Anyway, there were 18 to 20 of us siting in those uncomfortable fold up chairs at the 12-Noon meeting start time and we were not about to leave. We sat there and watched the Board eat their meal, such as it was, until 12:30 PM. Then it was announced that there were a number of people who had been standing outside and the room fire safety capacity would be exceeded. Therefore the meeting was relocated to a much larger room downstairs.
Upon observation I had concluded this group of Trustees were really not ready for prime time. They were also not ready to comply with the open meeting laws of North Carolina. The whole deal with the meals and all was just a small indication. Governmental bodies such as the CCC Board of Trustees are supposed to conduct their business in public. This meet and eat stuff behind closed doors as they had been doing and are still trying to do is a relic of long ago. They only got by because nobody questioned them. That might be fine as long as things are running well. But folks, these guys and gals on the CCC Board of Trustees have refused to face the facts. Things are not going well at CCC, there are scandals at every turn and this College, Administration and Board of Trustees are all under a microscope. And they don’t even get the fact they are not even conducting their meetings in accordance with the law. Normal governmental agency Board meetings are held in meeting rooms and don’t include fancy meals eaten in front of the public that is paying the bills. Especially when important donors like Mrs. Patsy Rose, three members of the LeGrand family (Stuart, Brian and Brendan), former Board Chairman Ellis Monroe and noted philanthropist Charlie Carrigan are treated so poorly. Rude behavior by CCC, bordering on uncouth. (It was noted that Sheriff Alan Norman, Wayne King and Allen Langley did not eat their prepared meal in protest of such a waste of taxpayer dollars.) Read on folks. I am just starting to tell this tale.
So, now we all go to the much larger meeting room downstairs. When I enter the room I see the horseshoe shaped arrangement for the Board Members on one end of the room and many rows of chairs on the other end of the room for the public. More importantly, I see that most of the chairs for the public are filled up front by people with CCC identification badges. Apparently CCC employees who are on the payroll. Those of us who were not CCC employees were forced to sit in the very back rows.
But that didn’t last long. When the Board meeting was called to order, us in the back could not hear a word. There was no sound system. I smelled another Rat right off.
