Roy Cooper's evacuation; NC teacher pay raises | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is herd Live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpetcleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. We're gonna bring on ap Dylan. She is a reporter at the North State Journal an SJ online dot com, and also she publishes her newsletter called more to the Story on substack AP. How are you today? I'm doing great, Pete? How are you? I am doing okay despite a fire drill during the show. Yeah, so hopefully we won't hear the audio of that. So okay. A couple things. Number One, congrats on the story. We talked about it last week when you published it, The story about where was Governor Roy Cooper during the fiery but mostly peaceful riots that surrounded his mansion? And it's taken now what six years, but finally the story can be told. So walk us through how you came to do this story, like is this something that you had heard about back during the riots in twenty twenty or is this something that you just kind of like were made aware of recently. Well, I've heard some interesting things about a year after the riots have happened, but also an attempting to try to track down his movement that night and not getting anywhere. It just made me want to look even further. And in the last I would say eight months or so, I came across an individual who had direct knowledge of what happened that night, and they hooked me up with some of their form more colleagues, and then a couple of them pointed to be to a former Raleigh police person, and then another one to a former Capital Capitol police person. So there were at least four or five different people here who you know, all were retired or have since moved on to other jobs, who were there that night and they felt like talking this time. So did it take any convincing? Like did you have to know? So they wanted to tell this story? Why did they? Why did did they tell you why they wanted to tell the story? Now? Well, one of them sort of described it as you know, being being a political in the job that they were in. They were former state highway patrol, and up until then it had been no big deal. You know, every administration does different things. But the straw that broke the camel's back was when he was brought back to the mansion to meet with these protesters and then go walking with them out in public, which they felt put their his deed to himself and his detail and danger given what had happened in the previous night and that shots were fired that night. They were very upset with that, and they they felt like he was not the person to be in the Senate for North Carolina. They said that he already has too much power as it is. So okay, so they are aware obviously that Cooper's running for US Senate. Oh yeah, so this is happy about. It, right, Okay, So maybe that's there some sort of quote unquote political motivations, but it seems like it's well grounded, right if if this is how Cooper would behave in that kind of. Feeling was that they felt disrespected that he went and did that, that they went out of their way to make sure he was safe and out of the city, and you know, didn't send in the National Guard to you know, help people who were still there that night, but then decided to come back into do this walk around the ground outside the executive mansion when they evacuated just a day earlier. Yeah, it was a pr start, very upset with that, right, and so it was super critical. Yeah, and the timeline on this is, you know, before the riots in Raleigh, because in your article you talk about you know, May thirtieth, thirty first, and then June one, but May twenty ninth up in DC, that's when the mob surrounded the White House. And remember they had to move Donald Trump to the bunker. And then you started seeing people like mocking Trump, Oh, he's chicken. Oh why is he? You know, he's afraid, he's you know, hiding out in his bunker and all of this stuff. And now it turns out that the very next day, the same thing occurred in Raleigh. But they've kept it hidden. They've kept it secret for six years, and it just seems. Like a little to talk about it. But then nobody wanted to talk about it. So I finally got these guys nailed down and they talked to me about it pretty openly. They did not want to be have their names put out there. They still have teammates that are still employed, and they're worried about we don't blowback on their families, and who can blame them in today's climate the way things are politically charged. But also at the time, House Speaker Tim Moore watched these riots from his balcony of his apartment and he filmed them, and I've got the video of that linked in the article. People can go back and look at it. He streamed it to Facebook and it was pretty crazy stuff. He characterized it as a real life grand theft auto going on ray below them, and it was pretty bad. But he also corroborated the stories of these these former troopers and said that you know, he had he himself had tried to get a hold of Cooper and it took him two days to get back to him at. Least, right so, and part of and part of his story and you mentioned it a moment ago, which I find to be really the Look, I have no problem with with them evacuating the governor's mansion if it's surrounded by a mob that's you know, attacking it. You got gunshots and stuff, so like, of