The Wake County school system is paying longtime lobbyist Theresa Kostrzewa $35,000 to encourage the General Assembly not to pass legislation changing school ownership and school board elections.

School board chairman Keith Sutton said he picked Kostrzewa because she's effective, is willing to work for the school board and has no conflicts of interest. Last year, Kostrzewa was ranked the state's ninth-most influential lobbyist by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research.

"She's a top 10 lobbyist," Sutton said in an interview Wednesday.

Members of the Great Schools in Wake Coalition and other supporters of the Democratic school board majority turned their attention Monday on the Republican majority on the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

During the public comment section, several speakers criticized the commissioners for asking for state legislation to take over ownership of schools, to be able to give money to help build charter schools and to change the way school board members are elected. It also came with a warning.

"I hope that the Wake County Commissioners don't want to radicalize lots of middle-class parents," said Robert Siegel. "But if you do start messing with our schools, we're going to respond the same way we responded to the extremist school board of 2009. I don't think you want Wake County to become a national disgrace again."

The Wake County school board is going for full transparency in its search for a lobbyist to represent its interests against the state legislative changes being proposed by commissioners.

The school board will vote on which firm will be hired. This is a followup to the Feb. 5 vote authorizing interim Superintendent Stephen Gainey to hire a lobbyist.

School administrators say the board wants to publicly vote on naming the lobbyist Instead of leaving it up to Gainey. School board policy would have allowed Gainey to hire the lobbyist without any board vote because the contract would be for up to $100,000.

That's how the county handled the hiring of its lobbyist where no public vote was held. As this memo from County Manager David Cooke and County Attorney Scott Warren shows, county staff hired Tom Fetzer as the lobbyist and notified the commissioners after the fact.

CORRECTION

The board will vote on hiring the lobbyist but, at least as of now, it's not on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting.

Can the Wake County school board and county commissioners put aside their differences to get a school bond issue on the ballot this fall and help to get it approved?

As noted in today's artice, it's novel if not unprecedented for two governing bodies in the same county to hire lobbyists to oppose each other in the state legislature. Combine that with the harsh words exchanged at their meetings and you've got what's a dysfunctional situation.

"The thing that I think is saddest is that the legislature is going to be arbiter, rather than having them work it out for themselves," said State Rep. Deborah Ross, a Raleigh Democrat.

Wake County taxpayers are on the hook for as much as $125,000 for dueling lobbyists representing the school board and commissioners.

The school board voted Tuesday to authorize interim Superintendent Stephen Gainey to pay up to $100,000 to hire a lobbyist to oppose legislative changes commissioners want in school construction, charter school funding and school board elections.

It turns out that county commissioners already hired their own lobbyist this week. Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, said that Tom Fetzer, the former Raleigh mayor and past state Republican Party chairman, will be paid $5,000 a month — for a maximum of $25,000 — to be their lobbyist.

"My reaction is, if we're going to keep score, we're going to win,” Bryan said Wednesday in a meeting with News & Observer reporters and editors.

WakeMed, already armed with veteran PR consultants with Democratic ties, has recruited some Republican firepower.

Tom Fetzer, who plans to step down as chairman of the state GOP next month, has taken WakeMed as his first consulting client. "Hopefully there will be others," he said.

Last month, WakeMed launched a PR and political fight with its Chapel Hill rival, the UNC Health Care System. WakeMed officials have accused UNC Health of using its taxpayer support to pay for "predatory" expansion and disrupt the Wake County medical market.

To assist with its UNC Health dispute, WakeMed officials previously hired Gary Pearce and Joyce Fitzpatrick, who are well-connected public relations consultants.

Adding Fetzer gives WakeMed more political muscle on the right. 

Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta is not objecting to schools showing President Barack Obama's second annual back-to-school speech on Tuesday.

As noted in today's article, Margiotta had objected last year to the speech being shown in school and unsuccessfully tried to get his fellow school board members to vote on the issue. Margiotta, then in the board minority, had said "we just don't need political figures to take over our schools."

But Margiotta said that, based on how innocuous last year's speech was, he's not objecting this time.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR LINK TO TEXT OF OBAMA'S SPEECH ON TUESDAY

Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, said through a spokeswoman, Chrissy Pearson, that the acts by
Poole have "contributed to the overall distrust of our state leaders."

She said Perdue has been working to make changes to restore confidence in government.

"She is looking for swift justice," Pearson said. "And she looks forward to the case coming to an end."

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NCGOP Chairman Tom Fetzer made the following statement concerning the plea agreement reached today by former Easley aide Ruffin Poole:

"Mike Easley put North Carolina state government up for the sale to the highest bidder and Ruffin Poole was his lead auctioneer.  From board appointments to coastal permits, it appears everything had a price and Ruffin Poole was always there to close the deal.  The same people whose names were littered throughout the Easley hearings and the Ruffin Poole indictment were prominent players in the Perdue for Governor Campaign and her current administration.  As we move forward with yet another scandal centered around North Carolina Democrat politicians, we must ask the State Board of Elections if citizens will have to wait until after Governor Perdue is out of office before the proper questions are asked.  Until then, we must collectively hold our laughter as we are expected to believe that the same people who corrupted the Easley administration with airplane flights and bundled contributions somehow had totally pure motives when engaging in the same activity with the Perdue campaign.”

Critics of the new Wake County school board majority and conservative businessman Art Pope struck the state GOP headquarters today.

A banner was hung up this afternoon in front of the building which read “POPE BOUGHT THIS BUILDING, POPE BOUGHT THE BOARD, 3/23: DO NOT BUY IT." The banner has since been removed.

Critics of the new school board majority have increasingly argued that Pope "bought" the school board through his campaign donations to the county GOP and his support of conservative groups such as Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Institute and the John Locke Foundation.

As part of his visit with The N&O editorial board, state GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer pointed out that Americans need to remember that our sovereignty lies not with our government but with us, and he said that being an American comes with important duties and requires harder work than most realize.

He also said that we tend to overanalyze every nuance of every election and that he has come to an important realization: the ground game rules.

Here are excerpts of his talking of these things: