Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Music Director
TICKETS: 336.335.5456 X224; ticketmaster.com; Coliseum Box Of�ce; www.greensborosymphony.org
Classical RomanticsFeaturing the GSO’s own Kelly Burke on clarinet
and the Hermitage Piano Trio
“... three of Russia’s most spectacular young soloists…turned in a performance of such power and sweeping passion
that it left you nearly out of breath.” - The Washington Post
3 NightsOnly!
Hermitage Piano Trio FEB 27 & MAR 1, 2014
WEBER
BEETHOVEN
RACHMANINOFF
W E T R E A T Y O U R I G H T
Sitkovetsky & FriendsCHAMBER
FRI, FEB 28, 2014GLINKA
BEETHOVEN
BRAHMS
75 CENTS
NEWS & RECORDMonday, February 24, 2014 Greensboro, North Carolina 75 CENTS
DRAMATIC FINISH
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QUICKREADLOCAL & STATE
Winston-Salem man’s TV movie to be shown today in Washington
A television movie directed by a Winston-Salem native will be screened this afternoon as part of a Black History Month celebration in Washington, complete with remarks from first lady Michelle Obama. Story, A2
l l l
Apartment fire kills Winston-Salem man
A man was killed in a fire Sun-day afternoon at his apartment in Winston-Salem. The fire occurred in a complex near Robinhood and Polo roads. Numerous apartments were heavily damaged, authorities said. Story, A3
Russia celebrates successful Olympics n A raucous crowd celebrates
the successful end of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Rus-sia, with a fireworks extrava-ganza at the closing ceremony. Story, A8
n Read about the final day of the Winter Olympics, plus how well (or how poorly) NBC Universal covered the games in Russia. Story, C5
Final medals count Gold Silver Bronze TotalTeam USA 9 7 12 28
NEWS-RECORD.COM
n ONLINE POLL: Share your opinions on important issues by answering the daily poll on our homepage.
n BLOG: Read our editorial writers’ musings on political issues of the day. You can find the blogs for Allen Johnson and Doug Clark at www.news-record.com/opinion/.
TODAY’S FORECASTMostly sunny with a northwest wind
of 10 mph.Full report, A2
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Editorials A6Jumble B4Lottery A3Obituaries B5Television B2
Copyright © 2014 • NEWS & RECORD
A better measure of growthn Swings in downtown property values point to the need for more frequent revaluations, county leaders say.
By Joe [email protected]
GREENSBORO — Guil-ford County is taking a more frequent look at property valuations and
hoping to better capture big changes like those ex-perienced downtown in the past decade.
Some of those down-town properties saw valu-ations increase by millions of dollars or decrease by thousands of dollars over an eight-year period in Guilford’s 2012 revalua-tion. Two years later, some owners are still fighting to appeal the county’s tax as-sessment of their property.
They might not see such
a big swing in future re-valuations.
The Guilford County Board of Commission-ers voted this month to increase the frequency of property revaluations. Under state law, counties have to recalculate the value of all their taxable property at least every eight years.
Guilford has met that minimum standard since 1959 but never conducted revaluations more often.
Starting in 2017, they will be done every five years.
“It’s something we needed to do,” said Alan Myrick, assistant Guil-ford County tax assessor. “When you get on an eight-year cycle, you get prop-erties either appreciating or depreciating a large amount. You get large differences between the appraised value and the actual value.”
Property owners agree. That was apparent af-
ter the last revaluation in 2012, when owners of about 2,700 of the county’s more than 210,000 parcels appealed their new valua-tions to the county.
More than 500 of them, dissatisfied with the deci-sions of the county’s Board of Equalization and Re-view, appealed to the N.C. Tax Commission.
That’s five times the number of state-level ap-
Project Bark to lead pet neuteringn Guilford County is spending $25,000 to help poor people spay and neuter their pets.
By Susan [email protected]
GREENSBORO — In most counties, pet-licensing fees fund spay-neuter programs. But Guilford County is one of the few big counties that doesn’t do pet licensing, so there re-ally hasn’t been a source of funding for a county-run spay-neuter program — until now.
The Guilford County commissioners appropri-ated $25,000 last year to fund a spay-neuter pro-gram, and the animal control division picked nonprofit Project Bark to administer it.
