Another resignation at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the peak calendar show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. So it's a day that ends in Y, and so we've got another resignation over at Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. The hits just keep coming. This time, it's the newly installed vice chair. So remember, you may be old enough to remember, when the chairwoman, Stephanie Sneed, resigned as chair. That would have been Tuesday. And then... They apparently. Voted, the school board voted in closed session to elevate the vice chair, D. Rankin, to the chairmanship position. Okay. Then they had to elect a new vice chair because Rankin, he had moved up. And so during the open session, they had this vote for the vice chair. Don't know why they didn't do the vote for chair in the closed session. They should not have, but that's just my opinion. I guess they probably walked in there to talk about firing Superintendent Hill, although actually not sure how much they discussed it because the report that they then discussed in the open session that wasn't given to them for the closed session. So anyway, I assume then that just reading between the lines that the chairwoman, Stephanie Sneed, may have resigned her post at the very beginning of the meeting, which then required them to have a chair to run the meeting. Although I guess they could have just let the vice chair run the meeting at that point, but. What do I know? So they apparently held the vote in closed session. They elevate the vice chair, Dee Rankin. He's now the chairman. He comes out. He runs the open session meeting. And they elect a new vice chair. And that new vice chair is board member Elizabeth Monterey Duvall. She is the woman who I played this audio clip the other day. Actually, do you still have any of that audio that I sent you the other day? I think it was the very last clip. Nick, because I was out at the Little Heroes Blood Drive, so I had to send all of my audio clips over to producer Nick so he could play them back here in studio. So I don't have them in my laptop as I normally would. It should be, I think it's number 14. It's the last clip from the CMS file. Anyway, she, you'll recall, interrupted a presentation about bus schedules and stuff and claimed that she was being threatened. and demanded that the person who was threatening her via text message be removed. You got it? All right, Nick's got it. Here's what happened. Why changes are necessary to maintain reliable and sustainable transportation services. Point of order, I'm getting threatened by text here. Somebody said that they can show me better than I can tell you. I would like them escorted or I will leave. That gentleman right there is texting me and he's bullying me and he's threatening me. I don't feel safe. If he can please leave. Thank you. He said, you think it's funny, but I know everything and the truth is coming out. I can show you better than I can tell you. I don't know what that means. I feel very unsafe. I don't know what he's going to show me. Oh. I feel scared. Lenora knows him. All right. And you hear at the end there, Lenora knows him. Lenora is Lenora Shipp, another school board member. And I went over this on Wednesday. You've got these two different blocks. They're all Democrats, okay? And you've got these two different blocks of five members versus four. And the five members, the majority block, that's the board chair, former board chair, the new vice chair, Monterey Duvall. And you heard one of them say there, oh, Lenora knows him. Lenora Shipp is a member of the minority block. So apparently somebody who Lenore Shipp knows in the audience that night sends a text message to Liz Monterey Duvall saying, everything's going to come out. I can show you better than I can tell you. And she's like, I'm being threatened, which I'm not really sure how that's a threat. That's saying, we know what you're doing and everything is going to come out. And I can show it better than I can tell it. I can show you better than I can tell you. And so I take that to mean like they're going to just get all of this stuff out to the public. They're going to expose you. I don't know why that's a threat. I mean, I guess it's a threat that you will be exposed, but that's not a physical threat. But what do I know? It sounds like there's a whole bunch of other poop going on behind the scenes with this school board. And so now, according to my colleague here, Breaking Brett Jensen from the WBT newsroom, host of Breaking with Brett Jensen on right here on WBT weekdays from six till seven. He posted up onto the Twitter machine, the new CMS board vice chair, Elizabeth Monterey Duvall, told the board yesterday in an email that she is stepping down two days after being named to the position due to, quote, received multiple threats, including death threats, which, for the record, you should not be threatening school board members. With any kind of physical violence, this is... This... you are the problem. If you are doing that, you are the problem. Okay. You do not do this, but she, now she's, she's stepping down. Let me see. This is from the