We'll miss Commissioner Vilma Leake when she's gone | Hour 2

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 Pete 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. All right. So I played a bunch of the audio in the last hour. from the County commission meeting last night. I watched it. So you didn't have to, you're welcome. I am a giver. Um, so the Mecklenburg County commissioners in a four, four tie vote declined to launch any kind of investigation or even to ask Charlotte Mecklenburg schools for a breakdown of the financials as it relates to the county dollars that may have been redirected towards these consulting contracts that are now at the center of the corruption scandal, okay? And this idea, this proposal, came from County Commissioner Arthur Griffin. Now, Arthur Griffin is a former school board member, former school board chairman, I believe before that he worked for, I think it was McGraw Hill selling. I think he was like doing textbooks and stuff. I mean, he has been involved in the education world for decades. Okay. So the fact that he was the one that was promoting this idea. To me is notable. And I'm not sure. Was he, is he also a lawyer? I don't remember. I don't remember, but, But Arthur Griffin got up there and he said, look, he's like, I bleed CMS. He is a graduate of CMS. His wife graduated from CMS. His kids all went to CMS, right? He was the school board chairman, all of that. He said the investigations and the allegations are or have deeply saddened him. And so here was what he wanted to see done. I'm distraught. Colleagues in education from Los Angeles. My grandchild in D.C. at Howard University. He was on the TV news in Washington, D.C. We have a tremendous challenge, not only to make sure that the I's are dotted and T's are crossed, but how do we save the school system as a large urban school district? We have a tremendous responsibility. And the information that comes out sads me. But I understand our lane. The FBI has a lane. The FBI has a lane. State Auditor has a lane. But Mecklenburg County has a lane. And that lane is our responsibility to one entity you didn't name. That's Joe Taxpayer of Mecklenburg County. Correct, Arthur. Joe Taxpayer of Mecklenburg County wants to have some idea how to communicate with that governing body because we don't control the school system. We do have purpose and function, as you so eloquently articulated. But Joe Taxpayer out there wants to know, did that email that you received, were those funds taken away from student mental health services or guidance counselors under pupil support and our purpose and function codes? Joe Taxpayer out there wants to know, Those children in some of these elementary schools and high schools and middle schools out there that don't have a chess club or can't even join the National Elementary Honor Society because they don't have funds, we fund that in co-curricular. There are a number of different functions and purposes. And for our purpose, I think Joe Taxpayer needs to know so that Joe Taxpayer can talk to the Board of Governance over there called the school board. Right now, we can sanitize things under SBI that's criminal. We have nothing to do with that. The allegations out there, I agree with you. We can't deal with accusations, but we ought to educate our local taxpayers in terms of what's going on. And we do have that authority to review the records, at least in a very limited way. You've articulated at the podium that at least from the state auditors, that there's no problem. And I imagine you can talk to Spencer and the state SBI. And if there is a problem, then come back and tell us we can't find out if those funds were taken out of co-curricular. Or pupil support or HR. Joe Taxpayer needs to know that. All right. That wasn't my bell there. That was the, his time was up. So they, they're all on a three minute clock, which that's the Vilma leak rule, which actually comes up at a different point in the meeting. But he's exactly right. How is it that people are supposed to be able to go hold their school board members accountable at the school board meetings? If we don't know, like if you got a kid who, you know, as he mentioned, I'll take the chess club for the example, right? You got a high school or a middle school, they want to do a chess club, but they don't have any funds for it. And the county would give CMS money for things like a chess club. Well, did money for a chess club get siphoned off and paid out to Racky McGregor or his wife Kimberly McGregor and their consulting firms? Did it get funneled through the law firm, Pointer Spruill, which then... funded a contract for Racky McGregor, unbeknownst to the board members. Where did that money come from? Because Crystal Hill, before she got fired, Crystal Hill said to the county manager, that's to whom Arthur Griffin was addressing these comments, he told the county manager, or she told the county manager, that these were county dollars that were being diverted. So, The county can ask CMS. Now, Manager Bryant, he said that in his presentation. He gave a 22-minute presentation, and he said, we don't have oversight authority over CMS's spending. When we write them the checks, when we give them the allocations and the budget, it goes to them. And if they misappropriate, you got people stealing or embezzling or whatever, like, we don't have the oversight authority for that. That would be the State Board of Education. If there's criminality involved, then you bring in the SBI, the FBI, and all. Of that, right? Which is where we are. All of those entities are investigating. And the auditor's taking a look at it as well. However, the county commission can ask for an accounting. They can say to CMS, provide us the financials of... Where you think this money came from, where it was supposed to go, right? What pot of money, what general ledger line item, what GL did this come out of? You should be able to determine that. Now, does