Comments on: Chairman Miller Calls Out State Rep David Lewis

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 31 May 2014 20:30:11 +0000

Thank you, Mr. Miller. I apologize for the delay in acknowledging your reply. I have not lived here that long, and the reality that this county is ruled completely by special interests is just setting in. I am so sad to see that so few people seem to be aware of, much less interested in, what is being done in the names — but to the almost complete detriment — of Harnett County citizens.

By: joe miller

joe miller — Thu, 01 May 2014 01:36:36 +0000

Thank you Mrs. Susan, that motion was not made in the best interest of all citizens of Harnett County. Seems to be a lot of those going around lately, a lot of campaigning going on.

I’m not sure what’s going on at the new Anderson Creek charter school. It is a publicly funded school but it does not have to follow public school rules and until recently I did not even know that the lottery had taken place. I have had several calls from mothers that are not happy with the way things were handled but I understand that it published it in the Dunn Daily Record. Now as I understand it, the lottery had to be published in the counties largest paper, which is the counties only paper,(The Dunn Daily Record) which, just so happens that the DDR is not distributed in the western part of the county. (go figure, right!!) Now whether it was in the Fayetteville Observer or not I can not say but I do know that there are a lot of very upset people in this area because they had no idea that it was being done. I also have been told that “ONLY” 200 people signed up for the 180 seats, which is very surprising to me with all the overcrowding we have out here.

Now to your question about the State Board of Education and the charter school. In a consensus vote done by phone and email, the board voted 4 to 1 not to endorse the charter school mainly because we knew very little about a charter school and its impact on our public schools. This was another last minute, hurry up and vote (just like the rec fee vote) because it has to be done now. The only “for” vote was cast by Jim Burgin, the same commissioner that brought it up. Is there a pattern emerging here? Mr. Burgin took it upon himself to write a personal letter of recommendation to the state BOE, which he is allowed to his opinion, but he wrote this letter of recommendation on county letterhead. This is something I do not agree with and if you look at the appendix on the application it does look like a recommendation from the Harnett County Board of Commissioners

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 20:59:16 +0000

Thank you, Joe Miller! I was at the Commissioners meeting where this resolution was discussed. At least one of the Commissioners thought it was a slamdunk and seemed quite taken aback at the outcry.

Now, Mr. Miller, can you help us understand how it is that the new charter school in Anderson Creek, which will receive approximately one million dollars in education funds, managed to have its lottery rigged so that almost nobody outside of Anderson Creek was included? And how it is that the state Board of Education is under the impression that this charter school proposal had the support of the County Commissioners?

Thanks!