I've avoided every hint of partisan politics for the last 2 years but facts are facts. In the recent Greensboro City Council decision to change the names of Lee Street and High Point Road to Gate City Blvd, Council was split 5 to 4 with every Republican on Council voting against the concerns of small business owners who were overwhelmingly against the changing of street names, concerned that such changes would increase the cost of doing business along the Lee St. High Point Road corridor.
City Council completely ignored the costs of new stationary, signs, painting trucks, changes to websites, the thousands of hours on the telephone each business will spend giving directions to customers, late deliveries due to lost trucks, etc. And the local Republicans on the Greensboro City Council lead the way with Robbie Perkins, Zack Matheny, Tony Wilkins, Nancy Hoffman and Jim Key all voting in favor of the name change.
Sad for a city that likes to make the claim that it is small business friendly. Is that 3 or 4 Republican votes against small business?
Hopefully, the new council which now has 1 more Democrat than before, will reconsider this issue and stop the insanity before it is too late and the history of Warnersville-- Guilford County's first free African-American community-- is lost forever and Greensboro's small business community is not unfairly forced to weigh costs it should never have to bear.
In my efforts to verify the history of the naming of Lee Street I've run into road blocks as Lee Street was named before it was incorporated into the City of Greensboro and was the main east-west thoroughfare through Warnersville and Guilford County has not returned my calls since July.
Also, to date, no one has offered any evidence that changing street names or streetscaping works as proven by public information releases from the City of Greensboro.
