The Star keeps Voters in the Dark about Democrat Candidates!!!– Democrat School Board Primary Election has started –Report by Robert A. Williams

Have you wasted your time reading the two silly Q&A articles the Dark Star has written about the six Democrat candidates in the Democrat Primary Election for the School Board? They asked three stupid questions that don’t matter much and had no fact checking for any of the answers.

The three stupid questions were:
1. Why are you running for the School Board?
2. What is the biggest issue currently facing the board?
3. What will you bring to the board?

We have updated our previously provided information regarding the six Democrat Candidates and again list them from worst to best. The worst candidates are at the top of this list and they get better as we go down the list.

I have to again say. “WOW!!! at the gall of some of these candidates for even filing for public office. No wonder Cleveland County education is in such bad shape.”

The worst Democrat Candidates are at the top of this list. The September 12th Primary Election only allow us to eliminate two.

1. Phillip “Bully” Glover: (Refused to participate in TEA Party Forum.)

Bully Glover is the Present Chairman of the CCS School Board and personally and directly assisted in the appointment of all four of the present CCC Board of Trustee CCS appointed members. Those members are Lamont Littlejohn, Chris Turner, Larry Hamrick and Allen Langley. These are solid votes for Gridlock on the CCC Board of Trustees.

I gave Glover the nickname “Bully” after watching him closely for the past four years at School Board meetings. Ask the women who spoke at the last school board meeting where Bully had a uniformed Shelby Police Officer remove them from the building. Better yet, go back and watch that meeting video on the CCS website. Watch for yourself what happens if you happen to disagree with Bully Glover.

Then, Bully gets mad that Rev. Rit Variale of the Elizabeth Baptist Church supported Prayer at School Board meetings, so Bully rushes out to his kids school in a huff and pulls his kid from Mrs. Shannon Variale’s class. (A blatant abuse of power that gets covered up.) Six hundred people start showing up at school board meetings right before an election and Bully has to let Prayer into board meetings so his buddies can get themselves re-elected and keep him on as Chairman.

Then Bully pulls a fast one and gets the New North Shelby School Project approved without letting the Board consider any other location options. A bad decision that cost taxpayers $16 million-$6 million over budget. Spending good money after bad on a project that was not even needed. (Shelby Middle School and other locations had sufficient empty space to include the entire North Shelby students population (less than 80) without building a new school. And have plenty of room left over.

Then, there is the turnover of teachers, principals and others who are tired of being afraid all the time for their jobs if they bring up problems or don’t show enough “support” for Bully, the school board, the Superintendent and their flunkies. My understanding is three principals and a few teachers have resigned in the past ten days to take jobs in Rutherford County. Bully and his buds are fine with that. That leaves more room to hire someone else who will do what they say and keep their mouths shut. It doesn’t matter whether or not they can contribute to the education of our children. Ask Bully about the high turnover rates and see what kind of bull you get from Bully.

Oh yeah, Auditoriums for Burns and Crest High Schools. Bully pulls a publicity stunt by pushing new auditoriums at 50 year old Burns and Crest High Schools knowing there is no money to do so and that the County had to put up the new Health Department in a pawn shop loan deal to get the money for the new and unnecessary North Shelby School Project. Bully is pulling another publicity stunt by calling a School Board meeting for Monday August 14, 2017 at 6:00 PM at the James Love School Media Center. The Official CCS schedule for Board meetings show no meetings on this day. The agenda has one item-a closed session to approve student transfers. The real reason is to hold a tour and photo op of the new North Shelby School Project construction, apparently trying to mimic the real success of the Pinnacle Classical Academy Ribbon Cutting Celebration. Word is watch out for Grand Canyon type cliff on the backside of the new North Shelby project that needs another million+ dollars worth of dirt to level out. What a waste.

Bully Glover either has directed CCS Administration or simply allows them, under his protection, to not provide public documents to be reviewed as required by state law when the records are properly requested. One must ask, what does Bully Glover and CCS have to hide? One must also ask who needs an elected official who covers up information and refuses to allow the public access to the documents that they own?