course, yes, get the governor and his family out of there, to be sure. The beef is that they refuse to acknowledge that they did that. Meanwhile, he's sending out all of these supportive tweets and stuff, and then he does the pr stunt walking around the block with the you know, with the protesters the next day. But the real scandal, I think is the National Guard that was you know, it was stationed nearby, and I think what you said, one hundred guardsmen were deployed, but there were hundreds more that were not. And you know, he's letting all of these businesses get burned and looted, and you know, refusing to provide them the very protection that he enjoyed. Well that, yeah, that's true. And when he finally did send them in the next night, and he sometimes is parts of the city that had already been attacked and we're you know, not the new areas where the rioters were now attacking. So they went and protected buildings that had already been attacked at that point and were already burned out. Oh thanks for thanks for that, right. Right, yeah, And yeah, it's and I said this the other day when I was covering your your story at North State journal, which is that it's another example in a long list of you know, Roy Cooper, uh, you know, putting his own political ambitions and interests above the citizens. In this case, it was like I'm going to you know, I'm going to march around, I'm going to be all supportive of the of all of this stuff going on, and then the citizens suffer because he doesn't want, you know, to bring in the National Guard. Well, they were already stood up for COVID. They told me this, They told me they were available and you know, activated already, and that they they could have been down there had he mobilized them. Right, he did, but he waited for Raleigh's mayor to give an official word that she wanted it, and that didn't come for another twenty four hours. And it came along with a curfew, which was of course ignored and not enforced. And we had more riding the next night, and even on June one, after he went and walked around with the rioters and the protesters outside the mansion. Happened again that night. So yeah, you know, it is what it is. But you know, ultimately I reached out to the campaign and asked them about this, you know, to you know, confirm part of this timeline, that this is what's been told to us by multiple people. And I had some additional questions about, you know, where they where did they stay when they were you know, taking an emergency operations center outside of Raleigh? Did they stay there that night? Did they stay at a hotel? You know, where were they? I had some more questions and the campaign did not respond. Didn't shock anoledge the email? No? Yeah, and what Department of Public Safety? They're not telling you anything either, right. They won't tell me anything State Highway Patrol. You know. I'd ask them, you know, back after this first happened, you know, about his movements that night, if they could tell me if he was there, if he wasn't there. I had heard rumors, and I said that for operational security reasons, they couldn't tell me anything. That's and they repeated that when I asked them again just recently this year. Yeah, I mean you can confirm you they can confirm it if they want to. There's no operational security that's at risk by just saying yes, we evacuated the governor's mansion and brought them to the EMOC and then brought them back on this day, you know, whatever they could do that. Yeah, that was one of the questions that I wanted to answer. And you know, was it his idea to come back and meet with these organizers, you know, and to do this this march around the governor's mansion? Was that his idea? Did he ask them to bring him back from the Emergency Operations Center? That was a serious question to be answered. And I also wanted to know what he thought about the organizers that he met with, because one of them went on to be arrested, I believe twice after for inciting a riot fell any incitement to riot. So you know, there were questions that are that are still outstanding there and his campaign is not answered. And you know, the other aspect on this is like the the the Democrat Party at that time, they were leaning heavily into the whole defund the police right, systemic racism and all of this, and so that's that's what jammed him up. I'm like, had that not been the backdrop and the Democrats had not been, you know, so invested in all of that, uh, he may have been more willing to you know, to put down violent riots with the National Guard. But I'm sure, they didn't want that visual and so when it came, you know, push comes to shove. Literally he flees and leaves the city unprotected because he does one of. Anger his base being torched to the ground. Yeah, I mean, come on, all right? So yeah, So you could read more about that at NSJ online dot North State Journal, where that story appeared. You also at your at your substack newsletter. More to the story, you gave a rundown of the budget deal. Finally have a budget deal between the House and the Senate? Has it like how long has it been? I feel like it feels like years? About a year? Yeah? Okay, Yeah. The fiscal year ends in June thirtieth, so I think that they're really pushing to get it done before that happens. So I think maybe in the next couple of weeks we'll have something. We'll