October 26, 2023 • 18 mins
Mom's for Liberty, State lawmakers, including Rep. Kathy Landing along with some board members, parents and church leaders are weighing in on the recent Superintendent shake up at Charleston County Schools.
Take a listen to SC Rep. Landing's in depth rundown of the evolving situation in this 'Big Fail Friday' edition of the Kelly Golden Show podcast, powered by Disaster Plus:
Take a listen to SC Rep. Landing's in depth rundown of the evolving situation in this 'Big Fail Friday' edition of the Kelly Golden Show podcast, powered by Disaster Plus:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is the Kelly Golden Show podcastHoward My Disaster plus on a Big Veil
Friday. All right, so comingup, we're going to hear from moms
for Liberty. We're going to hearfrom public officials. We're going to hear
from people in the community who wantto know what on earth is going on
with Charleston County schools, what wereally should be focusing on. In State
(00:25):
Representative Kathy Landing, I know you'regoing to be in attendance. I first
want to know why on Earth andschool board issues is our area delegation involved
as a state representative. Well,Kelly, thank you so much for having
me on and for having a chanceto share with your listeners. First of
all, let me just say forbackground for everyone, I am the only
(00:47):
Republican member of the Charleston Delegation whoserves on both the Education Committee it's the
Education Public Works Committee of the StateHouse and the K through twelve subcommittee.
So I've sat many many meetings overthe year about all the different shoes that
have been on everybody's mind, andI have tried not to weigh in on
this because I didn't feel it wasour place. But unfortunately we do have
(01:08):
people both in the delegation and nowin the municipalities who are turning this into
a political heyday, and I justdon't think that's right. It's not where
the attention belongs. That the tensionbelongs on our children and on what the
school board is trying to accomplish.Yeah, I agree, So let's talk
about what really happened here quickly withthe superintendent. Now I'm paid leave.
(01:30):
This is an investigation that needs toplay out. I continue to say that,
yet we're letting all of the minorityof loud voices take over something that
quite frankly, we don't have allthe facts about. What the public needs
to understand about what happened is ifthey haven't seen the video of the actual
(01:51):
meeting, and you can go onlineand watch that. I've watched it numerous
times. I've played that various portions. Is that there was a lot of
misunderstand after that meeting of what actuallyhappened because there was some stopping and starting.
The number one reason there was somestopping and starting. When I say
that there were two recesses, thenumber one reason for that is because people
in the public are given the opportunityto speak in public comment for two minutes
(02:15):
each, but instead what was happeningis throughout the meeting, people in the
public were shouting, They were throwingracial epithets. They were they were telling
the board that everything they were doingwas based on race and not on the
facts of the situation. So letme go back to the fact that there
was an agenda published on a Fridayafternoon for a meeting on Monday, and
(02:38):
on Friday afternoon, the executive sessionthat was described as part of this agenda
was described rather vaguely, and thereason was because it involved employee complaints.
I don't know whether it was oneperson or multiple. I do know because
I do talk to some of theboard members. Several weeks earlier, I
had heard from a couple board membersif I just simply asked, how's it
(03:00):
going, I had heard that therewere a number of long term staff members
that were very frustrated because they hadhad trouble with various issues involving our new
superintendent. Again, I know nodetails, and I even said, please
don't tell me anything I shouldn't know. I actually said that to the folks
when I was talking to them.Fast forward, complaints came in one or
(03:22):
two or however many, and theyneeded to talk about it as a board.
The reason this is done in anexecutive session and not out in the
public is to save embarrassment for everybodyinvolved, including in this case the superintendent.
So the description was vague in thatit said something I don't even know
what it said exactly as environment.Basically, yes, a hostile yeah,
(03:43):
based an employee complaint regarding a hostilework environment, and that's all it said.
So the decision that we saw itwas a vote of nine people,
was to investigate that complaint and thatwas all of the board together unanimously.
