Wake County school board member Chris Malone's alleged affair with fellow school board member Debra Goldman is being used against him in his bid for the state House 35 seat.

In a new robocall today from the liberal Common Sense Matters, the group brings up the allegations raised in the 2010 police report about whether they had a romantic relationship and that Goldman named Malone as a suspect in the reported burglary of $130,000 from her home.

"With these kinds of distractions, it’s no wonder the schools screwed up student assignment plans and the bus schedule," says the robocall. "Don’t reward Malone’s unprofessional behavior by sending him to the state legislature."

How much political fallout will there be over the publicity about Wake County school board member Debra Goldman naming board member Chris Malone as a suspect in a burglary she reported in 2010 and the conflicting statements they gave about their relationship?

As noted in today's article, the two face consequences in how it will affect their campaigns for state office. They also face consequences about how the controversy will affect them on the school board, especially if they don't win their elections next month.

As Andy Taylor, an N.C. State University political professor noted, people aren't talking now about the firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

It's not every day that one elected official accuses another of potentially committing a felony and then both tell police about their relationship.

As noted in today's article, a Cary police report shows that Wake County school board member Debra Goldman reported in June 2010 that $130,000 was stolen from her home and that she named board member Chris Malone as a potential suspect.

Malone was able to satisfy investigators that he didn't commit the burglary. In the process, both board members gave conflicting statements about whether they had a romantic relationship.

Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles took some jabs at Wake County school board member Chris Malone in endorsing Lori Millberg for the state House 35 seat.

In this Monday press release from Millberg announcing endorsements of current and former area mayors, Eagles says that "unlike her opponent, Chris Malone, Lori has served our community with integrity and honesty."

Millberg, Malone's predecessor on the school board, is the Democratic nominee for the House 35 seat. Malone is the Republican nominee for the seat.

Former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is being praised for showing "what conservatives accomplished for Wake schools" in the latest issue of Civitas Review.

The magazine article published by the conservative Civitas Institute praises Margiotta and the former Republican school board majority for various accomplishments in their two-year tenure. The list includes raising the graduation rate, passing the new choice-based student assignment plan, increasing minority placement in Algebra I, lowering student suspensions and not laying off teachers.

"Liberals and their allies like to stereotype conservatives as penny-pinchers who don’t care about students," writes Civitas President Francis DeLuca, the author of the article. "But Ron Margiotta and his conservative allies showed how false that image is."

What's the proper balance between having Wake County school board meetings run efficiently and allowing individual members to get their concerns aired in public?

The school board's policy committee is forwarding along proposed changes to how meetings are run, including how information items can be requested and the minimum notice for bringing information to board members.

But school board member Debra Goldman is concerned that the changes could make it harder for board members to get information items added. She's also concerned that the changes in policy also don't provide a way for minority members to get action items added.

Some familiar names are backing Wake County Commissioner Tony Gurley in his bid to win Tuesday's Republican Party primary runoff election for lieutenant governor.

Gurley announced today a list of "North Carolina conservatives" endorsing him. The list includes Wake County school board member Deborah Prickett, former school board chairman Ron Margiotta and Wake CARES.

Gurley will compete Tuesday against Dan Forest. The winner will compete in November against Democratic candidate Linda Coleman, a former Wake County Commissioner and former state legislator.

The concept of healthy schools and the significance of the student assignment directive, along with how it was passed by the Wake County school board, were among the topics on WRAL's "On The Record" show on Saturday.

David Crabtree, the host of the show, asked whether the passage of the directive meant the Wake County school system was headed back to where it was before the 2009 school board elections. School board chairman Kevin Hill said the directive calls for staff to “look at the best pieces of the past several assignment processes we’ve had and move forward.”

But school board member Deborah Prickett answered that “this plan is looking to me that it is slipping backwards." She said the directive “is a fundamental change" to the choice plan and "is actually going after the structure of the plan.”

The days of the Wake County school board holding an annual meeting in June to elect a chair and vice chair will soon be over.

Last week, the General Assembly passed a bill that eliminates wording saying the Wake school board must hold its annual meeting to elect board officers in June or July. This will allow the school board to hold the annual meeting whenever it wants, likely in December after the fall board elections.

The change came about because in 2009 the new Republican majority kicked Kevin Hill out of his term early to make Ron Margiotta the board chair. The new Democratic majority reciprocated last year by kicking John Tedesco out early as vice chair in favor of Keith Sutton.

Rather than go through the process of picking new officers in December and then holding another vote in June, the board unanimously agreed to ask the legislature to change the local law. This now means that the terms of board chairman Kevin Hill and vice chairman Keith Sutton will likely end in December instead of June.

Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant charges the school board's Democratic majority "lied" when they said they wouldn't scrap the choice-based student assignment plan.

In Thursday's issue of the Elephant Express and in a press release that day, Bryant focuses back on the fall elections where she says the Democratic board candidates "deliberately soft-pedaled their intent to scrap Tata’s bipartisan parental-choice assignment plan."  Bryant points to interviews that the candidates gave about not making sweeping changes to the Wake County school choice plan.

"The truth is, they are going back to the old plan as closely as the law will allow," Bryant writes. "Each child’s address will be tied to a specific school to be chosen on some sort of socioeconomic basis."