Watching video of Bartow school board member, you have to wonder: How do these folks win elections?
Bartow County school board vice chair Angela Cornett made a smart decision in resigning her post after a troubling surveillance video captured her seemingly lurching into a teen attempting to hold a parking spot in a Walmart.
The video has now gone viral, and Cornett has been charged with reckless conduct.
The teen involved appeared on national TV to decry the incident. Seventeen-year-old Emily Gulledge is a Bartow County student. On the “Today” show, Emily said, “I was the child in the situation and she acted like the child. I can’t believe somebody would actually hit somebody with a vehicle especially over a parking spot.”
This story first came to my attention when a Bartow resident sent me a link to the Bartow for a Better Board of Education site.
I was also sent a link to a video where Cornett goes after a teacher by name at a public board meeting.
After watching the videos of the parking lot incident and the school board meeting, I have to wonder if there are any functioning school boards left in Georgia.
A Bartow County school board member under fire for allegedly ramming a teenager with her SUV in a dispute over a Walmart parking space has resigned.
Angela Cornett, 41, was arrested last Friday and charged with reckless conduct after she allegedly lurched into the 17-year-old teen standing in the parking space at a Cartersville Walmart holding it for a friend.
“She just felt it was in the best interest of her, her family and the school district,” her attorney John T. Mroczko told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Cornett’s resignation is effective immediately. Cornett had no other comment, Mroczko said.
Cornett claimed she didn’t intentionally ram the teen, but the incident — which has attracted national attention and local outrage — was caught on tape, and the store’s surveillance video convinced police to arrest Cornett.
Cornett had already been under fire for comments she made during a school board meeting in September in which she spoke disparagingly about a former school system employee after naming the employee in the public meeting.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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82 comments Add your comment
skipper
January 4th, 2013
10:30 am
@homeschooler,
Very well said…………..
Pride and Joy
January 4th, 2013
10:31 am
A 120 pound human being stands zero chance against a car.
I don’t care if the little girl was holding a spot in the parking lot just to get a close space, no one has the right to even threaten her with a car.
The little girl could have EASILY been killed or seriously injured.
NO ONE has a right to even come near a pedestrian with their vehicle and those who defend the driver are really saying alot about themselves — that they would do the same. Sheesh. Several of you bloggers are crazed idiots.
Pedestrians always have the right of way whether or not they are doing something stupid.
I don;t need a “right of way” law to tell me that. Common sense and decency tells me that.
If a pedestrian wants to hold a parking space I am not going to threaten to ram the kid with my car regardless how stupid or arrogant the kid is.
I hope this Bartow County adult gets her driver’s license revoked for a year. She should also do some jail time.
Cynthia J.
January 4th, 2013
10:37 am
If you didn’t know who this person was, and you hadn’t watched the girl on the Today Show, you wouldn’t be defending the driver. The lady needs to have her license taken away for a few months if she can’t handle the car in a safe manner.
Now add in that she’s an elected republican school board member and the girl is a brat, and you’ve suddenly got a bunch of ignorant commentators on the situation. The only one involved in the situation who is thinking clearly is the patrolman who looked at the video and then arrested the driver.
Why are idiots elected to office? People vote along party lines and don’t look at the character of the person they vote for. Vote independently from now on. Let the best person represent us. This lady clearly is not the best person.
Bartow Politics
January 4th, 2013
11:05 am
As was pointed out above, Cornett winning an election had nothing to do with people voting party lines. Both she and her opponent ran in 2010 as Republicans. It was decided in a primary. Democrats don’t run often in Bartow County, because they usually only get about 25%. People don’t pay a lot of attention to such small races, so the person who can get more friends to the polls wins.
Gerald
January 4th, 2013
11:06 am
@Cynthia J.
You nailed it. Because this teen made a suburban GOP office holder look bad, they are calling her an instigator and publicity hound and playing the “but you weren’t injured/get over it!” card. Let Michael Vick ram this girl with his SUV and see what the reaction would be then.
skipper
January 4th, 2013
11:18 am
What a crock………..dragging politics into it does not change a thing. whether or not it was a school-board member, Dem, Repub, or Indy does not mean a thing. A little girl tried to be a smart a$$. A driver screwed up, too.
the prof
January 4th, 2013
11:40 am
I would have parked in front of the spot until the person moved. I wouldn’t have hit her smarmy butt, but wouldn’t never give someone the satisfaction of STANDING in a parking spot to hold it for someone else.
