The Local Source for News and Information Since 1980
GREENSBORO – The Greensboro Town Council approved an agreement to outsource the town’s rental property inspections and discussed options for a town-wide emergency alert system during its April 16 Town Council meeting.
Currently, rental inspections are conducted by Director of Public Works Brandon Cunningham and Town Clerk Jaime Fowler. With the recent change to require inspections annually instead of every two years, Town Manager Cindy Yost said the workload for these employees would significantly increase. The inspections already take about six months to complete, with Cunningham and Fowler doing inspections about three days a week for several hours each day.
Outsourcing this task “would save time that we wouldn’t have two people out doing these inspections plus the additional cost of the insurance to cover them going into these rental properties,” Yost said.
The council voted to approve an agreement with Middle Department Inspection Agency, Inc. (MDIA), an independent contractor based in Pennsylvania, to take over the inspections. MDIA will handle residential and commercial inspections, maintain records, assist with enforcement if needed, and provide proof of insurance coverage. The current inspection fee of $125 is expected to increase, with Yost noting other towns using MDIA charge around $200.
In a separate discussion, the council reviewed options for reestablishing a town-wide emergency alert system following recent storms and infrastructure issues. Greensboro previously used CivicPlus, but Yost said they only had about 196 users enrolled, many of whom were not town residents or were duplicate entries.
Yost said the town paid about $1,800 per year for that service, but when she attempted to obtain updated pricing from CivicPlus, she did not receive a response. She instead presented a quote from Go Gov at $3,900 per year. She also noted the town’s utility billing system is being upgraded and could provide notifications at no cost, though it would only reach property owners, not rental tenants or business owners who do not own their building.
Mayor David Spencer said that while the Council certainly is interested in exploring an alert system, he wants to gather more information before making a decision.
