After new Wake County manager David Ellis unveils his first recommended budget Wednesday night, the headlines will focus on the question that dominated Tuesday’s primary elections: How much new funding will the county give the school system? As it turns out, Ellis will recommend about $30 million, just over half of the $58.9 million the […]
Jeffrey C. Billman
Posted inNews
Durham Sheriff Mike Andrews Denies Saying “Amen” to a Racist Facebook Comment
This morning, Durham City Council member Jillian Johnson posted the following on her personal Facebook page: In that post, which circulated widely among politically active members of Durham’s Facebook community this morning, someone from Sheriff Mike Andrews’s re-election Facebook page appears to say “Amen, Bobby!” to a comment from a man warning people not to […]
Posted inNews
Hey, Big Spender: See Who’s Giving the Big Bucks to Candidates for Wake County Commissioner
Earlier today, a Raleigh voter named David Bland filed a complaint with the Wake County Board of Elections alleging that liberal activists Dean and Sesha Debnam and Ann and John Campbell have “violated state laws barring excessive contributions and contributions in the name of another.” The claim is based on the fact that Ann Campbell […]
Posted inNews
Lawsuit Claims the Montessori School of Raleigh Refused to Act on Allegations That a Teacher Sexually Abused Students
In a lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court in January that has so far gone unreported, the parents of two sisters—identified in court documents as Jane Doe I and Jane Doe II—who were allegedly sexually assaulted by a teacher at the Montessori School of Raleigh have accused the school and its leader, Nancy Errichetti, […]
Posted inSoapboxer
What If There Was a Simple Way to Keep N.C. School Boards and County Commissioners From Fighting Over Money?
There’s a pretty simple way to keep the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Board of Educationand other boards of commissioners and school boards in North Carolinafrom squabbling over money every year. It’s an idea already in place in most of the rest of the country, and policy wonks here have been kicking it […]
Posted inAlternative Wedding Guide
The INDY’s Alternative Wedding Guide: Please Yourself, Not Martha Stewart
What can you say about weddings that hasn’t been said a million times before, in a million glossy magazines with size-0 models in $8,000 gowns on the cover? There’s a whole wedding-mag industry dedicated to servicing the wedding industry: Brides, The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings, Town & Country Weddings, etc. And if you actually read […]
Posted inNews
Miss Bernie Sanders and Reverend Barber at Duke Last Week? Get the Gist in This Fifteen-Minute Video.
Local filmmaker Michael Galinsky was at last Thursday’s Duke Chapel conversation between Senator Bernie Sanders and the Reverend William Barber II. And while the event went on for two hours, Galinksy managed to distill it down into a fifteen-minute video, which he shared with the INDY today. Check it out here.
Posted inNews, Housing
The Raleigh City Council Punts on Affordable Housing Decisions and I AM SHOCKED
This post is excerpted from the INDY’s morning newsletter, Primer. To read this morning’s edition in full, click here. The Raleigh City Council is known for taking its sweet time to do just about anything. This is a body, after all, that hasn’t quite figured out Airbnb after, what, three years? And, my god, earlier […]
Posted inNews
Everything Is Awesome! Notes on the State of Downtown Raleigh and Durham, According to Their Professional Boosters
This post is excerpted from the INDY’s morning newsletter, Primer. To read this morning’s edition in full, click here. There are people who get excited about urban planning, and then there is Joe Minicozzi, the principal at Asheville’s Urban3 LLC and a former executive director of the Asheville Downtown Association. Yesterday afternoon, he was the […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Wake County’s School Board Wants a Lot of Money. Should Commissioners Give It to Them?
In politics, nothing is a coincidence. Last week, with the issue of school fundingspecifically, the Wake County Board of Commissioners’ 5–2 vote last year to provide $21 million of the school board’s requested $45 million in new fundingdominating the county’s upcoming primaries, interim schools superintendent Del Burns poured gasoline on the fire. He proposed that, […]
