Agenda - 02-12-2004-6 - Laserfiche WebLink

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have some confidence in what is going to take place in the future if we go towards merger. Commissioner Carey: Let me be clear here, because you're both characterizing me as being precipitous and wanting to rush to a decision on merger when that's not necessarily the case. But I think we need to move in that direction. I submit that you have to make a decision that you're going to merger before you can develop a clear picture of what a merged system would look like. You can't develop that picture unless you've made that decision to merge. Anything you do prior to making the decision to merge and getting a group of citizens to work on a proposed merger plan is shear speculation, and that's folly. That's misleading the public because you're encouraging them to rely on something that has no basis in fact, because it's shear speculation. It's like saying that we're going to have 1,600 students redistricted and bussed. That's shear speculation. And it's unfair to put the speculation out there and invoke fears in the public when you really can't determine what a merged system is going to look like until you make the decision to merge and then get a group of citizens who know more about education than we do to come up with a merger plan. And until you've got a merger plan, you cannot present a clear picture to the public. You want to put the cart before the horse; I want to put the horse where it needs to be. And we're the ones who are driving this train, and we need to take the leadership to do so. And if we don't take the leadership to do so, it's not going to happen. But if we do decide to go in this direction and put something on the ballot, and I don't know when the election is going to occur, nobody does, but I think we need to decide to do so in January. Now this Board can decide to put this option on the ballot in January, or we can decide to not do it. I think we should do it. And at least two Commissioners have gone on record stating — Commissioner Gordon has stated, she was the first one who stated that we needed to have a referendum on merger, she was the first one who stated that we needed to have a referendum on the countywide supplemental tax. So she can't say, "I don't want to do either one." And I've heard other Commissioners say they support other variations on this theme of a public vote on a tax. Let the public decide, the public is ahead of us on this. Let the public decide. Commissioner Halkiotis: I have a suggestion to move us along, because it's 10:00. We could be here for a couple of weeks debating this. I'd like to suggest we go ahead and empower the Manager to look at his proposal and get us the information as quickly as possible and schedule it for our January retreat or what have you. Anything else we do right now, we're just going to present five different opinions up here. Commissioner Brown: I think that's great., You definitely have to have that data. Commissioner Gordon: I just wanted to support something that Commissioner Jacobs said in that I do think that it makes sense to get your facts and figures to make sure that people are educated. I'm kind of the uncharacteristic Gordonian form suggesting that we move forward for this. The reason is because I've been persuaded that the need is so great in the Orange County school system to do something. But if it's the pleasure of the Commissioners to get the data about why these two school systems need this money, fine. I just have been persuaded that the Orange County school system needs the money, and that's why I proposed what I did. If it's the pleasure of the Commissioners to get data to educate the public, to do efficiency studies or whatever we need to do to make sure that the Orange County system is using their money efficiently and the Chapel Hill - Carrboro system is using their money efficiently, then I could go along with that. I just think 31