Political Scene About to Make Major Reset in Beaufort County | Eastern North Carolina Now
Poor political decisions are contributing to the closing of the Snowden school.
Political Scene About to Make Major Reset in Beaufort County
BY: THE BEAUFORT OBSERVER EDITORIAL TEAM
Some changes come as slow as molasses runs. Other profound changes hit like lightning. Illegal drugs and the cell phone mania have crept up on society. Both illegal drugs and the cell phone mania are still slowly impacting all of our lives, either directly or indirectly. The billionaires who profit from both are not at all concerned about the lives ruined by illegal drugs and cell phones. Cell phones and illegal drugs separate us from a lot of our money. Sooner or later society has to face these issues and decide whether or not we can afford cell phones or illegal drugs.
Most people are now aware of the horrible condition of education in the United States, in every county and every state. Do not believe all of the horrors of education are in California or Chicago. We have it here in Beaufort County. There are two events that we believe will supercharge the public’s interest in education. That includes all education, from pre-kindergarten to the college graduate.
One will be the opening of the new 52.5-million-dollar Eastern Elementary School. Once parents realize their six-year-old is in a school with another 899 students, and that child is not adapting well to the dictated herd mentality, they will turn on the geniuses who are responsible. The other is the closing of or attempted closing of the S. W. Snowden School at Aurora. Parents will not be happy with their children’s loss of a normal childhood when they realize that their child will leave home before daylight and get home after dark.
Parents are already upset about the quality of education. That is why they are removing children from the public schools. Public school boards and administrators have not figured out the problems with the schools are caused by them. They have no reason to change and will not change. The changes will come with the newly elected politicians who replace them.
Only a heartless person could cram small children into these consolidated schools and have them leave home at 6:00 AM and return at 5:00 or 6:00 PM. Those same people are responsible for failing to teach cursive writing, teaching illogical mathematics, introducing young and immature minds to sexual orientation perversions, eliminating textbooks, pronoun hogwash, critical race theory, and diversity-equity-inclusion socialism. In order to make all of this work the liberals need consolidated schools. Consolidated schools get these young minds as far as possible away from parents and Christian teachings. The image builder for these children becomes the government, not the parent or the church. With computer assisted teaching and few textbooks, parents have no idea what their children are learning in these consolidated schools.
Neighborhood schools with 400 to 600 students allow parents to conveniently visit schools, teachers and children. It is far better for students to observe parents coming and going from a school than it is to see police on a daily basis. Seeing police daily conditions the child to become submissive to the police state. There is a world of difference between being submissive to police behavior patterns and knowing how to behave. Parents and teachers are needed to provide examples of acceptable behavior, not police.
There have been several disastrous events in Beaufort County that rank on the same level as closing Snowden. In each case decisions were made by either County Commissioners or School Boards. Some of them are: the routing of US 17 on the west side of Washington instead of linking the north and south sides of the county, the county allowing the Belhaven hospital to close while giving away the County hospital, the school building program that started at around 22 million and wound up at around 42 million dollars resulting in overbuilding schools so that 50 percent of our present buildings are empty, and pumping millions into telephone companies to expand the internet. Millions of dollars of Beaufort County taxpayer dollars were wasted on each of these projects.
Several years ago, the Beaufort County Conservative Club realized something is wrong with education in Beaufort County. That Club formed committees that raised money and supported candidates who said they would change the education system. They successfully elected more than eight commissioners and school board members who ran as conservative Republicans.
The Club’s efforts deserve high praise. However, the majority of their candidates have been disappointing. It is with great sadness that Don Shreve, Gary Carlton and Daniel Hudson have supported the 52-million-dollar Eastern Elementary consolidated school in Washington and voted to close S. W. Snowden. Two candidates supported by the Conservative Club voted not to close S. W. Snowden. They are Stacy Davis and Charles Hickman. Had Carlton, Shreve and Hudson behaved as they represented themselves to be, in order to get elected, the S. W. Snowden School would not be a candidate for closing.
Discussions with Carlton, Hudson, and Shreve last week at the hearing on closing Snowden raised objections from the three that they did not vote to close the school. In order to close the school, the general statutes say the majority of the board has to vote to hold the hearings. Yet, these three adults claim they did nothing to harm Snowden. These three need to be held accountable for their bad decision making and failure to be honest about their behavior. If they are truly dumb enough to drink the Big Cheese’s Kool-Aid, they need to repeat the third grade and all subsequent grades.
However, the Big Cheese came to the rescue. He admitted more than once in his long presentation during the Snowden hearing that the process for closing Snowden has been started.
If Carlton, Hudson and Shreve were hornswoggled by the Big Cheese, they can redeem themselves by voting to keep this school open at the decision-making meeting on May 1 at 6:00 PM at the S. W. Snowden School in Aurora. Should they do the honorable thing, we will certainly apologize for this misunderstanding.
Having common sense in making education decisions in Beaufort County is handicapped by the unethical relationship between two husbands and wives elected to the County Commissioners and the School Board. They are Randy and Carolyn Walker and Ed and Eltha Booth. The appearance of corruption comes with the four voting in lock step to apparently close Snowden and consolidate Eastern Elementary. Carlton, Hudson and Shreve have done very little to stop the liberal curriculum being used in the county schools. While there is no law against husbands and wives serving, there are certainly ethical issues that point to corrupt government.
Another ethical issue involves the Chairman of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, Fake Frankie Waters, suddenly proposing to close Snowden and two schools at Chocowinity, and build yet another consolidated school somewhere in the wilds of Beaufort County on the south side of the River. Such a school, according to his proposal, would be centrally located. That looks like about 10 miles from any population center.