message. Uh, She says, board members, I want you to hear this directly from me. I have decided to step down from my role as vice chair. Over the last several days, I have received multiple threats, including death threats. I came into this leadership role because I genuinely wanted to be a bridge builder and a mediator, someone who could help bring people together, particularly during difficult moments. Remember, she was also one that was sniping at her fellow board members during the meeting too. So I don't believe you're actually trying to build bridges. I think what you mean there is that you say some words, Alan Sorkin style, and then everybody. Agrees with you. And oh, isn't everybody happy, you know? But in moments like this, she says, I have to put my family and myself and my family first. I cannot ask my family to carry the weight that has come with this position. Okay, it's the vice chairmanship. Like, this is. Not. She made it two days as vice chair. She says she remains committed to serving as a member of the board. her commitment to the work has not changed. I simply believe stepping away from the vice chair role is what I need to do for myself and my family right now. I wanted my colleagues to hear, hear that from me first. And the chair then says, thank you for sending this before we make this official. Can we talk? We have four meetings and we have election, And we have elections for a vice chair. Can we talk so we can make sure this would be best for the board during this time? And according to Brett Jensen, the chairman, Dee Rankin there, talked Monterey Duvall into staying on until December. So she's going to be stepping down as not from the board, but as vice chair. So she'll step down as vice chair. Still on the board, just like Stephanie Sneed, the former chair. who stepped down from the chairmanship, but stayed on the board. So the five-member majority block remains on the board. They remain intact. That block is intact. Because if Snead were to quit the board, or Monterey Duvall would quit the board because of death threats, if they were. To actually leave, well, now, well... you. Might lose your five-member majority. So they still keep their majority. They just don't want to be, she just doesn't want to be the vice chair, which now is going to leave only two other members because you can't put Snead in there. So you got to have either Charlita Hatch or Shemaine, I'm drawing a blank on her last name for some reason. So Haynes. So you got these two other members of the block, the majority block, that now it's going to go to one of them. I'm thinking Charlita Hatch. I'm thinking it's going to be her. Just a guess, though. Don't know. Yeah. So the poop show at CMS continues pooping. What a time to be a charlatan, I'll tell you. It is a target-rich environment for me here at a local content creator, so I thank our public servants for providing me with this much material. Thank you. 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It's totally private. No emails, phone numbers, account setups or hassles. With Group Travel Videos, you'll capture today's moments on your special trip while they're happening. Then, after the trip or gathering, they'll professionally turn your shared moments into a beautiful storytelling video that your whole group can stream and download and treasure for years. Check out GroupTravelVideos.com. That's GroupTravelVideos.com. Or call 704-846-7870, extension 206. And when you do that, ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes, you can. You can email Katie, katie at grouptravelvideos.com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. All right, let me jump over to the WBT text line from 803 number. It just keeps getting worse for the CMS world-class city. Yeah, no, well, I mean, worse or more world class. Because I kind of feel like you're not really world class unless you have a bunch of corruption going on, you know, and corruption that then, you know, gets outside, it breaks containment of the local market. And so then people in other states and in other cities, you know, they start they start recognizing, Oh yeah, Charlotte. Yeah. They got a, they got a reputation there for a bunch of corruption in their elected officials. And that, that is a really great thing when you're trying to recruit businesses and stuff, you know, like especially big corporate headquarter type jobs that pay really well and, spur all sorts of other economic activity. So you really want to have that, that press conference where you have the ridiculously oversized scissors and you're being, you're cutting through the big fat ribbon, you know, and then you get to claim that you brought all these jobs to town when you run for your next office. Yeah. People don't really want to, they, they don't want to play in that sandbox. Those types of business leaders, they don't want to play in this kind of a sandbox because, World-class, baby, world-class. Yeah, the business leaders in Charlotte and the Chamber of Commerce folks, you guys might want to start trying to do something different. Whatever it is that you've been doing, and I understand the Charlotte way, and I've