We’re in the home-stretch of the primary election season for 2022. Early voting begins in just over two weeks. It’s time to shed some light on some interesting races and make some early predictions.

Note: For state primary races, you need at least 30% of the vote to secure your party’s spot in the General Election. If no candidate wins 30%, there is a run-off.

NC Senate District 19

Republicans: Wesley Meredith and Dennis Britt

Meredith is going to win the primary. He has the money and name recognition from holding the seat in the past.

Democrats: Kirk deViere (incumbent), Val Applewhite, Ed Donaldson

This is going to be a horse-race between deViere and Applewhite and they know it. Each has begun to attack the other with negative mailers. Applewhite’s latest mailer compares deViere to Trump.

DeViere is fighting for his political future, and this one is too early to predict. It’s likely this race will have some fireworks in the next few weeks, but unless some kind of hydrogen bomb is dropped, it’s not going to matter. This primary is going to be won on the ground, door-to-door, person-to-person.

Advantage: The one with the most stamina.

NC House District 44

Republicans: None. The winner of the Democratic Primary gets the seat.

Democrats: Charles Smith and Terry Johnson

• Terry Johnson came within a few hundred votes of upsetting Billy Richardson in this district two years ago. Richardson announced he was retiring, leaving the seat open this time around.

• Charles Smith is a 30-year-old attorney that works for Johnathan Charleston’s law firm. Charleston has been in the news a lot lately. If there’s a controversy in municipal government, Charleston tends to be around: PWC Lobbying/Tisha Waddell’s Resignation, Spring Lake Finances, Halfway House on Cain Road, etc. His associate, Smith, looks the part, but I couldn’t tell you a reason why he is running or what he’ll do if he wins.

If I could predict this race right now, I think Johnson wins it by 5-10 points. He’ll align his campaign with Applewhite’s and benefit from her coattails and grassroots organization. You’ll see a lot of their signs together:

The majority of voters in the Democratic primary will be black, and Smith needs to give them a compelling reason to choose him. Time is running out.

Advantage: Johnson

District Court Judge – Seat 6

Republicans: None.

Democrats: Adam Phillips, Rosalyn Hood, Sherry Miller

• Adam Phillips is a former public defender and was appointed to the seat by Roy Cooper after April Smith retired. April Smith recently endorsed Phillips. A video of Smith’s endorsement can been seen on Phillips’ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075747082125
• Rosalyn Hood is a prosecutor and has run for District Court Judge in the past.
• Sherry Miller is a family law/divorce attorney.

The three-way nature of this race gives Phillips an edge. Women have dominated county-wide judicial races lately, but there’s two of them on this ballot this time.

At the same time, Hood will get the financial support of a lot of attorneys, many African American like herself.

It’s going to be an interesting race.

Advantage: Phillips, barely.

I’ll try to cover some City races in the next couple of weeks. If you’re a candidate and wish to post something on crosscreekdivide.com, feel free to reach out.

A list of all current candidates can be found here: https://www.cumberlandcountync.gov/docs/default-source/board-of-elections-documents/current_candidate_list.pdf?sfvrsn=f8b1c098_164

For as long as I can remember, Cumberland County has been chopped up into various Congressional Districts. This limits our influence in Washington and our ability to elect “one of our own” to Congress.

Due to recent court rulings, the legislature was forced to redraw the Congressional map, and for a short while, it looked like we might finally get our chance.

Our new “District 7” looked like this:

It was essentially the “Cape Fear River” District, and it was competitive. Either a Democrat or a Republican could win it. As a proponent of moderation in a time of partisan insanity, this was a dream.

Like most dreams, it was too good to be true. The courts got involved again and re-drew the re-draw.

The map now looks like this:

Fayetteville is split in two. My every-other-day running loop is now in two congressional districts:

The new District 7 and District 9 are not “competitive.” A Republican will win each, easily.

What It Means

Fayetteville’s voting power in Washington will remain diluted for the foreseeable future. It will be difficult for a Cumberland resident to win one of these seats. Our best hope is a local Republican with resources and political savvy, and perhaps a boat to ride up or down the Cape Fear River and make a big enough splash.

The Cumberland County School Board has a communication problem. It’s not about their methods. As a parent of public school children, I get a text message, phone call, and email from the school system almost nightly. The problem is their messaging. They never really tell you what’s going on. A perfect example was this week:

On New Years Day, the School Board announced an emergency meeting for Tuesday, the day before school was set to resume on Wednesday. Most of us found out on Facebook. Their plan is to shut down all the schools again. They tell us it’s just for three days. The reason is Covid. I’m guessing that a lot of the staff of Cumberland County Schools, like a lot of other Cumberland County residents, caught omicron in the recent wave.

The recent updates from the school system say that “no decision has been made,” so the parents of students in Cumberland County will get about 24 hours notice as to whether they’ll need child care for their kids this week.

People are understandably upset, but they don’t get to express their frustrations. The Board is not allowing public comment at the meeting.

Prior to the vote, the Board is going to go into a closed session to get advice from their attorney. This meeting shouldn’t be behind closed doors. Instead, it should be live-streamed for every parent to see. Here’s what they’ll be discussing in that room:

New Law Governing Covid School Shutdowns

A few months ago, the N.C. Legislature amended our laws, both restricting and empowering school systems to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Click “download” to view the entire document:

The Board plans to close schools under the following section:

(b) A public school unit in a county that has received a good cause waiver, as provided in G.S. 115C-84.2(d), for the school year may use up to 15 remote instruction days or 90 remote instruction hours when schools are unable to open due to severe weather conditions, energy shortages, power failures, or other emergency situations and may use that time towards the required instructional days or hours for the school calendar. All other public school units may use up to five remote instruction days or 30 remote instruction hours when schools are unable to open due to severe weather conditions, energy shortages, power failures, or other emergency situations and may use that time towards the required instructional days or hours for the school calendar.

Notice that the word “Covid” is not in the section above.

Now read this section:

PART IIIA. REMOTE INSTRUCTION FOR COVID-19 EMERGENCIES

SECTION 3A. Notwithstanding G.S. 115C-84.3, as enacted by this act, a public school unit shall have the authority to make day-to-day decisions for the 2021-2022 school year concerning whether shifting individual schools or individual classrooms that are providing in-person instruction to temporary remote instruction is necessary due to COVID-19 exposures that result in insufficient school personnel or required student quarantines. A public school unit shall report any shift by a school or classroom from in-person to temporary remote instruction as provided in this section to the Department of Public Instruction within 72 hours of the shift and shall return to in-person instruction as soon as personnel are available or the required quarantines are complete.

Notice the difference? If you have a staff shortage due to Covid, you’re supposed to address it on an individual school or individual classroom basis. You then get the kids back into the closed school or closed classroom as soon as you can. You don’t shut the whole school system down!

It’s really that simple.

Why don’t we try following this brand new law and see if it works?

It’s time we take what we’ve learned and push forward as best we can.

The real emergency in our school system is the damage we continue to do to our children with our one-size-fails-all approach to the pandemic.