CMS have to comply with all of that? Probably not. Should they probably do so? I would say yes. I think you should probably do so. but throw it out. Like what's the worst they can say is no. And that would really be the worst. So they say no. And now, now it raises the question of like, what are you trying to hide? And maybe that's why you didn't, you had County commissioners that did not want to put CMS in that pickle, right? They didn't want to jam them up any further. So four members of the County commission said, you know what? We're not going to press the issue. We are going to wait until the investigations are done until the auditor produces the report. gives us his findings, and the auditor agreed to meet with the county manager and I guess maybe even the board October 21st to give them a status update. Don't know if they'll have, you know, findings at that point. Maybe the auditor's office will have preliminary findings at that point, and the auditor can make criminal referrals if they find evidence of criminality. The manager, county manager Mike Bryant, said this work is already underway and by the auditor, the SBI, and the auditor has requested that the county wait until his review is complete. So again, a defensible position, to be sure. Now, Arthur Griffin said he believes there needs to be a local review. He attempted to direct the county to request a breakdown of the county funds that were used, approximately $ 300, 000. 00. Is the issue here this slice, as he called it, of the funding that was referenced by Crystal. Hill in the email to the county manager the night she was fired? Now, there's also another chunk of money that was not talked about, which is like four and a half million dollars that was recommended by the superintendent to pay for teacher pay raises. That was the source of the conflict between Crystal Hill and the former school board chair, Stephanie Sneed, who wanted to use it for consulting contracts, apparently. And that was why they did not approve Crystal Hill's recommended budget on the night of the budget vote. And everybody was shocked. Like, wait a minute. Why are they not voting to support the budget? What's going on here? And the chair was like, we'll talk about it later. She didn't want to publicly talk about what she wanted to use the money for. And now we kind of know, right? And then there's Bill Malik. I'll miss Bill Malik. Coming up. 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Go to createavideo.com or visit them in Mint Hill just off I-485. Your photos and videos are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit createavideo.com. All right. So last night, just as a reminder, Vilma Leak lost her primary. In March. So she will not be on the board after the new board gets sworn in. I believe that happens in early December. So she's a short timer here. And I will miss Vilma Leak as a local political character. All right, so things started getting a little chippy in this final topic on the agenda last night about whether or not the Board of County Commissioners should try to do some sort of investigation or even to ask for any financial data, any reports or anything about where the funding at the heart of this corruption scandal, where it came from, what local dollars were used, where did it get diverted from, that sort of thing. And so the chippiness started when... Vilma ran over her allotted time. And this is why they put in the time limit. Okay. Like every time, whenever Vilma leak, whatever board she serves on the board, whether it was the school board 20 years ago, or it's the County commission for the last, you know, 15 years, whatever boards have always had to try to manage to her. Okay. Because she, she's a loose cannon and she goes way over the time limit. She talks about inappropriate things. She makes personal attacks and stuff. She's a political animal. There's like, and so one of the things that they would do is they would like, they relegated all of the, you know, commissioner reports or school board member reports. They would limit them to one minute. They'd put them at the end of the agenda, whatever, because she would just go on and on and on and on and just waste all this time. And just anyway, so, They put all the commissioners on a time limit here, apparently, and she went over the time limit. And I doubt if any of us could tell you right now what our job is sometimes as county commissioners because of the general public and because of our own behavior in questioning what's going on. Time's up. So my concern and my question is, and will continue. To be, Hold us accountable. If we don't have anything to hide, we are free as a bird. If we haven't done anything wrong, we are free as a bird. We are there to be protected. But I'm concerned about the... He said. The bell is rung. Can you wrap up, please? I didn't know we had a time limit. We do. The time is right in front of all of us right here in the belt. And everybody has three minutes. Well, then I'll have a press conference after the meeting then. Yeah. All right. Yeah, you do that. I don't know if she did or not. But this is classic Velma. Classic. What, what? I didn't know we were on a time limit. There's literally a clock in front of your face that we have running so you know. And she pretends not to know this stuff. Well, I didn't know that. I didn't realize we were on a clock. Yeah, there's a bell going. Yeah, your time was up a while ago. And wrap it up. That was the board chair, Mark Jarrell, which this was a, that's a bit of foreshadowing as to what would come. At the very end of this discussion on this item, I don't have time to play the full clip right now. I'm going to play it after the newscast, but you're going to want to hear it because. It is classic Vilma. We're going to miss her. I mean, I'm going to miss her. The show prep content has been invaluable. Now, from the Charlotte Observer news story by Mary Ramsey, Another central point