Wondering Allowed
January 4th, 2013
11:47 am
Slow day, so I clicked all the links… The other board member who gives the several minutes long diatrabe is just as scary. She claims God put her on the school board! The morally superior attitude reminds me of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady. Actually, so did the hair-don’t. How can the board be expected to make rational, intelligent decisions when there are morally whacked crackpots who think their opinions are God’s only opinion? The people of Bartow County deserve the humiliation for having these people running their schools.
Parent
January 4th, 2013
11:52 am
Bartow County School System has similar issues to DeKalb and Clayton. Barrow has been able to escape media up until this point due to Bartow being a small town outside of the metro area. Bartow is not the bulk of the viewing area. Bartow also has SACS in their favor. Several members are from Cartersville. We protect our own. Sorry DeKalb, you are a larger district. Therefore better media coverage. Not fair for the great children of Bartow.
Above comment is my opinion.
Wondering Allowed
January 4th, 2013
11:52 am
Here’s what I don’t understand…The teen looks like an idiot for not getting out of the way. The adult looks like an idiot for being impatient and foolish. Why do some people think that pointing out that the teen is an idiot somehow washes the stink off the adult?
There are two people who acted very poorly in the situation. No matter how foolish one was, the other was still equally or more foolish. Each should be looked at only in the light of what she did. Under that light, each of them is a fool. It’s just that one of them is a child, and the other is an adult who had been masquerading as a responsible, respectable county leader. While both acted childishly, only one will suffer the consequences of having acted inappropriately.
Maureen Downey
January 4th, 2013
11:55 am
@Wondering, Wanda Cagle Gray lost her seat to Fred Kittle. So, she is no longer on the board.
http://cartersville.patch.com/articles/bartow-county-election-results#photo-12072646
Maureen
Wondering Allowed
January 4th, 2013
12:02 pm
@Maureen – Thanks for the update. It gives me hope and respect for the people of Bartow County!
catmom
January 4th, 2013
12:35 pm
Angela Cornett shouldn’t have hit Emily Gulledge with her car, but Emily also should not have been blocking the parking space. Both behaved badly, and I’m not buying Emily’s “Poor me. I’m just a helpless child” act that she’s been peddling in order to gain sympathy.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
12:43 pm
I have two impressions from this post and they are from the “board” youtube video when the lady is allegedly calling out a teacher by name.
1. the “board of education” meeting room is set up in a way that scares me. The “board” members look like elevated British lords in that box contraption they’ve built to sit in. It looks like a court room where people are judged and sent to prison or death. The proxy seems to be these folks can literally stare down their nose at the other people in the room. My first thought was they should just be seated at folding tables at ground level.
2. The lady immediately launches into a twisted eulogy based on scripted “character” requirements. They need to throw all of that character stuff out. You’re supposed to be honest and forthright in any work, why make a fetish out of it? It is a bizarre thing and it attracts sick authority freak people. IBM and Coca-Cola do not lord “character” details over people in the work place. No one does outside of these weirdo bureaucratic government school constructs. It needs to stop. It is like state and county government is immature, caught in a strange in-between place. Unfortunately, as long as this “character” fetish is practiced by the state, honest professional workers have to endure this harassment. If they quit the school and go work for IBM or Google, they don’t. It is not professional management from the government school “power” people.
Mountain Man
January 4th, 2013
12:51 pm
“I would have parked in front of the spot until the person moved. I wouldn’t have hit her smarmy butt, but wouldn’t never give someone the satisfaction of STANDING in a parking spot to hold it for someone else.”
I agre with the prof – be reasonable if you are going to be obstinate. Then what would the 17-year old have done? Keyed her car when she wasn’t around. She supposedly had a friend who was pregnant (that was the reason she was hold the space). Was this friend 9 months along? Was she a “teen mom”? Was she married? There are two sides to every story. BOTH people acted out of line, yes, the adult was more out of line with her car, but the girl was out of line too. Maybe Wal-mart should post signs (especially around Christmas) “no one may hold a parking space for someone else by standing in it”.