see So where do Where were the areas of agreement and who caved? Well? I think they agree mostly on the overall total. There was some some horse trading going on with the pay raises. The House wanted to give a higher raise to teachers and to state employees, and it looks like they're going to get there at least an eight percent average for teachers. For teachers, but law enforcement got big buses and big big grace is even bigger than the teachers, and those were long overdue, those are many years in the making. So that something that I think both parties agree on that that needs to happen. The ye there's a little it's going to be a little bit of alteration to the scheduled tax reduction triggers, which had been something that the Senate and Philberger had been standing on as holding things up. Really ultimately, that was the crux of the hold up. So far, it looks like there's going to be some tweaking of that, even though you know, the reason forecast came out and it's it's still higher again from the original ast. It's now that tax collections are in, it's up to something like seventy one point nine, you know, in reserve. And you know, so the forecasts had had us in some kind of like billion dollar budget hole, and that's that's looking like it's not going to be the case yet. Again those wait a minute, hang on a second. The whole, like the whole argument has been that the the Legislative Fiscal Research Center or whatever like that they were predicting that we're going to have this big deficit opening up, and that's why we can't keep going with the income tax cuts because of this deficit that is predicted to open up, and it's not opening up. Yeah, pretty much. They were originally projected revenue collections were originally protected. It's sixty eight point five billion for the general fund revenue, but now the revised one that came out late last week is seventy one billion, so it's up again by a couple billion. Yeah, by a couple billion. So I think we're in good shape. I think that things are going to belong now. Whether or not that maintains that we'll see. But considering the constant influx of both people and businesses to North Carolina right now, we're one of the top destination states right now for just about every billion in the country. I don't think that we're going to have our revenue issue going forward, at least not in the near years. As that population ages, whereas you know, infrastructure ages and those kinds of things happen, then obviously they'll have to look at it. But they've built up the reserve on so big that you know, being even to do it for Helen has been one thing, but I think that if we continue to build on that will have no problem down the road. All right. You also wrote about over North State Journal about the survey of the teachers, the twenty twenty six Teacher Working Conditions Survey, and this was released by the State Board of Education. So what are the top lines on the on the working conditions for teachers. Well, they had a very large number of people participate in this year's survey. Over ninety percent of the teachers, about one hundred and two thousand educators responded and that's up from you know, like eighty five percent or something like that a couple of years back. So that was big. But the central message, the big message, overarching one was that teachers are committed to their students in schools and they like where they're working, plan to keep teaching next year. Eighty four percent tend to stay right where they are and said that their place with their school was a good place to work and that they felt eighty eight percent said they felt like they're a valued member of the team. Another one said. Another result was expressing pride in what they do. Ninety one percent said yes, I do have pride in what I do. But the one big thing that's stuck out is, you know, maybe the outlier was student behavior in classroom management. Students out of control, you know, assaults on teachers, acting out violence, you know, swearing at teachers. I mean, I can't tell you how many videos get sent to me from TikTok and places like that with these kids just ripping off the f bomber at left and center at their teachers. It's ridiculous, you know, and there's been no consequences, so they figure they can get away with it. They figure they can just walk all over them. They also did a pilot principal survey for the first time. Four hundred principles responded to that, and ninety five point six of them agreed or strongly agreed that their school was a good place to work and learn. They also had about seventy five percent of them were reporting that they were working over fifty one hours a week on school hours on school related items, So they're they're doing their work outside of school, outside of school hours, to you know, probably addressing parent concerns or catching up on other work or emails or that kind of thing. That's the principle. They also reported discipline as being an issue. Yeah, So final question, did I just miss the Teachers' Union the NCAE decrying the student behavior findings that did I just miss a press release or something from them or some comments that, you know, like this stuff needs to change. We goten a press release from them in a while, and I've asked repeatedly to be put on their list, and I'll be on their list for a couple of weeks and