of the swirling CMS controversies is a human resources complaint alleging former CMS chair Stephanie Sneed, who remains on the board, insisted that payments be made to a consultant who did not have a direct contract with the district. Commissioners, the county commissioners, who fund a significant portion of the school district's annual budget, heard from the county manager last night, about what authority the County has over CMS finances. It's basically not okay. The County commission chairman, Mark Jarrell said that he, the County manager and the vice chair, Lee Altman had met recently with CMS leadership and asked them to consider coming to this, to the County commission to speak before the board. He said, I encourage us to continue to ask questions and get all of the things that our constituents and residents require of us. That's Mark Jarrell. He then voted against asking CMS to provide any of the financial details. So you've got this human resources complaint against Stephanie Sneed, the board chair. There are also questions being asked about noncompliance with Within the Exceptional Children Department, the EC Department, that provides educational support for students with disabilities. We'll get to that and the Vilma payoff up next. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. I'm telling you people, we're going to miss Vilma Leak when she's gone. She has been a mainstay of Mecklenburg County politics for 40 years. And as colorful as the ridiculously oversized flower on her lapel every meeting, she brings that kind of colorful theatrics to the meetings. I mean, you do have to suffer through a lot of boring speeches and meandering questions and such, but sometimes the sparks fly. And they flew last night because Velma Leak is a former school board member, former teacher, and her fellow former school board member, Arthur Griffin, had proposed that the county asks CMS for financials to find out if any of the money that the county has been providing has been diverted for these consulting contracts. He wants to know, and he wants to provide that information to the taxpayers so they can then be armed with information to hold the CMS board accountable. He put it up for a vote. He got four votes, including himself. And because George Dunlap was not there last night, also a former school board member, don't know why he wasn't there the other four members said no Laura Meyer Yvette Townsend Ingram Lee Altman Susan Rodriguez McDowell oh wait a minute so Yeah, all of them said they should wait until the investigation is complete. And they did not get the four votes needed. It was a 4-4 tie. The motion that was originally made by Arthur Griffin was beyond the bounds of what the county could actually require. And so he had to kind of workshop it on the fly with the county attorney. Okay. So he had to withdraw his motion in order to make a new motion, okay? When you withdraw a motion, though, whoever seconded that motion also has to agree to withdraw it. Well, Vilma was the second on the motion, okay? So this created a bit of parliamentary procedure problem, okay, as we hear. And what are we afraid of? I want to know what's wrong with the language. We're sitting up here frowning. Nobody's trying to get anybody in trouble. We want to know. What the question was that he was saying that we could ask. So you're saying to me not to participate in this process, which I thought was open. Nobody has accused anybody up here of the school board of doing anything yet. There are investigators. Don't frown at me, honey. Uh-oh. Are you talking to me? Yes. All right, I believe that's Yvette Townsend Ingram. I don't know. That's who it sounded like. Don't frown at me, honey. Let's stick to the... Y'all, this is... All right, I'm going to put an end. I'm putting an end to the debate, okay? Because this is... We're just getting out of pocket, and we're not doing the people's business. What we need to do is... There's a motion and a second on the floor. Right. I'm going to come back to Commissioner Griffin. Do you want to withdraw that motion and make. An additional motion? I can withdraw that motion. Okay. And I'll give you. And I'll come back. So he's withdrawing this motion. He's going to make another motion. We're going to vote it up or vote it down. We've heard from everybody. Excuse me. We're going to vote it up or vote it down. I have to withdraw the motion because I second it. Thank you. Thank you. As parliamentary procedure. Thank you, madam. And I'm willing to do that because I'm not witch hunting. You're not what? I'm not witch hunting for anything. I was falling to get it on the floor. Everybody can have their own opinion up here, though. Everyone can figure out which way we want to go with anything. People are trying to process. Well, that's what I'm agreeing. You're processing, and everyone is processing. That's why I'm doing what's right politically, not politically, but by parliamentary procedure to withdraw my motion second so he can put in the right wordage. Okay, so thank you for that. The motion is withdrawn. Don't get me started, son. Commissioner Lee, don't get us started with this. This is ridiculous at this point. Who's being ridiculous? The manager has given us direction. But I'm not being ridiculous. This has gotten totally out of hand. This has gotten totally out of hand when we're making personal attacks because people. Personal attacks? Personal attacks, yes. Who have we made personal attacks on? Mr. Griffin, do you want to give your motion? We will vote it up and vote it down. Yeah, okay. There you go. I tell you, we're going to miss her when she's gone. I'm not being ridiculous. You know what, though? On second thought, maybe the county should not be anywhere near any kind. Of investigation on any of this. Oh, my goodness. All right, so there's all the audio that I pulled from the meeting. You are completely caught up on that. However, there are other related issues. As