The ethical issue here is that Fake Frankie has never discussed any of this in meetings with the Board of Commissioners. King Fake Frankie Waters along with the Big Cheese secretly negotiated for the grant money to build the Consolidated Eastern Elementary School. To do this he had to have represented and used his position as chairman without the knowledge of the Board. This is not ethical behavior. Ethical is another word for honest.
We believe that if S. W. Snowden closes, the political future of Terry Williams, Don Shreve, Gary Carlton and Daniel Hudson will be very problematic. There should be little difficulty in getting people to run against them in their next elections. Williams may have little choice but to vote the way the Big Cheese tells him because of the jobs his relatives hold in the school system. People with these kinds of ethical conflicts should not hold a public office that supervises their relatives.
There is virtually zero cost savings between keeping Snowden open and closing it. There is a huge additional cost in transporting students from Aurora to Chocowinity. The closing Snowden fiasco is driven by liberals who want school consolidation with huge schools out of the reach of parents and the public. It is driven by Democrats and RINOs (Republican In Name Only) who want California and Chicago style education. School consolidation is not working, it is destroying our nation.
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Van Zant said:
( April 27th, 2025 @ 9:17 am )
W: Consolidation of the Beaufort County School System and the Washington City School System happened back in the 1990s. That bird has flown. I agree with you on the subject of hiring leadership. Why do we so often pass over well-educated local people in favor of outsiders that have no understanding of our area? More times than not these hires will be elsewhere on another step on their career path when the consequences of their actions here must be dealt with by us.
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Concerned Taxpayer: I have NOT voted once in the affirmative on the myriad votes to originate and construct this "boondoggle," except to allow the trade for land to save the Beaufort County taxpayers $500,000.00, which was summarily voted down by the Center Left Coalition, those who always prefer to soak the Beaufort County taxpayer whenever possible, while swapping votes to share power.
My conditional vote at this point would not mean much; however, change in leadership is necessary at this time in so many points of origin here in Beaufort County. |
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Washingtonian, Beaufort County used to have two systems, the Washington City System and the County system, each with its own board and superintendent. However, merger and consolidations are watchwords of the liberal education establishment and that fell by the wayside. I would agree that was a better system.
The reason the liberal education establishment wants school consolidation is to decrease parental involvement. Yes, they like to give lip service to parents being involved but that is just a smokescreen. Another thing they do to push parents away is eliminating textbooks. No longer can parents flip through their child's textbook at home to see what he is being taught. When students were doing their work at home during Covid, that gave parents an opportunity to see what leftwing crap was being drilled into their kids and there arose a nationwide movement to oust the "business as usual" types from school boards. Stan, I fear you are right on this school boondoggle just getting worse and more expensive. That fiasco over the 4 acres is just the beginning. Cheeseman has hired a construction firm with a long history of cost overruns on building schools, and their oversight group is not up to the task. Cheeseman has already demonstrated his dire lack of management competence. T.W. Allen is a joke, nothing but a front man for Cheeseman who does what he is told. Then you have Frankie Waters, who as chairman of the old Tri-County Telephone ran it into bankruptcy. We have the Three Stooges watching over a company that is almost certain to try to sock us with extra costs. One suggestion is that when they come back with demands for more money, make a condition of giving any more money that the Three Stooges all resign from their positions, and that means their underlying offices. If they let themselves get suckered, and they will, then we do not need them in ANY public office, appointed or elected. |
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John Valley: The money will run out; it is running out now: $10,500,00 so far for an unneeded school; $5,000,000.00 for special projects, at the whim of the Center Left Coalition, in just one year.
The money will not last forever ... Not unless the Center Left Coalition raises taxes on the People. To the Public at Large: Watch the Center Left Coalition closely to see how and when they waste your treasured tax dollars here in a Revaluation Year. |
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SD and fellow commentators: I'd like to add, for the record, that Ol' Frankie's lost his damn marbles and also, again, proven this whole s***show to be completely scripted towards an outcome that benefits "Them The Few".
So now, you've got TWO monolith mega-schools they'll try to build and then implode when the money runs out....paid for by We The People's tax dollars for "security and safety" reasons🤯!? At this point, anyone backing this is either in on the deal or drinking the Kool Aid Unca Frankie and Cheeseman are mixin' up. This whole thing is a pyramid scheme that's exploiting parents, children and all people of Beaufort County. It and everyone involved should be audited....end of story. |
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Something to consider:
Unlike many school systems, the San Antonio TX area's 19 school districts function as separate, independent entities. Each has its own superintendent, its own elected board of education, and its own taxing authority. It covers an area of 466.7 square miles. I'm stressing the square mile factor, not the population factor. Beaufort County has 3 school district with ONE superintendent covering an area of 962.8 square miles. Shouldn't Beaufort County have more than one Superintendent? Lastly wouldn't a local citizen who is educated, make a more qualified superintendent than someone who ISN'T local? Cheaper too. P.S. I'm still waiting to learn if Gary intends to "fight" for the public records he requested a year ago. |
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No, no, no. The School Board does believe that the Superintendent and staff work for them. They believe that Cheeseman and his staff do all the working and thinking... so that they dont have to do any working or thinking.
Basically, I was told this years ago when a school board member said: "Look Washingtonian, we Board members have jobs, and family, and a life, and that's why we have a staff to do this for us." Sooo yeah, they think the employees do work for them. LOL Easy life being on the School Board. |
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What I am hearing is that one or more on the central office staff have been threatening school board members that if they do not support Cheeseman on closing Snowden, schools in their districts will have popular teachers removed. If that is happening, then the paid staff is blackmailing the school board. Anyone doing that should be fired for cause and school board members need to go public with it.
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