Schools shocked at Wake

Wake school board members vented at county commissioners Tuesday for giving them $36 million less than they had requested in the budget.

"Who on the Wake County Board of Commissioners wants the dubious honor of putting Wake County on a downward spiral?" school board member Horace Tart asked.

School board member Patti Head called the commissioners' vote "shocking."

"To have a system like we have that is a shining example in North Carolina and in the nation, and put that in jeopardy -- I think that just amazes us all," Head said.

School board member Anne McLaurin called the county's budget decision "completely irresponsible."

School board member Lori Millberg warned that they might not be able to avoid making cuts that hurt academics.

"We can't continue to be the leading school system in North Carolina with this kind of funding," she said.

ABUSE AND LOSE: During Tuesday's City Council meeting, Mayor Pro-Tem James West gave a lengthy and impassioned spiel about why he was voting against a plan to require Raleigh rental property owners to pay an annual fee to the city. Among his stated reasons was his belief that Raleigh has become a city that tangles its residents in a rat's nest of rules, regulations and fees. This, West explained, eventually would come back to bite the City Council.

"I'm of the opinion that power we abuse is power that we will eventually lose," West warned.

No stranger to looking up previous West aphorisms, TriPol went searching for the origins of this latest nugget. We found nothing, except that oft-quoted line by the British historian Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

So if West's line is an original, does that mean we can start calling him Lord West?

POLITICAL TRAIL

* THE EAST WAKE DEMOCRATS will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the East Wake Library. For more information, contact Sue Conroy at 412-2564, conroy7@earthlink.net or rita.blue@hotmail.com.

* WAKEUP WAKE COUNTY and its community partners will host a public forum, "Transit: Is Wake County Ready for It?" from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday at N.C. State University's McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St., Raleigh. The forum will examine the need and potential role of transit in Wake County. For information, contact Karen Rindge, chairwoman, WakeUP Wake County, at 828-3833 or 637-4271.