Aforementioned JLF analyst Michael Sanera has published a planner’s glossary to help Raleigh residents really understand Raleigh’s 2030 comprehensive plan. But the terms apply equally well here in G’boro.

Here’s how Sanera defines ’sustainability’:

For example, the term is often described as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

This definition ignores the principles of resource economics and assumes that we know today the needs of future generations. Imagine the generations of the 1950s —or even the 1980s — trying to anticipate the present generation’s desire for WiFi. Sustainability is most often used as a political weapon by those who want to control development based on their personal ideological preferences.

“Mixed-use” is defined as “nostalgia-based attempts to recreate an idealized past with no considerations for the changing, evolving desires of modern consumers.”

Turns out mixed-use development for the corner of S. Elm and Lee Streets —where the downtown luxury hotel was going to be located —- might be back in play. And since the federal government doesn’t exactly embrace reality, it would indeed be weird if Greensboro didn’t get some cash to get something built.

I read with an open mind the N&R’s front-pager on Greensboro Coliseum director Matt Brown’s pet project —- the ACC Hall of Champions, which he hopes will open in time for the 2011 tournament.

Brown already has $2 million in state taxpayers’ money in hand for the first phase, and he says additional phases could cost as high as $18 million. Yet he says he won’t ask the City of Greensboro or the ACC for funding, saying the conference is “letting us use their brand name and use it to promote our community.” Considering the rows of empty seats at this year’s tournament, you have to wonder how much the ACC’s brand is worth these days. The way I see it, the brand would be further weakened should the NCAA expand the national tournament to 96 teams.

The floor plan looks like it’s filled with a lot of fluff to me. The architect on the project said the “goal is not to put people on a pedestal….“It is more an idea that is put on that pedestal … how ACC basketball impacted the rest of college basketball.”

I guess I see the point, but after watching the lackluster play in this tournament, maybe lifelong ACC fans want to see heroes of the past put on a pedestal.

Jamestown resident Pat Mattern urges his fellow citizens to turn out Tuesday, when the Town Council will discuss the proposed $4 million renovation of the town’s public golf course.

In this interview with the Jamestown News, Mayor Keith Volz freely admits that the course is a money-loser and that the renovation will force an increase in property taxes. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the town will borrow the money to renovate the course.

JLF’s Michael Sanera has researched public golf courses around the state. His results are here, here and here.

I pretty much had the same reaction as Meck Deck when I read that Jake Delhomme had signed with the ‘fake Browns,’ a totally dysfunctional franchise that has little hope of winning anytime soon. Jake’s last two years in the NFL will not be pleasant.

Jon Morgan’s excellent book on the whole Browns-to-Baltimore saga, Glory for Sale, describes Browns fans’ passion as they tried to prevent Art Modell from stealing their team:

(Modell’s) revered position within the NFL, a fraternity of wealth and celebrity, would also be shaken. His place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame —he had been nominated for the class of 1996 —- was in jeopardy. And he would no longer be able to go out in public without a bodyguard for fear that a zealous Browns fan would carry out one of the numerous death threats already pouring in by fax, phone and letter.

..The Internet would crackle with derisive commentary on Modell; one World Wide Web home page would offer visitors the chance to download color photos showing the mock executions of Modell, his son David, and Browns coach Bill Belichick.

As for this lifelong ACC hoops fan, I can’t remember when the quality of play has ever been so low. As the N&R describes it, the tournament was indeed a “bevy of ugly, low-scoring games.”

I read with interest the Biz Journal’s interview with Piedmont Triad Partnership president and CEO Don Kirkman, who’s no doubt still adapting to the recent corporate restructuring.

Note Kirkman’s answer to a very straightforward question from Justin Cantanoso about PTP’s $15 million federal WIRED grant:

What’s the most significant thing achieved through Wired funding?

From the beginning, I felt that the leadership-engagement aspect of our grant application was key. Without a paradigm shift of the region’s leaders to a regional model, we would spend the $15 million over four years and we would do some good things, but we would not move the needle on regional competitiveness. It is only through a shift in the mindset of our legacy leaders that we can scale our resources and move away from a fragmented model of economic development.

Interpret for yourselves, dear readers.

*The Winston-Salem Journal weighs in on the Keith Antoine Carter murder trial, saying they “believe the verdict of guilty of second-degree murder was just, but the sentence — 16 to 20 years — too light…..”