Later on they ended up having thingslike the decision to put him on paid
administrative leave. Now, the fourpeople that voted against that and didn't want
(04:08):
that to happen, and again I'mtaking a little out of order now,
so it could be that they werealready gone they left later on and didn't
vote on one of the things.But the ones that didn't want him on
paid administry of leave and are complaining. Now. The sad part is that
it's really not a good environment foranybody. If there's an investigation going on
and doctor Gallian is sitting there andpeople are being investigated and asked questions,
(04:30):
how are they going to be ableto honestly respond what the concerns are.
So it's really to protect everybody thathe was still continue to be paid.
And yes, it's unfortunate that itputs a delay on things, but at
the time that was what was needed. Let the investigation play out fast forward.
It was only a few days laterthat talk started in the Charleston delegation
(04:53):
about this idea of complaining to theAttorney General or possibly the Inspector General or
even the governor and having an investigationmade of the entire meeting. So I
want to speak on that that actuallyhappened. There was some phone calls made
by members of the delegation to investigatewhat was happening. The AG's office did
(05:16):
take a look at both the agenda, the video, the meeting, etc.
And came back with an opinion.Attorney Bob Cook wrote the opinion and
what he said was the only thinghe saw that was a miss was that
that executive session should have had moredetail as to the description of what was
going to be discussed. And Ijust want to say, coming from a
corporate background, being a businesswoman,in the last thirty nine years. In
(05:40):
an HR situation, you would neverwant to put the name of the people
involved, because again, it createsan even more hostile environment, and it's
embarrassing. We don't want to embarrassSuperintendent Gallion. My gosh, look what's
happened because of all the hay thathas been made political hay that has been
made out of this much worse situation. Yes, people would know he was
(06:02):
the one because he was put onan administrative leave, but it is intended
in an investigation like this to tryto get to the facts. Now,
what happens if this investigation ends andwe end up where the people that are
working in the office were too sensitive, or maybe it was determined that maybe
they have different political views, orthey have something maybe their expectations weren't reasonable.
(06:27):
What if it comes out that theyreally didn't have a solid complaint,
then the board will act according tothey will bring doctor Gallian back restore and
whatever they would normally do they woulddo. Unfortunately, now everything's gotten so
negative it is going to be verydifficult to even do that. Well,
and let me jump in quickly becausebeyond that, Cathy and representative landing,
if you're just tuning in here.What if it's the opposite and these people
(06:49):
actually had a claim in a caseand wind up suing the district. This
should be about protecting our tax dollarsand having the best person for the job
for children in the best education inschools. It's an hr situation, to
your point, not a political one. Yet we have these same board for
board members you mentioned that are attemptingnow to change rules to a supermajority.
(07:12):
Now we've they're flanked by politicians andpeople who shouldn't be talking about breaking up
the entire district into going back incity and town led models. I mean,
this has gotten to a ridiculous pointand it shouldn't be here. We're
not even talking about better education atkids. Well exactly, it all means
(07:33):
to be about focusing on and thechildren, and by the way, day
to day, the children, theteachers, they are doing their job.
I mean, the children are goingto school, the teachers are doing a
job. Parents would be mostly concernedabout making sure that the children are in
their classrooms. What does that haveto do with this, It has very
little. So I was about tosay, if it turns out he did
(07:54):
in fact, create a healstal workenvironment. Whatever that involves, then of
course the board has to act accordingly, and it would have been and completely
appropriate what they did no matter what. So the thing that's upsetting to me
you brought up the point about thelatest political Let's talk about the delegation for
a second. That meeting that wascalled by the Charleston delegation I did not
attend. I actually was overseas.I could not attend. I did send
(08:16):
a proxy in case there was avote, and I did text several times
during the meeting to see what washappening so I could stay in touch.
