Garner ponders payment

The education task force that Garner Mayor Sam Bridges

assembled with Cary Mayor Glen Lang picked a consultant Thursday

night.

Garner’s aldermen still haven’t decided, however, whether they

want to help pay the consultant’s $ 60,000 fee. The McKenzie

Group, a Washington, D.C. firm, was selected to help craft a

reform plan for Wake County Schools’ student assignment policies.

The elected officials, along with parents’ groups, are taking

a closer look at the school system’s reassignment policies,

including student diversity.

The Cary Town Council has already agreed to use public money

to help pay the consultant’s fee, but the same request got a

chillier response in Garner.

Bridges says he plans on making another pitch to his board at

its Jan. 21 meeting. Armed with more specifics about the

consultant’s plans, Bridges said, he hopes to get a more

favorable response.

“Mayor Lang and I talked about that briefly last night,”

Bridges said Friday. “And neither of us want the Town of Cary to

have to pay for the consultant on its own. So I’m going to really

work as hard as I can to persuade our board.”

After attending Thursday’s task force meeting, Garner alderman

Graham Singleton said his position has shifted on using town

money for the consultant.

“I’m much more open to it now than I was before,” he said.

NATIONAL NOTORIETY: ABC News crews were in Carrboro the week

before Christmas asking a lot of questions of the mayor and

several aldermen.

The news team was preparing a segment on the federal Patriot

Act and the strong stand the seven-member Board of Aldermen took

last June. At a time when towns and cities across the country

were passing resolutions “urging federal authorities to respect

the civil rights of local citizens when fighting terrorism,” the

Carrboro aldermen went a step further.

They directed the town police department to continue to

preserve residents’ civil rights even if federal law enforcement

officers, acting under the Patriot Act, authorized or requested

such an infringement.

The news crews asked Carrboro officials whether their action

was merely a symbolic gesture. “They were just asking: ‘Why

Carrboro? What is it about this town? Does it really make a

difference?'” said Alderman Mark Dorosin.

On Dec. 23, several days after the TV news crews were in town,

The New York Times published a story about the issue and gave

Carrboro a prominent mention. The TV segment has not aired yet.

One of the aldermen received an e-mail from a producer saying the

news crews had not yet been able to interview Justice Department

officials.

Stay tuned.

POLITICAL TRAIL

– RALEIGH MAYOR CHARLES MEEKER will hold his monthly run with

constituents at 8 a.m. today at Shelley Lake in Raleigh.

– THE WAKE COUNTY CHAPTER OF N.C. CITIZENS FOR A SOUND ECONOMY

will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at N.C. State University’s McKimmon

Center and hear from new Wake County commissioners about plans

for the coming year and the county budget.

GRAPHIC: Bridges has specifics he will present to the Board of Aldermen.

LOAD-DATE: January 4, 2003