NC Chamber chair removed from brief supporting Leandro funding

A group of business and civic leaders pushing the state to boost public school funding by hundreds of millions of dollars a year will drop one name from a brief filed in a long-running court case over the issue after the NC Chamber said its chair was improperly included in the brief.

The brief is part of the long-running Leandro case, which asks the state’s judicial system to force an increase in public school funding—particularly in rural counties—and fulfill the state constitution’s promised right to education. The case has wound its way up and down the legal system for decades, and it sits now before the North Carolina Supreme Court in one of the bigger, more politically fraught issues dividing state leaders.

Dozens of business and community leaders filed a friend-of-the-court brief in that case July 27, urging the court to act. The list included the chief executive of Sepi Engineering, who also chairs the NC Chamber, a statewide business booster group.

The chamber’s general counsel said in a letter to the court Tuesday that Sepi Saidi never consented to her inclusion in the brief. What’s more, attorney Ray Starling said, the amicus brief used her old name, Sepi Asefnia, and it included her title as NC Chamber chair—despite the chamber’s lobbyist telling organizers that the chamber itself wouldn’t sign on to the brief.

“The inclusion of this title seems calculated to create confusion for the court, if not outright misrepresentation,” Starling wrote on behalf of the chamber and Saidi.

That was not the intention, lawyers who filed the brief said Wednesday.

“There was never any intention to include anyone on the list without their permission,” Gerry Hancock, a lawyer representing supporters in the filing, told WRAL News. “That would be self-defeating. We felt clearly that we had her permission to do it.”

More than 50 leaders — including executives and directors at major corporations, presidential appointees and former education administrators — remain in support of the brief. Jim Goodmon, the chairman and chief executive of Capitol Broadcasting Co., is also among the executives on the filing. Capitol Broadcasting Co. is the parent of WRAL-TV.

Hancock and John Wester, the lead attorney on the amicus brief, said that Tom Bradshaw, a former chamber chair, spoke to Saidi about joining the brief. Starling’s letter makes reference to this conversation but says she didn’t “authorize participation in a legal filing.”

“Her principal observation was that Mr. Bradshaw was looking for financial support of an initiative to support education,” the letter states.

An attempt to reach Bradshaw for comment Wednesday wasn’t immediately successful.Hancock and Wester said they were told Saidi consented. Hancock sent Saidi a July 21 email, saying he was “delighted to hear from Tom Bradshaw that we may add your name to the list of supporters” and checking on her name and title.

“If the following is not correct, please let me know as soon as possible,” Hancock wrote, indicating she would be listed as “Sepi Asefnia, President & CEO, Sepi Engineering, Inc., Chair, NC Chamber.”

“Tom also mentioned your offer to contribute $1,000 to support the legal fees for the brief,” Hancock wrote, before laying out where she could send a check.

Hancock said Wednesday that Saidi did not respond to this email, but he didn’t necessarily expect her to unless there was a problem with her name or title.

In his letter to the court, Starling said “counsel for the amici barreled on” despite the lack of response.

Wester and Hancock said Wednesday that they were filing an amended brief in the case, removing Saidi’s name. They said they had not spoken to her, but that they were “taking on faith” her desire to be removed, based on Starling’s letter.