And it was mostly it was mostlypublicized to get a lot of people from
i'll just say the left side ofthe aisle in terms of their opinions,
and a lot of the public,parents' principles, etc. Teachers worked up
(08:39):
as if to think that the delegationcould do something. Now at that point,
the only purpose for that meeting wasto hear the complaints. There was
really nothing the delegation could do atthat point. And so my concern was
that we're going to create a lotof emotion and excitement and upset and expectations
that some major action could happen,like removing somebody from their office as a
(09:03):
school bred member. We can't dothat. The public does that, the
public votes, they do that atthe ballot box. More chaos by design,
unfortunately. So it was a threeand a half hour, horrible,
painful process of people just upset,complaining, and maybe they felt like they
were in the right place, butif you come back to the basics of
(09:24):
what was going on, there wasan investigation of a work hostile work environment
complaint period, and so there wasno reason for all of that. And
so it's very sad because it's notthat I don't respect those people's time.
Quite the opposite. I respect itvery much, and I feel that that
was a very misleading political dog andpony show. Yeah, lots of public
(09:46):
we're just in the wrong place atthe wrong time in this country and in
the Low Country to be whipping uphistoryonics over politics and public schools. But
unfortunately, Kathy, this has beenin the playbooks for decades in the Charleston
County schools, and we're not talkingabout making education better for kids. We're
(10:09):
talking about political haymaking. We're talkingabout things that and listening to politicians and
people who like the mayor of theCity of Charleston, for example. This
guy's running for reelection. Anyway youcan get attention, he's going to.
So I'm glad you said that becausethe press conference that was done yesterday,
I listened to it and I amabsolutely stunned at the things that were said.
(10:31):
And it's very, very obvious thatthis was politically to get attention,
because we're two weeks to the dayyesterday from the election for mayor, and
from what I have heard, andI just heard this yesterday, the polls
are showing that in a head tohead there's a lot of candidates, but
in a head to head between williamsCogswell and Mayor Tekelnberg, that William Coswell
(10:52):
would come out ahead. So I'msure he's looking at Tekelelnberg's looking The mayor
is looking for anything that he canto get additional attention, int like he
cares more about the people. Butthe reality is what was said, and
there were a number of things thatI want to call aside. First of
all, this idea that we shouldgo back from single member districts to at
large. This was a decision intwenty nineteen prior to when I was on
(11:16):
the State House as a representative ofMount Pleasident District Gatty, but rather I
was on town council. That decisionwas made by the Charleston delegation where they
voted and they proposed a bill whichwent to the General Assembly. And the
reason they did it, In fact, there's an excellent piece out by Sarah
Shad Johnson in the Posting Courier aboutthis. The reason they did it was
(11:37):
because they'd had numerous problems with disadvantagedcommunities not having a voice, and normally
single member districts helped make it morefair for everybody. So the intention all
along, and it was a bipartisandecision. If anything, it was pushed
by the Democratic side. So theidea that what we have now just because
in that election five conservatives and edup being voted into office. And I
(12:01):
want to also address that. Sothese were people elected by their peers,
and we hear over and over andover again from the left leaning side,
and I hate to keep bringing itup that way, but that's how it's
been that this is a Mom's forLiberty board. That is complete nonsense.
The Mom's for Liberty is an activistgroup of soccer moms who became aware during
(12:24):
the pandemic of problems like not havingthe ability to decide whether their children should
wear masks, potentially not having theability to decide whether their children would have
to have vaccines, and finding outabout a lot of things that were being
taught in the schools that they didn'trealize until there was virtual learning. So
let's put that aside. But anybodywho keeps saying the Mom's for Liberty Board
is ignoring the facts. The factsare several of those five members were endorsed
(12:50):
by the Posting Courier, one ofthem was endorsed by the Democratic Party and
the Coalition for Kids, which tendsto be considered a little bit more liberal
or left leaning. So the factsare, it's not a Mom's for Liberty
board. They don't hold any undueinfluence. They simply are a group that
put out a slay early on.So this board is in place because the
(13:11):
community with single member districts decided thisis who they wanted to represent them.
