Deena Hayes Does it Again

I’ve given lots of space to Board member Deena Hayes in the early days of this campaign site and blog because I said in the past that when she says stupid things, I will call her on it (see past coverage here on the media page of my main site). This time, it’s no different.

And as I said before, I don’t know her, and she’s probably a very nice lady, but I feel she does not need to be in a position of power in an elected office where as a public officer of our school system and where you’re responsible for taxpayer money and setting policy affecting our children, when you’re espousing racial hatred and vitriol. I have a big problem with that. And this past week, she did it again. And again, no one called her on it except for The Rhino Times.

What happened?

Centered around the discussion of the new Construction Advisory Committee (and the separate but companion historically underutilized business committee to exclusively oversee MWBE contracts), when Deena found out that three of the school board members that will be sitting on the committee were all white, she went nuts.

She apparently sent an e-mail, according to the Rhino:

“I am absolutely opposed to the makeup of the construction advisory committee. We have three white school board members and one white county commissioner, all of the elected officials on the committee are WHITE! The school board representatives that are listed have not been MWBE friendly and frankly, one has been hostile to MWBE efforts. This is unacceptable to have the “good ole boy/girl” network represented and no one from the school system to represent the minority contractors that have been treated so terribly. I will not vote for this current committee and I do not trust the current makeup of this committee.”

The makeup she so adamantly opposed were chairman Alan Duncan, Anita Sharpe and Darlene Garrett.

Others on the committee include county commissioner Mike Winstead (a local developer), an architect from A&T State Univ., the immediate past chair of TREBIC (Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition) and a community resident. To satisfy Hayes, Amos Quick will take Duncan’s place. But that’s besides the point.

Hayes really needs to wake up and smell reality. She is hostile to anything that’s racially unbalanced. Even though MWBE means women also, she’s hostile to white women. She’s an embarrassment to this county, she’s an embarrassment to this school system and once again, she owes the citizens of this county an apology.

But she probably won’t, like the last time when she rambled about the slaves/slavemaster comments. Remember, she said she stood by her comments and told us all that “we need to check ourselves on that.”

But ask any teacher at Smith H.S. (whom she is supposed to represent) and they’ll tell you that Smith is still in the same shape they were in year in-year out. Many of them are supporters of this campaign.

Hayes is the reason why I’m running for this office. We deserve better. Our children deserve better.

By the way, I hope she sent that e-mail from her county-issued “gcsnc.com” address; any teacher or administrator would be fired if they used that kind of language in an e-mail sent from the GCS domain.

E.C. 🙂