Study--Political Desperation?

Last night the Lee County Board of Education tabled the question of having yet a third consultant look at the needs of Lee County High School, this one by a consultant working for the commissioners. In one respect, that is pretty quick action since the formal request had not been received. The action does signal that the board has some specific questions. The questions are legitimate:

• Who is the consultant and what are the qualifications?
• What is the scope of work?
• What is to be done with the study once it is completed?

The motion to table was made by outgoing school board member John Bonardi, chairman of the facilities committee. That committee met prior to the full board meeting where Mr. Bonardi, an astute political observer, called the motion for the study by Mr. Reives "an act of political desperation." He said that the foot dragging by the commissioners may have caused the sales tax to fail and the commissioner chair to lose in the primary. "He is trying to save Jerry Lemmond now in the fall." (Lemmond seems to always vote with Reives .)

Bonardi noted the past indifference of Reives, whom he called "the leader of the commissioners," shown toward the Hite plan in particular and Lee County Senior High's facility problems. (Perhaps that is his own observation because many of those people who have worked with the commission have apparently observed it or perhaps he is just picking up on this blog's view of the situation.) Bonardi reviewed a list of fruitless efforts that had been ignored in seeking to provide the commissioners with more information on the Hite plan.

Bonardi noted that both consultants that had looked at the campus had agreed that the most effective solution included taking down the same two buildings and questioned the wisdom of spending more of the county's tax money for what would likely be the same conclusion again.

Having seen the commissioner's meeting, there was indeed a marked contrast in the urgency with which Mr. Reives approached the high school needs at the last meeting. It was a lot different than a statement he once made following a lengthy list of speakers on behalf of the high school. "Now you people know how we people felt about W.B. Wicker. " (emphasis added)