I had been planning on writing this column on part 2 of “The School Floor Explained.”
That is, until I was attacked from all angles since my last column. I was personally attacked by city council at last week’s meeting by council members, which included lies about where I live and statements that I have supposedly said and, of course, my taxes.
Then, a county commissioner referred to my comments, which had been thoroughly researched and respectfully presented, as “crap”. And then a school board member chiming in that I may even show up at the next school board meeting with even more questions about closing schools. As if the apocalypse were coming.
Why the hate? Why the incivility? All I have ever asked is how can my elected colleagues proceed with their multi-million dollar projects against the citizen’s will? I really never thought that would upset them so much. I mean, it doesn’t seem to bother the county commissioners and the school board to plow ahead with their $40 million school project while turning a deaf ear to over 90 percent of the public. And it certainly doesn’t bother city council that they are proceeding with their $10 million new city hall against the increasingly angry 99 percent of the public who oppose it. So why would I ever imagine that they would get so upset at just one single person, me, voicing opposition to these things?
Could it be, and this is just speculation, that they are so upset because they know, deep down, that what they are doing is very wrong? They would rather vilify me to discredit the arguments I make on behalf citizen input than actually let the citizens’ voice be heard? Instead of giving the public one good reason why these multi-million dollar projects cannot be voted on by the public, the locally elected officials try to trick the public into thinking this is just the mayor and his ‘issues’ and his crazy supporters. Well, maybe the mayor does have ‘issues’ and maybe some of his supporters are crazy. We get that. But that doesn’t change the fact that the citizens deserve the opportunity to vote on these projects.
So, at an NAACP forum a couple weeks back, I asked the superintendent why the citizens cannot be given the opportunity to vote on school closings and the new $40 million school consolidation package. His response was that because the schools are not asking for any more money from the commissioners, that it does not need to be voted on. Does that argument satisfy anyone out there? Me neither. Basically what the superintendent is saying is this; because you poor suckers are already are paying so much in school tax, as long as the schools don’t ask for even more of your tax money, just keep quiet and pay up.
The situation is even worse with city council. Council voted last week to spend $200,000 more of your money to remodel an old downtown city-owned building (the Sanford Building, next to the old post office). This building, after being renovated over the next several months, will then be used to house the nine city employees who currently work in the Barrett Building (City Hall). These employees (the city manager, clerk and supervisors) will then work in this refurbished building for the year or so while the Barrett Building is plowed over and the new $10 million City Hall is constructed. Puzzled citizens might ask why, if this 4,000 square foot building can be renovated into usable space for just $200,000, can’t customer billing, which uses about 4,000 square feet, be moved to the renovated Sanford Building. Then the Police Department could be expanded into customer billing, for just a few hundred thousand dollars more? Wouldn’t that make more sense than destroying the Barrett Building and the Police Department building that we already have to build a $10 million dollar new building that will be, you guessed it, the same square footage that we will already have once the Sanford Building is remodeled.
So, in closing, the issue here in Laurinburg is not where the mayor lives, whether he pays his taxes on time or his ‘crap’. It is, and always has been, why are all these elected officials spending your money against your wishes and refusing to let you have any say in the matter?