Mr. Thames:
That is what the Knight Ridder paper you edit allotted for a report on Tuesday night’s Mecklenburg County commissioners’ meeting.
I’m sure you’ll agree that this was a vital meeting, one that would set the school construction path the county would follow after the defeat of the $427 million school bond and thereby shape the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system for years to come. A long-winded meeting and deadline pressures explain the brevity of Wednesday morning’s report. But the lack of any Thursday or Friday follow-up story is a grave disservice to the Charlotte community your paper purports to serve.
It was at that Tuesday night meeting that county commissioner Norman Mitchell laid out his vision for the county’s public schools and supplied his take on the motives of the opponents of the defeated school bond package. The Observer inexplicably opted not to report any of Mitchell’s very illuminating comments. In case you missed it, this is what Mitchell said:
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 be placed, uh, we will use COPS instead — you were either hoodwinked, lied to, bamboozled, any other thing. But you were misled, you were misled.
Since Commissioner [Jim] Puckett has pointed out the many empty seats that we have here within Mecklenburg County, I think the common sense thing, Commissioner Puckett, is to take some of the students at these overcrowded schools and place them at some of these empty-seat schools that you’re talking about. I think that’s the most common sense thing to do, although the sometimes the most common sense thing is not so common. [Inaudible]
…To expect to be able to build these new schools using this COPS plan or promise is not doing anything but isolating, alienating, and dividing this community. Now some of us who continue to try to work to hold this community together, we’re trying to make this a livable place to live. And it is just so hurtful that all this rhetoric that is moving throughout Mecklenburg County, by some of the citizens, some of our elected officials, even some of our talk show hosts, particularly WBT. I guess we’ll call some of these Rush Limbaugh wannabes. [Inaudible] they reek a foul odor of separatism, classism, and racism.
The significance of Mitchell’s statements is not the name calling. Big deal. However, it is vitally important for the public to understand what some local leaders think about the motives of anyone who challenges CMS spending plans. Also, the threat of a return to cross-county busing that lurks behind demands for more money for Charlotte’s urban-core schools cannot be ignored any longer.
As Mitchell makes clear, he supports a deal — and he is not alone — by which the crowded suburbs must agree to spend, ultimately via higher taxes, around $200 million on Charlotte inner-city schools before suburban schools will be built. Should the suburbs reject this proposal — once again — then suburban kids will be bused to schools where there is space for them.
This is important information. It is news. It frames the debate over how to fund schools in Mecklenburg. Without reference to the position reflected in Commissioner Mitchell’s remarks it is utterly pointless to start discussing another funding package or setting up this panel or that panel to craft said package. The Mitchell view represents a pre-condition on any further negotiation on school funding, a claim that the package absolutely cannot, as a matter of principle, spend significantly more in the suburbs than it does in Charlotte’s core.
How can the public possibly make sense out of the back and forth on school funding without knowledge of this very specific pre-condition? Why hide this viewpoint from your readers?
Our community is entering a crucial period where the fullest, most open flow of ideas and viewpoints must be heard. Let’s commit to sharing as much as we can, as broadly as we can. Our city will be better off for it.
Sincerely,
Jeff A. Taylor
Charlotte
