If property revaluation is postponed till 2015, the commission is again gambling that property values will be comparable to the current valuations in order to maintain the current budget level. Consider that they could be worse than now or even worse than 2013. Using the analogy of a nurse pulling off a band-aide: Pull it off quickly and endure the pain for a short period or pull slowly and endure the pain for a long time.

Do you know what your children are eating for lunch at school today? Do you know where it came from? On average, two of every three school children eat a National School Lunch Program lunch and consume about one-third of their total calories from that meal each weekday. Unfortunately, that food travels over 2500 miles to get to them.

In 2010, Congress designated October as National Farm to School Month, which demonstrates the growing importance of Farm to School programs as a means to improve child nutrition, foster local farming and ranching opportunities, spur job growth, create local economic development and educate children about agriculture and the origins of food.

In his letter to the editor (Sept. 22) Sen. Jim Davis purports to correct the “facts” of his political opponents by providing us with the “real facts” and figures. Most of us know, of course, that facts are often murky and can be bent to any purpose.

As Mark Twain reminded us, “Facts are stubborn things but statistics are pliable.” What does seem certain is that any hope of cooperation with the other party for the good of all of us is not going to happen. It will be business as usual: recrimination, fingerpointing, blamegaming and ideology first, people second.

In a recent guest commentary Senator Davis attacked Ben Utley for an editorial Mr. Utley wrote presenting “facts” about the educational budget recently passed by the NC legislature. Senator Davis says Mr. Utley “hurled facts by the wayside” in an “apparent attempt to demagogue for political gain.” Reviewing Mr. Utley’s editorial there were at least nine separate factual figures presented in the editorial, however, Senator Davis gave not a single example of any of this specific information being wrong. Senator Davis does, however, present some of his own “facts.” He states that the Democratic Party has driven North Carolina to the bottom in national graduation rate rankings. Let’s look at some detailed numbers about those graduation rates.