then suddenly I'm off. So, you know, if they're not going to include me in their press release list, then you know, I'm not going to go hunting for what they have to say. They're gonna you know, they're going to have to be some a little bit of work there. Well, I see them on Twitter, and I have not seen them comment at all about anything on this survey, particularly as it relates to the bad behavior of the of the kids. And also it's not a it's not one of their talking points that you know, ninety one percent of teachers plan to keep teaching next year and eighty four percent of them are going to stay in the school that they're in right now. Because what we have been hearing all the time is that all the teachers are quitting, they're all moving to different states or whatever, and the yeah, and that's not really happening. Even the teacher attrition survey from a couple of months ago said that that wasn't happening. It was about the same journal over even less than it was the years before. So, I mean, that's not that's not even a thing anymore. I've the leadership of the NCAA is probably just recovering from their from their teacher, you know. From their Comedy Day March. Yeah, their Comedy. Day version, their version of the Kings protest, Yeah, which honestly based on the crowds and based on the number of school districts they said that their teachers weren't going to be there. I would say that less than a quarter of teachers who said that they were they were going to take a personal day to do this, we're actually there. Oh so they used it to just get out of class. Yeah, pretty much classic move. All right, we'll leave it there, AP Dylan, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it as always. Absolutely, thank you, Pete. All right, thanks take care. That's AP Dylan from the North State Journal. You can read her work at nsjonline dot com. You can also subscribe to her substack newsletter called More to the Story You Know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and art. Stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative Video dot Com. A couple more details on the budget deal from AP Dylan Substack more to the story. The teacher pay raise an average eight percent pay raise four teachers, bumping them to the top rate in the South. A teacher with more than sixteen years of experience, we'll get one thousand dollars bonus. Under sixteen I guess fifteen. In below, they will get a five hundred dollars bonus. State employees will get an average three percent pay raise. Those employees will get bonuses of one seven hundred and fifty. If you make less than sixty five thousand dollars a year, you're going to get seventeen fifty in bonus. If you make more than sixty five thousand dollars a year, then you will get a thousand dollars bonus. State retirees will get a two and a half percent bonus. Law enforcement, as ap mentioned, they will get the lion's share of raises. SBI and a L officers are looking at an average twenty point three percent pay raise, including step increases. State highway patrol is looking at almost eighteen percent. Correctional officers a fifteen point four percent raise. Probation and parole officers a ten point one percent pay raise, and then all other state law enforcement officers at thirteen percent. There is also about forty million dollars set aside for one time bonuses of seventeen fifty four local officers as well, so there's a lot of money going out the door for bonuses and for pay raises for all employees. Again, all just state employees average three percent pay raise, teachers eight percent, which is according to the union, not enough, which is weird because that's what Governor Stein originally floated, was like an eight or nine percent something like that, and it's still it's still not enough. It's never it's never enough an eight percent pay raise, and the unions complaining about that too, which is weird because in their last budget that they had control over the Democrats in the legislature, they were celebrating in eight percent pay raise for teachers that they did, and then of course they furloughed a whole bunch of teachers and froze all of their step increases because of the Great Recession. So yeah, they were the ones that blew up that, and then the Democrats lost control of the General Assembly. Republicans have been in charge ever since so that was eight percent. Was great when Democrats did it, But that's different. Alrighty, everybody, it is time to utilize those snitching skills that you honed during the twenty twenty pandemic. And this time it's easier. You don't need to actually go out and do any kind of recon at like a bar or a restaurant to see if people are standing when they should be sitting. No, no, you just you could just look out your window. You can look out your window and see if your neighbor is watering their lawn on the wrong day or at the wrong time washing their car. That's a violation. Anytime you're driving somewhere, you're walking around the neighborhood, that is prime snitching time. Because the water restriction enforcement is now underway started on Friday. This from Norah O'Neill, the regional accountability reporter for the Charlotte Observer. I have no idea what that title is the Regional accountability Okay. As drought conditions worsen across North Carolina, local governments are rolling out mandatory