Tim Walz is telling people he’s just as nervous about facing JD Vance as he was the Sunday afternoon in August when he warned Kamala Harris in his running mate interview that he was a bad debater.

Maybe more nervous, according to multiple people who’ve spoken to him.

And the pressure is even higher, when for the first time in modern campaign history, the vice presidential debate Tuesday is likely to be the last marquee event before Election Day. With many voters still saying they don’t know enough about Harris, it could be up to Walz to help convince them to trust a vice president he barely knew himself before she picked him.

Talking to the aides who have coalesced around him in Minnesota and other supporters, Walz constantly comes back to how worried he is about letting Harris down, according to close to a dozen top campaign staffers and others who have been in touch with the governor and his team. He doesn’t want Donald Trump to win. He doesn’t want Harris to think she made the wrong choice.

He feels genuine contempt for and confusion over what he views as Vance’s abandonment of their common roots, and for flipping so many of his positions to fit with Trump. The digs he takes at Vance by saying he didn’t know many Midwesterners who went to Yale are a glimpse into his anxiety that his opponent learned to be a sharp debater there, according to people who know Walz.

And aides insist this isn’t just about setting expectations.

“He’s a strong person,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who’s known Walz since they were each first elected to Washington in 2006. “He’s just not a lawyer-debater type. It’s not like he was dreaming of debates when he was in first grade.”

Walz is confident in Harris’ vision. But the governor fears he won’t make his case as well as he needs to, according to people who have been speaking with him.

“How’s debate prep going?” one person at an exclusive high-dollar fundraiser asked Walz as he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in megadonor Alex Soros’ penthouse living room in Manhattan on Monday.

“As teachers, we are trained to answer the question, and we train our students to answer the questions,” the person recalled Walz saying. “That’s not how this goes.”

Inside Walz’s debate strategy

In long sessions that have gone late into the night and through weekends, Walz and his team have been balancing managing the Minnesota governor’s headspace, watching videos of Vance and holding mock sessions with stand-ins for the moderators, with Pete Buttigieg playing the Ohio senator. (Though the Transportation secretary is not going as method as Harris’ Trump stand-in did and growing out a beard.)

The plan for Tuesday night, several people involved told CNN, will be to largely skip Vance and go right at Trump – but to also squeeze the senator between his attempts to appeal to undecided voters and the always tricky task of satisfying America’s most prominent audience of one.

If they get their way, Trump will be triggered into a storm of anger, jealousy and pique as easily as he was when Harris poked him at their debate. Their goal is for Walz to lean into his likability to hammer Vance over “Project 2025” and for “selling his soul to Donald Trump,” as Walz put it at another New York fundraiser.

People involved say Walz may even try a line that originated when Harris was preparing for a vice presidential debate before Joe Biden dropped out: asking Vance what promises he made to Trump so the former president wouldn’t send an angry mob after him with a gallows, like Mike Pence experienced on January 6.

Walz and his team want commonsense indignation to come across, according to several in the know. Their worry is that Vance is going to eviscerate the governor’s hand-to-his-heart, dad-joke persona and make Walz come across as either a moron or a raging bull, or even an out-of-whack liberal vouching for another out-of-whack liberal.

Making people feel ‘joyful and hopeful’

Traditionally, running mates serve as attack dogs.

For the past six weeks of calibrated campaign appearances, Walz has been more emotional support animal for his party – whether, according to people who’ve been with them, that’s Harris feeling buoyed by his energy and vindicated by voters’ reactions to her pick (she was the one who suggested calling him “Coach” as they got ready for their first joint rally) or the voter who waited half an hour on a rope line last week for a fist bump and walked away squealing to a friend, “That’s all I needed.”

“People assume that he is a walking permission structure for rural, exurban, White male hunters,” said a senior campaign aide. “Yes, for the 1 or 2 points of those we want to move. But it’s much deeper than that: He’s a walking permission structure for people to feel joyful and hopeful themselves.”