I mentioned, the Exceptional Children Department. noncompliance issues over there. David Hodges at BTV reporting during the September 22nd board meeting when the board of ed fired Crystal Hill. School district staff also informed board members about noncompliance issues within that department over the past year. The district needed to make a budget adjustment to cover roughly $ 1 million after unexpected invoices arrived after the fiscal year ended. CMS Chief Financial Officer Kelly Klutz said, quote, we've had some noncompliance issues with our EC department over the last year. There were some concerns in those are being addressed over the period of time. In addition to noncompliance issues in the EC department, former Superintendent Crystal Hill sent a memo to board members about other financial concerns prior to being terminated and This is when she talked about and questioned why a consultant, Racky McGregor, appeared to be receiving payments from the district without a contract or a purchase order. Previously, Racky McGregor, his wife Kim McGregor, and Kim's learning company, Sid Kimmel, received about half a million dollars per year in funding from the county. The funding was for contracts that directly benefited CMS schools by tutoring kids. Several of their contracts with the county and school district expired before Hill claims McGregor started receiving payments through an outside law firm for services similar to what was previously contracted. So in other words, he lost the revenue. He lost his income when she said no more on this contract. And so he got funding through this law firm that said, nobody like many of the school board members and the superintendent were not aware that the law firm was acting as a pass through on whose authority superintendent Hill says, apparently it was just the board chair, Stephanie Sneed. That's a problem. Now remember also, Racky McGregor drew fire and criticism during the election cycle for because he was appearing at campaign events for challengers to certain school board members and that became an issue inside the superintendent's office apparently that she had raised concerns about this and he's engaging in political activity and he tried to say well that's just my personal time free time it's not politics whatever I'm just there because she's a friend or whatever but when you're when you're attending campaign events for challengers to sitting school board members, like that's not a wise thing to do unless of course your friends win, which they did. Now it raises questions of whether or not there's a quid pro quo going on there. And according to a report at WCNC TV, another school board member, pitched a consulting proposal that would benefit Racky McGregor. All right, I do need to get to some text messages, and I'm going to go deeper into this story WCNC reported. But the headline here, the lead on it, is around the same time that some people started flagging certain CMS financial transactions, board members were also questioning another potentially lucrative proposal that would have benefited a consultant closely tied to Racky and Kim McGregor. I think I said that he was going to directly benefit that it was with him, but no, it was just with a guy that works with his wife. That's it. Kim. So, yeah. So, This is apparently the racket. You create a non-profit, maybe you call it a leering center or something, and then you can get that sweet, sweet grant money when you have enough of your political allies in control of a $ 2 billion budget. That's what it sure looks like. Records obtained by WCNC Charlotte shows CMS board member Shamae Haynes pitched the idea of hiring a consulting firm called Leadership Plus at a cost of $ 192, 000. She called it a practical solution to help the board meet the need of strengthening board support through the district's Office of Board Governance, Constituent Services, and Operations. Yeah, okay. Board support. You're just going to hire a bunch of your pals to be board support. In an email, she said, while we may have different ideas about the best path forward, I believe there is broad consensus that additional governance support is needed to help the board operate at the highest level. So the board is so dysfunctional. The board is so dysfunctional. We have to hire consultants that are our friends. Yeah. Because. The Leadership Plus Consulting Company was founded and run by Dr. Charles Faust. See, I would have called it a Faustian bargain. Like, if I'm running a consultant firm, okay. He's also listed as a consultant on Sid Kimmel's website. Now, remember, Shemay Haynes was the school board member that recently won, And when she came into office like a year or two ago, right, and the superintendent, Crystal Hill, had a meeting with her and asked her what her goals were as a new board member. And Shemay Haynes, and I read this, this came out of Crystal Hill's, this came out of her memo that she sent to the board. that Shamae Haynes had reportedly told Crystal Hill that her main purpose as a school board member was to make sure, quote, black businesses like Sid Kimmel get contracts. For the children. Of course. For the children, of course. Yeah. That's her main goal. She also deleted her Facebook page. Shemay Haynes did. I'll have details on that. Now, I did get, there was one other thing just to come full circle on the whole Vilma Leak thing. Vilma Leak, she was defeated in the primary back in March by Monifa Drayton. And Monifa Drayton was the endorsed candidate from the Black Political Caucus. The BPC took out Vilma Leak. Do you think that that might be why Bill Malik would want to see what's going on with CMS and the BPC candidates and former leaders and stuff that are all part of. The Board of Ed now? I'm just asking, you know, if there may be some RICO implications here. 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 ThePeteCalenderShow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.