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What do a former Beverly Hills property manager, a Mrs. North Carolina contestant, a Concord lawyer and a former state senator have in common? They’re all founders of Success4CMS … at least according to documents on file with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office.
The group came to my attention this summer with a website decrying the state of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. It later endorsed candidates for school board, then paid for just over $19,000 worth of billboards to support or oppose candidates. The biggest chunk of that went toward highlighting incumbent Carol Sawyer’s stand on keeping students in remote learning during the pandemic.
The group is a 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization,” an IRS status that lets it engage in political activities without disclosing donors, as long as those political activities don’t account for the majority of the group’s work.
Lawyer Larry Shaheen, a Republican political consultant acting as the group’s agent, steadfastly declined to say more about who was involved, other than insisting it was a nonpartisan coalition.
It turns out the group applied in August 2020 for a charitable solicitation license to “raise the necessary funds to bring awareness to the failures of the current CMS Board of Education.” Incorporation papers filed in May 2022 list five directors:
- James McGhie Allan IV of Cornelius, who created a bare-bones Facebook page in December 2021 with a photo advertising “Accountability for CMS: Coming 2022” (props to the Observer’s Anna Maria Della Costa for unearthing his ties to the group last month). Allan’s LinkedIn page lists him as a real estate executive, public education advocate and author whose causes include animal welfare, children, education and politics. Allan appears to be relatively new to the Charlotte area. In 2018 he was profiled as a property manager specializing in luxury residences in Beverly Hills. He’s been voting in Mecklenburg County since the 2020 general election and is registered unaffiliated.
- Danelle Joyce McCullough Martin of southeast Charlotte is listed on LinkedIn as owner and general manager of M Five Homes. She hosts a podcast called Diary of a Queen, which profiles women in various fields. Her personal web page, DanelleMartin.com, says she’ll represent Charlotte in the Mrs. North Carolina America pageant in May. She’s a registered Democrat who’s been voting locally for more than a decade.
- Kimberley Anne Herrick, a Concord lawyer, is listed as treasurer of Success4CMS. She’s an unaffiliated voter who teaches at Central Piedmont Community College.
- Clint Wyatt Bollinger is an unaffiliated voter and a neighbor of Martin’s. I couldn’t find anything more about him online.
- Joel Douglas McClure Ford is a former state senator and former chair of the Mecklenburg Democratic Party. He fell into disfavor with some of his fellow Democrats over stands such as his support of charter schools, and was beaten in the Democratic primary in 2018.
A $250,000 budget and a surprised board member
The document on file with the secretary of state’s office also lists a proposed budget of $250,000, broken into four line items: $127,500 for community educational activities, $95,000 for “donations to affiliated 527,” $22,500 for “attorney” and $5,000 for associated fees. The 527 is a reference to the Internal Revenue Service code for political parties, campaign committees and political action committees; the budget includes no more details.
Let me pause to state the obvious: It would have been more timely to report all this before the election. My only excuse is that I was swamped trying to report on 18 CMS board candidates, keep tabs on races in surrounding counties and cover other education news.
After the election it took a few rounds of emails and calls to connect with OpenSecrets and CREW to get advice on tracking 501(c)(4) organizations. Such groups are a major source of tracking “dark money” at the national level, but I hadn’t encountered one at the local school board level.
Four of the names on the Success4CMS board list were new to me, but last week I dialed Ford, whom I’ve spoken to off and on for years. After explaining that I had just located the list of board members, I asked him to tell me more about how the group came together and what the plans are. He stopped me with an incredulous laugh: “So I’m listed as a board member for Success4CMS? Can you send me that?”
Ford says he’s not active with Success4CMS and had no idea he’d been listed as a board member. But he says he has talked to Allan, Shaheen and ministers associated with the African American Faith Alliance about their dissatisfaction with CMS.
“This is a surprise to me,” he said, but “I’m not surprised about the election results — and the elections that are going to come with the at-large members. This community is absolutely frustrated with the decisions that this board made and is making.”
The results he refers to are the defeat of three incumbents and the election of five new members, a shakeup that hasn’t been seen in more than 20 years. But as I’ve written before, it’s not clear that Success4CMS or any of the more traditional groups that endorse candidates shaped the voters’ choices. Two of the five candidates the group endorsed won.
