Education cuts: 'Horrific, dangerous and scary'

Mad about state education cuts? Here's how to tell lawmakers how you feel.

The state's budget shortfall is driving talk of hundreds more layoffs in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and that's prompting local parents and taxpayers to perk up to the goings-on in Raleigh.

In a conference call this morning, state Rep. Tricia Cotham, who was an assistant principal at East Mecklenburg High before joining the legislature, called some of education cuts outlined by a House subcommittee "horrific, dangerous and scary."

CMS parent Kelly Langston is worried, too.

"I want to try to get parents mobilized to start an aggressive contact campaign to these representatives to protect our classrooms," she e-mailed after reading that Superintendent Peter Gorman is preparing $33 million more in cuts. "What representatives are on these committees so that any calls and letters could be directed to them, specifically? I am hoping to help support the teachers by getting a campaign underway very quickly."

Paper Trail set out not only to find the contact information, but to help budget watchdogs compare the three education budget proposals that are out there, from the House subcommittee, the Senate and Gov. Bev Perdue. Once the House approves a budget, as early as next week, a joint House-Senate committee will hash out a budget for approval this summer.

Comparing the three is a glimpse of an economy in decline. Perdue's budget, which came first, would spend $8.2 billion on public education (community colleges and universities are separate). She'd cut $6.5 million from salaries and benefits for central-office administrators in local school districts. She'd shave a million from More at Four, the state's prekindergarten program, by eliminating 202 slots that weren't claimed by 4-year-olds this year.

The Senate budget, which came next, echoes her central-office cuts and moves More at Four into another department's budget. It would cut $322.7 million in 2009-10 by bumping up class sizes by two students per teacher, which means teacher jobs will disappear. That total is $7.6 billion for public schools.

The House subcommittee's $6.9 billion budget, just posted Thursday, takes $9 million from central-office staff and $10 million from More at Four. It makes the same class-size bump as the Senate's budget in 2009-10, but adds one more student per teacher in 2010-11, for a $463 million cut that year.

There's a whole lot more, but don't be daunted by the page count. The line items for public-education cuts are only about seven pages each in the House and Senate budgets.

Click here to read the N.C. House committee's education budget.

Contact members of the House committee.

Click here to read the N.C. senate's budget plan.

Contact members of the Senate budget committee.

Click here to read the governor's education budget proposal.

Contact Gov. Bev Perdue.

- Ann Doss Helms

'Runway incursions': Rare, but rising

FAA data shows an increase in incidents such as last week's near-collision of two planes at Charlottte/Douglas International Airport runway.

As described in an Observer story, the Federal Aviation Administration reports 24 runway incursions at CLT in the last six years.

Last Friday's incursion, when a US Airways Express regional jet and a single-engine plane came to rest 10 feet apart, will likely be considered an 'A,' which is the most severe after an actual collision. No injuries or damage resulted.

Click on the images to the right to see enlarged data charts of runway incursions for North Carolina airports, taken from a federal runway safety report. The information is for four fiscal years leading up to Sept. 30, 2007. Numbers after that were supplied by the FAA.

- Jefferson George

More on Memorial Stadium damage

A new engineering report recommends that three sections of bleachers at Memorial Stadium remain closed and the nearby concourse area be off-limits after several rows of seats at the stadium collapsed.

The preliminary report also said that a sinkhole appears to be forming at the Armory Drive entrance to a pedestrian tunnel that passes under Charlottetown Avenue, and recommends further study.

The report doesn't give a cost estimate for any repairs because its writers said more investigation is needed.

Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department officials ordered the study after staffers discovered last week that six or eight rows of seats along the Independence Boulevard side of the stadium had collapsed, James Alsop, a division director in the parks department, told the Observer yesterday. Alsop will discuss the report at a press conference later today.

The report said portions of a stone tunnel underneath the stadium and in the general area of the collapsed seats has "severe distress," and that another section of the tunnel has failed and allowed soil to be carried away.

The 24,000-seat Memorial Stadium was built in the mid-1930s as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The stadium hosts many community programs and athletic events. Alsop said yesterday that a volleyball event planned for this weekend and the Fourth of July fireworks celebration should go on as planned. -- April Bethea

- Read the report.