That appears to be working: whether it’s the Human Rights Campaign black-tie gala in Washington, where his remarks drew tears from many at the high-priced tables (he changed into his tuxedo in the convention center bathroom after flying in wearing a sweatshirt) or the stuffy gym at the conveniently named Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where people like retired federal government worker Ana Gallardo said they loved Walz even if they couldn’t say why.

Asked to name her favorite thing about the governor she was so thrilled to see, Gallardo paused.

“I really don’t know,” she said. “I’m going to listen closer today.”

What Walz highlights about Harris – and what he is careful not to

With his 12 years in the House and nearly six so far as governor, Walz has more government experience and a deeper record than many men who’ve served as president. But he’s leaned into the feeling of being a guy who just wandered in wide-eyed to find thousands of people cheering for him and his name on the logo.

Jamming this guy into a campaign that Harris had to suddenly take over, with different camps among the staff competing for dominance, has been tricky. While some on the campaign have been eager to milk as many different appearances and fundraisers as they can out of an unexpectedly in-demand running mate, others have questioned why he is not being kept focused on the necessary basics of appealing to White men in what aides on the day he was picked were calling the “Blue Walz” states.

This also plays out in day-to-day engagement: a governor who until six weeks ago was one of the most eagerly accessible Democratic politicians in the country and who essentially manifested himself as the running mate with a few spicy TV appearances has done only a few interviews since being picked, all lower profile. He doesn’t take questions from reporters and rarely comes to chat off the record on his campaign plane. Aides declined requests for even a brief interview with CNN.

As they monitor how Vance has been fencing with reporters in Q&As after his many events, Walz aides know their approach risks Walz getting rusty.

Their hands are tied, multiple people involved acknowledge: The vice president’s staff doesn’t want a contrast that would highlight how few unscripted events Harris has done.

Walz, though, has reminded staffers that he wasn’t the head football coach back in Minnesota. He was the assistant coach and defensive coordinator, and that’s the experience he’s turning to now.

Walz very deliberately – and without being told by Harris or her inner circle – never asks a crowd to elect him vice president. He never talks about what he’d do on the job. He doesn’t even talk about electing “us” or what a Harris-Walz administration would be. He talks about Harris, how important it is to get her into the White House and how excited he is to see what she’ll do on the job.

“The guy is reclaiming old White dude masculinity away from toxicity,” said one person who’s spoken with Walz often since he was picked.

To Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona, that’s the difference between what he calls the “machito” of the Republican ticket and true machismo, in a way that he believes will ripple well beyond the people who look and sound like Walz.

“Tim Walz epitomizes the Latino dad. He loves his family. He loves families generally. He’s got a good sense of humor. He’s warm. …. He’s just there to support, and he takes great pride in the success of others,” Fontes said. “‘Machito’ – it’s less mature. It has sort of to do with the big trucks and the loud music version of the Latino men. And there’s plenty of those guys out there, don’t get me wrong. But we grow out of that pretty quickly.”

Fontes said that distinction is reinforced by “the physical appearance that this is sort of a dad here who’s super proud of his daughter.”

Walz has maintained that relatable demeanor, even as he seems to still be wrapping his head around how much his life has changed – and might even more.

“What’s it been like the past six weeks?” he said at the beginning of his speech in Pennsylvania. “Pretty strange.”

Up on the 36th floor of the InterContinental Hotel in Manhattan in a suite where most of the seats were filled by billionaires and the refreshments were a thick wooden box of macadamia nut cookies and brownies kept under a glass dome, Walz deflected when one of the hosts said how excited she was to have the next vice president with them.

“That still sounds really weird,” he said, shaking his head.

“I know, but we’ve got to keep saying it,” she said.

Behind the scenes and on the stump

Behind the scenes, the man who goofs around through doughnut shops and convenience stores can also be the harder-nosed politician who won a longtime Republican US House seat by hustling around a district that didn’t have its own major media market.

