Former Iredell County Commission Chairman Steve Johnson recently charged that a front-page Record & Landmark article “was unreliable, it was not based upon facts, and it had no business appearing in the paper.”

Johnson leveled the accusations at the November 9 commissioner meeting. He said he would not speculate as to whether the article was due to someone being “incompetent, lazy, or unethical,” but that the end result was the same.

Johnson said he had respect for the Iredell Neighbors, the Iredell Citizen, and the Charlotte Observer, but had come to the conclusion that the Record & Landmark was “no longer a reliable source of news for the people of the county.”

Commissioner Marvin Norman concurred with Johnson’s charges and went on to criticize an editorial in the November 7 Record & Landmark. “I hope he [newspaper editor] can someday get his facts straight,” Norman stated.

Commissioner Doug Madison was succinct. At the conclusion of Johnson’s remarks, he said “ditto.”

The article that provoked Johnson concerned the school facility plan being considered by the task force appointed by the County Commissioners and the Iredell-Statesville Board of Education. The story quoted Johnson as saying the proposal was “workable,” and implied that he was in favor of incurring over $140,000,000 of debt to finance the plan.

Johnson claims that he only said the part of the plan relating to high school improvements appeared to be workable, given the county’s current revenues.

Subsequent to Johnson’s speech, the facilities task force unanimously voted to recommend a plan for building improvements. Johnson says he agreed to the proposals as prioritizing future needs, but that he has made no commitment as to funding the plan, and would not vote to raise the tax rate to do so.

An article in the Iredell Neighbors basically supported Johnson’s assessment.

Johnson’s criticism of the Record & Landmark is newsworthy. It is rare that an elected official, speaking at a public meeting, makes such serious accusations against the major local news outlet.

A responsible daily newspaper would report the story. If it believed the criticism to be unwarranted, it would defend the accuracy of its news coverage.

The Record & Landmark did not take this course. It chose to ignore the story. We are the only news source that has reported it.