$96,000 behind NASCAR court fight

Suspended driver Jeremy Mayfield's earnings after a random drug test helped send his lawsuit against NASCAR to federal court this week, legal papers said.

A motion filed Tuesday said: "The Plaintiffs have already earned $96,000 in NASCAR events subsequent to Jeremy Mayfield’s random drug test screening on May 1, 2009."

NASCAR argued the case should be heard in federal court because the litigants reside in different states and Mayfield seeks damages exceeding $75,000.

Click here to read the court filing.

Mayfield sued NASCAR last week alleging he was wrongly suspended May 9 for violating the sport's substance abuse policy. A judge had set a hearing scheduled for today, but that was called off after the case moved to federal court from Mecklenburg County Superior Court.

Federal Judge Graham Mullen has been assigned the case, court records show. No new hearing date has been set, said Paul Hendrick, attorney for NASCAR.

Mayfield is the first driver in the sport's top division to be suspended under a new drug-testing policy. Attorneys for NASCAR have said he tested positive for a “dangerous illegal” drug, but Mayfield said he does not abuse drugs.

Mayfield's suit alleges NASCAR did not follow proper testing procedures and failed to give him a chance to prove his innocence.

- Fred Clasen-Kelly

Pilot saw jet on 'collision course'

An NTSB advisory details Friday's near-wreck at Charlotte/Douglas between a regional jet and a private single-engine aircraft.

Here is the advisory released today:



************************************************************
NTSB ADVISORY
************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594

June 2, 2009

************************************************************

NTSB INVESTIGATING RUNWAY INCURSION AT CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

************************************************************

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a
runway incursion that occurred on Friday morning at the
Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) involving a
general aviation aircraft and a regional jet airliner bound
for New Bern, NC (EWN).

At about 10:17 a.m. on May 29, a PSA Airlines CRJ-200
regional jet operated as US Airways Express flight 2390, was
cleared for takeoff on runway 18L. After the regional jet
was into its takeoff roll, a Pilatus PC-12, a single engine
turboprop aircraft, was cleared to taxi into position and
hold farther down the same runway in preparation for a
departure roll that was to begin at the taxiway A
intersection. After the ground-based collision warning
system (ASDE-X) alerted controllers to the runway incursion,
the takeoff clearance for the regional jet was cancelled.
The pilot of the PC-12, seeing the regional jet coming down
the runway on a collision course, taxied the PC-12 to the
side of the runway. The FAA reported that the regional jet
stopped approximately 10 feet from the PC-12.

Visual meteorological conditions prevailed with 9 miles
visibility. There were no reported injuries to any of the 42
passengers or crew of three aboard the jet, or to any of
those on the PC-12.


************************************************************

Click here to read the story.

- Doug Miller

Where should low-cost housing go?

One Sedgefield neighborhood project, a mixed-income development that would replace existing housing, needs a waiver from the council because the homeownership rate among nearby properties is slightly lower than city policy allows.

Some district council members have complained that the city piles on subsidized housing in neighborhoods that are already struggling to improve and bring up their property values. A city policy is meant to avoid such concentration.

But council member Patsy Kinsey, the Sedgefield area's representative, said she didn't have a problem with the project.

Charlotte's Housing Trust Fund has recommended spending a total of $9.3 million in city money on a number of housing projects that would serve the homeless, elderly and victims of domestic abuse.

The trust fund awards money annually to nonprofit organizations and private developers to offset the cost of building affordable housing. City staff presented the recommendations to the City Council on Monday, and the council is scheduled to vote on two projects as early as June 8, and the rest on June 22.

The trust fund board has approved nine projects that include a total of 944 housing units.

Click here to see information about each project. (Scroll to the bottom, page 39, to see a map).

- Julia Oliver

Warrant: Witness implicated man in McPhatter death

Defendant Theodore Roosevelt Manning IV "was implicated by a witness who was present when the defendant used the victim's credit card and disposed of both the victim's vehicle and her body," an arrest warrant says.

Manning of Richland County, S.C. was arrested Friday and charged with murder in the death of missing Charlotte woman Nikki McPhatter, a US Airways customer service representative reported missing May 11.

Click here to read the arrest warrant for Manning.

After a search in two states over several days, police on Friday found a charred body believed to be McPhatter's in the trunk of a burned out car in rural South Carolina. - Christopher D. Kirkpatrick