water restrictions, and in many cases they are relying on residents to report neighbors who break the rules. That's right, the snitch lines are open. Cities and towns started limiting lawn watering, home car washing, and other outdoor water use as reservoir levels declined and regional drought protocols intensified. While officials say violations can lead to fines ranging from one hundred dollars all the way to more than one thousand dollars in some communities, most also say that enforcement depends heavily on complaints from the public, observations by city staff already working in the field, and voluntary compliance from residents trying to conserve water. So let this be your warn your warning people you think you're going to go out there and just you know, run the sprinkler for a little bit. Don't want to let your your your garden die off. Mm hmm, somebody's watching. In Charlotte, mandatory Stage two drought restrictions took effect actually on May first, but enforcement began Friday that According to Charlotte Water spokesperson Jennifer Frost, do you think she was it helpful that her last name was a form of water to get the gig as the spokesperson for Charlotte Water anyway, one hundred dollars fines initially, but that can increase for repeat offenders or more severe drought stages. Okay, so we may actually end up in a place where you will get fined more money for you know, illegal watering of the lawn. Then people are paying to get out of jail as part of their bond requirements. Like we could, we could get to it. It could happen. I'm not saying it's gonna happen right now, but like it could. Charlotte Water plans to investigate violations through staff observations and reports submitted by residents. Customers will be able to report suspected violations through three to one one or an online reporting form that is now available. So like you're out on your afternoon walk and you see somebody watering the yard and you know it's like, oh no, it's an even numbered house, so you're not supposed to be watering, and or it's you know, outside the hours of six pm and six am. Right if it's basically like you can water overnight, but only if your address. I think it's like even numbers are on like Tuesdays and Saturdays only from six p to six a and then odd number homes are like Wednesdays and Sundays again only between six p and six A. So if I see any water and going on any day of the week after the sun is up, that's snitching time. Concord residents can report suspected violations through the city's customer care line or through an online click to fix portal. The city asks residents reporting violations to provide the location, date, time, and type of activity observed. It's basically going to be it's like a regional h o A now level of enforcement. No, look is it's good. You know, you gotta you gotta have people brushing up on the snitching skills. Right. It's been a while. It's been like four years since people were ratting each other out for masking and people being open or gatherings that were too large. Right, So so you gotta you gotta touch base, you know, you gotta circle back end and make sure that your snitching skills are still tuned. You know. Violation fees in Concord can escalate quickly. Residential customers face a one hundred dollars fine for a first offense, and then three hundred dollars for subsequent offenses, and the penalties are higher for commercial and industrial customers. They start at five hundred dollars for a first offense and then they escalate to fifteen hundred dollars for additional violations. That's in Concord, Cannapolis. They say code enforcers are going to handle violations with residential penalties set at one hundred dollars, commercial or industrial penalties at three hundred, but their comms director, A net prevet Keller, said the city intends to prioritize public education over aggressive enforcement. In Gastonia, officials said existing city staff are working throughout the community. They have been assigned to observe and report potential violations, while also responding two complaints from residents as well. Once again, if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. Words to live by. Oh, I did see. There's an interesting breakdown. I saw the most left versus right wing occupations in America. I thought this was interesting, and it's based on donations political donations, which obviously there's some limitation there because you know, poor people don't donate to political campaigns generally, so but the breakdown, well, I'll read through the occupations on the left versus the right, and there's a pattern that emerges. I'll explain in a minute. Had a couple of messages from the text line. First, Beth's favorite Russ says, these water snitch lines are going to be a problem. You know, there are people who live to snitch on others. We had a neighbor in a previous neighborhood during a prior drought who snitched on us because the sprinklers shut off at six, but trickled for a few seconds past the cutoff time. That's not surprising. That is not surprising. Mac in Charlotte. What about pot plants you have outside and watering them with your water hose? Okay, you should not probably be growing pot plants outside. That's how you get them stolen. But if you can hand water, you're allowed to hand water. So like, we have some flowers in a flower pot out on our you know, front porch, so we can we can do that during daylight. We are allowed to do that water by hand. All right. So there is some data compiled by a fellow named Emil kirk Guard and it admittedly it's the data set is based on donations and so it reflects people who actually donate money to politicians, which are those who are more invested in politics, and they're going to be wealthier. This demograph excus democrat in modern America. They may also be There may also be issues with shy Republicans who don't donate publicly out of fear of reprisal, or they just don't donate at all. Surveys show that Democrat voters are more interested in politics in general, which is terrifying. So this is an interesting list though, the most democratic and most Republican occupations, again based on donations. Number one ninety nine percent. That's this is like the largest percentage of these people in this profession donate to Democrats ninety nine percent. Number one union organizer shocking, Number two ninety six percent arts administrator. By the way, the top I guess probably I don't know, fifteen or twenty of these professions. The cutoff at the very bottom of the list is still ninety one percent. So in other words, like massive donations in these professions, whereas with the Republicans, you look at where they donate and they're like the number one profession auctioneer at thirty three percent, so like they're just not donating back to the Democrat list. Number three Professor of English, film editor, professor of history, epidemiologist, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, museum curator, conservationist, yoga instructor, social worker, TV producer, talent agent, composer, urban planner, screenwriter, nonprofit executive, professor of law, film director, filmmaker, librarian, editor, bookseller, and art director. Okay, all right, so there's your Democrat list. What are your top professions for Republican donations? Number one was auctioneer. Number two bank officer, plant manager, nursery man, landscape contractor, insurance agent, truck driver, farmer, an enthusiologist, daily dairy farmer, orthodontist, electrical contractor, orthopedic surgeon, urologist, home builder, medical sales oral surgeon, car sales rancher, citrus grower, mechanical contractor, roofer, petroleum engineer, oil worker, and minor one who mines, not a child, minor. But that's only ten percent of the miners donate. So so a couple of people, you know, they're looking at this data and they're like, oh my gosh, like look at the you know, such heavy representation. And there's a historical fiction author named Leslie Douglas, who said, at first glance, this seems like a division between the working class and the managerial class. But it's not that simple. There are engineers and surgeons on the Republican side. What we're really witnessing here is a split between those who work and those who mostly pretend to work, like yoga instruction. I'm just kidding, I kid, I kid. It was just the joke, as Joe Biden might say, though not a joke. Gavin Newsom, apparently this is all to save the democracy. They're they're in California, you know, they have this jungle primary, and there's a possibility that the two top votainers that come out of the primary could actually be Republicans, right, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco. They could be the top two, which means they would face off against one another in the general election. And these are the rules that Democrats put in place, and now they're looking to, as Gavin Newsom says, break glass in case of emergencies. We all have agencies. We can shape the future. There's still a lot of Look I've said this before, Saul repeated, I don't know anticipate this need to be the case, but there is a break the glass scenario, and there's many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats were locked out, and we're going to do everything to make sure that doesn't happen. No, so there's an emergency action that they would look to do. The multi year campaign to destroy Trump's ability to govern ended with the twenty twenty election, morphing into a multi year campaign to put him in jail because voters must not be allowed to make the wrong choice. That's for the democracy, of course. Gavin Newsom promising much the same thing in California. I guess should the unlikely happen and the top two voteiners in the jungle primary turn out to be the Republicans, right, the whole point of the jungle primary was to edge Republicans out entirely by making it likely that the top two candidates would be Democrats. It's why they did this. David Strom at hot air dot Com says, already, now that the opposite is happening, Democratic operatives are working to repeal the Jungle primary entirely, given the chance that it will no longer guarantee the Democratic Party wins. So you got a former comms director for former Governor Gray Davis, and they're now leading this effort, a ballot initiative that's been filed to repeal the jungle primary system and go back to a party based primary. So this way you will always make sure that a Democrat gets through to the general. See it's like I've been saying right to the Republicans, you may win the election, but you may not govern. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetekaalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.