Trustee Chris Turner:
Trustee Chris Turner’s term ends in 2018. Trustee Chris Turner was appointed by the School Board for one obvious reason. Mr. Turner’s business, Turner Trucking, supports the Cleveland County School Foundation by hosting an annual Golf Tournament that is the major source of the foundations revenue. Mr. Turner is well respected in the business community and supports the School Foundation. The problem lies in that Mr. Turner attends CCC Board of Trustee Meetings and like Trustee Allen Langley only hears the one sided information only coming from the CCC administration and staff. Although this is typical of the way Cleveland County Boards like to operate, Trustees like Chris Turner and Allen Langley end up becoming the face of the Community College and they have the tendency to leave the status quo in place instead of making the hard decisions required when the facts of the matter come out into public view.
We consider Trustee Chris Turner to have unfortunately become “tainted” by his association with the CCC Board of Trustees when all these scandals were brewing. We believe Trustee Chris Turner should resign from the CCC Board as did Board Chairman Ellis Monroe, thus allowing the NC General Assembly to appoint someone who is not tainted with having to justify why such scandals were allowed to happen on his watch.
Trustee Larry Hamrick, Jr.:
Trustee Larry Hamrick’s term in office expires in 2019. Trustee Larry Hamrick was appointed by the school board to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Commissioner Ronnie Hawkins. Trustee Larry Hamrick was also the campaign manager for CCS Board member Shearra Miller, who nominated Hamrick to the CCC Board of Trustees. There is certainly too much political favoritism in the appointment of Larry Hamrick to the CCC Board of Trustees, besides his obvious conflict of interest in protecting the status quo and the scandals at the Community College as well as within the schools.
Just like others mentioned above, Trustee Larry Hamrick cannot be depended upon to cast a vote that would jeopardize the status quo at CCC as well as CCS. Cleveland County does not need any board member anywhere with such conflicts of interests that delay and deny the CCC Board of Trustees actions that are necessary to resolve the mess at CCC as well as CCS. We recommend Larry Hamrick resign from the CCC Board of Trustees and, barring that, for the NC General Assembly to remove him from the Board.
Editor’s Note 2: All of the six Community College Board of Trustees noted above are considered, for one reason or another, very, very unlikely to take sufficient actions to resolve the scandals and problem issues at Cleveland Community College. This is one half of the CCC Board of Trustees in lockstep to do nothing, guaranteeing gridlock. They all should be encouraged to resign as soon as possible and none should be re-appointed. Otherwise, they should be removed from the CCC Board of Trustees effective immediately. Their presence, representing half of the CCC Board, insures gridlock, stalemate, delay and ridicule from citizens as well as potential companies thinking about coming to Cleveland County. All in the name of protecting their own best interest and not giving a whit about CCC.
The half of the Board of Trustees listed below are checkmated by the Trustees noted above. It is their duty, however hard, to prevail in fixing the scandals and problems that have festered for so long at CCC.
Read on.