*The Rhino keeps playing up the Joe ‘Wilbur’ Killian ’story,’ but puts its money where its mouth is as Scott Yost beats Killian on furloughs in the Guilford County Register of Deeds;

*The City of High Point asks Guilford County to pony up for the International Home Furnishings Market —- again;

*Winston-Salem’s taxpayer-funded downtown stadium is almost done;

*Looked like there were quite a few empty seats at the ACC Tournament; Lenox Rawlings ponders the conference’s decline;

*The N&O covers the Triangle’s ‘preening’ for Google;

*The Biz Journal reports a GDOT study saying Greensboro needs two new downtown parking decks, at a cost of $6-$10 million each. Meanwhile, there still seems to be confusion over which body will vet the financing for the proposed downtown luxury hotel.

The Rhino’s Paul Clark discusses the recent Rhode Island school firings and what it probably won’t mean for Guilford County Schools’ Oak Hill Elementary:

The Rhode Island case is similar to that of Oak Hill – only worse. According to press reports, 65 percent of the students at Central Falls High School are Hispanic and have English as a second language. At that school, half the student body is failing every subject and only 7 percent are passing the state math test.

Central Falls also shows why the Bush and Obama administrations alike consider teachers’ unions an impediment to fixing failing schools. There are states in which teachers are still poorly paid – but Rhode Island isn’t one of them. Teacher salaries at Central Falls High School average between $72,000 and $78,000 a year, in a city with a $22,000 median income. Most people would say that 25 more minutes a day is a small price to pay to make that kind of money in that kind of market.

For now, Guilford County Schools is taking less drastic corrective measures at Oak Hill, including pairing the school with a more successful school with similar demographics in Charlotte, bringing specialists in to plan lessons with Oak Hill teachers and tracking the performance of the school’s students more closely.

Before we start talking about an education revolution —- which probably wouldn’t happen here in Guilford, anyway —– let’s remember that this is all tied to the ”carrot tied to the NCLB stick”—-$3.5 billion in federal grants.

I don’t see how offering up billions in fed grants to effect change truly is ‘change.’

I’ve followed with interest the discussion over at Guarino’s regarding Sen Kay Hagan’s ‘liberal church’ —- Greensboro’s First Presbyterian.

For starters, I also read the N&R article about Hagan’s in front of local clergy. I agree that it wasn’t much of an article, but I’ll also note that it was written by the education reporter, not a political reporter. My guess is Brian Ewing got stuck with the weekend shift and Hagan giving a speech in town was as good a space-filler as any.

I attend one of Greensboro’s prominent downtown churches, and I don’t know for sure, but I would not be surprised if my pastor was in attendance at Hagan’s speech. I also suspect that he leans left politically, since he once said he ‘hates it when he agrees with Cal Thomas.’ How ironic that a minister would disagree with a newspaper columnist who proudly proclaims his Christian faith.

But for the most part his message –and that of his associate pastors — is to maintain love, dignity and respect for one another, just as Jesus would. I take that message and use to navigate through the rigors of daily and weekly life. I also pray to grant me the strength to react with respect and an open mind to the total lack of common sense that’s devouring our country, our state and our city.

Sometimes that strength fails me.

Pretty good N&R editorial on the controversy surrounding the White Street landfill, which will come before the City Council yet again.

I certainly agree that “one reason this issue won’t die is the council’s reluctance to discuss it clearly, completely and forthrightly.” But do they even no what to discuss? Let’s face it, some the proposals from these companies sound as crazy as the downtown hotel, even crazier, because we’re talking about a landfill here, a much more complicated endeavor.

One proposing company says it would take revenues from landfill operations and invest it “in a nonprofit that would help develop the community around the landfill.” How would that work?

Another company says it would “build a recreation facility for the community” as part of any agreement with the city. Yippee.

Here’s something that has to be said: Greensboro voters elected this council on a platform of fiscal responsibility. With that in mind, someone on the council should have the courage to propose re-opening the landfill, as the one true budget hawk on the previous council —-Mike Barber —- did before he left office.

I’m not saying that’s the right answer, but if the council is dedicated to its platform — and thus dedicated to the majority that at least bothered to show up at the polls —- then that option at least needs to be considered.

JLF vice president of communications Jon Ham e-mailed regional bloggers, saying he was taking down the “current barriers to commenting on the regional blogs. For some reason a lot of our users find the sign-on procedures very difficult.”

Requirement for registration will be removed, and commenters need only put in a screen name and an email address before commenting. They will not have to be previously registered.