referenced this old axiom in Charlotte. It's been around for a very long time, a couple decades now. right, or three at least, which is that there were three political parties. There were the Republicans, the Democrats, and the chamber. And the joke was that the strongest was the chamber. Now, I don't know if that's still true. It appears to be that the Democrat party is now the strongest, and the chamber may just be the tail not wagging the dog, but the dog wagging the tail of the chamber. Maybe that's what's happening now. And when that does happen, then you end up with a lot of the people that don't want to play in the sandbox. They don't want to deal with the corruption. They leave, right? And then you end up with more people who are far more comfortable playing in a corrupt sandbox. I'm offering this as a warning, folks, okay? Just a little old radio host over here, but, you know, I've been around Charlotte politics for the better part of three decades now, so I've seen a lot of the changes over the years that when you get this kind of a reputation you generally don't lose it look at Chicago now to be fair to Chicago it doesn't appear that they have attempted to shed themselves of that reputation so there is that but the very fact when you say Chicago and you automatically think of a corrupt political machine that's not a selling feature unless you are corrupt yourself and you want to go and play in that arena you know So just think about it, folks. Just think about it. Deborah asks, why do so many school board and city council members have three names? Well, now, well, Councilman J.D. Arias Mazuras, or, yeah, he's got four. So, although I guess he does have three because you can't have four unless you have three. So, yeah, I don't know. Um, Diane asks if this lady felt so threatened or she called it threatened. Why didn't she resign from the board altogether? You know, that's a very good question, Diane. I was just asking that during the break myself, you feel throw threat. So threatened that you're going to step aside from your post as vice chair. And you think that's going to provide you safety and, to stay on the board where you will still be voting on all of these things. So is there something unique to being vice chair that makes you a target that this doesn't make a lot of sense, right? If you are feeling that your personal safety is in jeopardy, like, Oh, say a Republican candidate for County commission who had his house shot up and literally moved away. Why would you stay on the board? Because wouldn't that be the thing that is endangering your life? And I don't know, like I've not seen any of the evidence that she has been threatened or threatened. I don't know. I haven't seen it. But if that text message that she read at the board meeting was, if that's the kind of message that she perceives to be a death threat or she doesn't feel safe over, like I'm not sure being in the public eye is something she should be. Because trust me when I tell you, that kind of a message, had I received it, that's nothing. That is nothing. Okay? Still, you should not be threatening people, people. Okay? From the text line, Johnny says, maybe they should install a panic room for this. Oh, you know what? I got a great idea. And you know, as I always say, there are no bad ideas under the cone of creativity, right? We want this to be a free-flowing exercise. So maybe we hire the same company that did the recording studio at the sheriff's jail and maybe have them build a panic room. Huh? Ooh, another idea. How about we hire that consultant guy at the center of all of this swirl of poop, Racky McGregor? Maybe we get him to act as a consultant on building of the panic room. How about that? I'm just spitballing here, people. Steve, welcome to the program. Hello, Steve. Hey Pete, thanks. Yes, sir. Long time listener. Appreciate what you do. Just wanted to comment on this. You brought up a good point a few minutes ago before the break about Charlotte as a whole, trying to recruit new corporations. And what's the first thing you're going to look at when you're bringing families in our schools? It's, it's embarrassing, but you know, it's kind of a, a microcosm of like where Charlotte's at now. We don't have the huge leaders we have at that You know, like the McCalls and the Crutchfields and the Belks and the Beans anymore. We don't have those people anymore that could sway the school system and sway the counties. And we're looking for leaders. And then we talk about these bloated salaries with CMS, which is the same size as Wake County School. And all the people that make over $ 100, 000. I'm awake. It's like a hundred fold, you know, and somebody is going to go to jail for this. I hope. And I'm glad the FBI is involved in this, but it's embarrassing because this is where we live. It's such a great city. And it's been bloated since Peter Gorman, Peter Gorman started all this. Oh, so I would go for, I would go further back. I'd say Eric Smith. Yeah. Eric Smith. And then after him, his hatchet man, Jim Pusley, took over. And then came Gorman. But yeah, this has been building for a very long time. Long time. And it's embarrassing