At the meeting of Wake County Mayors last Monday, Raleigh Mayor Meeker suggested that the Wake County Commissioners and the Wake County School Board members should be elected at the same time from the same districts. According to the N&O here, (second story) he argued:

Meeker said the goals of the changes would be to reduce voter confusion
and to allow school board and county commissioner candidates from the
same district to campaign together. Meeker said such joint campaigning
might lead to better coordination between the two bodies.
 

Sorry, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of a central principle of the American system of government. James Madison in Federalist #51 here explains a way to control the predominately powerful legislative branch.

In republican government, the legislative authority
necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the
legislature into different branches
[House and Senate]; and to render them, by different modes of
election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other
as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the
society will admit.

 The same principle is offered in his discussion of the overlapping nature of the states and the federal government, in what Madison calls a compound republic. 

In the compound republic of
America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two
distinct governments
[states and federal], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among
distinct and separate departments
[three branches]. Hence a double security arises to the rights
of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same
time that each will be controlled by itself.

What Madison recognized and Meeker does not is that governmental structures must be designed to produce conflict.  The House of Representatives is often inconflict with the US Senate, even when one party enjoys a large majority.  In addition, the states and the federal government are designed to be in conflict with each other. 

Why?  Because that conflict produces information and that information informs the public.  Thus the rights of the people are protected from a government or a portion of a government that would seek to consolidate power and violate the rights of the people.

Be thankful, the current conflict between the school board and the commissioners is a sign of health not disease.  Or as a wise man once said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”