School Superintendent organizes a Power Play | Eastern North Carolina Now

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

The July School building Progress Monitoring Committee meeting turned into a power play.  Superintendent Cheeseman manipulated the meeting and a host of “very important Beaufort County and City of Washington Officials” into the position of providing de facto support for his one man show.  The entire event was about showing us who the “Big Cheese” is in Beaufort County.  These people showed up and listened.  No one objected to anything, so they all became supporters of the “Big Cheese”.

There has been no vote by the School Board and the County Commissioners to create the Progress Monitoring Committee.  What power does this committee have other than Cheeseman, Fake Frankie Waters and T. W. Allen to have seized power?

Cheeseman changed the meeting date from Thursday July 11 to Wednesday July 10.  Normally there may be 4 to 8 observers in attendance.   I estimate there were more than 25 highly distinguished officials present.   There was the Mayor of Washington and at least one council member, several School Board members sitting in the audience, the County Manager and Finance Director, County Commissioners John Rebholz and Randy Walker.  Also present were two members of the self-appointed Progress Monitoring Committee consisting of Fake Frankie Waters, and Cheeseman.   The third member, T. W. Allen was noticeably absent.  So, Cheeseman took it upon himself to chair the meeting.  Terry Williams, Vice Chairman of the School Board, sat beside Cheesman but did not participate in the meeting other than that he was present. Another message from Cheeseman that he is in charge.

Cheeseman announced that the maintenance and technology office complex fronting on Pennsylvania Avenue would not have to be demolished after all.  Another site for the storm water pond is being selected.  My estimate is we avoided another 5 million dollars in expense.

On que, Anita Radcliffe, Finance Director, for Beaufort County announced that the money for this project would flow thru Beaufort County and that her sources had told her the proper time to do a budget ordinance was after the job is bid.  There are a lot of half truths and miss information in the above sentence.

Fake Frankie Waters and the Beaufort County Management staff, until now, never admitted the money flows thru Beaufort County government.  The budget thing is smoke and mirrors.   Everyone who does big projects like this knows the budget is a constantly changing thing as various problems and designs are resolved as we work toward awarding the bids.  A final budget ordinance is required by law before construction begins.  The process Mrs. Radcliffe described is the one I seriously object to because it means a budget will be presented to the Commissioners with the demand that it be approved that night it is presented with no examination of alternatives or what the improvements to education will be.  

The process of passing all grant money thru the Board of County Commissioner allows Commissioners to involve the public in having a say in these projects and to ensure the money is not being wasted.  If it is deemed wasted or misspent, the Beaufort County Taxpayers have to raise the shortage and give it back to the grantor.  The Board of Commissioners has a fiduciary responsibility for this money and all money passing thru the County Government.  We have a say in the quality of education because we tax our citizens to fund the schools.

Fake Frankie Waters, thru his ignorance and ego, took the Commissioners out of this control loop when he violated the open meetings law by meeting with Superintendent Cheeseman and T. W. Allen and formed the Progress Monitoring Committee without a vote of the Commissioners and the School Board.  This put Cheeseman in charge because Fake Frankie Waters and T. W. Allen are ignorant of how our form of government works or the school constructions process.  

Cheeseman announced that three options were presented to the School Board last night at the School Board Meeting having to do with the school plans. It is not known what these options were about. He said there are copies and sketches.  He made none of these available to anyone.  Most importantly, he did not discuss the alternative grade structures that could be a part of this project.  Nor did he explain which option would have the most/least busing.

It is hard to tell what the construction schedule is because of various qualifying statements made by Cheeseman.  It looks to me like the rush is on for the present School Board to box in the Board that will be elected during November of this year. A new Board could muzzle Cheeseman and take an objective look at this entire project.  The "options" should be a part of the school board members' election campaigns.

The situation today is that one man, Cheeseman, is making all the decisions.  We are building a consolidated school for as many as 1,000 pre kinder garden thru 3rd grade students at time that consolidated schools are known failures.  No one, the School Board or Cheeseman, has presented to anyone the (education) benefits to be derived from spending these 52 million dollars.  To date there is no written documentation available to the public about any part of this project.

This project is an example of what The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against (the Chevron case) a few weeks ago.  That is allowing bureaucrats and egotistical elected officials to seize power, make rules and ignore democratic government.  It is easy for Cheeseman, Fake Frankie Waters and T. W. Allen to ignore the public when they are backed by a majority of members of the School Board and Commissioners who are ignorant of democracy and lazy.

This project should be put on hold until after the new school board is elected in November.