It was a logical part-nership. Project Bark, which stands for Bringing Animals Relief and Kind-ness, goes into low-income neighborhoods, donating homemade doghouses to people who have no shel-ters for outdoor dogs. This
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCEIf you are already receiving food
stamps, Medicaid or WIC benefits, or your income falls below the federal poverty level guidelines, you can get your dog or cat spayed for $15 (small dogs and cats) or $25 (large dogs). Rabies shot are included if needed.
Call Project BARK’s hotline at (336) 965-1059 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday for more information.
See Pets, Page A4
Source: News & Record research
Holder (at-large)
Brown (at-large)
Abuzuaiter (at-large)
Bellamy-Small (1)
Johnson (at-large)
Roth (3)
Lawyer (at-large)
Hightower (1)
Barber (at-large)
Leone (5)
Wilkins (5)
Fox (2)
Vaughan (mayor)
Knight (4)
Kee (2)
Matheny (3)
Ho�mann (District 4)
Perkins (mayor) $10.60
$9.83
$7.32
$4.08
$3.64
$3.42
$3.18
$2.68
$1.65
$1.58
$1.51
$1.32
$1.21
$0.76
$0.75
$0.38
$0.25
0
BANG FOR THE BUCKHere’s how much money each Greensboro City Council candidate spent per vote received in 2013:
WHO GIVES?The source of itemized contributions in the 2013 council races:
MediaHealth careNonpro�ts, educationand religion
Political andgovernment
Finance
Legal
Realestate
Homemakers,retired
Developers
Business$119,315
$83,028$41,395
$37,771
$24,523
$23,225
$22,109
$21,780$15,200
$4,650
MediaHealth careNonpro�ts, educationand religion
Political andgovernmentFinanceLegal
Realestate
Homemakers,retired
Developers
Business$49,094
$32,850$8,175
$16,475
$4,968$4,150
$5,100
$2,025$6,600
$100
Sal Leone
Tony WilkinsDISTRICT 5
Bill Knight
Nancy Ho�mannDISTRICT 4
Wendell Roth
Zack Matheny
DISTRICT 3
Jamal Fox
Jim KeeDISTRICT 2
T. DianneBellamy-Small
Sharon HightowerDISTRICT 1
Ben Holder
Jean Brown
Marikay Abuzuaiter
Yvonne Johnson
Chris Lawyer
Mike BarberAT LARGE
Nancy Vaughan
Robbie Perkins $143,345
$67,927
$31,159
$17,106
$16,572
$6,695
$1,436
0
$4,023
$1,980
$9,151
$7,568
$47,969
$2,866
$50,863
$13,956
$8,835
$1,920
CAMPAIGN CASHHere's how much money each Greensboro City Council candidate spent on the 2013 election:
Sal Leone
Tony WilkinsDISTRICT 5
Bill Knight
Nancy Ho�mannDISTRICT 4
Wendell Roth
Zack MathenyDISTRICT 3
Jamal Fox
Jim KeeDISTRICT 2
T. DianneBellamy-Small
Sharon HightowerDISTRICT 1
Ben Holder
Jean Brown
Marikay Abuzuaiter
Yvonne Johnson
Chris Lawyer
Mike BarberAT LARGE
Nancy Vaughan
Robbie Perkins $143,345
$67,927
$31,159
$17,106
$16,572
$6,695
$1,436
0
$9,151
$7,568
$47,969
$2,866
$50,863
$13,956
$8,835
$1,920
$4,023
$1,980
CAMPAIGN CASHHere's how much money each Greensboro City Council candidate spent on the 2013 election:
TOTAL $129,537
VaughanThe source of contributions for Nancy Vaughan's 2013 run for mayor:
WHO GIVES: MAYOR’S RACEThe source of itemized contributions for mayoral candidates Robbie Perkins and Nancy Vaughan:
PerkinsThe source of contributions for Robbie Perkins' 2013 run for mayor:
MediaHealth careNonpro�ts, educationand religion
Political andgovernment
Finance
Legal
Realestate
Homemakers,retired
Developers
Business$19,375
$10,704$6,800
$4,625
$7,225
$2,900
$3,225
$4,000$1,550
$1,700
TOTAL $62,104
TOTAL $392,996
Barber
Johnson
Lawyer
Vaughan
Ho�mann
Perkins $46,584
$19,380
$10,000
$1,250
$1,000
$250
Jamal Fox
SharonHightower
NancyVaughan
NancyHo�mann
YvonneJohnson
ZackMatheny
MikeBarber
MarikayAbuzuaiter
TonyWilkins $7,814
$4,817
$4,795
$3,637
$3,199
$1,078
$380
$286
$279
WAR CHEST?Thinking of running in 2015? The incumbents already have a head start. Here’s how much money each council member has left in his or her campaign fund:
BIG SPENDERSThese 20 people or couples gave the most money to Greensboro City Council campaigns in 2013.DONOR JOB AMOUNT