It is the ballot box. Itis the voters of each of those districts
that have the right to remove somebody. And if you don't like what a
member is saying, or you thinkthat what they're saying isn't right, whether
it's I feel very badly for CarlottaBailey because regardless of whether someone agrees with
(13:31):
what she said or not, shefelt she was representing her district and she
was saying things that she felt werehelpful. She was also, from what
I understand, kind of entrapped intothat recording. But anyway, separate points.
Yesterday's mayoral conference was very disturbing.And here's why there would be no
(13:54):
way the General Assembly should now takethis back up and go back and change
it to at large. Is ina way the General Assembly should get involved
or even the Charleston delegation in turningthis into a super majority decision six to
three. They want that because theywant to be able to say, well,
they'll never be able to get sixconservatives, so then they'll never be
able to do anything. We justgot at the Education Committee and at the
(14:20):
school Board, we received this yearthe scores of how children are doing in
Charleston County on math and on Englishlanguage yards. There was a little improvement
in English language yards, and that'sgreat, but after coming out of the
pandemic you would expect a big improvementgoing back to the classrooms on math,
we actually went down, We wentbackwards. We need to be focusing on
(14:43):
reading, writing, and arithmetic andgetting our children's education time used wisely as
the teachers want to do. Allthis pressure politically is doing nothing to help.
And you can't say it's because ofwhat's happened since the new school board.
This is history. This is whatbeen going on in Charleston County for
a long time. So then explainto me how the mayor in your area,
(15:07):
in the area that you represent,and also the chairman of the delegation
here in Charleston, Joe bussays,how do they not understand everything that you
just spelled out. I cannot speakfor them. I can only tell you
the facts as I know them,and the facts as I know them is
that there is no way this CharlestonDelegation should take a look at the single
member districts and go backwards. Itdoesn't make any sense. The decision was
(15:30):
only made a couple of years ago, and it was made at the time
for the reasons that really should beapplauded and were at the time applauded by
people who are either Democrat or moreleft leaning in their viewpoint, so it
doesn't make any sense to even talkabout those things. Another thing I want
to address because I was the economicdevelopment chair for four years when I was
on Mount Pleasant Town Council. Youwant to talk about we heard a lot
(15:54):
yesterday about this is destroying the wayCharleston appears and the good will that we've
created and you know, businesses wantingto come here. It is a reference
to businesses that won't want to comehere and take you know, industries that
won't want to come here because ofour school board. I'm sorry, I'm
just going to say this outside thatis complete nonsense. You want to know
(16:14):
what impacts economic development when you havea mayor, and we had two of
them who mandated vaccines for all oftheir town's staff and lost many many first
responders. I heard just yesterday froma former first responder from North Charleston.
Over forty first responders walked off thejob in North Charleston because the vaccine mandates
(16:36):
there, and they have not beenable to replace some of those positions.
I don't know how many, butthey have not been able to place them.
That same thing happened in Charleston,only the numbers were bigger. You
want to talk about something that worriescompanies when they come here, when they
don't even have enough first responders andthey see something like the King Street riots
at twenty twenty. I was therethe morning after those riots, cleaning up
(16:57):
glass on King Street and talking tothis owners and listening to them. And
I can tell you for a fact, and I also as a town council
member, had a video sent tous all of us that night, the
night before when it was happening,from our police who were there on mutual
aid. They were not allowed toengage when the riots started. They were
(17:18):
told to stand down. And I'mnot going to say who told them that
order, but I know for afact that Chief Richie finally, our chief,
who was not there but was commandingfrom where he was, he had
to finally get them to engage separately. And then the Charleston police finally got
involved. But for I don't knowhow long it was now, and I
have at least one hundred and twentyeight to one hundred and thirty business were
(17:38):
either destroyed. You want to talkabout something that hurt economic development, Let's
talk about that let's leave the schoolboard alone to do their job and to
see what happens with this investigation.When the results come out, we'll know
and that'll be the end of thatbecause they'll act on it and then move
forward. There is no reason forall this, but what it looks like
to me right now is that alot of people are trying to make political
(17:59):
heap out of something to score asmany points as they can based on emotion.
