Opponents declared victory, but schools only got more crowded.

Bond supporters were aghast -- and out of ideas.

And then a bond-rating agency threatened to flag the county, which could raise its cost of borrowing for anything.

That was Charlotte and Mecklenburg County a year ago, when local voters rejected a $427 million public school bond issue.

Less than two weeks before a Wake County vote on a bond package more than double that size, bond supporters got a lesson Thursday from the man Mecklenburg tapped to steer its school construction back on track: Republican former Gov. Jim Martin.

His message: Responsible communities don't shirk their responsibilities. You have to build and renovate schools or else people's lives are disrupted and businesses go elsewhere. But focus on the highest priorities, spend wisely and listen to critics.

"You've got to move forward," Martin said at a Raleigh forum on paying for public schools. "You can't handicap a county by not providing the schools it needs. You get more overcrowding, more year-round schools, more unhappiness about growth and more dissatisfaction with the school system."

The forum, hosted by the liberal-leaning nonprofit organization N.C. Policy Watch, was called "Financing Our Children's Future: The School-Construction Crisis."

After Mecklenburg's vote against school bonds, Martin led a diverse, 35-member public committee that explored options. It settled 32-3 on recommending $172 million in immediate borrowing through "certificates of participation," which don't require voter approval but carry a higher interest rate than bonds, to be followed the next year by a $400 million bond issue.

Mecklenburg's commissioners embraced the idea but cut the amount of first-year borrowing.

"We had to get everybody on the committee to see that the needs were real and they weren't going away," Martin said. "It also helped to get each member to trust each other to be just as well-meaning as they were. People learned to work together.

"Our group learned that it's more important to move forward with school construction and renovations than to do it precisely the way each one of us wanted."

In Mecklenburg's case, Martin said, voters were turned off by juvenile infighting on the school board and county board. To regain public confidence, he said, some members of both boards required "charm school" to learn to behave reasonably.

"It's one thing to be adversaries during an election campaign," he said. "Once the election is over, you ought to be working together toward finding solutions."

Wake doesn't suffer food fights among its school board members or county commissioners.

But an embarrassing administrative fraud scandal and widespread discontent over mandatory year-round schools have damaged public confidence in Wake's school system, some of its supporters acknowledged.

They hope public unhappiness won't translate to voters rejecting Wake's $970 million school bonds in a referendum Nov. 7.

The bonds, repaid with property tax revenue over many years, would finance 17 new schools -- 15 of them year-round -- 13 major school renovations, repairs at 100 other schools, new computers and the purchase of land for 13 future schools.

"I would argue that we reached a masterful compromise," Wake school board member Susan Parry told the forum panel. "But you could argue that what we have done is create a plan that has something for everybody to hate. I feel we're in a bit of a Catch-22."

Wake's voters will provide the answer in a couple of weeks.

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