Discuss Election Result. How will it affect Development in the city

[dubone]

With the school board comprising the same individuals, the outrageous waste in the operating budget will not likely change. There are huge sums of money spent on non-teaching resources, espcially downtown administrative staff, and non-teaching resources in the schools. Education is a fairly simple business: the inputs being classrooms, teachers, and books. CMS has created a massive bureaucracy that are expensive, wasteful and counterproductive.

However, from my perspective, the bonds were capital spending for a productive element in the equation, classrooms. Adding classrooms does improve education. The huge waste in the rest of the system will remain unchanged until the management board addresses it.

I think there is a valid message to give the system by turning down the bonds, but by returning the same people to the board completely eliminates the value of that message.

[dubone]

The problem with throwing down additional classrooms at a school is that you overload the common facilities such as bathrooms, cafeterias, and infrastructure that wasn't designed to handle that many students. I would invite you to go to North Meck when school lets out to see the traffic mess there. There are only two 2 lane country roads that go by the school.

I may not be dealing with all the facts here. M, are you saying that if the undercapacity schools were brought up to capacity and all the already approved bonds were spent, that the school district would meet all of its capacity needs for the upcoming five years?

My understanding is that that isn't enough. The district will end up continuing to rent trailers, and locate them at schools that do not have enough common facilities.

[monsoon]

That is what I am saying.

[dubone]

Are the numbers available to support that, or is it just your perception? How much past bond money has not yet been spent?

[monsoon]

I have seen numbers that explain this, but I don't have them handy at the moment.

[Dale]

The animus for Wheeler is due primarily because she was for or against the arena ?

[monsoon]

In line that CMS has failed to run the schools properly, the news is reporting the Police have locked down West Mecklenburg for fighting and potentially another riot. They are advising parents to not come to the school as they will not be able to come onto CMS property and the student's can't leave. Sounds like a jail.

How can students learn in this kind of environment?

More to come on this.

[dubone]

But nothing in this election indicates that the voters want the schools to be run any differently. In fact, they want them to be run exactly the same way, as the status quo won the election. Incumbent board, and no new schools facilities.

It is a good thing the law enforcement bonds passed. We'll need them.

[monsoon]

Chalk that up to district voting. The only real contested election was in District 1. The incumbants will be overturned when the at large election occurs.

[skylinedrive]

I found some info that shows overcrowding is a county wide issue for CMS. It clearly shows that even if all the schools in the system were filled to 100% capacity that there would still be some 18,000 students relegated to mobile classrooms. Also in a statement made today by the superintendent she said that there are currently 20,000 students in mobile classrooms. That is just insane.

My source for this info is here on Page 71:

http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/departments/publi...ster%20Plan.pdf

I found a few pieces of information on the School Bond vote to be interesting:

-None of the Top 10 Precints with the most opposition to the bonds were from North Meck. They were all in South or West Meck.

-Why did Davidson stongly support the bonds while Cornelious and Huntersville stongly opposed the bonds?

-Neighborhoods as close to the core as Myers Park even opposed the bonds.

The latest development I find to be even more interesting: The Republicans on the County Commision next week will push for $274M in COPS for CMS construction. COPS are basically bonds without a public vote. In otherwords the Republicans on the County Commision want to subvert yesterday's Bond Referendum. Is this the Arena debacle all over again?

Dubone I agree with you that it makes no sense to me why people would vote in the incumbent school board members and vote down the bonds. Even when you break it down to the district level, the district voted No on the Bonds and Yes on the incumbent school board member. CMS clearly has a full plate now, and I hope they are able to resolve this, if they don't it could spell bad news for the future of Mecklenburg County.

[MZT]

The Republicans have been in favor of new construction all along. They just didn't want to spend more money on the inner city. Their argument is that these schools are under capacity, or were recently renovated.

There has even been talk of closing some inner city schools. Which I think is shortsighted-- it would be very hard to get that land back, and who knows what the population of Charlotte will be in 50 years? I remember part of LA County's overcrowding was due to selling off "underutilized" school property in the 1970s.

To me what's irritating about all these debates about school funding, is why weren't larger impact fees assessed, when all those suburban tracts were built out? Where was the PLANNING? Homes gets filled with families, and ...duh... kids.

[monsoon]

An impact fee tax would have to be approved by the State Legislature. Localities such as Mecklenburg and Charlotte, can't create new taxes unless the State approves them. There is a huge lobbying effort on the behalf of the Developers and land owners to keep this from happening, and our local leaders, especially in Charlotte, have been very remiss at approving sprawling development that causes the problems in the first place.

Also keep in mind it's the cities in the county that approve new development while it is the county that runs the school system. In other words, there isn't a practical way to link development to the funding of new schools given how the county and cites have organized responsibilities.

