VoteNoBonds.com

Bond Brouhaha Begins

By BRIAN GOTT - STAFF WRITER

With strong opposition from some leaders of the black community, voter approval of the $427 million schools bonds appears to face an uphill battle.
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By far, though, the schools bonds issue has proved the most controversial, even for politicians and community activists that typically have never met a schools bond they didn’t like.

Some black candidates for district school board seats – races that will be decided the same day as the bonds – aren’t voicing a tremendous amount of support for the bonds this time around.

“It’s evident we need new schools, but I’m also aware that we need to maintain some of the older schools,” said Donna Jenkins-Dawson, a black Democrat who is running against District 2 board member Vilma Leake.

“That bond is faulty,” Jenkins-Dawson said. “We go from one extreme to the other. We need some balance.”

Dwayne Collins, who is seeking the seat District 3 school board member George Dunlap currently holds, said he’s not sure yet if he’ll vote for the bonds.

“At this point, I’m kind of in between,” said Collins, who is black. “The question in my mind is how is this money going to affect the high poverty, low performing schools.”
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James said those sentiments are indicative of a rift growing in the black community when it comes to getting behind the schools bonds.

“There’s a big family feud,” James said. “The only thing missing is (former Family Feud game show host) Richard Dawson.”

“The NAACP and the Black Political Caucus are opposed to the bonds because they don’t want to build schools in the suburbs and they don’t like the student assignment plan,” James said.

But that might just be James’ own interpretation from what he says he has been hearing at the grassroots level. Neither group is officially opposed to the bonds at this point. The Black Political Caucus held a community forum to discuss the matter Sunday night.

Rembert said she’s heard from some in the black community who are opposed to the bonds and she’s heard complaints that too much of the bond money is scheduled to be spent in the suburbs. However, she thinks when all communities are educated about the bonds and how past bonds have been spent, people will realize these bonds are necessary.

“I recognize that there is extraordinary growth in the suburbs and the schools are overcrowded,” Rembert said. “But we also need to renovate schools in the middle ring.”
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Proponents of COPs, though, point out that they demand more accountability than wide-sweeping bonds. Board of Education member Kaye McGarry, a white Republican, said bond money could be shifted and changed for different projects than those for which voters approved the bonds, which has happened in the past, while COPs fund specific projects.

However, Democrats who control the board of county commissioners all said they would oppose using COPs to fund school construction if the bonds are defeated.

Puckett called that “blackmail.”

School Board member Larry Gauvreau, a white Republican, said some leaders in the black community are feigning opposition to the bonds in the hopes that more bond money would be spent on inner city schools, instead of suburban schools, to gain the black community’s support.

“I think it’s an act that certain politicians put people through every year,” Gauvreau said.

“It’s a negotiating tactic to scare people into building more schools in the inner city,” he said. “But how can anyone disagree with the fact that over a billion dollars has been put into the center city and middle ring schools since 1998? They are over-built.”

Bond supporters are turning to technology in their effort to get the bonds passed come November. Board of Education Vice Chairwoman Kit Cramer, who is white and registered as Unaffiliated, announced recently the voteyesforbonds.com website promoting the bonds will have a “myth-busters” section to counter what she claims are misconceptions some people have about the bonds.

Some of those myths are that schools in the inner city are at half of capacity, Cramer said.

James contested that notion and said one thing is not a myth: The public is not satisfied with CMS and the way it is spending the taxpayers’ money.

“If you really want to send a message to CMS that they are incompetent boobs, vote ‘no’ on the bonds,” James said.

Rhino Times Article

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2005 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Elected Officials & candidates statements, News Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.