because I have friends that live in other states and they called me recently a couple days ago, what's going on with Charlotte schools? It's just, come on. Right. But anyways, I just wanted to. Yeah, man, I appreciate it. Good to hear from you. Thank you. All right, take it easy. Have a good weekend, Steve. Yeah, this is the thing. People... I. I will put the, and this is not just CMS, I would put the turning point, in my view, Patrick Cannon. When Patrick Cannon was elected mayor and then was almost immediately arrested on bribery charges, right? They had been investigating him prior to the election. And then they did not divulge any of the charges or anything like that. They didn't, they didn't bring any of that before the election because they have this rule that like, they don't like as, as an investigative body, the, uh, the FBI doesn't, they, they don't do this during an election cycle. Right. Um, so immediately after he wins, he is then arrested. And I remember talking to Pat McCrory about this and cause you know, Pat knew Patrick Cannon since he was a kid. Patrick Cannon, I believe it was his brother that was part of like the Big Brother program or something. And Pat McCrory knew Patrick Cannon's brother was like a big brother to him or something. And he was a referee in like the rec leagues and stuff. And so it was like a very personal disappointment that McCrory had, but also like Charlotte did not have that kind of reputation. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Charlotte's reputation was that of a good government city. That's the reputation Charlotte had. And to Steve's point, you had the McCalls, the Crutchfields, the Bill Lees, right? These are the big, the CEOs of Duke and. Bank of America. And what was Crutchfield? Was he, who was Crutchfield? First Union, well, yeah, but before first union, I guess it would have been probably South. Carolina national or something, or one of the iterations there. Um, but you see nowadays. The party in power, the Democrats, a lot of their voters and leaders do not look at the business community as partners. They look at them as the enemy. And so I do wonder like, but, and we don't have any local, uh, leadership like that anymore, right? Usually like the presidents and the CEOs of these companies, they don't live here anymore, right? Whereas before they did, right? I don't know. I mean, and there were criticisms of that, of that arrangement as well. That's the Charlotte way, right? We would do things on the down low behind the scenes and everybody would then come out and present a united front. And we're all doing this together, a public private partnership. And there were a lot of critics of that way too. However, the reputation was that we had good government. We did not have these kinds of scandals. We did not have this kind of corruption. We had Democrat and Republican leadership, right? The bodies, the city council, the county commission, the school board, they were evenly divided between both of the political parties. And we don't have that anymore. And there are trade-offs with this. And apparently one of the trade-offs is corruption and and a bad reputation for it. And that's going to have an impact. So what happens when businesses don't want to come here? What then? Well, then you start having the businesses locate somewhere else, maybe in proximity to Charlotte because of the infrastructure that has been built up over time with the international airport, interstate systems, and stuff like that. But now if you can go across the county line and you can basically enjoy that infrastructure without having to, you know, get your hands dirty with the corruption stuff. You can be one County over. And now what happens is your workers start moving towards your headquarters to be near their place of employment, which means then that people inside the city of Charlotte start moving. Things start breaking down, right? This is how it impacts everybody and your property tax or your, excuse me, your property values, right? It's going to be harder to sell your home if people think that you live in a corrupt place that is now not able to pay the bills and whatever. This is a very difficult thing to come out of once you start going into that skid. It's very difficult to get out of it. Look at the big blue cities around the country. They're not pulling themselves out of it. They just keep going further and further down, you know? This from 980 number, we haven't had this much corruption since the mayor of Charlotte resigned. I mean, but that's what made that so shocking is we hadn't seen anything like that. Now, it's, I. Mean, we just had the sentencing for another Charlotte City Council member. Right. We got this with CMS. We got the sheriff under SBI investigation as well. David says the Chamber of Commerce was replaced by the Black Political Caucus. That may be the case. I've talked about the BPC. They are now sort of a king making organization. because they turn out the vote in the Democrat primaries. And when you have no Republican party opposition in the general election, that means the races are decided in the primaries. And when the races are