I was recently at a beach where people “hold” all the chairs at the swimming pool by putting a shoe or a book or a towel on it while they spend hours at the beach. So when people come to the pool there are no chairs available. Same sort of lack of respect. On cruise ships they have started enforcing a “20-minute” rule on holding deck chairs. Some people just think they should have all the advantages. Would it really have hurt the pregnant friend (who also could have been let off at the door and her friend parked the car) to walk a little further. Same for the school board member, was it really that big a deal to get THAT parking spot? Just recently I was backing up to a gas pump at a very crowded Kroger when a man in a truck swoops in from the other end and takes my space. Did I go postal? No, I just went to another pump and waited 5 minutes. Sometimes you have to be an adult (and by the way, a 17-year old is close enough that I would call her an adult).
Gerald
January 4th, 2013
12:58 pm
@Wondering Allowed and catmon:
Because the foolish behavior of the teen is irrelevant to the issue, which is the pattern of unprofessionalism by this school board vice chairman, which fits into the larger theme (regularly addressed by Maureen Downey and is also part of the charter school debate by the way) of the quality of the people that serve on elected local school boards, or the lack thereof.
Here is the deal: people do dumb stuff all the time. It is the job of a responsible adult to act appropriately when confronted with a person’s silly misbehavior. As foolish as the actions of this teen was, this teen is not the vice chair of the county school board. That is the point. And yes, were this a member of the Clayton County, Fulton County or DeKalb County school board, you’d have a lot fewer people insisting that the teen be held responsible for her role in provoking the incident.
Maureen Downey is pointing out that there are issues with school boards beyond the urban Democratically controlled areas. It seems that people would rather talk about how this girl wasn’t injured and complain about her “playing the victim” than talk about it, which really shows that folks here are chiefly angry about her making a non-urban government look bad. It is going after the messenger, blaming her for exposing the issues on the Bartow County school board.
Look, this woman was the VICE CHAIR of the board. Get that? But thanks to her, we are talking about Bartow County instead of Clayton/DeKalb/APS again. Sorry, but that is what is going on here.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
1:00 pm
There’s a lot of local police dept who do all of this “rules” and “character” garbage over the public while in reality these same police are not producing but they take a lot of money from people. There’s a long term road project near my home and the little town police are writing a high volume of $450. “construction zone” tickets to people. Somebody said on court day the line goes out the door and around the building, that’s how many tickets this tiny-toy-town police are writing. It’s really sick and it is difficult to do anything about, the Georgia authority idiots who get personal gain over using other people while not particularly producing or contributing in return for the monies they take. Georgia is chock full of these “values preacher” officials who are on the take, if nothing else for their own ego trip.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
1:07 pm
Ms. Downey, You say “Politicians receive many perks and many advantages”
For a school board member, what would that be? What perks and advantages do they receive? Seriously, I do not know. I thought they had a job to do and were not considered “gilded” or “special.” I still am not sure what a school board does. Something about real estate, keeping the books, paying salaries and the light bill. How did this function get so “holy” and “special” and “deserving of perks?” It all seems kind of sick to me. I think they people who pave the roads are special. And the people who work the gas stations on holidays so that everyone else can travel. Why is a “school board member” a thimble-full “better” than anyone else? Who came up with that idea?
Pride and Joy
January 4th, 2013
2:10 pm
Prof you disappoint me. I expect a professor to act in a mature manner. So you would have stood your ground in your car waiting fo the kdis to move — and the kid would have done the same and then what would have happened?
Well, the traffic behind you and in front of you wuold have backed up. People wouldn’t be able to get in and out of the parking spaces in that row or pass because you wee blocking the area….
Why is it that someone who is supposed to exhibit rational, calm behavior (a professor) thinks it is more important to get into a hissy fit — a dangerous hissy fit ? and over what?
A parking space?
i haven’t seen a professor yet who didn’t need to shed some weight.
Come on.
BE AN ADULT.
Circle around the wal-mart parking lot and find another spot and WALK to the store…it can’t hurt cha.
skipper
January 4th, 2013
2:19 pm
@Gerald,
You turn the boot up….the directions are on the heel………..
