Just when I was beginning to think that no one was paying attention, late this week my faith was restored.
When Dennis Whitling was initially accused of embezzlement from his employer of 23 years, the local media was quick to report the story. When Ted Triebel pulled out a late-meeting surprise and announced that Dennis had resigned from the Board in disgrace, it was quickly covered by the local media.
But, when it was made public last month that Dennis had surrendered his law license and agreed to be disbarred in what appeared to be a preliminary step toward a plea agreement, only the Durham Herald-Sun reported the story.
When the second shoe dropped earlier this month, and the NC Department of Corrections released information that Dennis had be convicted of felony embezzlement on August 7th, I anxiously waited to see what additional details the media would report. The silence was deafening.
Nothing in the Durham Herald-Sun; nothing in the Raleigh News and Observer; nothing on WRAL. That was until this week.
This Wednesday, The News of Orange County finally published a story on Dennis's conviction - nearly two weeks after the fact, and nine days after I first reported it here. I guess better late than never.
Now that it is finally hit the press, other sites have decided to discuss the issue.
In what is her second posting on Dennis's travails [I still love her opening comment from last January: "Does anyone know this Dennis Whitling fellow?"], Ruby Sinreich of OrangePolitics.org has taken notice of the development and is publicizing it outside the shrinking world of News of Orange County subscribers.
Ruby closes her post with, "Good thing he was only on the School Board for 3 years."
Looking back on the past year and a half, I have to say - Too bad he was ever on the School Board at all.
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5 comments:
Yes, the imbalance of the media was alarming. It seemed easy to paint the parents as the bane of society (yes, we helped in this sometimes) and yet never hold the Board's feet to the fire.
And yet, we were right. The merger was never about helping Central kids, it was never backed by research and Central's imbalance was made worse by the redistricting. We said that from the beginning and we were right.
On my bad days, I wish we could make a bill board out of this and put in the parking lot of the BOE. We were right and you were irresponsible in trying to first sneak the proposal by and then ram it down everyone's throat.
So here we are 20 months later and I think of what might have been accomplished if the school board had acted in a more inclusive manner. What would Central look like now? It passed AYP and Cameron didn't. What does that mean? How will we keep all of the kids on track for a great education?
With a new superintendent and Board Chair, maybe some of the holier-than-thou attitude can be checked at the door.
What would it take to have every school pass? What can we learn from Wake County and growth? Are we looking at growth and over crowding issue five years out? Let's get back on track and be the envy of other districts.
What would it take for this debacle to be water under the bridge? I think we have the opportunity to move on and have a great year or to continue dragging the elephant with us.
The choice is ours.
MWL
True, the choice is ours. MWL, you are an intelligent person and so are most of the people involved with this blog so I'll pose some questions:
Just how will we remember the violence done to our children? How will we vet potential board members?
How will we inform the county of the consequences of poor choices when the next round of elections come, and the next, and the next?
How do we ensure that we get the right attitude from all future boards and its employees?
So few people care about this issue any more that a only a weekly paper that got its information a week in arrears from this blog is the ONLY publication in the county to carry the closing chapter of the saga of DAW, yet still has not connected the dots.
How do we keep this from happening again. When we figure that out, my faith will be restored.
FCL
The Board has a four hundred pound gorilla that won't go away...a gorilla in the form of a convicted felon thief.
The current Board needs to take steps to correct what has happened in the past. They need to investigate the magnitude, if any, kickbacks and corruption occurred under the convicted felon thief's watch. Dig deep--that's their fuduciary responsibilty.
I guess the best way to go forward would be an apology from the Board. I hate to be negative, but I don't see that ever happening. Honestly, I think the BOE made a step in the right direction by replacing Ted and Debbie as leaders. They were too involved with some highly antagonistic racial comments.
Next, I think some of the basic issues that are facing schools right now need to be addressed. The facilities that are crumbling need the funding to get up to par.
Prior to the HES/merger fight, I didn't know any of the school board members. That was a huge mistake. So to answer some of the questions posed, we must ALL conduct due diligence prior to voting for county commissioners and school board members. The county comm. controls the budget and that is key to getting the schools back to an acceptable level.
Okay, let me get out my soap box. Every parent must do their part in raising their child to be a responsible citizen. I am so disturbed by the behavior of some kids. I would never teach in todays schools. We let our kids watch trash on TV and somehow expect them to show up at school and behave and learn. It isn't happening folks. We all must do our part in teaching respect for others - especially the teacher.
Okay, I'm done. Well - one more comment on the DAW conviction. I think the BOE needs to write a press release that says something like: The School Board is aware of the conviction of Dennis Whitling. As part of a thorough analysis, we have ask an outside accounting firm to conduct an audit of funds that were dispersed under Mr. Whitling's purview. We apologize that the tax payers of Orange County must bear the cost of this audit, however, we believe that it is necessary to ensure that funds were spent responsibly. The final report will be available in January of 2009 and will be presented to the BoE at the first meeting of the new year.
It's called an olive branch people and IMO the board needs to offer one. It would be step #2 in working together as a community.
MWL
I agree with MWL that the board needs to appoint an outside accounting firm to conduct an audit on possible misappropriations. The Board needs to either clear his name or uncover potential fraud.
In regards to MWL's other point, I do agree we should raise our children to become responsible citizens. The unfortunate acts performed by Dennis Whitling is very hard to explain to a child. Trying to explain how a person of Dennis's authority would commit a felony is hard. I don't blame the Board for Dennis's crimes. They didn't rob the Stevens law firm. However, Dennis is their buddy, and they are unwilling to cause him any further harm.
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