Of course the the North has proposed a fix to this problem. Break up CMS and create separate school systems. Let the North towns run their own school system, Charlotte can run one, and possibly there could be another system in the South/Southeast. However the people living in Charlotte don't want this because they need the suburbs to maintain a reasonably balanced the school system from a demographic perspective. Else, with a few exceptions, Charlotte ends up with system that is demographically undesirable in a lot of people's eyes. This will cause the middle class to pack their bags and move out of the city. (ever wonder why Atlanta city is only 450K and doesn't grow much, while their metro is one of the fasting growing in the nation?) This solution may still happen as I suspect the suburbs will continue to push for this until it is fixed.

In regards to the County Commission, they are completely free to borrow money for school construction as defined by their charter with the state. Remember the School Board is not a taxing authority, only the county and cities are. So the County in the future, can decide there will be no more bond votes and instead make all decisions on where to build and fund schools which effectively neuters the School Board in this regard. Those with the gold make the rules and in the case of the schools that is the County. Once the 2010 census has completed you will see more of the political power shift to the suburbs as this is where the vast majority of growth is occuring in Mecklenburg right now. (they will have to redistrict again). If CMS isn't broken up by then, I suspect you will see the School Board's power continue to be diminished.

I don't see a solution to this mess short of breaking up CMS.

[dubone]

I would be happy for the County Commission to take over more, including with school construction and location. The school board is stuck in nonsensical rhetoric. I swear that they justify every crazy idea as being "for the children".

Hopefully if CMS is broken up, it would be with districts that are fairly balanced. Healthy communities rely on a mix of incomes, races, and otherwise.

It would be best, in my opinion, if the county sets an overall allocation of funds, when x% of the budget can only be spent on classrooms, classroom supplies (paper/pencils/books), and teachers. The rest of the budget is fluff.

I also liked proposals for certain functions to be taken over by other government agencies. CATS should take over transportation/busses, the library system should take over the libraries, the park and rec should take over playgrounds and fields, and the county should take over facilities, etc. The school board should be responsible only for overseeing academic and assignment issues.

[atlrvr]

If I ever run for office, besides the support of arts andd transit, my basic platform is to let the users pay their own way.

I'm a big fan of impact fees on developments that would provide substantial population/student growth, though these fees could be "bought down", with such good planning as donating sites to CMS for new schools, providing connectivity beyond what is required, possibly "green" design.

Also, as far as roads go, I would push for the state to consider allowing a 0.5 to 1 cent tax on gasoline in the city limits that would stay in the city to repave roads.

Patsy Kinsey watch out, I'm coming for your seat.

[monsoon]

The other way to fix the problems is to get rid of district voting in the school board and make all the seats, at large seats. This was the way it used to be operated. That way every school board member is accountable to the entire county instead of just their own district.

It will never happen unfortunately.

[MZT]

Sometimes I think Godwin's law has a followup on UrbanPlanet: "All threads eventually lead to CMS and transit."

Seriously, when I moved back to NC after 6 years in LA, I found the sight of yellow school busses "strange" again. In LA and Orange county, the kids ride the city bus systems.

Also, the analogy to Atlanta is probably apt. The 485 ring is only a few miles from the county border. It's too easy already for people to just go a few miles farther out and wash their hands of CMS entirely.

[monsoon]

My goodness! Two more schools are under lockdown today according to WSOC. This time is is elementary grade.

[atlrvr]

They are locked down because there is a police standoff at a nearby apt. complex.....they just don't want a stray bullet hitting a kid.

[DigitalSky]

My goodness! Two more schools are under lockdown today according to WSOC. This time is is elementary grade.

yeah. it's near Tyvola Crossing http://www.wsoctv.com/news/5295375/detail.html where it's happening... i think TC is Public Housing too

[monsoon]

Apparently, because of the bond results, a local legislator will file another bill in the NC Legislature to allow a local referendum to break up CMS into at least 3 smaller districts. I believe the legislator was from Huntersville but I don't have his name. In a related note, CMS is now talking about another bond issue for next May.

Would it not be wierd if on the May election, we had both a rederendum to break up CMS along with a Bond issue to give them more money?

[dubone]

I think I might be for the Republican plan to spend immediate money in areas of the county with immediate need. I think probably the money spent in renovating inner city schools that are under capacity probably was the more controversial part of the earlier bond plan.

I also am very interested to hear more about the CMS splitting bill. 3 districts, as long as they are relatively similar racial and poverty makeup, would probably be a very positive move. Are there any details on how it would be split?

[MZT]

I don't think breaking up CMS will do much good, without a change in administrative mindset. They need to get serious about expelling troublemakers or separating them to a discipline school. In that regard, keeping one system is perhaps helpful. Imagine three districts trying to "push the garbage onto each other".

[peaceloveunderstanding]

they do have a 'discipline school', I think it's called Derita.

How would they divide the county?

North, Center, South?

[dubone]

I think North, Southwest and Southeast if it were three ways. Inner city schools and neighborhoods, though, must be included in all the districts.

[monsoon]

Considering what I hear up here, the split will be geographic. The North, Charlotte and South East.

North = Huntersville, Cornelus, Davidson and their EJTs

Charlotte = basically what is inside 485.

SE = Mint Hill, Matthews, Pineville, plus parts of SE Charlotte that don't want to be in the Charlotte system. (i.e places like Ballentyne)