Walz, according to people familiar with the internal discussions, was the one whom Jimmy McCain, the late Sen. John McCain’s son, first reached out to when he wanted to endorse Harris. Walz was the one put on the phone with Joe Manchin when the West Virginia senator was demanding to talk to Harris as a pre-condition for an endorsement. (Manchin has since said he was not endorsing Harris.)

Walz has also, according to people who have been talking with him, been the conduit for former House colleagues and labor leaders, including conversations with firefighters’ union president Ed Kelly that the Harris campaign is optimistic will soon help land an endorsement. Or he’s the one calling digital influencers to thank them for their posts about the campaign.

Walz spent part of a recent weekend replacing the seals on the washers and dryers in the house he’s living in while the governor’s mansion in St. Paul is being remodeled. Inspired to learn as they met a marching band on their August bus tour in Georgia that Harris had played the French horn in high school, Walz has mused to aides that that who they really should be going after is high school band kids and alumni – trust him, he says, that’s the group with the best-organized infrastructure and email lists in a school.

Whatever Walz does, no one on his staff or Harris’ believes he can move the needle much during Tuesday’s debate, especially not with a line or two. More than anything over those 90 minutes in the CBS studio in New York, his aides just want him to keep giving off that feeling of joy and reassurance.

To Tim Ryan, the former Ohio congressman who was lauded for his performance in two 2022 debates against Vance in a Senate race he went on to lose, that’s the advice he relayed to Walz’s team without talking to his old House colleague directly.

“If I was Tim, I wouldn’t be the least bit intimidated by (Vance),” Ryan told CNN. “Just be who you are. Everyone is enjoying seeing you and seeing who you are. Just be that guy.”

This story’s headline has been updated.

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Isabelle Harris of Abbotsford, B.C., won a bronze medal at the European Open Judo competition on Saturday.

The 23-year-old scored an ippon, or full point, against Italy’s Antonietta Palumbo in a women’s 63-kilogram marathon that went more than six minutes into overtime.

Harris was also a bronze medalist at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

Her teammate Yanis Hachemi of Repentigny, Que., lost to Niels Thijssen of the Netherlands in his men’s 73-kg bronze medal bout. The Canadian lost his sixth game of the day via ippon in overtime.

During the women’s bronze bout, Harris and Palumbo each received two penalties, and a third on either side would have ended the game.

“Both had good chances to throw the other,” Bouchard said. “Isabelle managed to counter one of them [her opponent’s] attacks and she scored a big ippon. There was a lot at stake in this fight.

“She achieved some great results last year, particularly at the Pan American Games. And it’s important to note that she had to miss almost two months last summer due to injury and only started training again just under a month ago.”

She was a national treasure and won multiple awards. But what was somewhat surprising was that Dame Maggie Smith never loved the limelight.

“I’m never shy on stage, always shy away from it,” she once described herself to critic Nancy Banks Smith.

She never watched herself in Downton Abbey. It is known that she didn’t even show up to accept her first Oscar.

And in a rare interview for the British Film Institute in 2017, she lamented that she was no longer able to walk down the street without being stopped by adoring fans.

Despite being an acclaimed stage actress since the 1960s and having a varied and successful career on the big screen, she insisted she had led a “completely normal life” until her role in Downton Abbey.

The ITV drama, loved by viewers around the world, had elevated her to a new level of superstardom late in her life – and she revealed she regretted what she had lost as a result.

In the drama, which aired between 2010 and 2015, Dame Maggie played Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, the grand matriarch who excelled at amazing one-liners.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said of the way public recognition changed during that time.

Recalling life before Downton, she said: “I went to the theater and galleries and things like that by myself.” And now I can’t. And that’s terrible.

She added that Fulham Road in south-west London was “dodgy” enough without her being seen walking along it.

That’s not to say she never liked being approached by fans.

Her role as the formidable Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films won her legions of younger fans – something she clearly enjoyed.

“A lot of very little people used to say hello to me and that was nice,” she said during an interview on The Graham Norton Show in 2015.

“It was completely different people,” she said, noting that for her it was as if she had never existed before.

