Here’s another article discussing how Greenville, SC is on the rise. My wife and I had been watching Greenville, SC for almost 10 years and finally decided to move here about three years ago. It has continued to get better and the food scene here is quite good. Here’s the latest article from Southern Living Magazine.
What a gorgeous evening for the Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade last night! Thousands showed up to celebrate this wonderful tradition. Very few maskers were seen in the crowd. Most of those walking, riding or performing in the parade also were not wearing masks either, thank God.
Last year’s event was cancelled of course because of all the Covid hysteria. It was great to see that the City of Greenville has mostly come to its senses when it comes to allowing large public events. This comes on the heels of a MASSIVE turnout for Fall for Greenville just a few weeks ago. BTW, I have not heard of a single case of COVID, DELTA or some other cold variant being transmitted due to that event.
It was a wondering parade starting promptly at 6pm and ending at 6:55pm. The Furman marching band was terrific and led the parade through Main Street. There were lots of other high school marching bands, dance schools, local media, roofing contractors and musical groups among the floats. Thousands lined both sides of Main Street in a wonderful, peaceful community event. I’ve said it’s the best Christmas parade I’ve ever attended. Some have laughed at me saying I haven’t been to much then, but I have to disagree. Sure there are other events where they have more spectacular floats and probably bigger crowds, but to experience this in the gorgeous setting of downtown Greenville on a beautiful evening is hard to beat. BTW, it was 70 degrees at 5:30pm as we were waiting for the parade to start.
If you haven’t attended one of these parades, put it on your list to go next year!
I took this shot yesterday as we were driving around downtown Greenville and some close in neighborhoods as we needed to kill some time before dropping our boys off for an activity. It was a cloudy day and in many ways was perfect for this photo. The view of the new DECA luxury apartment building really caught my eye.
Shaw Garden is just one of many public gardens throughout the city of Greenville. There are many lovely botanical gardens that the public can enjoy. It located on East Camperdown Way within a block or so of the Greenville County Schools office. This of course was shot on September 19, 2021 so it’s at the end of the garden season. I’m sure this is spectacular in April and May. Perhaps I’ll swing by next year to take a look again.
Fox Carolina posted a video of some of the roses in the Shaw Garden. You’ll need to get past the 15 second ad first before you can view it.
Well it appears the City of Greenville has once again decided to embrace the mask 🙂 Yesterday it was announced that effective today, there is a mask mandate for all City of Greenville offices and buildings. This is not a citywide mask mandate and appears to be much more limited than the new mask mandate for Columbia, SC. Here is the official statement from the City of Greenville regarding their new mask mandate for August 2021.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe the City of Greenville is limited now in what it can require in terms of mask mandates across the city so they have gone with the limited edition – city buildings only. I do expect we’ll see a pick up in some mask wearing particularly downtown. We might even see some businesses decide to once again require masks to enter their stores, buildings, and offices. However, there has been a lot of push back against the masks. It’s hard to imagine that this latest round of government overreach makes it very far with the populace. Lots of people are getting tired of government telling them what they have to do. The Greenville area is generally considered a conservative bastion and they aren’t too fond of the masks or the vaccines.
If you want to follow along with how well South Carolina is doing with Covid, you’ll have no shortage of Facebook posts to read through at the SC DHEC Facebook Page. According to SC DHEC, Covid-19 – or the Delta Variant – is raging out of control across the state. That said, it appears that the number of Covid-19 Delta positives has dropped by about 50% in the past few days. I believe we were around 3,200-3,500 per day last week. Today’s report shows 2,220.
On Tuesday this week, South Carolina Governor, Henry McMaster issued a new executive order. He cut the legs out from the tyrannical city mayors and councils and school districts across the state with their silly mask mandates. It literally was CHECKMATE on the tyrannical actions of local schools and cities. It was brilliant.
