If there is one lesson that citizens must learn when it comes to elections it’s that the races which are considered “down-ballot” sometimes are more important than the high-financed campaigns.
That means local elections like city/county commissioners, school board members, and state representatives. In fact, here in North Carolina it is so important to pay attention to races for state senate seats and state representations because in a gerrymandered construct, the people in one district may blindly elect someone whose policies affect the entire state.
Consider something like vouchers.
When a fabricated supermajority can meet out of session and call a vote a pass a “mini” budget bill that will expand vouchers, it means that there are some elected officials who only rubberstamp what Phil Berger and Tim Moore tell them to.
Here’s one of those representatives: Jeff Zenger from Lewisville, NC. He “represents” District 74 in Forsyth County.
Can I vote against him myself? No. Could I vote for his opponent, Amy Taylor North. No.
But I would vote for Amy North if I could.
So why am I concerned about this particular race? Because the school where I have taught for the last two decades and from where my older child graduated is in his district, and someone like Zenger has not been doing a great job of representing the families of students who attend Forsyth County’s public schools. In fact, he has cost his hometown a hell of a lot of money because of what appears to be greed.
Lewisville has less than 15,000 residents. Every resident in the town literally paid him almost $150 each because….
Well, because he wanted them to.
From Scott Sexton’s column referred to above:
He planned to develop on that piece of land and was voted down. Can you guess which person on that Zoom meeting (remember it was the pandemic) was Jeff Zenger?
Yes. There is a screen shot.
That grab of the crotch became a threat of a lawsuit – the same threatened lawsuit that led to a town of less than 15,000 residents paying him almost 2 million dollars in public money for less than two acres of land.
That kind of self interest is not what people need in a servant in Raleigh.
District 74, please vote for Amy Taylor North.