Also, there is the matter of Bully and a conflict of interest with him serving on the School Board. Bully has started him up a Driver’s Education business that will take money away from the CCS Driver’s Education Program. Bully drives his Driver’s Education car, marked up and all, to school board meetings and to the schools that he visits. But Bully says that is not a conflict of interest. Anyway, you might ask, why would anybody want to pay Bully $400-$600 to teach their kids to drive when they only have to pay $65 through the school program? Nobody!!! Therefore, something else must be going on? Could this be some payoff quid pro quo scheme? Send your kid, or somebody’s kid or just a check to Bully and get a job or contract with CCC? It certainly appears to me that Bully Glover is attached at the pocketbook with CCS in some way or another with this Drivers Ed. thing.

You decide on that and vote accordingly My recommendation is to just leave the vote for Bully blank on your Ballot in the Democrat Primary as shown in the example ballot shown below.

2. Guy Suttle: (Refused to participate in TEA Party Forum.)

Guy Suttle has worked at CCS as a long time Athletic Director at Crest High School. Suttle retired from there at the end of 2014 and promptly started double-dipping at Cleveland Community College. Why CCC values an Athletic Director when they have no athletic teams remains a mystery to me.

Suttle’s arrival and job maneuverings at Crest, assisted by Principal, at that time and now school board member Roger Harris, ended up causing the firing of at least two reported excellent teachers who were within days of reaching tenure. It seems athletics has a higher priority at Crest than academics. At least in the eyes of Roger Harris and Guy Suttle.

There have also been “chatter” alleging lawn mowing funds being manipulated and misappropriated by Guy Suttle into his own pocket. I was sure Mr. Suttle would have liked to explain himself regarding these particular allegations at the TEA Party Forum or at other forums but, alas, Guy Suttle refused to participate or even show up. Perhaps Bully Glover would also like to explain his apparent conflict of interest too? Oh, Bully doesn’t show up either. What a good opportunity for these two candidates to clear the air regarding their alleged shenanigans but they didn’t take that opportunity. The only reason they have for hiding this information is they have something to hide.

But Guy Suttle has much more to explain. And so does Cleveland Community College. Especially the CCC Board of “Un-Trust-Worthys.” You know, the see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil crowd of know-nothing do-nothings. (I include all CCC Board members in this category for this and other reasons.) This is the story that every household in Cleveland County will know is true as soon as I tell it in the following paragraphs of this article.

Every household and address in Cleveland County gets stuff in the mail from Cleveland Community College all the time. It would cost a candidate running for elected office a fortune ($35,000+estimated) to put out such mailings. Also, Cleveland Community College has a policy that states:

2.23.1 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF EMPLOYEES, EXCEPT FOR THE PRESIDENT
(1) Employees who decide to run for public office shall notify the Board of Trustees through the President of their intentions to run and shall certify that they will not campaign or otherwise engage in political activities during their regular hours or involve the College in their political activities.

This policy, especially the last few words are clear enough for the CCC President, Executive Vice President, All Deans and everybody else, including Guy Suttle to understand. Yet Cleveland Community College drafts up this magazine that was delivered to every address in Cleveland County between July 17 and July 21 with Guy Suttle’s full size picture on the cover page, full page picture and article on page 4 and another pic and write-up on page 7. There is an article titled “Motivated to Succeed! Claudia Arrez’s Story.” Claudia Arrez is an adult Hispanic woman with children who could not speak English in 2013. The article did not include anything abut how Claudia entered the United States, how she ended up in Cleveland County and how any of that was legal immigration or not. At the end of the article Claudia was bragging on CCC by stating “They have everything here and it doesn’t cost anything.” Well, it didn’t cost Claudia anything but it cost us taxpayers plenty. Now Claudia Arrez is planning to enter the CCC Adult Education Program this fall. Four years of free education and now some more free education. I suspect the free programs Claudia has signed up for probably also includes paid childcare, most likely Food Stamps and paid her cash money along the way. A deal most of us home grown Cleveland County residents do not get. And, right in the middle of this CCC publicity campaign pushing Guy Suttle, Guy Suttle files to run for the School Board on July 20, 2017. Totally involving Cleveland Community College in his campaign with this CCC free political advertising. Totally in violation of CCC policy.

