Letter Sparks Debate: New High School Financing Central To Controversy
Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 20, 2012
By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record
A county commissioner last week accused three fellow board members of going behind his back in writing a letter to the Dr. Darrin Hartness, superintendent of Davie County Schools.
Ken White, who will go off the board in December, said he was told of the letter one day and it was mailed the next. He said an official with the N.C. Institute of Government said the letter at best was a communication without talking to two members, at worst a violation of the state’s open meeting or sunshine laws. It was on county letterhead and signed by Commission Chair Carl Humphrey, Vice Chair Robert Wisecarver and Mark Jones – followed by the words “Davie County Commissioners.”
“You have said time and time again you want an open policy,” White said. “We’re the ones who are supposed to be doing it the way it’s supposed to be done.”
White also questioned why there was such a rush to deliver the letter that week, when the board was to meet the following week. The letter told Hartness they wouldn’t support financing for a school construction project more than $10 million without borrowing bonds, or putting it to a vote of the …