WEDNESDAY
BUDGET TALKS: Commissioners, school board crunch numbers. 1B
February 3, 2010 126th year No. 34
CASHIN’ IN: More families eligible for earned-income credit. 1B
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COMFORT ZONE: Jimmie Johnson looks to pad championship total. 3D
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Ready for Round 2? Another storm could pound region later this week
Sumia Mustafa, a 2008 graduate of High Point University, was selected as Rookie Teacher of the Year at The Academy at Smith High School in Greensboro.
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City crews expand hours for road-clearing work. 2A BY PAUL B. JOHNSON ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
TRIAD – Here we go again ... or, maybe not. Residents of the area could be coping by Thursday night with their second winter storm in a week – and third in a little more than a month. The Triad should receive another round of precipitation this week. The only question is what form, said Russell Henes with the National Weather Service in Raleigh. “Definitively, it’s still a little bit up in the air,” Henes said Tuesday. A system bringing precipitation to the area should reach the region Thursday night and continue to affect the area through Saturday. “We still don’t have a good handle on whether rain or snow yet. It’s not as clear as it was before the storm last week,” Henes said Tuesday. The system could bring rain, freezing rain, snow or a mix of precipitation. “We’re definitely going
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SONNY HEDGECOCK | HPE
PLANNING FOR GROWTH: High Point OKs pact with Thomasville. 1B
McGuinn Drive remains icy between Welborn Middle School and T. Wingate Andrews High School on Tuesday. to get some precipitation. The type is the question,” Henes said. Last week’s snowfall, combined with steady rain Tuesday, hasn’t caused any flooding problems so far, Henes said. “The river stages are doing pretty good right now,” he said. The lingering effects of last week’s storm will leave all Triad public schools closed for the third straight day. Guilford County Schools will turn their third snow
day of the week into an optional teacher workday. All central offices will operate on a regular schedule. All after-school activities are canceled. To make up the missed days, students in several cases will go to school on what had been scheduled teacher work days. Guilford officials also have postponed the district science fair until Feb. 10 at Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro.
OBITUARIES
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MAKE-UP DAYS
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Make-up schedule for Guilford County Schools: • Schools on the traditional calendar: Feb. 18, April 23, April 26. • The Early College at Guilford: Feb. 19, March 8, June 1. • Greensboro College Middle College: Feb. 19, March 8, May 24. • Year-round schools: Feb. 19, April 5, May 28. • Middle colleges: Feb. 19, April 5, May 27. • Extended-year schools: No make-up days are needed.
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City tries to close widening budget gap BY PAT KIMBROUGH ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
HIGH POINT – The city is facing an estimated $8 million budget deficit through the next two years, as the recession has brought about lower-than-expected revenues.
City Manager Strib Boynton told City Council members Tuesday the city can get through the current fiscal year through belttightening, but tough decisions about spending priorities, service levels and new ways to raise revenue are looming. “The great recession has
caught us. We are weathering it. We’re not in a financial crisis like some communities are,” Boynton said. “Something has to give on the revenue side, or we will be making choices on what existing services will be reduced or eliminated in the next couple of years.”
A $3 million shortfall is projected for the current $320.4 million budget, and officials forecast a $5 million shortfall through 201011. In addition to sales tax, other funding sources – such as beer/ wine and franchise revenues,
Minnie Bennett, 87 Dorothy Brinson, 93 Harold Cone, 69 Lowell Cruthis, 75 Elmer Flinchum, 81 Linda Hammond, 57 Jewel Hauser, 84 Betty Hulka, 65 M. Hunter-Swittenburg Herman Little, 80 Ernest McMahan, 98 Philip Oehler, 83 Bernard Raphael, 87 Charlie Reaves, 69 Elsie Reaves, 85 Mary Rose, 67 Mary Smith, 89 Evelyn Taylor, 79 Obituaries, 2-3A,2-3B
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Sunny, warmer High 49, Low 27 6D
BUDGET, 2A INDEX
Toyota dealers extend hours over recall BY PAM HAYNES ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
TRIAD – If you drive a Toyota, the ice on the streets may not have been your only driving concern this week. You may have joined the hundreds of Toyota owners who called local dealerships with inquiries about your car’s safety since the carmaker issued a recall last week due to some instances of sticking accelerator pedals. But local dealerships are telling their customers that the cars should be safe to drive until replacement parts for the accelerators arrive within the next week. “We, of course, have people calling wanting to know if their car is safe to
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Vann York Toyota service manager Steve Byrd shows an accelerator pedal similar to the ones subject to modification/recall by the manufacturer. drive,” said Elmon Dale, general sales manager at Rice Toyota in Greensboro. “I think that most of the cars are safe since there have been so few ac-
cidents with the accelerator, and Toyota has sold about 26 million cars.” To handle the stream of phone calls, the Vann York Auto Group in High Point
has two employees answering specific questions about the recall, said Greg York, president of the group. Once the parts arrive, the dealership will operate extended evening and Saturday hours to put in the replacements, he said. “Most people have remained calm about the situation,” he said. “Most people are just wanting to know if their vehicle is part of the recall.” York said the carmaker will send a notice to its customers if they own one of the affected vehicles. When the replacement parts arrive in a customer’s area, they’ll be directed to their local dealerships. That’s when another problem could occur, according to Kerry Mitchell, general sales
manager at Modern Toyota in Winston-Salem. “I have a feeling people will start coming in here before they get the notice,” Mitchell said. “They should call before they bring their vehicle in. We’re going to try to get people in here as systematically as possible on an appointment basis, but we still have regular service customers and we’ve got to work everyone in.” Mitchell said he doesn’t know if different models will require different repairs, but the dealership hopes to replace the recalled parts as quickly as possible. “It’s going to take more than a week. I know that much,” he said.
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