Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon lambasted the Wake County school board majority in his 16-minute speech at Saturday's Great Schools in Wake Coalition forum.

As noted in today's article, Goodmon accused the board of engaging in poor governing practices and being ideologically focused. He chastised the board for several of the decision that have been made, including eliminating the diversity policy.

Along the way, Goodmon got repeated applause and laughter from the crowd of  around 200 people. He also found time to repeatedly plug WRAL, which his company owns.

Bob Geary is hoping for some intervention on the part of the General Assembly to change the way Wake County school board members are elected.

In an online column yesterday for the liberal Independent weekly, Geary writes that the fight by diversity policy supporters is far from over. But he does speculate that the new school board majority brought in attorney Thomas Farr to help redraw the board election districts next year to increase the number of seats that Republicans can win.

His hope though is that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will step in and institute at-large elections for school board members. That would be ironic considering how it was Democrats who had fought past efforts to have at-large elections in Wake.

Could at-large school board elections now make it on the school board's legislative agenda?

In an online article published Friday in the Carolina Journal, school board member Ron Margiotta said "without a doubt" he still wants at-large elections added to the legislative agenda.

It's the right time of the year for the issue. The board historically adopts the legislative agenda in December, just in time for the new board majority.

Cathy Truitt's decision to concede the election on Monday puts the likely new school board majority in good shape to run the show for four years.

As noted in today's article, the school board's approach of electing members by district instead of countywide will make it hard for the other side to regain control in 2011. It's ironic considering that supporters of current board polices have been the ones who most fought against at-large elections.

As it now stands, three of the board seats in 2011 are held by supporters of the diversity policy. The only one that they could pick up to flip the board is the District 8 seat held by Ron Margiotta.

State Rep. Nelson Dollar is defending his decision to work for Horace Tart's Wake school board reelection campaign.

Dollar, who runs J.N. Dollar & Associates, a media and public relations consulting firm, pointed out that he had also been a consultant in Tart's 2005 campaign.

Dollar's continued involvement with Tart has raised eyebrows with some people, especially considering he attended the Wake Schools Community Alliance's February meeting in Holly Springs.

In many ways, the Wake County school system will be the legacy that Vernon Malone has left behind.

As noted in today’s article, Malone fought to merge the Raleigh City and Wake County schools despite opposition from many people. As a board member, he pushed for integration and backed the creation of the current magnet school system.

As a county commissioner, Malone fought to provide enough funding for education. More recently as a state senator, he opposed efforts he thought would cause Wake to back away from diversity, such as switching to at-large school board elections.

State Senator Vernon Malone made it pretty clear on Saturday that he's going to do what he can to block legislation that would create at-large school board elections in Wake.

During Saturday's Southeast Raleigh town hall meeting on the stimulus package, Malone said he would "block legislation" that would allows school boards to resegregate schools.

Malone, a former chairman of the Wake school board, then added he would block legislation for at-large Wake school board elections being pushed by groups that want to "play games and get the people they want on the board."

Don’t look for all of Wake County’s mayors to stand behind changing the way school board members are elected.

The Wake County Mayors Association had been working on a resolution calling for changes in how county commissioners and school board members are elected. But Holly Springs Mayor Dick Sears said they dropped it this month after they couldn’t unanimously agree on the specific changes they wanted to recommend.

They had been wrestling with whether to call for at-large school board elections, reducing the number of seats and changing when the elections are held.

It was a pretty gung-ho crowd at Thursday night's meeting in Holly Springs.

As noted in today's article, the twin goals pitched at the meeting were to get involved in this fall's school board elections and to back state legislation for at-large board seats.

Before I get started, Wake Schools Community Alliance now has a web site up that can be reached by clicking here. They're using it to help enlist people for this fall's campaign.

At-large school board elections for Wake are back before the General Assembly.

State Sen. Neal Hunt filed S-72 on Wednesday calling for four of the nine Wake school board seats to be elected on an at-large, countywide basis. The other five seats would continue to be elected on a district basis.

Hunt, who introduced a similar bill in 2007, said the purpose of his legislation is to allow voters to have a say on a majority of the school board seats.