This Big Fail Friday edition of TheKelly Golden Show podcast is powered by
Disaster Plus.
This is the Kelly Golden Show podcastHoward My Disaster plus on a Big Veil
Friday. All right, so comingup, we're going to hear from moms
for Liberty. We're going to hearfrom public officials. We're going to hear
from people in the community who wantto know what on earth is going on
with Charleston County schools, what wereally should be focusing on. In State
(00:25):
Representative Kathy Landing, I know you'regoing to be in attendance. I first
want to know why on Earth andschool board issues is our area delegation involved
as a state representative. Well,Kelly, thank you so much for having
me on and for having a chanceto share with your listeners. First of
all, let me just say forbackground for everyone, I am the only
(00:47):
Republican member of the Charleston Delegation whoserves on both the Education Committee it's the
Education Public Works Committee of the StateHouse and the K through twelve subcommittee.
So I've sat many many meetings overthe year about all the different shoes that
have been on everybody's mind, andI have tried not to weigh in on
this because I didn't feel it wasour place. But unfortunately we do have
(01:08):
people both in the delegation and nowin the municipalities who are turning this into
a political heyday, and I justdon't think that's right. It's not where
the attention belongs. That the tensionbelongs on our children and on what the
school board is trying to accomplish.Yeah, I agree, So let's talk
about what really happened here quickly withthe superintendent. Now I'm paid leave.
(01:30):
This is an investigation that needs toplay out. I continue to say that,
yet we're letting all of the minorityof loud voices take over something that
quite frankly, we don't have allthe facts about. What the public needs
to understand about what happened is ifthey haven't seen the video of the actual
(01:51):
meeting, and you can go onlineand watch that. I've watched it numerous
times. I've played that various portions. Is that there was a lot of
misunderstand after that meeting of what actuallyhappened because there was some stopping and starting.
The number one reason there was somestopping and starting. When I say
that there were two recesses, thenumber one reason for that is because people
in the public are given the opportunityto speak in public comment for two minutes
(02:15):
each, but instead what was happeningis throughout the meeting, people in the
public were shouting, They were throwingracial epithets. They were they were telling
the board that everything they were doingwas based on race and not on the
facts of the situation. So letme go back to the fact that there
was an agenda published on a Fridayafternoon for a meeting on Monday, and
(02:38):
on Friday afternoon, the executive sessionthat was described as part of this agenda
was described rather vaguely, and thereason was because it involved employee complaints.
I don't know whether it was oneperson or multiple. I do know because
I do talk to some of theboard members. Several weeks earlier, I
had heard from a couple board membersif I just simply asked, how's it
(03:00):
going, I had heard that therewere a number of long term staff members
that were very frustrated because they hadhad trouble with various issues involving our new
superintendent. Again, I know nodetails, and I even said, please
don't tell me anything I shouldn't know. I actually said that to the folks
when I was talking to them.Fast forward, complaints came in one or
(03:22):
two or however many, and theyneeded to talk about it as a board.
The reason this is done in anexecutive session and not out in the
public is to save embarrassment for everybodyinvolved, including in this case the superintendent.
So the description was vague in thatit said something I don't even know
what it said exactly as environment.Basically, yes, a hostile yeah,
(03:43):
based an employee complaint regarding a hostilework environment, and that's all it said.
So the decision that we saw itwas a vote of nine people,
was to investigate that complaint and thatwas all of the board together unanimously.
