The Cleveland Community College Candidates Forum for the 2020 School Board Election will be held Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at the CCC Mildred Keeter Auditorium beginning at 6:30-PM. THIS FORUM IS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!
Historically the purpose of a candidate forum is to get all the candidates for an elected office together and have the public, the voters, to ask them questions about the candidates position on the various issues that are of the public’s highest interest. Also, certain different groups with their own major interests have held their own candidate forums. This is how democracy in America is supposed to work:
1. Public minded citizens sign up to run for elected office.
2. Citizens are allowed to ask questions of the various candidates.
3. The candidates for office state their positions on the various questions.
4. Then the citizens make informed decisions on who they believe will best represent their best interest in the elected office.
5. Then the citizens vote for the particular candidate of their choice on Election Day.
6. The candidate with the most votes wins their election to that office.
Ideally this is a perfect system. But there are potential problems.
1. Often candidates for office will tell lies about their real position on the issues. They will take polls of the citizens to see what they want, and then tell potential voters what they want to hear in forums, debates and in political advertising.
2. Political Parties will tell lies about what they stand for and what their candidates stand for.
3. Incumbents in office will lie about what they have accomplished in office.
4. Incumbents will lie about their opponents and challengers will tell lies about incumbents.
5. Also, incumbents will distort their records in office to deceive the public. They will also distort official records to hide problems from the public and CYA in lawsuits.
6. Many in the public do not care to take the time or make the effort to correctly inform themselves about the issues and who is running for office. So, when they go vote, their decisions are made on who has the most yard signs, biggest billboards and the “slickest” advertisements and bumper stickers, hats and tee-shirts.
7. Worst of all, the candidates with the most yard signs, biggest billboards and slickest advertisements will owe their allegiance in office, not to the voters and the citizens, but to those special interests who pay for those yard signs, billboards and advertisements.
Over the past 20 years or so, the biggest Political Candidates Forum in Cleveland County has been the one at Cleveland Community College. They have an auditorium that is set up like a theater. An elevated stage, Curtains, special lighting, Slanted floors for better audience viewing. But most of all, it is set up with high-end recording and broadcast equipment. All paid for with taxpayer funding. Citizen funding. Public Funding. However, this Tuesday’s School Board forum is NOT open to the public, no matter that the public paid for the whole she-bang!
And, there is more. The forum sponsors: Cleveland Community College, The Chamber and the Shelby Star get to make up and ask the questions and THEY don’t accept questions from the public.
And, there is more. Cleveland Community College, although paid for by the public, does NOT encourage public attendance or public participation at their own Board of Trustee meetings. They schedule their BOT meetings during the public’s usual working hours and they have a long history of being an elitist group who do not care much about the public–peons (Pee-ons) to their way of thinking). Not a public friendly group, Not all but too many. And certainly not a group who cares about asking the regular public working-class folks to provide questions for their forum.
The Chamber? They represent the “Massa’s’” in Cleveland County. They are only interested in what interests themselves in making THEIR big money. Only what is best for their kind of people. They are the people who want low wages for the working class and want to hire only those who won’t complain about being exploited. They certainly don’t want to hear about what interests the average Joe and Jane families and kids in Cleveland County. Especially the black ones.
And, last and least, the Shelby Star. The Shelby Star that ain’t in Shelby no more. Their only desire is to get all the advertising buck$ they can get from Chamber members and dollars from governmental agencies. They “sell” their small Newspapers In Education articles to the schools by the thousands that end up, still bundled and unread at the trash dump’s recycling bins the very next day. Once the Shelby Star receiver around $200,000 per year for “consulting services” from the School Board for favorable press. I don’t know whether or not that is still the price. But CCS still gets favorable press (fake news) from the Star. Often favorable press that is filled with lies and distortion. Like the recent article about the phony sale and closing (lack-of) on the old North Shelby School to Mt. Calvary Church under Rev. Dr. Lamont Littlejohn. The Rev. Littejohn who is also the Chairman of the CCC Board of Trustees. All buddies with each other but none are buddies with the public’s best interest. And especially anybody that disagrees with them.
All the forum questions will be coming from this crowd and NOT from the public. And the public is not invited. How dumb and stupid is all of this???
Also, the questions will not be given out in advance to the candidates. Let me re-state, the questions are not supposed to be given out to the candidates before the forum. As I have attended most of these forums over the past years, I don’t believe a word of that. Especially the 2020 Republican Primary Elections when I wrote an article that I believed and contended that Commissioner candidate Johnny Hutchins used “cheat-sheets” prepared by County taxpayer paid employees that knew the questions in advance.
But, why would these forum questions be kept secret in the first place? Wouldn’t the public’s interest be best served for the candidates to know what is on the minds of the public so they could THINK about the problems and issues facing the people of Cleveland County and come up with ways to fix them. And, who would benefit by secret questions?
The answer to that is simple. Incumbent candidates running for re-election would benefit by so-called secret questions that only they had advanced knowledge of. Only incumbents have voting records that they have to defend. With advance knowledge of the questions the incumbents would have the opportunity to come up with cover-up stories and lies about what they did in office. In this 2020 School Board election. There are only three incumbents: Shearra Miller, Richard Hooker and Roger Harris. And those three have so much to hide. Multiple and often Sex scandals, failing schools, retaliation against whistle blowers, administration bullying teachers and staff, students bullying students, teachers assaulting students, 200 School Credit Cards, Fraud scandals, nepotism scandals, filing a lawsuit against the Sheriff, violating North Carolina law by allowing a boy to use the girls restroom-just to name a very few. Of course, not allowing the public to attend this forum is the biggest political scandal. It I probably un-Constitutional to boot.