Decaturite
January 4th, 2013
2:44 pm
RE entitlement of school board members: No reason for school board members to have ANY perks, not stipends, not anything, not in Gwinnett, not in Atlanta, not in City of Decatur. If they don’t want the job, there’s other’s equally deserving or more who do. I’d rather have school board members who are doing the job out of interest, expertise, and civic commitment than folks who need the perks or the consultancies and association presidencies that they hope to get with School Board on their CV. There’s high school students I’d trust more than some School Board members.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
3:35 pm
re: parking away from stores. Just today I note a nice dent and a gouge in the fender of my hoopty (favored automobile) due to someone in a parking lot opening their vehicle door into my fender. No note on the car, either, if you know what I mean. Parking AWAY from the door of the store is a GOOD idea.
Parent
January 4th, 2013
6:30 pm
Are the readers aware of the contents of complaints filed on Bartow County? Board member perks – hiring of family and friends, facility uses, board member steps down position to get administrative job of position he helped create, get involved in discipline issues, hold tribunals without training, inappropriate texting, sexting with principal and board member, non compliance with open records request, etc. Our current chairman,( also SACS) was a former superintendent let go from Bartow County due to MILLIONS misappropriated. I could go on and on but we are just a small town outside of the metro area. We just wanted help. Somebody please hear our cry…..
Google Davis Nelson
Fred in DeKalb
January 4th, 2013
7:03 pm
Gerald, right on to your posting at 12:58! If this story was about a Board member in APS/Clayton/DeKalb, there would be well over 100 posts along with people talking about the good old days. There are problems going in in most school districts and counties in this state. APS/Clayton/DeKalb are merely symptoms of a larger problem but they seem to be the frequent target of all that is bad (not to excuse them when they are obviously in the wrong). For some reason it is easy to assume these counties are unique with dysfunction.
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:38 pm
how do they win elections? its easy.
-race
-family
-cronyism
-poor baseline standards for qualification
-disinterested, involved voters
-good ole boy network
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:39 pm
sorry, UNinvolved voters
Beverly Fraud
January 4th, 2013
8:19 pm
“The reason citizens are being ignored? Bartow BOE Board chairman Davis Nelson is chairman of the Georgia council for SACS (AdvancEd).”
In the same way that Dr. Trotter and MACE were years ahead of the curve when it came to describing APS as a “gangsta” system, eventually (hopefully) people will start to realize just how much of SACS is a sham and a farce.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
8:46 pm
@Parent
January 4th, 2013
6:30 pm
Your post is really definitive. Something tells me they do not have the same problem in Moscow or Paris. I wonder why? That seems like a reach? Well, Atlanta is a major international city. I am guessing that the Parisians are move civic and ethical in addressing things, have higher expectation of the service role of government, and in Moscow, the Mafia would attack corruption. People there jump out of their cars and attack drivers who cut them off in traffic. This is not doable in the U. S. police state, where we have more people in prisons, per capita, than any country in the world. Does the general public even know this, that in effect, we are living in a police state? I mean, years ago that student spoke out at a John Kerry speaking event at a college and he was tasered and hauled off, right in front of Kerry who didn’t say a word about it.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
10:34 pm
School board training seminar http://goldline.pro/en/
Lee
January 5th, 2013
12:43 am
Interesting….
Standing in a parking space to save it??? That’s a new one to me. I must try that sometime.
Honey, there’s a space the next row over. Hop out and stand in it and don’t let anyone get it while I pull around.
But it’s raining outside.
Nag, nag, nag. All you do is complain.
The fact remains, there are idiots who walk amongst us. It just seems like they all shop at Wally World.
For your amusement – the People of Walmart song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxNgdFeWqM
Lee
January 5th, 2013
12:58 am
I should add that “nudging” folks out of your way is a classic NASCAR strategy.
Now get out there and swap some paint…
Logical Dad
January 7th, 2013
9:52 am
When my kids were young, we had what became a scripted back-and-forth whenever we were parking at a mall or a big box store. If a car was waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) for a close parking spot, the contest was to be the first one to notice if the driver was fat. Since I was driving, my kids usually won. (BTW, they were ALWAYS fat.)