Capital improvement according to Eddie Holbrook has been $6.5 Billion one day and $6.1 Billion on another Day. That $0.4 Billion difference is actually $400 Million. A pretty big amount by Cleveland County standards. Also, such staggeringly high amounts in the $6 billion range are exactly what the Duke Power Plant expansion at Cliffside and the Kings Mountain Energy Center power plant brought in as capital improvement. All of which came in with not one red cents worth of help, assistance or advance knowledge from Eddie Holbrook and the entire Economic Development Partnership. Yet Holbrook, Bridges and Whetstine are taking credit for it. What lies. On top of lies.
No jobs or Jobs with low pay. DSS reports over 20,000 Foodstamp recipients. The reason being unemployment or under-employment. Under-employment being part-time jobs or jobs with such low pay that the recipients qualify for Foodstamps. It is reported that some teachers, teacher’s assistants and CCC instructors also fall within this category while folks like Eddie Holbrook knocks down $125,000 plus big benefits at CCC without any provable job description that I have been made aware of-and I have asked.
3. Workforce Development-Failures of:
Cleveland County education has failed the students of our schools as well as the Community College. The Cleveland County Schools have graduated almost half of their students who are not proficient in reading and math. Two skills that are totally necessary to find a good paying job anywhere. The Community College has failed too because they do not have proficient students coming up through CCS and have concentrated their efforts on such gimmicks as “dual enrollment” and dumbing down classes so more CCS students can get into programs that they will ultimately fail in.
In short, Workforce development begins with first grade reading and grade school math. Get behind there and the whole system fails. No matter how much is spent on advanced manufacturing facilities at CCC, the student feeding into such programs will fail at high rates. The problem has to be fixed at the core and the overall success will only be in the long term. There are no short cuts in the process, though that is what CCS and CCC are wishing and hoping for. And, all the better students can’t wait until they can leave Cleveland County for good jobs and never look back. In every honest evaluation the case is proved for the statements in this paragraph. The only bright spot is Dr. Jason Hurst, President at CCC is an expert in Workforce Development and will work through all these problems over time if the CCC Board of Trustees will let him do what is necessary And CCS is brought to task.
Botton line with today’s workforce in Cleveland County is there are not enough sufficiently skilled workers in Cleveland County to fill the available skilled jobs in Cleveland County. Eddie Holbrook’s Economic Development Partnership have recruited businesses with the lure of low wages and those businesses are finding out they have a low wage workforce but also an unskilled workforce.
And, Eddie Holbrook has been a major part of the problem. His 12 years in service as a commissioner encompasses a whole generation of students from First Grade to Graduation. All the problems have come to pass under Eddie Holbrook’s watch and Holbrook’s programs, such as they are, has totally failed our students. If all the problems at CCS and CCC were fixed instantaneously, it will still take a generation of students to get where Cleveland County needs to be. But an instantaneous cure will never happen with Eddie Holbrook, Doug Bridges and Ronnie Whetstine because they have a record in office. A bad record but they will never admit to it. And if you will not admit to the problems and do what is necessary to fix them, they will never be fixed.
The answer is clear and has to happen during this election: