After losing his job at a Raleigh nonprofit in April, Wake County School Board member John Tedesco now risks losing his home.
According to reports in the News & Observer of Raleigh and a left-wing blog, Tedesco faces foreclosure proceedings on his Garner home. One of five Republican-backed members on the school board, Tedesco has come under harsh criticism for supporting a switch to neighborhood-based schools rather than busing for socioeconomic diversity.
Tedesco told the N&O that he’s lived off his life savings, school board stipend, and income tax return since he left his job at Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle — a nonprofit that pairs at-risk youth with older mentors — around Easter Weekend last year.
Media reports indicated that opponents of the school board’s conservative majority were gunning for Tedesco’s job and questioning the nonprofit’s diversity because of his employment there.
In a telephone interview with Carolina Journal in April, one of Big Brothers Big Sisters’ board members declined to confirm or deny whether donors or advocacy groups had pressured the organization to oust Tedesco.
“I wouldn’t express an opinion one way or the other,” said Bill Fletcher, a Cary realtor and Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction in 2004. “We don’t have public board meetings. We don’t have an open meetings law. So I won’t offer any comment on that.”
Tedesco’s property has a tax value of $220,000, according to Wake County records.
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.