Later on they ended up having thingslike the decision to put him on paid
administrative leave. Now, the fourpeople that voted against that and didn't want
(04:08):
that to happen, and again I'mtaking a little out of order now,
so it could be that they werealready gone they left later on and didn't
vote on one of the things.But the ones that didn't want him on
paid administry of leave and are complaining. Now. The sad part is that
it's really not a good environment foranybody. If there's an investigation going on
and doctor Gallian is sitting there andpeople are being investigated and asked questions,
(04:30):
how are they going to be ableto honestly respond what the concerns are.
So it's really to protect everybody thathe was still continue to be paid.
And yes, it's unfortunate that itputs a delay on things, but at
the time that was what was needed. Let the investigation play out fast forward.
It was only a few days laterthat talk started in the Charleston delegation
(04:53):
about this idea of complaining to theAttorney General or possibly the Inspector General or
even the governor and having an investigationmade of the entire meeting. So I
want to speak on that that actuallyhappened. There was some phone calls made
by members of the delegation to investigatewhat was happening. The AG's office did
(05:16):
take a look at both the agenda, the video, the meeting, etc.
And came back with an opinion.Attorney Bob Cook wrote the opinion and
what he said was the only thinghe saw that was a miss was that
that executive session should have had moredetail as to the description of what was
going to be discussed. And Ijust want to say, coming from a
corporate background, being a businesswoman,in the last thirty nine years. In
(05:40):
an HR situation, you would neverwant to put the name of the people
involved, because again, it createsan even more hostile environment, and it's
embarrassing. We don't want to embarrassSuperintendent Gallion. My gosh, look what's
happened because of all the hay thathas been made political hay that has been
made out of this much worse situation. Yes, people would know he was
(06:02):
the one because he was put onan administrative leave, but it is intended
in an investigation like this to tryto get to the facts. Now,
what happens if this investigation ends andwe end up where the people that are
working in the office were too sensitive, or maybe it was determined that maybe
they have different political views, orthey have something maybe their expectations weren't reasonable.
(06:27):
What if it comes out that theyreally didn't have a solid complaint,
then the board will act according tothey will bring doctor Gallian back restore and
whatever they would normally do they woulddo. Unfortunately, now everything's gotten so
negative it is going to be verydifficult to even do that. Well,
and let me jump in quickly becausebeyond that, Cathy and representative landing,
if you're just tuning in here.What if it's the opposite and these people
(06:49):
actually had a claim in a caseand wind up suing the district. This
should be about protecting our tax dollarsand having the best person for the job
for children in the best education inschools. It's an hr situation, to
your point, not a political one. Yet we have these same board for
board members you mentioned that are attemptingnow to change rules to a supermajority.
(07:12):
Now we've they're flanked by politicians andpeople who shouldn't be talking about breaking up
the entire district into going back incity and town led models. I mean,
this has gotten to a ridiculous pointand it shouldn't be here. We're
not even talking about better education atkids. Well exactly, it all means
(07:33):
to be about focusing on and thechildren, and by the way, day
to day, the children, theteachers, they are doing their job.
I mean, the children are goingto school, the teachers are doing a
job. Parents would be mostly concernedabout making sure that the children are in
their classrooms. What does that haveto do with this, It has very
little. So I was about tosay, if it turns out he did
(07:54):
in fact, create a healstal workenvironment. Whatever that involves, then of
course the board has to act accordingly, and it would have been and completely
appropriate what they did no matter what. So the thing that's upsetting to me
you brought up the point about thelatest political Let's talk about the delegation for
a second. That meeting that wascalled by the Charleston delegation I did not
attend. I actually was overseas.I could not attend. I did send
(08:16):
a proxy in case there was avote, and I did text several times
during the meeting to see what washappening so I could stay in touch.
