GARNER -- Editor's note: This is the first story on candidates vying for the four seats on the Wake County Board of Commissioners up for election in November.
Democrat Lindy Brown, a member of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, walked between overlapping committee meetings one day last week, one on affordable housing and the other on an event to honor hundreds of volunteers.
Facing spirited Republican opposition from former Garner town alderman Phil Matthews, Brown's not taking anything for granted in the Nov. 2 election for the District 2 seat. At the Wake County Commons Building meetings, she conferred with housing authority chairman Thomas Mitchell on how smaller towns are meeting affordable-housing needs and with a volunteer recognition group on where hundreds of honorees would park for a December ceremony.
"This is how I get information, from attending board meetings," said Brown, 54, who has been the board's vice chairwoman and acting chairwoman. "I think it's important that our citizens know that our county commissioners aren't just sitting behind a desk."
Democrats control the seven-member board 4-3. The other three races on the November ballot have Republican incumbents: Tony Gurley, Paul Coble and Joe Bryan all face Democratic challengers. That means a potential shift in power, either to a Republican majority or to a more heavily Democratic panel.
Matthews, 60, an Army veteran who runs a sound company in Garner, says his experience as a business owner, volunteer first responder and town official qualifies him to join Wake's governing body as representative of District 2, which runs across the county's southeast to southwest corners like a backward L, and includes Garner, Fuquay-Varina and Holly Springs.
"I'm a proactive person," Matthews said. "I like to get out ahead of things, looking long down the road."
Matthews has attended tea party rallies and identifies with the movement's low-tax, smaller-government orientation. The more people know about the tea party approach, he said, the more they will like it.
"A lot of people are starting to realize that it's not a group of racists," he said. "It's people trying to do the right thing for the country - to turn us back around and get us on solid ground."
The candidates agree that constituents are most concerned about actions by the Wake school board that have changed policies such as one that uses students' economic background as a means of keeping each school diverse. The school board majority is instead pushing an assignment plan that places a priority on keeping students closer to home.
Both say they've been dismayed by the highly partisan tone, arrests and atmosphere of controversy in which the school board has been operating. But they have markedly different opinions about the direction the school board is taking.
Matthews favors giving the Republican-dominated school board a chance to do what he thinks it was elected to do.
"I believe in neighborhood schools," Matthews said. "I believe we'll give our kids a chance at a better education. We'll see the parents getting more involved."
Brown is concerned that the board's direction will result in schools with disproportionate numbers of low-income and minority students.
"The majority of my constituents are very upset with the school board," she said. "I'm hearing they would prefer the school board to compromise and not jump the gun on issues."
Matthews says that any schools that may wind up with heavy concentrations of low-income students must be guaranteed equal facilities and equal quality of teachers, even if that involves paying them more. "I can't say that we have all the answers right now," he said. "There's going to be constant touching up and refining."
Brown worries that Wake middle and high schools are having their accreditation questioned, and she would like to see more attention to matters besides the assignment debate.
"I would like something to be done to reduce the achievement gap and increase the graduation rate," Brown said.
On at least one vote, Brown joined Republican commissioners. She agreed with them and the school board majority that plans to build a high school on Forestville Road in North Raleigh should be abandoned in favor of an alternative site in Rolesville.
"The goal was to get a school that would relieve overcrowding," she said, noting that she toured the Forestville Road site twice before her vote. "I was looking at what would be the most economical site and the least obtrusive on the neighborhood."
Brown lists as her priorities jobs via economic development, helping find good community-based services for elderly people and those with mental illness and developmental disabilities, affordable housing and the schools system and libraries.
Both candidates say the commission must keep in mind Wake's limited resources in a time of recession.
"It's just plain old business logic," Matthews said. "If you can't afford it, you don't get it."
