Minutes - 20030915 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

of time. A lot of you in this audience will have children who will be out of the school system by then. So I would like to get a feel for that since it is not an eitherlor situation; they both have totally different ways to approach something and they each have their pros and cons. The other thing I would like to ask, and maybe the school boards could respond to this. I was very interested in the group that was put together back in 1986 -The School Merger Study Commission Report and their four proposals to make things more equitable in the county. The equalizing of funding, that is very difficult. I think their point was that the school boards need to work very closely together and very harmoniously and supportive of each other. And they talked about encouraging the students to be able to break that boundary of school districts and take the opportunities that other systems have. That has never really been done, to investigate the economies that could be worked out. Transportation has, Commissioner Halkiotis knows that a lot but there would be more opportunities far economies and sharing. It really hasn't been a top priority. I think the Commissioners over the last 3 years have consistently tried to put that forward as something that could really help the entire County have a sense of a strong community in the whole County and really address the issues of all of our children having access to the monies that all of us put in together to pursue really the best education in North Carolina. That would be a really interesting gap if more people could work together on pursuing that type of thing. We are going to adjourn in a couple of minutes, but I just wanted to say that all of the information that we have here is really factual and it is not speculation. Some of the 10- year proposals are just that, they are based on the strongest facts that we have. I hope that a lot of people will take advantage and read it. It looks large but it is really just 30 or 40 pages, and I think answers so many questions that people have emailed me about or called me about that I couldn't really answer confidently but it is here and if anyone reads it clearly and slowly that if they have a hardened view on something it might shake you a little bit because it is good data. I'm looking forward to the two public hearings and having everyone interested in this issue in the County come to those, listen to the presentation again and comment. It will be open to comments, questions, and clarifications. So those will be two excellent meetings. Commissioner Halkiotis: Just one quick comment, if I might. I have had a couple of people pose an interesting statement to me that they heard - and I want to say this publicly so we can put all of this myth out of the window quickly -that Governor Easley is pressuring the Commissioners to merge the two schools systems. And I chuckled, and I said, really, we sent the governor two registered letters and proclamations over the last two years since the September 11, 2001 tragedy, asking for National Guard troops to be stationed around Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. He never responded to those letters, so the governor is not pressuring me, and any other Commissioner could certainly speak far himself or herself, but I have not heard from Governor Easley pressuring me to merge the two school systems. A motion was made by Commissioner Jacobs, seconded by Commissioner Carey to adjourn the meeting at 9:30 p.m. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Margaret Brown, Chair