wilkes

"Tis a curiosity if Mr. Morris is now buying his Preparation-H in the economy size tubes, for he is certainly talking out his backside, again, as evidenced by his post of 10/12/2014! For someone who purports to be on top of all things, he must be pandering to his base, the low information voter because of the utter stupidity of his remarks.

To Wilkes1977- For an answer to your question, Re-read my post from 9/15 at 4:11 pm .

Also as I have said earlier, i will respond to anyone who is willing to play nice, be civil and who is attempting to be truthful. Conrad has not learned to do so and I no longer respond to him.

By the way, the NC statutes clearly explain the process for running as an unaffiliated candidate and I am following that process.

any rep. before they vote should go out to the people tell them what is to be voted on and ask the will of the people. then vote how the people said. conrad

thank you tom you got my vote

CONRAD (view profile) Posted 9:07 am, 10/06/2014 Only 4 more days until Mr. Morris will have to take down all of his campaign posters and signs. There is such a thing as truth in advertising. Voter registration ends on Friday and he is still advertising he is an independent while maintaining his Democrat registration. Does he think folks are so stupid that they do not see him for what he really is, a LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT? Besides some grandstanding, attention seeking stunts and obfuscations of reality, what issues or ideas has he actually proposed to campaign on?

I would like to know this answer too after checking out the wilkes county democrats web site his name is affiliated with them still.

To bluebird1- i'm not involved with the group you mention and never have been. I clicked a link three or four years ago and have been receiving occasional emails from them ever since. Someone was apparently trying to dig up dirt on me and found that I was a "member" but never bothered to check on the truth of it. Anyway, I can't tell you anything about what that group is or is not doing.

Tom

Question # 2. Is it true that the Critical Thinker group that you are involved with out of Winston Salem,N.C. The group is trying to remove The Good News Clubs from The Wilkes County Schools.If this group is trying to do so and why? Children need to be exposed to different kinds of things to broaden their horizon,and make their own choices as they get older.Thanks for response on The Jail!

To Bluebird1-your question about jail costs is a good one. It should have been asked by the commissioners before they ever began considering a new jail. Instead, without ever doing a cost/benefit study, the commissioners agreed to build a new jail. As you might recall, the original jail was to cost 26 million. I was the first to raise a red flag on that and eventually a compromise was reached and a 13 million jail is now all but completed. To this day I have never seen any study to justify building a jail rather than taking other steps; more use of gps bracelets for non dangerous inmates, sending some inmates out of the county, etc. Maybe we needed a new jail and maybe we didn't but we should have done the research before deciding.
if a business threw money around as inefficiently as county government, it would not survive. The county manages to do so by raising your taxes whenever they make financial blunders.

Tom Morris

who painted the cool neon green eyebrows an goatee on those two posters/banners?

My question is about the new county jail. Being told that paying Ashe County jail $40.00 per day for each Wilkes inmate.Can the new Wilkes jail house an inmate for $$ 40.00 per inmate per day or less? I saw a listing on another site that the average cost per day Statewide is $ 65.00.

Ptopresident- you are correct that the $400,000 is coming from the county. As I mentioned before, i would like to see a detailed budget for the school system that would answer the questions that you are asking. As a County Commissioner, I would ask for such a detailed budget before voting to approve money to the school system. As things stand now the county commissioners don't know much more than you and I do about how the school money is spent. But do remember that it is the elected school board and not the county commissioners that are supposed to be overseeing the proper spending of school system money.

Tom Morris
Tomforcom.com

i never was able to get an answer regarding regarding the salary question, but I did see in the paper a budget has recently been passed by the school system. According to the paper, an additional 400,000 was given to schools, wonder if this was given to support the salary increases. I understand we have a school board, but the money came from the county.

Vote for Tom, flush the republiturds

Only 4 more days until Mr. Morris will have to take down all of his campaign posters and signs. There is such a thing as truth in advertising. Voter registration ends on Friday and he is still advertising he is an independent while maintaining his Democrat registration. Does he think folks are so stupid that they do not see him for what he really is, a LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT? Besides some grandstanding, attention seeking stunts and obfuscations of reality, what issues or ideas has he actually proposed to campaign on?

Wouldn't you like to see the people living in Wilkes County doing better. More people employed and earning a good income. More people able to take care of themselves and their families. More people having more choices. Wouldn't you like to see Wilkes County moving ahead, faster. I would.

PTOPresident-your question regarding school employees' salaries is best asked of your school board members who are elected to oversee just such issues. I encourage you to ask them for that information. I personally believe that a detaied 2014-15 school system budget should be posted on line for the public to view. That would put an end to any false rumors as well as shed light on any real concerns.

Thanks for asking,
Tom Morris

Another question for Tom, In the school office the other day, I overheard talk that several at the school main offices, received considerable increases this year, more than the $500 per year that school system employees were suppose to get, with some getting that much or more in a monthly increase.

With the cuts to education I keep hearing on TV and the funding our local taxes contribute to the county, how would/should the county commissioners be involved those types of decisions? Shouldn't those funds make to to the classrooms, either for materials or teacher assistants?

$7,000 to maintain the county website that is already built?

$3,100 on dry cleaning JUST for the court facilities?

$2,800 for a phone bill for the Central Garage?

$102,000 for trash pick-up (up from $25,000)? Did I read it right that this is JUST for the schools?

I got bored and stopped looking after page 23, but there does seem to be a lot of pork in the budget. I don't know if the travel expense is the one to get upset about, but IMO there are plenty of areas that could use some trimming.