William and Ashley Kotis President, Kotis Properties $20,728Bob Page and Dale Frederiksen CEO and VP, Replacements Ltd. $15,500David Couch CEO, Blue Ridge Companies $8,000Frank Auman CEO, Signature Property Group $7,500William Cassell CEO, Learning Together $4,750Mike and Jill Murray Co-owner, Berkeley Hall $4,500John Delaney VP, Genuity Concepts $4,000John Foster Jr. Owner, American Woodcrafters $4,000Robert "Bobby" Long Jr. Investor $4,000Christopher Lyons Greensboro resident $4,000Steven Tanger CEO, Tanger Outlets $4,000Eric Wiseman CEO, VF Corp. $4,000Dawn Chaney Owner, Chaney Properties $3,100John Lomax President, Lomax Properties $3,000Herbert Parks CEO, 7 CCC Development $3,000Dr. Ranjan Sharma LeBauer Allergy, Asthma & Sinus Care $3,000David and Sarah Steadman Retired, Steadman Manufacturing $3,000Douglas and Glenda Cline CEO, Mail Transport Services $2,500Oliver Lloyd President, Livlaur $2,500Jim and Susan Melvin President, Joseph M. Bryan Foundation $2,400
Behind the numbers: Finance reports identi�ed about 920 individual donors; roughly 80 donors listed without a profession or other information are not included here. About 90 percent of all campaign contributions came from disclosed donors.
Behind the numbers: Nearly 60 percent of all contributions came from business people (owners and senior management, for the most part) and developers. Perkins, a commercial real estate broker, fared better than Vaughan in the real estate sector. Vaughan, whose husband is an attorney, fared better than Perkins among local lawyers.
BRAIN TRUSTHere’s what the council candidates spent on political consultants:
Behind the numbers: Perkins’ chief strategist was Tanya Wiley of WC Consulting in Winston-Salem. Wiley previously worked with former Guilford County Commissioner Melvin “Skip” Alston. Perkins also used Associates Consultants led by Rodney Sumler of Winston-Salem. Ho�mann relied on Florence Gatten, Amina Cliette and Tim Moreland. Gatten is a former City Council member; Cliette and Moreland worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign locally in 2012. Vaughan and Lawyer both hired Bill Burckley. Barber sought advice from Gatten. Johnson’s campaign manager was Julie Lapham, who died in December.
VOTE
VOTE$ $
VOTEBe
3
T. Dianne $1 980T. Dianneellamy-Small $1,980my Small
SPENDING PAYS OFF IN MOST CITY RACESBy John [email protected]
For $433,000 — the amount of money raised and spent on No-vember’s City Council race — Greensboro voters got a new mayor and three new council members and gave new terms to five incumbents.
That’s a bargain, perhaps, considering that U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan has already col-lected nearly 10 times that amount for her re-election campaign.
To look at it another way, November’s election pumped $433,000 into the local
economy.Either way, a lot of
money changed hands over the past two years as candi-dates vied for seats.
Did it matter? The News & Record looked at cam-paign finance reports for
2012 and 2013 on file with the Guilford County Board of Elections.
Our conclusion: maybe.Incumbents Zack Matheny, Nancy
Hoffmann and Tony Wilkins handily out-spent their opponents — and handily won.
Newcomer Sharon Hightower outspent incumbent T. Dianne Bellamy-Small — and barely won.
But Robbie Perkins is now the city’s former mayor despite spending more than twice as much as Nancy Vaughan, the longtime council member who won the race.
Incumbent Jim Kee lost despite spending more than challenger Ja-mal Fox. And challenger Chris Lawyer finished second in the money race but fourth in his unsuccessful bid for an at-large seat.
Reports show candidates with most cash usually win – but not always
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TIM RICKARD
News & Record
INSIDE: Learn more about the breakdown of cash. A5
See Numbers, Page A5
See Values, Page A4
MATT SLOCUM/The Associated Press
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