Wake County taxpayers won't be picking up the tab for Tuesday's reception for new school board members.
Joe Ciulla said he, Kristen Stocking and Sarah Redpath will pay for the food and drinks that will be served after the four new board members are sworn in. All three are leaders of the Wake Schools Community Alliance, a parents' group that backed the winning candidates in their quest to bring neighborhood schools and end mandatory year-round schools and busing for diversity.
"We don't want taxpayers and students to pay for this," Ciulla said. "The four new board members campaigned on fiscal responsibility."
The board traditionally holds a reception immediately after new members are sworn in. The cost is usually covered by the district, but times are tough now.
Last week, Wake schools Superintendent Del Burns announced plans to cut $20 million from next fiscal year's budget.
Ciulla said they'll pay for the reception out of their own pockets and won't use money donated to the alliance.
School administrators have been totaling up the bill, which will be forwarded to Ciulla. About 200 people are expected to attend the reception.
Only 1 Santa allowed
Turns out it wasn't just a school board member who tried to join Santa and his posse at last week's Christmas Parade in Raleigh.
John Odom, the incoming Raleigh councilman who also runs the parade put on by The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, had to tell at least one person to take off a Santa suit at last Saturday's parade. And plenty of others had written beforehand offering their Santa services, Odom said.
The annual parade's strict rules call for only one Santa and no Mrs. Claus, a practice Odom said has been in place for the 17 years he has helped with the parade.
Odom caused a minor stir this year when he told incoming Wake school board member Debra Goldman she couldn't don a Mrs. Claus outfit for the parade, as she had planned. Children can be confused seeing two people in Santa suits, he explained.
"We hear about this every year," Odom said. "This one time, everyone considered it political."
Both Odom and Goldman will soon have other matters to worry about. Monday night, Odom will join the Raleigh City Council, and on Tuesday, Goldman will be sworn in to the school board.
So very thankful at UNC
In Chapel Hill, Chancellor Holden Thorp gave thanks this week that UNC-Chapel Hill is weathering the recession better than many institutions.
On his blog, Thorp said he was thankful for the university's new $180 million Cancer Hospital; its highest SAT-scoring first-year class yet; an agreement on the future Carolina North satellite campus; a grounds crew that keeps the campus leafy green; and a theater company drawing raves for "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" ("Don't miss it," he writes).
Thorp also gave thanks for national championships in field hockey, women's soccer and men's basketball. "I'm also so very grateful that football is going bowling again and that the nation's top high school basketball player, Harrison Barnes, made the smart decision to come to UNC instead of Duke," the chancellor wrote Wednesday. "That will make my turkey taste so much better on Thursday."
White House trash talk
Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson is hoping a trip by a neighborhood activist will keep the county's future solid waste transfer station far from the historically black Rogers Road community.
The Rev. Robert Campbell recently participated in a White House briefing on the benefits of a green energy policy.
Campbell has been the leading opponent of putting any more solid waste programs near the Rogers Road community, which has lived with the Orange County landfill next door for 30 years.
Four of Orange County's seven county commissioners voted this fall to consider putting the planned trash depot on Millhouse Road, about a mile from Rogers Road. A vote is scheduled for Dec. 7.
"Perhaps national attention being paid to environmental racism in our community will sway opinion," Nelson wrote on his blog Leading from the Left.
Political trails
Senior Democrats of Wake County will hold its monthly meeting at 11 a.m. Dec. 16. The luncheon is at the Crabtree Marriott Hotel, 4500 Marriott Drive. For more information, check www.wakedems.org/sdwc.
The Northern Wake Republican Club will meet at 6 p.m. Dec. 10 at 230 Newton Road in Raleigh. More information is available at www.nwrcnc.org.
The annual Mayor's Unity Day, sponsored by Raleigh's Human Relations Commission, will be held from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Raleigh Convention Center, 500 S. Salisbury St. The topic will be the 2010 U.S. Census and Raleigh's expected demographic changes. Mitchell Silver, the director of Raleigh's planning department, will lead the discussion. To register, contact Christine Alston at 996-6100 or christine.alston@ci.raleigh.nc.us. The first 250 people to register will receive breakfast.
Compiled by staff writers T. Keung Hui, Sarah Ovaska and Mark Schultz.