There was immediate pushback from some places as seen on various posts on Facebook. Greenville County Schools which has been a huge proponent of the mask, was not going to give up their masks quietly. They issued a statement to the effect that they weren’t sure if McMaster’s EO was legal and their lawyers were taking a look. I believe it was then the next day that South Carolina’s School Superintendent issued her own statement saying they would drop the mask mandate due to to the Governor’s EO. I believe it was after that that Greenville County Schools succumbed to the dropping of the mask. However, I believe students need written permission on the specific state form in order to show up maskless. Then one by one, the mask mandates were dropped…cities and schools started to fall in line. The biggest one was the City of Greenville had to finally cave as they had no standing any longer.
All of this just shows me that this was all theater and there was no benefit to the mask. It just finally took political courage and leadership from our Governor to finally stand up to this nonsense. The maskers are ticked off of course. I’m sure the school districts are besides themselves and panicked as to what to do now. I like to say that Greenville became the Mask Capitol of the South. Good riddance to the mask but something tells me this isn’t over yet.
Apparently it’s still a Federal rule that school children must wear masks on buses. Good luck enforcing that. Businesses can still require masks so I’m sure there are plenty of restaurants in downtown Greenville who will leave their mask signs up and require their employees to be masked. But really, how silly is it at this point to require masks? Costco won’t give them up, that’s for sure. Put Best Buy in to that crowd as well. If they ever do give them up, you will know that the “pandemic” is truly over.
Earlier this week, a crowd of parents and students gathered outside of where the Greenville County Schools Trustees were having their meeting. They were calling for an end to the mask. Many of the maskers on Facebook were ridiculing these parents and kids for their efforts. However, the next day, the Governor dropped his Executive Order.
Now it’s on to continually reminding the voting public that these people put in the mask mandate. Every mayor, council member or school board member who voted for the mask must be voted out. Oh, and particularly for those in leadership at Greenville County Schools who are making it difficult just to drop the masks, I do hope you will continue to wear your mask until the last mask on a child is still showing up to school.
The City of Greenville, SC City Council has once again extended the ridiculous mask mandate for all public spaces and retail establishments within the city limit. The mask has been in place for months now with no end in sight. The council has once again demonstrated that they are against the people and prefer the heavy hand of government. This is yet another outrageous overreach by the Greenville City Council including the much loved Mayor Knox. They all need to go. None of them should be re-elected. It’s time to clean house in Greenville.
Here’s the link to the Greenville City Mask Mandate signed 4-8-21 document they all apparently agreed to unanimously. Remember, the City Council is supposed to be mostly “conservative” but that is not the case. While the Upstate is generally a conservative area, the City of Greenville has moved more leftward in recent years and appears to be well on it’s way to becoming a Democrat city just like Columbia and Charleston. The unfortunate thing for the rest of us in the Upstate is that the City of Greenville has a pretty significant impact on the rest of the cities and counties. It’s just comical at this point that these elected representatives and their health advisors whom they do not name, besides the CDC and the dreadful SC DHEC, believe that masks are going to save us from a virus which has a 99.97% survival rate.
It’s my opinion that if an elected official was involved in voting in a mask mandate anywhere in the country, they should not be allowed to hold elected office ever again. They also should not be allowed to be hired in any kind of government job as well. If city managers and staff are also on record as having supported the mask mandates, they should be replaced. I realize it’s not that easy to fire people and most of the people who work in government likely support the masks but if we ever get elected officials again who believe in the US Constitution and individual liberty, they need to make a point to clean out the leadership and ranks of those who wish to subvert our freedoms.
The City of Greenville, while a spectacular place to live work and recreate, has elected officials that continue to disappoint in a big way. All of you moving to the Upstate, you have been forewarned.
The City of Greenville, SC just released the draft of GVL2040 which is the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Key points that the City wants to focus on:
- Maintain Open Space – want to reserve 35% of the remaining land that is still to be developed remain greenspace.
- Affordable Housing: require that 10% of all new development be income-restricted.
- Transportation and Mobility: create other options besides cars.
GVL Today has a nice synopsis of GVL2040.