What’s really going on with this New School trainwreck? | Eastern North Carolina Now

By Hood Richardson

New York City and Washington DC do not have a monopoly on corrupt government.  Beaufort County is a strong competitor. Corruption in any government includes, but is not limited to, someone handing a government official a sack of money for a favor.  Today corruption includes the seizing or usurping of government powers.  This includes public officials, both elected and hired, not following proper procedures and the prescribed law.  This sometimes is broadly called, administrative corruption.  This kind of corruption thrives when elected officials lay down on their job and allow staff to run things, or a few elected officials seize control of a situation and make decisions in the back room or the majority of a Board (School Board and County Commissioners) lay down on their job by quietly without a vote in an open meeting allow other officials to make decisions that they rubber stamp.

School Boards are elected to hire and supervise the Superintendent, set the broad policy of running the school system, and insure the quality of education, etc.  Boards of County Commissioners do much the same thing on a county level.  Commissioners collect taxes, set policy, and provide oversight for all County moneys, etc.  It is a bit more complicated than this, but these Boards are the ultimate authority on the county level. Some people, even those serving on these Boards, spend a lot of effort to make the public believe they have no authority.  They run from their responsibility. However, when trouble comes, the lawsuits land on these two Boards.

We have a corrupt situation involving the 52-million-dollar school proposed to be constructed on the Eastern Elementary School Campus.  Three government officials have seized control and are making all the decisions about the new school.  They are: T.W. Allen Chairman of the School Board, Fake Frankie Waters, Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, and Matthew Cheeseman, Superintendent of Beaufort County Schools known as the Gang of Three.  The majority of the School Board and Board of County Commissioners are providing their approval to the Gang of Three, in reality by simply not being involved in exercising their responsibilities.

There have been no studies either within the School System or the Board of Commissioners or from outside consultants to determine the needs of the facilities needs of the School System.  There was simply an announcement by Superintendent Cheeseman that we are tearing down Eastern Elementary, abandoning John Cotton Tayloe and building one school for 900 preschool thru third grade students on the Easter site.  There has not been a study looking at alternatives such as how the Bath or Chocowinity Schools are affected, as neighboring attendance areas.  Nine hundred students is a 20 percent over-build in a county with zero population growth and actually a declining population in our schools.  Looks like Cheeseman pulled this number out of the air.

Also not considered by anyone is the extremely poor-quality education produced by our public schools.  In particular, school consolidation on the average across the United States is a failure.  Large schools with hundreds of students have produced a poorer education for all.  The trend is toward smaller neighborhood schools which invite more parental involvement, better discipline and orderly class rooms. Beaufort County consolidated schools have several low performance schools. There is a steady growth in all alternative forms education (private schools, home schooling, etc), other than traditional public schools.  Considering our low performance schools, the public should be heavily involved in the long term future of our failing school system.

The Gang of Three is doing great harm to the future of Beaufort County by failing to improve the quality of our public schools..

I, supported by Commissioner Stan Deatherage, have requested during the past 3 months information necessary to ensure that the new school construction comes in under budget.  A budget presented almost one year ago has a contingency of $900,000 for a 52-million-dollar job.  This is unacceptable in this inflationary environment.  In a stable economic environment, the contingency should be a minimum of 5 percent. Information presented during the recent Beaufort County budget hearings called for 25 per cent escalators plus a minimum 5 percent contingency.   Many other costs are not addressed in the proposed budget.

I made a motion at the May 6, Commissioners meeting as follows:  “Commissioner Richardson motioned that the County Commissioners resolve the maximum expense for the building of the new school, including all demolition, infrastructure, et cetera be held to $52 million and that the school board, the school superintendent, make a presentation at the next Commissioners meeting bringing us up to date on the status of the various parts of the project.”  Commissioner Deatherage seconded.

The motion failed by a 4 to 3 vote.  Commissioners Waters, Langley, Booth and Walker voted against.

This resolution was easy for any responsible public official to vote for.  Fake Frankie Waters has already sold out the commissioners when he secretly met with Cheeseman and T. W. Allen, out of the County, and volunteered to serve on the construction review committee.  By doing this he cut off the rest of the Board of Commissioners’ participation in the project.  Ed Booth and Randy Walker’s wives are on the School Board.  Booth and Walker have never voted against their wives. There is no law against this kind of husband-and-wife collusion.  But, it is highly unethical.  Langley seems to always support Booth.  Remember when Booth supported Langley to spend 1.6 million dollars for a set of jail plans for a new jail to be built at Chocowinity that was never built. Another 1.6 million dollars down the rat hole.

This new school will perpetuate the terribly inefficient busing we now have in the Washington Attendance Area where our youngest children are bused from one side of town across town to the other side, when better planning would produce more compact attendance areas and reduce busing.  Done correctly, a new school west of Washington could help reduce busing and stem the tide of declining enrollment by attracting growth from Pitt County.  Declining enrollment in the school system is the most serious problem we face.  This is true because the loss of each student results in a reduction in revenue, mostly from the state, that greatly exceeds the reduction in costs of educating those students.  Declining enrollment results in a decline across the entire system.

Moreover, the Gang of Three, without any authority from their respective boards, has apparently decided to tear down the existing Eastern Elementary facility and replace it with a new school.  They have decided this without any semblance of an analysis of the engineering deficiencies of the existing Eastern School facility, much less what the costs would be to renovate that facility to bring it up to current state standards.  They have offered no rationale for replacement rather than renovation.  More importantly, this decision has been made without any consideration for the needs of other schools in the county, some of which are greater than Eastern’s.

I was promised, in an open construction review committee meeting by the Gang of Three, that representatives of the School Board would provide the information I requested at the June 3rd Commissioners meeting.  No members of the School Board or their representatives showed up at the Commissioners meeting on June 3rd.  The Gang Three told an open bald face lie when they promised to inform the Commissioners at the June 3rd meeting.  Randy Walker took pains to say this is a “Christian School Board.”  Christians do not lie.  

Taxpayers should be alarmed when public officials lie for no apparent gain other than to assert their dictatorial control.  Washington DC and New York do not have a monopoly on corrupt government.

The new school’s budget and design is in the hands of the Gang of Three, Matthew Cheeseman, Fake Frankie Waters, and T. W. Allen.  The taxpaying public has no cost control protection.  The Gang of Three will present their budget to comply with the terms of the creation of a Capital Project Ordinance and Commissioners Booth, Langley, Walker and Waters will rubber stamp it. Considering the qualifications of Randy Walker, Fake Frankie Waters, Jerry Langley and Ed Booth and their wives, there will certainly be cost over runs.  There is no one looking after the interest of the tax-paying public nor ultimately what is best for young children.

Randy Walker and Jerry Langley are up for election this fall.  It would appear this project in being rushed to get it far enough along by November that it is a done deal. This entire project should be put on hold until after the election in November to allow the voters to decide this issue.