The Citizens Capital Budget Advisory Committee has finally gone public with simmering discontent over CMS’ massive $620 million bond plan. The county’s review panel for debt offerings says the bond should be trimmed to $486 million.
The usual suspects do not understand why:
George Dunlap, a Democratic school board member who represents northeast Charlotte, said the panel was unduly influenced by north suburban members.
“They basically left out anything that has to do with Olympic, anything that has to do with Myers Park,” he said, referring to high schools in southwest and south Charlotte. He said he’s open to a smaller package but won’t let the advisory panel dictate the projects.
Now that is downright hysterical. The CCBAC is county-appointed and has interests from across the county. The notion that it tilted one way or another geographically ignores that its members, unlike politicians trolling for votes, have tried to come up with some sort of objective standard for prioritizing school construction needs.
Dunlap and company had their chance and we know how that ended — build everything. Now. Nevermind solid evidence that CMS cannot handle more than about $200 million a year in projects, it simply is not possible to stuff more in the pipeline at one time and get any meaningful progress. That alone argues for a bond closer to $400 million.
The real news here is that the panel is trying to get the county to adopt a clear standard that says renovation projects should not cost more than 60 percent of the cost of a new building. Forget about the package size. That number is what Dunlap, Parks Helms, Joe White and the other free-spenders cannot accept.
A common-sense rule that says renovation should be cost-effective completely blows up the burbs vs. Center City bean-counting that has paralyzed and distorted school building in Mecklenburg. The old way of doing things held that if you build a new $50 million high school in the outer burbs you “had” to find $50 million worth of renovations to do at older schools. To do otherwise was not “fair.”
Well, we are about to find out who wants to go to mat to fight for that idea. And who wants to reject a sound attempt to make sure that the money taxpayers spend on schools is actually well spent.
Such is radical thought in Charlotte in 2007.