N.C. Transportation Secretary Tony Tata today named former Durham Mayor Nick Tennyson Chief Deputy Secretary of Support.

“Nick has a proven ability to build close working relationships and manage large-scale initiatives,” Tata said in a news release. “These will be key attributes as we carry out Governor McCrory’s directive to establish a long-range plan for North Carolina that builds on the department’s previous efforts to leverage our infrastructure for greater economic investment and growth.”

One of Tennyson’s key responsibilities will be to lead the development and implementation of a 25-year transportation infrastructure plan. He will oversee five business functions: the Division of Motor Vehicles, strategic planning, information technology, fiscal, and intergovernmental affairs and budget coordination. Tennyson will collaborate closely with Chief Deputy Secretary of Operations Jim Trogdon.

Wake County school board Chairman Kevin Hill visited The N&O to talk on the record about the board's vote to fire superintendent Tony Tata. These are my NONVERBATIM notes. I didn't have a tape recorder. Just a laptop. One highlight: "The citizens of Wake County have to demand that the politics come out of the board. They’ve got to."

Fired Wake County schools superintendent has a Point of View piece running on tomorrow's Other Opinion page. In it, he says:

In a relatively short period of time, we significantly raised expectations and proved that all Wake County Public School System students, regardless of their socio-economic status or where they attend school, can have strong academic performance. With the hope that the impact we made will continue for the benefit of our students and the belief that our community can best proceed with an accounting of progress, I want to share some parting observations.

Read what he had to say here.
 

A look at the weekend outpouring of letters regarding the Wake County school board's vote to fire Superintendent Tony Tata:

Jason Langberg, an attorney at Advocates for Children's Services, writes on the national Parents Across America blog about Wake County's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata.

A snippet:

On Tuesday, the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Board of Education (BOE) fired Superintendent Anthony Tata, a Broad Superintendents Academy graduate.  The firing of a local school superintendent wouldn’t usually be major national news, but in this instance, it is.  It proves that at least some school systems will still resist significant influence by big money and market-based deformers when it is in the best interests of families, teachers and the community.

Read more.

More readers having their say on the Wake County school board's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata. Find some of these on tomorrow's Editorial page. Apologies if some are repeats from previous blog posts.

A look at the avalanche of emotion in the community in the wake of the school board's firing of Superintendent Tony Tata: