Opinion Roundup: Gov. Cooper's climate change message, teacher pay, old UNC yearbooks photos and more

Friday, Feb. 8, 2019 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Gov. Cooper’s climate change message, school safety panel calls for resource officers in every NC school, Senate bill restoring master's pay for some teachers, legislative leaders back proposed DMV move, UNC officials condemn old yearbook photos of students in Klan robes, flu causes more hospitals across the state to restrict visitors and more.

GARY ROBERTSON: New board gets private preview of Congressional race probe (AP reports) -- A reconstituted North Carolina elections board received a private preview Thursday of what investigators uncovered in their probe of absentee ballot irregularities in the country's last unresolved congressional race.

TRAVIS FAIN: State elections board in closed session on 9th District (WRAL-TV reports) -- The new elections board also starts the ball rolling on voter ID rules.

KELLY HINCHCLIFFE: Senate bill would restore master's pay for some teachers (WRAL-TV reports) -- A Senate bill would restore master's pay for some of North Carolina's public school teachers.

MATTHEW BURNS & CULLEN BROWDER: School safety panel calls for resource officers in every NC school (WRAL-TV reports) -- To improve school safety, North Carolina schools needs to ramp up training for law enforcement and educators, improve physical security at schools, gather better information about potential threats, and invest in more mental health support for schools, according to a state panel formed in the wake of a mass shooting at a Florida high school a year ago.

Crime commission panel makes school safety recommendations (AP reports) -- A state criminal justice panel is urging more police officer training, building vulnerability assessments and school violence data to help make North Carolina's K-12 schools safer.

LAURA LESLIE: Legislative leaders back proposed DMV move (WRAL-TV reports) -- Workers may not like it, Wake County lawmakers may not like it, but legislative leaders remain firmly on board with a proposal to move the Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters to Rocky Mount from its longtime home near downtown Raleigh.

KATE MARTIN: Rep. Cody Henson served with domestic violence order of protection (Carolina Public Press) -- State Rep. Cody Henson, R-Transylvania, was served with a domestic violence protection order late last month, records from the Transylvania County Courthouse show. His wife, Kelsey Henson, told Carolina Public Press that she sought help for nearly a year from law enforcement and others from behavior she describes in court filings as harassment and emotional abuse. She filed the paperwork on Jan. 30. Cody Henson was served with the protection order the next day, court records show. “Every time I tried to report it and called 911 or went to a magistrate to try to get help, I was denied,” Kelsey Henson said. “I truly feel that was because of his position.”

LAURA LESLIE: Remnant of Jim Crow era remains in NC constitution (WRAL-TV reports) -- In the national debate over race and racism, people sometimes forget how recently racial discrimination was written into the law. In North Carolina, it still is.

WESLEY YOUNG: Confederate statue could be moved before judge hears 2nd request to stop relocation from downtown (Winson-Salem Journal reports) -- The United Daughters of the Confederacy is making a new effort to stop the removal of a monument to Confederate soldiers from downtown Winston-Salem by once more asking a Forsyth Superior Court judge to issue an order that would temporarily stop the move.

JESSICA PATRICK: Second winning $2 million Powerball prize sold in NC this week (WRAL-TV reports) -- A winning ticket from Wednesday night's Powerball drawing was sold at a convenience store near Charlotte, according to lottery officials.

John B. McMillan dies (The insider reports) -- John B. McMillan, a lobbyist, chief of staff to former Lt. Gov. Bob Jordan and former N.C. State Bar president, died Wednesday, according to a social media post from the State Bar. McMillan was a partner at Manning Fulton, and had more than 50 years of experience as an attorney. According to his biography on Manning Fulton's website, he received a lifetime achievement award from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2017. In a Facebook post announcing McMillan's death, the State Bar described him as "a true giant of the profession and a great leader of the bar." McMillan was 76 years old.

TRAVIS FAIN: Medicaid reform contracts give $6B a year to five companies (WRAL reports) — Five companies won contracts totaling some $6 billion a year to implement a new managed care program that will attempt to rein in health care costs. The state will set average per-person rates to cover health care costs and let the companies keep profits when they stay under the cap.

Richard Burr: Banning menthol cigarettes could lead to more marijuana? (Charlotte Observer) — Defending a product that kills 1,300 people a day might seem like a throwback Washington kind of thing, but we have to give U.S. Sen. Richard Burr some credit: He’s finding some new, if weird, ways to defend the cigarette industry.

JANINE BOWEN: Planned demonstrations over gay speaker force Durham Catholic school to cancel class (WRAL-TV reports) -- A Durham Catholic school said they will be closed Friday as a result of controversy surrounding an openly gay City Council member who had been scheduled to speak at a school event.

SARAH KRUEGER & BRYAN MIMS: UNC officials condemn old yearbook photos of students in Klan robes, blackface (WRAL-TV reports) -- UNC officials condemned photos from UNC-Chapel Hill's 1979 yearbook that show some students wearing white hoods and robes pretending to lynch another student in blackface.

LISA PHILIP: New UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Responds To Controversy On First Day (WUNC-FM reports) -- UNC-Chapel Hill’s new leader has denounced yearbook photos from the 1970s depicting fraternity members from the university dressed in blackface. The photos surfaced yesterday and have since caused outrage on social media.

NICK ANDERSON & SUSAN SVRLUGA: Photos of blackface, KKK robes and nooses lurk alongside portraits in old college yearbooks (Washington Post reports) -- The 1922 edition of the Campanile yearbook at Rice University featured a group photo of white-hooded members of what appears to be a campus chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1968, the Virginia Military Institute yearbook, known as the Bomb, published racist slurs and images, including a picture of two grinning men in blackface holding a football. And the 1979 yearbook of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill included a photo of a simulated lynching, with two people dressed as KKK members and a person in blackface hanging from a noose. These are some of the bombshells to surface in old college yearbooks since a photo of people dressed in blackface and a KKK robe was discovered on the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D).

KELLY HINCHCLIFFE: Cumberland student demands changes to 'sexist' and 'outdated' graduation dress code (WRAL-TV reports) -- A Cumberland County Schools student is petitioning her school to change its dress code for graduation, saying the clothing requirements are "sexist," "biased and outdated."

Ashe County school system cancels classes due to flu (AP reports) -- Ashe County Public Schools announced that classes are canceled for both students and staff Friday because of a local increase in flu cases. Superintendent Phyllis Yates says 452 students were out sick from the system's five schools and early learning center. Another 38 students who came to school were sent home. Yates also says 30 teachers are out sick and substitutes couldn't be found to replace them.

FERREL GUILLORY: Searching for common ground amid tension over charters (EdNC reports) — North Carolina is among 44 states with charter school laws, one of the most significant developments in K-12 schooling in the early 21st century – not only significant but also a subject of persistently contentious debate here and elsewhere. Examining the facts on the ground, as well as the deeply held beliefs behind them, may help cut through the conventional and divisive debate.

YEN DUONG: Flu causes more hospitals across the state to restrict visitors (NC Health News reports) — Joining other hospitals across the state, hospitals in the Piedmont enacted visitor restrictions limiting children and anyone with symptoms from visiting.

ELI WOLFE: Bug bombs are duds at killing insects yet may pose harm to people, study finds (NC Health News reports) — A new study has found that bug bombs, which are used by millions of Americans to kill insects such as cockroaches, often fail to eradicate those pests and yet expose consumers to potential health risks. Researchers from North Carolina State University reported last week that their tests on several types of bug bombs showed that they killed, at most, 38 percent of the wild cockroaches in the spaces where they were used.

Cooper’s climate change message (Fayetteville Observer) -- Gov. Roy Cooper was in Washington this week, testifying before the House Committee on Natural Resources about addressing the effects of climate change. Cooper urged the federal government to become a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and in dealing with the effects of climate change. On that latter subject, the governor had plenty of firsthand experience to share, given our state’s encounters with some of the worst flooding this region has ever seen.

Is this a pause or a crash for gas pipeline? (Fayetteville Observer) -- The Atlantic Coast Pipeline has hit a big and expensive snag. Cost estimates for the proposed 600-mile natural-gas pipeline have ballooned. A price tag originally pegged at about $4.5 billion has now soared to as much as $7 billion. That’s serious money — a big enough cost increase that it’s raising questions about whether the pipeline will ever be built.

TRISTA TALTON: Group Seeks Corps’ OK On Dredge Spoil Plan (Coastal Review Online reports) — The N.C. Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association has presented a plan to the Corps of Engineers to again allow towns and businesses to place dredge spoil in federally maintained disposal sites.