Remember when DPS made the decision not to consider the Duke Forest tract site for a high school?
Erwin-Cornwallis Organization co-founder Elizabeth Vigdor came out tonight to express her gratitude for the district's decision and willingness to engage in "thoughtful dialogue."
Just before the close of the board meeting (and by then, practically no one was in the audience), board member Fredrick Davis decided to address the controversy. I thought some of what he said was worth sharing. Here's his entire comment:
"We need to make sure from our administration that the public is informed when we have not made a decision on matters. You heard some representatives from the Erwin Road-Cornwallis group thank us for making a decision with the support of the administration. I want to go on record that I didn’t make a decision to support the administration.
The administration, in their own rights and responsibilities, made that decision and for the record, if it had been brought to my action, I would have voted for that property. Because one of these days, the citizenry of Durham is going to have to bite the bullet and make sure that we have schools in Durham County that’s going to reach the total community.
I just want to go on record on my position. And they can send all of the letters to board members all they want. We need to be clear that we’ve got to make a decision –and county commissioners as well – that we’ve got to make a decision on where we're going to build schools for the advancement of the children of this county. Those who don’t like it have to stand up to say we’ll help you find some property and we’ll pay for it. Otherwise, they need to let the administration do their job in finding appropriate property and then the administration will bring it to this board so that then we can make a decision.
But until this happens, this board has not taken an action on whether or not that was a good idea - but Frederick Davis said it’s [the former school site] a good idea!"
What do you think of what Pastor Davis said? Leave your thoughts in the comments, or shoot me an e-mail.
Sadia Latifi has been a reporter for The News & Observer since June 2009. She currently covers the town of Cary. 
Comments
Disappointing
Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:09 — evigdorThanks so much for this post, Sadia. I would have completely missed his comment since we didn't stay until the end. As I said over on BCR, I find Pastor Davis' comments really disheartening. Other school board members made it very clear to us that they did not yet have any information on the sites. So the implication is that Davis would have chosen that site without knowing all the pros and cons of the sites under consideration. How can that be best for Durham?
If he had been listening carefully, he would have noticed that I wasn't thanking the Board for the decision, but for their responses to our concerns. The second part of my remarks last night expressed hope that the Board would carefully consider ALL the costs and benefits of ALL the sites in their decision. I made that comment precisely because I fear that they might not be thorough in the interest of making a quick decision. Pastor Davis' comments completely validate that concern.