And it was mostly it was mostlypublicized to get a lot of people from
i'll just say the left side ofthe aisle in terms of their opinions,
and a lot of the public,parents' principles, etc. Teachers worked up
(08:39):
as if to think that the delegationcould do something. Now at that point,
the only purpose for that meeting wasto hear the complaints. There was
really nothing the delegation could do atthat point. And so my concern was
that we're going to create a lotof emotion and excitement and upset and expectations
that some major action could happen,like removing somebody from their office as a
(09:03):
school bred member. We can't dothat. The public does that, the
public votes, they do that atthe ballot box. More chaos by design,
unfortunately. So it was a threeand a half hour, horrible,
painful process of people just upset,complaining, and maybe they felt like they
were in the right place, butif you come back to the basics of
(09:24):
what was going on, there wasan investigation of a work hostile work environment
complaint period, and so there wasno reason for all of that. And
so it's very sad because it's notthat I don't respect those people's time.
Quite the opposite. I respect itvery much, and I feel that that
was a very misleading political dog andpony show. Yeah, lots of public
(09:46):
we're just in the wrong place atthe wrong time in this country and in
the Low Country to be whipping uphistoryonics over politics and public schools. But
unfortunately, Kathy, this has beenin the playbooks for decades in the Charleston
County schools, and we're not talkingabout making education better for kids. We're
(10:09):
talking about political haymaking. We're talkingabout things that and listening to politicians and
people who like the mayor of theCity of Charleston, for example. This
guy's running for reelection. Anyway youcan get attention, he's going to.
So I'm glad you said that becausethe press conference that was done yesterday,
I listened to it and I amabsolutely stunned at the things that were said.
(10:31):
And it's very, very obvious thatthis was politically to get attention,
because we're two weeks to the dayyesterday from the election for mayor, and
from what I have heard, andI just heard this yesterday, the polls
are showing that in a head tohead there's a lot of candidates, but
in a head to head between williamsCogswell and Mayor Tekelnberg, that William Coswell
(10:52):
would come out ahead. So I'msure he's looking at Tekelelnberg's looking The mayor
is looking for anything that he canto get additional attention, int like he
cares more about the people. Butthe reality is what was said, and
there were a number of things thatI want to call aside. First of
all, this idea that we shouldgo back from single member districts to at
large. This was a decision intwenty nineteen prior to when I was on
(11:16):
the State House as a representative ofMount Pleasident District Gatty, but rather I
was on town council. That decisionwas made by the Charleston delegation where they
voted and they proposed a bill whichwent to the General Assembly. And the
reason they did it, In fact, there's an excellent piece out by Sarah
Shad Johnson in the Posting Courier aboutthis. The reason they did it was
(11:37):
because they'd had numerous problems with disadvantagedcommunities not having a voice, and normally
single member districts helped make it morefair for everybody. So the intention all
along, and it was a bipartisandecision. If anything, it was pushed
by the Democratic side. So theidea that what we have now just because
in that election five conservatives and edup being voted into office. And I
(12:01):
want to also address that. Sothese were people elected by their peers,
and we hear over and over andover again from the left leaning side,
and I hate to keep bringing itup that way, but that's how it's
been that this is a Mom's forLiberty board. That is complete nonsense.
The Mom's for Liberty is an activistgroup of soccer moms who became aware during
(12:24):
the pandemic of problems like not havingthe ability to decide whether their children should
wear masks, potentially not having theability to decide whether their children would have
to have vaccines, and finding outabout a lot of things that were being
taught in the schools that they didn'trealize until there was virtual learning. So
let's put that aside. But anybodywho keeps saying the Mom's for Liberty Board
is ignoring the facts. The factsare several of those five members were endorsed
(12:50):
by the Posting Courier, one ofthem was endorsed by the Democratic Party and
the Coalition for Kids, which tendsto be considered a little bit more liberal
or left leaning. So the factsare, it's not a Mom's for Liberty
board. They don't hold any undueinfluence. They simply are a group that
put out a slay early on.So this board is in place because the
(13:11):
community with single member districts decided thisis who they wanted to represent them.
It is the ballot box. Itis the voters of each of those districts
that have the right to remove somebody. And if you don't like what a
member is saying, or you thinkthat what they're saying isn't right, whether
it's I feel very badly for CarlottaBailey because regardless of whether someone agrees with
(13:31):
what she said or not, shefelt she was representing her district and she
was saying things that she felt werehelpful. She was also, from what
I understand, kind of entrapped intothat recording. But anyway, separate points.
