wake county

Can progressives take back control of North Carolina's General Assembly? Three new polls conducted by PPP for Progress NC pinpoint areas where vulnerable incumbents or open seats could open the door for progressive candidates to enter the race, including a poll showing that incumbent Jim Crawford (D-Granville) is vulnerable in the Democratic Primary. If you are thinking of running, or know someone thinking of running, stand by for more polling in other counties soon. More details on these three polls after the jump:

As usual, Robin Hayes twists the truth to fit his anti-everything agenda:

“The reason why Republicans have fought to promote proper voter-identification laws is to prevent fraud like this from happening.”

Except, of course, that H351 wouldn’t have prevented "fraud like this" at all.

Apparently Laura's message isn't penetrating the depths of the Conservative communication network. This story hit the Tweetwaves last night, but stuff like this is still showing up:

Huffington Post has a story on the Wake County school board resegrigation plan. Here is the best paragraph.

Public ire aside, the Tea Party has shown its support of Wake County's actions. Art Pope, a popular republican figure who sits on the board of Americans For Prosperity, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying the isolation factor might make things more convenient.

"If we end up with a concentration of students underperforming academically, it may be easier to reach out to them. Hypothetically, we should consider that as well."

Finally the national media is starting to expose Art Pope, now if only more media would look into this plan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/wake-county-school-board-_n_808...

Changing behavior is costly but necessary:

Authorities in Wake County pressured the legislature for the lake's cleanup, because the lake provides drinking water for 450,000 Wake residents. But the pollutants reach the lake from streams running through Durham, Granville, Person and Orange counties, whose taxpayers would bear the greatest financial burden for cleaning up Raleigh's reservoir.

It will probably do little good to repeat this, but it needs to be said: Techniques for ameliorating the negative effects of stormwater runoff have been available to county/city governments for decades, and they (for the most part) chose to ignore them. During that time, land development in the Triangle/Triad regions propagated like rabbits, and the combination of those two factors produced an inevitable result. A result that must be dealt with, now.

Democratic Women of Wake County will hold a luncheon meeting on Thursday, August 26, 2010 at the NC State University Club, 4200 Hillsborough Street.

The buffet lunch lines open at 11:30 am with the program starting at 12:00 Noon. The cost of the luncheon is $15.00 payable at the door. For reservations go to http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e2zt3srs986c4099 or email democraticwomenwakecounty@gmail.com or call Kay Parry-Hill at 782-7608.

The program will feature Congressmen David Price and Brad Miller.

One speaker at yesterday’s Wake school board meeting who managed to speak before the theatrics began made an interesting point that goes to the root of the controversy over diversity versus neighborhood schools. While she said she supported the now abandoned diversity policy, she wanted the new board to succeed. All she wanted was for the board to “show me the money” and asked “where’s the beef.” In other words, she wanted to see the plan the board had to transition to neighborhood schools.

She has a point. After several months of demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, accusations and counter-accusations, the board majority has yet to reveal any details of its plan. Whether you support the diversity policy or neighborhood schools, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where the school board is going?

It's happening, right on schedule.

Hundreds of middle-class Wake County families are leaving crowded, high-poverty schools for magnets and year-rounds thanks to the school board's decision to quit using their relative wealth as a reason to deny their applications. Now that those barriers have been eased, poverty levels are expected to increase at a number of other Wake County schools.

A couple of conservative Wake County School Board members had a new take on poverty and prosperity yesterday. John Tedesco declared after an assignment meeting:

"We're not talking about socioeconomic status anymore". "Once we pass the resolution, we won't be talking about it again"

Meanwhile Debra Goldman was less reserved on Twitter:


Of course it's easier to think about buying diamonds to celebrate the end of diversity when your husband skips paying $1,428.24 in Wake County taxes on your second property.

By a narrow margin, Wake County Commissioners voted along party lines to reinstate elective abortion coverage for County employees:

After a pointed legal and moral debate, the Wake County Board of Commissioners agreed Monday to restore insurance coverage for elective abortions for county employees. "I don't think that government should be telling women what to do with their bodies," board member Stan Norwalk said.

With Democrats outvoting Republicans 4-3, members overruled county manager David Cooke. Cooke removed the coverage from the county's self-insured plan when he learned of language in a 1981 state Supreme Court decision that could be read to forbid counties from paying for elective abortions. Rep. Paul Stam, who was the plaintiff in the case, brought it to board chairman Tony Gurley's attention this year.

^{[first time I've written here, please bear with me... thanks]}

Being a new resident here in central Raleigh, I've been observing the wrangling surrounding the schools in Wake county. I joined a Triangle-area online forum that's part of a big site even before we moved here because they had a lot of useful info, 'intel' that even helped with the decision where in the area we wanted to live after our job-mandated move from California. So I would read about parents' frustration with long bus rides, frequent schedule changes, disruptive reassignments... and also why some of it was worth the inconvenience. My own daughter is almost done with college so thank gawd this stuff was not an immediate concern anymore, but I could understand why some folks would be unhappy with how school assignments were handled here.