So, I inform (and show) CCC Board of Trustees Chairman Wes Westmoreland about this CCC magazine. Westmoreland was able to confirm that Suttle was indeed in and on the magazine cover and said he would look into it. At the August 8, 2017 CCC
Board of Un-Trust-Worthys meeting Dr. Aiken brings out two letters of those who had signed up for political office. Guy Suttle running for the School Board and Emily Sisk who is running for the Belwood Town Council. Note that Emily Sisk did not have her picture posted all over CCC Magazines mailed to every address in Cleveland County like Guy Suttle did. But the real question was and is whether or not Guy Suttle and others at CCC conspired to advance Guy Suttle’s chances of winning an elected office on the school board by this illegal $35,000+ in political advertising for Guy Suttle. Nary a word or thought about that from Westmoreland and the rest of the Unturst-Worthys. But Guy Suttle had to have known he was considering running for an elected political office and took advantage of the situation. and the CCC Interim President and Board of Un-Trust-Worthys who just want to forget about it because they got caught. And have!!!

3. Tommy Greene: (Refused to participate in TEA Party Forum.)

Tommy Greene has had probably the longest run of scandals of anyone in this list. Starting way before the merger and for many years later. Tommy Greene also worked at Cleveland Community College where he retired from in late 2015 as Vice President of Finance. When Greene retired, that position was not filled, even to this day.

Tommy Greene’s first major scandal as a school board member was way before the school merger. Greene was on the original County School Board and went on a School Board Retreat to New Orleans along with other school board members. Including Connie Goforth Whitiker. When the retreat was over and it was time to go home, Tommy and Connie were nowhere to be found amongst the Board members heading back to Cleveland County. Basically Tommy was leaving his wife and Connie was leaving her husband back in Cleveland County and their adultery together was now public knowledge. Anyway, Connie was the first of the two to face re-election to the school board. Connie lost. Tommy’s term was up two years later and apparently Cleveland County voters had forgotten about Tommy and Connie’s adultery on the taxpayer paid trip to New Orleans. Tommy won re-election. Later to serve on the merged School Board and even served as chairman. What a role model Tommy and now Connie Goforth Greene were for the children of Cleveland County? Their adultery certainly put the seal of approval on adultery for the Cleveland County School Board, Principals and Teachers for years to come. Right down to this very day adultery among CCS Board members, Administrators, Teachers, Principals, etc. is a protected sin at CCS. Even into Courthouse cases that you will soon be told about.

But scandals were not over for Tommy Greene and the School Board. Tommy Greene was chairman of the school board AND VP of Finance at CCC when all the recently discovered credit card fraud scandals began to surface at CCS. All this right under the nose of the financial guru in charge at both CCS and CCC. All these credit card fraud cases were covered up by the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office and the CCS Board who even hired an outside auditor to conduct an audit of documents that knowingly had been purged of examples of fraud and then CCS announced the audit did not find any problems. Proof of this was inadvertently blurted out by School Board member Kathy Falls at a school board meeting when Falls forgot to keep her mouth shut about how the audit was rigged. No other board member said a word and frowned at Falls. Falls then got the message to keep her mouth shut.

Tommy Greene was also a Bully, not quite as bad as Bully Glover, with his threats to have citizens removed from School Board meetings. Glover actually had citizens removed, Greene only threatened to do so. I guess I will have to continue to call Phillip Glover “Bully” and Tommy Greene “Bully Lite.”

Last, but not least, Tommy Greene was allegedly recruited to run for the School Board this year by Jo Boggs, now a Republican (RINO), after the Kathy Falls lawsuit resulted in an extension of the filing period. All this stuff is what caused this costly Democrat Primary Election in the first place along with big lawyer bills for taxpayers to have to pay. Tommy Greene’s under the table associations with Jo Boggs ought to disqualify him from citizens votes during the Democrat Primary on September 12, 2017. Early voting starts August 24th.

4. Coleman Hunt:(Attended the TEA Party Forum. Scroll on back for that article.)

Coleman Hunt was a long time Principal (Now retired) within Cleveland County Schools. Mr. Hunt started his education in the segregated school system in Cleveland County and ended up at Crest High School when it opened in 1967, ending segregation in Cleveland County. Mr. Hunt excelled in football and won a scholarship to Gardner Webb, where he was a standout player in football and wrestling. Mr. Hunt then joined Cleveland County Schools as a coach and a teacher, working his way up to Principal. Mr. Hunt retired just a few years ago as Principal at Washington Elementary School after eleven years of service at Washington.

Mr. Hunt appears to have no previous political experience that I can find and no multiple and major scandals associated with him as bad as the three candidates noted above. However, Mr. Hunt has been criticized for his lack of promoting diversity, especially for passing over well qualified and better qualified minority teachers for fast tracking into a Principal position and promoting Jo Boggs’ daughter instead.