“She loved that kids recognized her from Harry Potter,” added Nick Hytner, the stage and film director who directed Dame Maggie in “The Lady in the Van.” “She liked that.”

“She loved bananagrams.”

For those who have worked with her, given her enormous reputation, it is understandable that they were a bit apprehensive at first.

Lesley Nichol, who starred as Downton Abbey’s chef, said she was “terrible” when she first heard she would be working with Dame Maggie.

“I’ve never worked with anyone of this caliber before,” she told BBC Radio Ulster. “And I thought, I don’t know what to tell her, it’s going to be really difficult, God, she’s probably going to be really great.”

But Nichol said she quickly realized none of it was true.

“She didn’t want anyone to be afraid of her or in awe of her, she just wanted to be part of the gang.”

Nichol said it was always “lovely” spending time with Dame Maggie and said they would spend time playing the word game Bananagrams between takes.

“She was scary at it and really competitive and really good at it,” she said.

“But that’s just how she was, she was in the middle of the audience and just very happy to be part of it all.”

Dame Maggie was known for her sharp tongue on and off screen.

But that didn’t spoil their sense of fun, Hytner told BBC News.

“Everyone knows how funny she was, she had an exceptionally quick, super-intelligent, biting wit,” he said.

“But she was fun to be around, even if you were on the receiving end of her snarky joke, you couldn’t help but laugh.”

“She was so clever, she was also capable of extraordinary sweetness and was a wonderful companion at concerts, ballet and theater.”

“A touch of mischief”

Harry Potter stars also remembered how much fun Dame Maggie had on set.

On Saturday, Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the film series, posted a picture of himself dancing awkwardly with Dame Maggie.

“She was so special, always hilarious and always kind,” he wrote.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have shared a set with her, and especially lucky to have shared a dance.”

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games.

Asked in her BFI interview to reflect on the most excruciating thing she’s ever done, Dame Maggie recalled a time during the filming of Harry Potter when she was stuck in a caravan in the snow for a week, “with that stupid hat on the head”. .

“And sit in that trailer day after day and not be used.” [while waiting for her next scene]That doesn’t make you so happy. “It was a terrible thing,” she said.

“But there were other people in the trailer who were moaning like Miriam Margolyes. You’re not alone if you moan.”

Margolyes, who also appeared on screen with Dame Maggie in Ladies in Lavender, said the actress always had a “touch of mischief”.

“I saw what a kind yet terrifying person she could be,” she said.

“I wouldn’t say I was a friend of hers, I was an acolyte and she allowed me to be one.”

Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout in the wizarding series, recalled a time when she was absent from filming because she had finished her role in the series.

“[Dame Maggie] said: “Nonsense! When I’m in a scene I want you there, so please come back. And she talked to the producer and got me back so I got some more money.

She admitted that she was sometimes afraid of her. “But you can forgive someone for being the best of the best, right, if they have a bit of a temper.”

From the small stage to the big screen, Dame Maggie’s moving performances have always been a showstopper.

But she was also extremely committed. Even later in life, she was known for never showing up on set without having her lines perfectly memorized.

“I never saw her on set with a little script, she knew it before she came here,” Lady Carnarvon, who lives in Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey was filmed, told BBC Breakfast.

“She worked so hard to get up every morning … and wear corsets for hours,” she said, adding that she continued to work until the end of her life.

“I think deep down there was a desire to do everything right,” Margoyles said. “But she always did.”

Throughout, she remained famously private.

She rarely gave interviews. And Margolyes notes that Dame Maggie “didn’t like being on chat shows,” even though she was good at them.

When she won her first Oscar in 1970 for her performance in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” she skipped the awards ceremony.

At that time she was acting in a play in London. Many other actors would have had the understudy take over for the evening, but not Dame Maggie.

She actually appeared to accept her Special Award Bafta in 1993, but her speech only lasted 30 seconds.

“If it is possible to act in films without taking off your clothes or killing people with machine guns. I actually seem to have succeeded,” she said.

It all paints a picture of an actress who found the whole idea of ​​being a star a little embarrassing, even though there’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the number of awards she’s won.

