Friday, February 01, 2008

Laurie Alford Issues Press Release

Laurie Alford issued the following Press Release and Brian's Blog received a copy. Here it is, it is self explanatory.

School Board Candidate Exposes Political Position of Incumbent

“Laurie Alford Pledges Never to Carson a Position for Political Gain”

_____________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release

Knoxville, TN - January 31, 2008

Laurie Alford, candidate for the Fifth District position on the Knox County School Board issued a statement concerning an actionable item on the upcoming school board agenda. In her statement, she vowed never to use her position as a School Board member for personal political gain and will never compromise the Knox County School Boards Ethics policy regarding the behavior of individual school board members.

This evening, Laurie Alford said: “I will never misuse the confidence, respect and good will the citizens place in me as their School Board Representative. I will never utilize my position for personal political gain.” Alford continued “Our community has been through so much controversy and turmoil the past year and now for our School Board Representative to be utilizing this issue to get re-elected is beyond reproach.” “For our children’s well being and emotions to be misused for the sole purpose of campaign strategy is wrong.” Alford concluded. “I will never utilize such actions for my own personal political gain.”

Mrs. Carson, as the Board Chair, and the Superintendent, set the agenda. The agenda is for the Monday, February 4 workshop and the February 6 voting session. The item is to approve the Kingston Woods Subdivision rezoning proposal. This re-zoning fix was discussed at the December 2007 mid-month work session. At that meeting a majority of the board instructed the Superintendent to bring back all fixes throughout the entire county and the board would consider them in their entirety. This item only addresses Kingston Woods and Mrs. Carson, in a struggle to maintain her board position, has placed the item for discussion the evening before the election and for the vote the evening after the election.

Her action in placing this on the agenda is in violation of the Knox County School district’s Board Policy BH. Specifically Article VI Section 2 of the Ethics policy reads; I will avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest, and will refrain from using my board position for personal or partisan gain. This item being placed on the agenda by Mrs. Carson, as the board Chair is a violation of the Ethics policy. Carson is attempting to swing the political beliefs and votes of the citizens of the Fifth District by utilizing pending board action before the election on February 5, 2008.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amen!