Also, I can not find any campaign information on Mr. Hunt’s reasons for running for the School Board, what his priorities are and whether or not he would be effective in finding and fixing the problems that are well known within CCS.

The allegations that Mr. Hunt was recruited to run for the School Board to help the political and career aspirations and planned schemes of School Board Member Jo Boggs and Boggs’ daughter earned Mr. Hunt this position on this list.

5. Barbara Bass Romich: (Her representatives attended the TEA Party Forum. Scroll on back for that article.)

Barbara Bass Romich has been around in the education business. According to her Facebook page she is a former owner of a Sylvan Learning Center, studied at Gardner-Webb University, studied Developmental psychology at North Carolina State University, studied Marriage and Family Counseling/Child Development at Western Kentucky University and studied Psychology at East Carolina University.

Barbara Romich also worked at Cleveland Community College where she was let go in one of the infamous CCC purges. Some at CCC “whisper” she was let go because of some timesheet issues but others say that is fake news planted to cover-up what is now known to be a major scandal with the CCC Administration, not anything that is true regarding Barbara Romich. Of course this would give Romich a major insight on the School Board when it came time to appoint a CCC Board of Trustee member.

There are other “whispers” about some counseling service Romich was involved in. I cannot find anything regarding that other than the high probability of more fake news. When I hear fake news, it goes in one ear and out the other. I recommend that anyone hearing what appears to be fake news about Barbara Romich to do the same unless clear confirmation is provided and not some secret source from a cousin of a neighbor of Shannon Kennedy’s father’s former house painter or thereabouts.

Trusted confidential sources speak well regarding Barbara Romich and she appears to be one of the best Democrats in the School Board Democrat Primary Election.

One statement of concern regarding Barbara Romich that was found in the Dark Star article was that CCS should concentrate on what they are doing “right.” You never find problems that way. For continuous improvement you always look to find problems and correct them. Perhaps the Dark Star misquoted Barbara Romich on that

6. Dena King Green: :(Attended the TEA Party Forum. Scroll on back for that article.)

Dena Green has been in the education business too. According to her Facebook page she presently works at a photography firm but more importantly she worked at Cleveland County Schools. It is likely Dena Green knows where the skeletons in the closets are located and where the dirt is swept under the rugs at Cleveland County Schools. Very helpful attributes when the time for a “spring cleaning” is finally ordered by a “new” School Board.

Dena Green’s campaign website https://www.vote4dena.com/ (Click on “Menu” and “About”) exhibits plenty of other helpful attributes. Like her continued emphasis on doing what is in the best interest of the students. Like her commitment to full discussion of issues and good decision making processes that also includes considerations for cost control. Also considering the taxpayers in all financial decisions. What I liked best was Dena Green’s statement that “I want ‘Transparency’ to mean something moving forward.” Just think what the CCC Board of Trustees could get done with that kind of thinking. School Board too.

No scandals regarding Mrs. Green are apparent which would alter her standing on this list. Therefore, Dena King Green appears to be the absolute best Democrat Candidate in the Democrat Primary Election for the School Board.

Based on all the information provided above, we recommend single-shot voting for Dena Green and Barbara Romich as shown by the marked up sample ballot we have provided. You can vote for four, but we can only recommend the two, Dena Green and Barbara Romich, as shown below.

Remember the four Republican Candidates for the School Board, Danny Blanton, Robert Queen, Kevin Whisnant and Rodney Fitch do not have a primary election and will be on the November Ballot. Unaffiliated announced candidate Kathy Falls is still trying to gather up 500 valid signatures to have her name appear on the November ballot. But, she is out letting kids sign her petition. Whether or not she can get the required verified signatures to qualify to get her name on the ballot is questionable right now. We will let you know how the Falls lawsuit fiasco turns out.

Also remember that registered Unaffiliated voters may also vote in the Democrat Primary Election. I urge all Unaffiliated voters to vote in this Democrat Primary Election for two reasons. (1.) It is your legal right to do so, and (2.) Two of the worst Democrat Candidates can be eliminated in this Primary Election.

It is too bad that we can’t just eliminate the top four worst candidates on this list in this Primary Election. We will have to make sure the job gets done in the November 7th General Election.

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