Lingering questions and gaps
My next call was to Herrick, the treasurer listed on the application for a charitable solicitation license. I got a law firm receptionist who had no idea what I was talking about. The reason for confusion quickly became clear: The application gave Herrick’s name with an email and phone number for Shaheen, the lawyer acting as the group’s agent.
It wasn’t hard to track Herrick to Mills Law. “I am the Treasurer and a board member, but am not authorized to speak on behalf of the board,” she emailed. “I wish I could be of more help. I will pass your contact information along to the chair, Mr. Allan.”
My attempts to reach Allan and Martin went unanswered. I asked Herrick how to reach Bollinger, the fifth member, but she says she’s not familiar with him.
So I looped back to Shaheen. He said he had submitted the form that included the board member list to the secretary of state’s office but “they were not supposed to publish that.” He said the list he submitted was accurate, but “if Mr. Ford says he’s not a member of the board, I am no one to contradict him.” Shaheen said he’ll amend the list if Ford requests it.
No one on the board will speak publicly, Shaheen says, because “I’m the only one you’re supposed to be talking to. They would prefer not to be in the press, and I think that’s their right.”
Shaheen said it’s not that any of the members are ashamed of their efforts. “Everybody’s very proud of what they did. In fact, I think there could be no greater victory than removing the person who’s done the most harm to kids in CMS, and that’s Carol Sawyer,” he said.
I pressed on why anyone would be reluctant to say they’re pushing for change on the CMS board. That was a common theme from groups across the county during this election season. He said the board members worried about harassment from “individuals like Ms. Sawyer and her supporters.”
Why Sawyer, above all the other board members who voted on majority decisions about how long to keep students in remote learning? “You know darn well that Carol Sawyer was the leader for keeping schools closed, that she backed the teachers’ union as opposed to the parents and students of CMS,” he said.
Actual spending? Wait and see
As for the $250,000 budget, Shaheen says that’s a proposal that has to be filed with the solicitor’s office before the fundraising begins. Shaheen wouldn’t say what the real budget turned out to be. “We have raised an amount. You’ll see it on our 990,” he said. That’s an IRS form required for tax-exempt organizations. The folks from CREW and Open Secrets say it could be as late as November 2023 before Success4CMS has to file that, and the form still won’t disclose who gave money.
Shaheen says the reference to a 527 political group referred to an early plan to create an affiliated PAC, but “with the rulings that we had from the Board of Elections we did not need to set that 527 up.” He wouldn’t give details but said the majority of the group’s money has been spent on educational activities, as required by the IRS. Those activities entail “informing the public about the failures of CMS,” he said.
The experts on social welfare groups say there’s a fine line between educating people about issues and campaigning for candidates. For instance, Success4CMS reported the money spent on billboards to the local Board of Elections as “electioneering,” but those billboards didn’t explicitly ask people to vote for or against anyone. Instead, they said things like “Carol Sawyer voted for empty classrooms.”
During the campaign, Sawyer said she took it as a badge of honor that she was the target of “attacks orchestrated by the far right.” She said last week she was intrigued to hear that the board members’ names had been made public. She said she had seen Ford at the polls campaigning for Stephanie Sneed, a Democrat who defeated Sawyer, and wasn’t surprised to learn of his involvement with Success4CMS. Sawyer said she doesn’t know the others.
Leadership changes around the region
CMS wasn’t the only district with hotly-contested elections and school board candidates who engaged with board politics during the pandemic. Several nearby counties elected board chairs last week, often with newly elected members testing their muscle. The new CMS board will hold its first meeting Tuesday, with five newcomers making up a majority of the board. New and old members told me last week there’s a lot of jockeying going on as they try to weigh the benefits of experience against the apparent desire for change among voters.
At-large member Elyse Dashew, who wasn’t on this year’s ballot, has chaired the board for the past three years. She was elected after serving as vice chair under Mary McCray, who held the post for seven years. Lenora Shipp, another at-large member, says there would be benefits to having an experienced member lead the board, a role she’d be willing to fill. But she said the new majority may expect even more change: “I think the message that I hear loud and clear is that we want change. And we want to see change from the top down, you know, when you talk about the board and leadership.”
After the new members are sworn in and the group elects a chair and vice chair, they’ll get a report on public input about a superintendent search. And they’ll face the task of finding a new interim superintendent before Hugh Hattabaugh takes his leave Dec. 31. They’ll likely hold a closed session to discuss the matter, but it’s unclear whether they’ll be ready to take a vote in public session or call a special meeting later this month.
