VoteNoBonds.com

By BRIAN GOTT - STAFF WRITER

In the wake of voters rejecting the $427 million school bonds package, there has been a general call from politicians for consensus building and cooperation. The general theme: Let’s all get along and move forward in a positive direction.
The reality hasn’t been so positive, and if local politicos are trying to lead by example, we’re all in for a rough ride. Consider the consensus building comments of Commissioner Norman Mitchell, delivered at last week’s Board of Commissioners meeting when the board voted down a proposal to fund $254 million in school construction to relieve overcrowding in the suburbs using Certificates of Participation (COPs).
Mitchell, a Democrat, went on a tirade, blaming the school bonds’ defeat on everything from the media to a vast right-wing conspiracy hatched by Republican commissioners and school board members.
“To the citizens of Mecklenburg County who supported my colleagues, my Republican colleagues, in that if you go out and vote against these bonds that COPs will placed, we will use COPs instead – you were either hoodwinked, lied to, bamboozled, any other thing,” Mitchell said. “But you were misled; you were misled.”
Mitchell went on to blast residents who campaigned against the school bonds, along with the media, after imploring “some of us who continue to try to work to hold this community together, we’re trying to make this a livable place.”
“And it is just so hurtful,” Mitchell said, “that all this rhetoric that is moving throughout Mecklenburg County, by some citizens, some of our elected officials, even some talk show hosts, particularly WBT. I guess we’ll call some of them Rush Limbaugh wannabes. They reek a foul odor of separatism, classism and racism.”
So much for consensus building, but Mitchell wasn’t alone. Take this exchange between school board members Kaye McGarry, a Republican who backed the COPs school construction plan, and George Dunlap, a Democrat bond supporter.
“Kaye, you just don’t get it,” Dunlap wrote in an email to McGarry last week. “You supported candidates to run against each of us in hopes that you would get the change that you wanted in hopes of becoming board chair. You knocked on 400 doors I,m (sic) told, to ask people not to support the bonds.
“You gave financially to some candidates and worked all day at the polls for a losing candidate. You gambled and you lost,” Dunlap continued. “You don’t have any social capital. You don’t have the power to negotiate anything.”
Dunlap also told McGarry in the email to just stop talking to him.
“Don’t waste you (sic) time with me unless you say something that makes sense and it’s been a long time since you’ve done that, so I won’t hold my breath,” Dunlap wrote.
“Thank you for sharing your opinions with me,” McGarry replied, somewhat sarcastically, in a return email. “I appreciate. On November 9th, 2005, I congratulated you on your victory in District 3. I plan to again work with the people God gave me on this board, and try to bring this board together.”

Rhino Times Article

This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2005 at 12:19 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.