Friday, September 28, 2012 — This is in response to the Asciutto letter in the Sept. 20 SNAP.
Mr. Asciutto seems to have great concerns with Senate Bill 411. I for one have no problem with the appointment authority being removed from the board of education.
First, the board of education often had strong disagreements over individual appointees.
Secondly, the board of commissioners funds money to SCC so it makes perfectly good sense for them to make the appointments rather than the board of education.
Thirdly, since the system has the Early College located on the SCC campus, it has the appearance of a conflict of interest for the board of education to be appointing SCC trustees.
The fact that Mr. Burr may have lobbied the board of education by letter is really insignificant. He was exercising his rights as a citizen. The board of education is constantly lobbied by individuals for every conceivable reason including SCC trustee appointments.
The board of education never discussed the appointment of Mr. Almond or Ms. Phillips as a trustee, at least to my knowledge. I challenge Mr. Asciutto to produce evidence from our minutes that we did. If Mr. Asciutto was discussing this with a majority of the board behind the scenes it appears those discussions might qualify for his “under the cover of darkness” standard.
Finally, if indeed his assertions were true, those comments seem to suggest Mr. Almond ran against Mr. Burr for petty, personal and vindictive reasons rather than for worthwhile reasons. That is somewhat of a stretch but maybe it’s time for Mr. Almond to clear up Mr. Asciutto’s mystery conspiracy.
Mr. Asciutto has tried on various occasions to suggest some board of education members were trying to withhold information regarding his request for information, which, by the way costs the taxpayers of Stanly County. Any information he needed could be found on the school system server which I assume he requested. I suggest that Mr. Asciutto get off his failed great conspiracy kick because it just doesn’t hunt.
The brand of personal destruction politics practiced by Mr. Asciutto may have played well in New York or Florida but I want better for Stanly County.
Melvin B. Poole
Oakboro
Stanly County School Board member