Yesterday's mayoral conference was very disturbing.And here's why there would be no
(13:54):
way the General Assembly should now takethis back up and go back and change
it to at large. Is ina way the General Assembly should get involved
or even the Charleston delegation in turningthis into a super majority decision six to
three. They want that because theywant to be able to say, well,
they'll never be able to get sixconservatives, so then they'll never be
able to do anything. We justgot at the Education Committee and at the
(14:20):
school Board, we received this yearthe scores of how children are doing in
Charleston County on math and on Englishlanguage yards. There was a little improvement
in English language yards, and that'sgreat, but after coming out of the
pandemic you would expect a big improvementgoing back to the classrooms on math,
we actually went down, We wentbackwards. We need to be focusing on
(14:43):
reading, writing, and arithmetic andgetting our children's education time used wisely as
the teachers want to do. Allthis pressure politically is doing nothing to help.
And you can't say it's because ofwhat's happened since the new school board.
This is history. This is whatbeen going on in Charleston County for
a long time. So then explainto me how the mayor in your area,
(15:07):
in the area that you represent,and also the chairman of the delegation
here in Charleston, Joe bussays,how do they not understand everything that you
just spelled out. I cannot speakfor them. I can only tell you
the facts as I know them,and the facts as I know them is
that there is no way this CharlestonDelegation should take a look at the single
member districts and go backwards. Itdoesn't make any sense. The decision was
(15:30):
only made a couple of years ago, and it was made at the time
for the reasons that really should beapplauded and were at the time applauded by
people who are either Democrat or moreleft leaning in their viewpoint, so it
doesn't make any sense to even talkabout those things. Another thing I want
to address because I was the economicdevelopment chair for four years when I was
on Mount Pleasant Town Council. Youwant to talk about we heard a lot
(15:54):
yesterday about this is destroying the wayCharleston appears and the good will that we've
created and you know, businesses wantingto come here. It is a reference
to businesses that won't want to comehere and take you know, industries that
won't want to come here because ofour school board. I'm sorry, I'm
just going to say this outside thatis complete nonsense. You want to know
(16:14):
what impacts economic development when you havea mayor, and we had two of
them who mandated vaccines for all oftheir town's staff and lost many many first
responders. I heard just yesterday froma former first responder from North Charleston.
Over forty first responders walked off thejob in North Charleston because the vaccine mandates
(16:36):
there, and they have not beenable to replace some of those positions.
I don't know how many, butthey have not been able to place them.
That same thing happened in Charleston,only the numbers were bigger. You
want to talk about something that worriescompanies when they come here, when they
don't even have enough first responders andthey see something like the King Street riots
at twenty twenty. I was therethe morning after those riots, cleaning up
(16:57):
glass on King Street and talking tothis owners and listening to them. And
I can tell you for a fact, and I also as a town council
member, had a video sent tous all of us that night, the
night before when it was happening,from our police who were there on mutual
aid. They were not allowed toengage when the riots started. They were
(17:18):
told to stand down. And I'mnot going to say who told them that
order, but I know for afact that Chief Richie finally, our chief,
who was not there but was commandingfrom where he was, he had
to finally get them to engage separately. And then the Charleston police finally got
involved. But for I don't knowhow long it was now, and I
have at least one hundred and twentyeight to one hundred and thirty business were
(17:38):
either destroyed. You want to talkabout something that hurt economic development, Let's
talk about that let's leave the schoolboard alone to do their job and to
see what happens with this investigation.When the results come out, we'll know
and that'll be the end of thatbecause they'll act on it and then move
forward. There is no reason forall this, but what it looks like
to me right now is that alot of people are trying to make political
(17:59):
heap out of something to score asmany points as they can based on emotion.
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