decided in the primaries, the black political caucuses influence their power rises, right? It increases because you have lower turnout and the, and black voters make up, I believe now at this point, a majority of the Democrat, primary voting base. So they can dictate how a primary goes. And it's, that is a formidable opponent. And that's something that that's an organization you do not want to cross if you're a Democrat, because they'll come after you in the primaries, right? They knocked out two other, two state representatives this last election cycle, Nassif Majeed and Carla Cunningham. So yeah, I, I don't know how to repair this. I'm not a Democrat. I don't know if they even want to repair it. Would you believe that I haven't even gotten to any of my show prep yet today? I haven't. I, I saw, I saw the tweet from Brett Jensen about Liz Monterey Duvall saying she's not going to be vice chair after December. She's stepping down because of the, the, the threatening, uh, messages that she has received. And that's all we've been talking about so far. I still have all the show prep. Okay. Although now, thank you, Danny, for sending along the latest, this from WSOCTV.com by Joe Bruno, just a few sentences, which is what happens when you got breaking news and you don't really know a whole lot about. What's going on. You've just discovered some you know piece of information so you rush to put it out so here's what we have now cms chief of strategic communications dr stephen esposito is accused of driving while intoxicated according to court records esposito blew a 0.11 on the breathalyzer last night the arresting agency is listed as cmpd channel 9 has reached out to cms and cmpd for comment Esposito serves in a cabinet level position for CMS. Not sure exactly who he's reporting to at this point because of all of the firings and such and the resignations. He oversees the communications department, which actually that might be why you've gotten no statement yet from CMS is because the guy who runs that department, he's not there. His bond was set at $ 2, 500 unsecured and he was released from jail. So I assume he paid it. uh, CMS board members were notified of the arrest via email. Um, Danny points out, I guess if I had to communicate all of this poop show out, I would be drinking too. That's yeah, that's probably fair. Holy cow. But thank you again. I appreciate all of the work that our local government is doing to make sure that I have content. It is much appreciated. Um, This is. Wait a minute. Was that Dan? Yeah, I don't know. I thought that was... All right, well, this is Danny now. Do you think people will start leaving Charlotte like they have left California and New York to go someplace else? Yeah, they already have been. A lot of people have been. That's why Charlotte has gotten bluer and bluer. Democrats fleeing other Democrat controlled states come here. And then the Republicans who have been living here and are like, what are you people doing? And then they leave and they go to the surrounding counties. So it has already been going on, has been for a while. Dan is asking me to somehow work the term chamber pot into this somehow. That's OK. I will try. although I guess I just did. Stanley says, if you really want to be world-class, Pete, you have to re-elect one of the ousted corrupt politicians to an even higher office. You've really arrived when you reward the corruption. That's, yeah, that's a good point. I don't know what's going on with my rim shot here. It's, Some people are doubting on the text line whether she was actually threatened. It could be another juicy Smollett situation. 803 number says, how much more money can city officials throw at former employees, i.e. Johnny Jennings? Why do taxpayers continue to put up with the nonsense? Well, a lot of them aren't taxpayers. That's a main reason. They don't suffer the repercussions of these decisions or actions. So that is a part of it. Um, the Hellions, why do the Hellion says, why do government entities always leave it to someone else to find workers liability? Oh, like these search firms and stuff. It's always bothered me. They won't search on their own. Um, okay. Well, would you rather this school board go out looking for candidates? Do you like, is there anything that I have been describing about the Charlotte Mecklenburg board of education that would lead one to believe that that they are qualified or in any way suited to try to recruit. Anybody for literally any position. I've not seen it. Rodney says, Pete, I would be willing to bet that Tijuana Brown runs for office again once she gets out of federal prison for the second time. Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it. Jeff says, Detroit. Yeah, look at Detroit. Detroit used to be, like, Detroit was... This massive economic engine. And now, like, nobody's like, I want to go move to Detroit. People don't say that. Crazy people, maybe. But nobody seeks out to go to Detroit. Once you get this reputation, folks, it is very, very difficult to break out of that skid. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Kaliner show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.