents.
Photos by Maaroupi Sani
Sheila Star Productions performance during the 2024 Porchfest at Greensboro,N.C, June 8, 2024.La