Comments by BCCitizen | Eastern North Carolina Now

Will, the inmates are not convicted criminals. They are innocent until proven guilty. By law, they have to receive 2 hot meals a day. So, no, all they need is not a peanut butter sandwich.

Commented: Thursday, December 19th, 2024 @ 10:04 am By: BCCitizen

I agree that Coleman did not take the losing of his primary lightly. However, Hammonds campaigned heavily on cutting the budget. Ernie was the big spender. Hammonds spends millions over what Coleman spent in his office. The budget is a public document. Look at it. He buys $500 suits for his office staff (not LEOs). He spent 20,000+ on the app that he took from the employees incentives. He took the Drug unit off the streets for the most part giving them no overtime and 3 guys. Their unit was 6 sets of boots on the ground when Ernie was in there. He took one of his captain positions and moved his retired ST buddy over the SROs and split the drug unit and cid captain position. The approved SROs (12 positions) actually consists of 14 positions because he took a captain and lieutenant position from other departments and moved to SRO department. He does what he wants. He has 30ish positions open in his office. I wonder why?

Commented: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024 @ 12:08 pm By: BCCitizen

I have a legitimate question, as I have not done a lot of research into this topic in our county. How will this affect the staffing level, which Dr. Cheeseman controls, for schools? For example, transfers are being denied for students to attend Bath because their classrooms are full. Will this affect families who live in the district? Will they still be able to send their children to the school in their district without having over crowded classrooms and understaffed schools? It is no secret that Bath Elementary is considered the best "private-public school". As long as this doesn't affect the quality of education in a negative manner, I am all for it. If you live out of the district, will you be tasked with providing transportation or will transportation be provided? Will Dr. Cheeseman still have the ability to pick and choose to what level he staffs a school and which classes he chooses to get rid of if school choice passes?.....

Commented: Friday, November 3rd, 2023 @ 2:06 pm By: BCCitizen

Continued..... If Dr. Cheeseman can give and take funding as he chooses, which he has been doing. it is going to be difficult for individual schools to be able to put in place classes, learning techniques, curriculum, clubs, etc that make their school desirable to kids and parents outside of their district. Dr. Cheeseman needs his reigns tightened before this is put in place. Or else the schools that they want to succeed will be the ones receiving the funding to do so. Yes, funding is based on population in the school. But that money goes to the school board to allocate and that board is run at the demands of Dr. Cheeseman.

Commented: Friday, November 3rd, 2023 @ 2:13 pm By: BCCitizen

I could not agree more with all of the above. Dr. Cheeseman chooses where to allocate funding. Beaufort County Schools has received more funding every fiscal year from the county even though they employ less people every year. Dr. Phipps understood that when students left, teachers and funding had to adjust in the same direction. Dr. Cheeseman chooses to relocate teachers without ever informing the board during a public meeting. His transparency is clear as mud. He was caught lying to the board about his relocating of a teacher at BES this year. They ended up rescinding the decision once there was an uproar of how it was handled by the Superintendent and Board. If they were on the up and up, they would record those meetings. You cannot find detailed minutes of their meetings. Their minutes include NO discussion. The county should demand a portion of their budget be allocated to recording of the meetings. The county gave them an additional $560,000 more this year! Where is it going?

Commented: Monday, October 30th, 2023 @ 1:54 pm By: BCCitizen