“She was a very private person,” Lady Carnarvon added.

“I always wanted to respect that and not cross any boundaries. And I think she was like that, just like her character on TV.”

But despite Dame Maggie’s determination to stay under the radar whenever possible, she left a lasting impression on everyone she met.

Perhaps her old friend, the late actor Kenneth Williams, said it best in his diary entry about Dame Maggie in December 1962.

“The weather was cold and dreary and the crowd was mediocre [Dame Maggie’s] Finish monotonous and not very exciting. I didn’t say goodbye or anything because I would have cried.

“But this girl has a magic and a comedic flair that makes you really grateful, and she’s capable of a generosity that’s beautiful.”

“She is one of those rare people who suddenly makes things and places wonderful just by her presence. She’s adorable.”

ATLANTA – In honor of former President Jimmy Carter‘S To mark the 100th anniversary, Trees Atlanta will plant 100 trees at the Carter Center and another at a second symbolic location.

On October 1, Carter will join the Centennial Club. But Georgia has been celebrating humanity for weeks.

A star-studded music gala took place at the Fox Theater in mid-September. Just a few days later he received a lifetime achievement award Dayton Literary Peace Prize Founded in Ohio.

RELATED:

100 trees for Jimmy Carter

The first tree will be planted at 10 a.m. at the Georgia State Capitol next to the Jimmy Carter statue. The second will be planted at noon in the Carter Center at the campus entrance.

Bronze statue of President Jimmy Carter, State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The other 99 will be planted around the Carter Center between October 2024 and March 2025.

Each tree will be a live oak tree, the official state tree of Georgia. Live oak, known as a strong and hard wood, was also once used for shipbuilding. It serves as a nod to former President Carter’s service in the U.S. Navy as well as his own fortitude and resilience.

RELATED: Jimmy Carter celebrates his first year of hospice care | How he did it

This is the second time Trees Atlanta has gifted Mother Nature to the 39th President. He received a Georgia Oak for his 80th birthday.

Greg Levine, the executive director of Trees Atlanta, noted Carter’s love of nature, which was shaped by the time he spent working on his family farm.

“We hope he will like this gift,” he said.

“From the Carters’ founding of a tree farm in the 1950s near Plains to their interest in the trees on the grounds of the Carter Presidential Center, we see that their values ​​have always been greater than themselves,” said Dr. Meredith Evans, the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. “They understood that simple gestures like planting and caring for trees help our environment, community and spirit. Among other things, trees keep the air and water clean and our minds calm. This extends the longevity of a healthy life, as President Carter showed us.”

DALLAS – This week’s Florida State football availability report shows some turnover.

Offensive tackles Jeremiah Byers and Robert Scott, both absent from last week’s win over Cal, will try out Saturday at SMU (8 p.m. on ACC Network). Another offensive lineman, Richie Leonard IV, will miss the game against the Mustangs, an FSU spokesman told Osceola.

Leonard, a transfer from Florida, started the first two games of the season at left guard, started the third game against Memphis at right guard and came off the bench in last week’s win over Cal. Alabama transfer TJ Ferguson is listed as the co-starter at right guard and could make his third straight start against SMU.

Leonard and running back Roydell Williams, who head coach Mike Norvell said will be out for an “extended period of time,” are the only two FSU players out for the SMU game.

Byers and Scott are listed as the top two options at right tackle on FSU’s depth chart. However, Byers has missed the last three games and Scott missed the Cal game.

Redshirt sophomore Jaylen Early made his first career start in the Cal win and was praised for his performance. If Byers and Scott are both available Saturday night, the pecking order at right tackle will be very interesting.

FSU-SMU live updates

Predictions, keys for FSU-SMU game

TUKWILA, Washington – Following Friday’s shooting at Southcenter Mall, KOMO News uncovered numbers that suggest violent crime in the mall and surrounding area is still near a record high.

On Friday afternoon, several shoppers took cover as more than a dozen shots were fired in the parking lot immediately outside the Nordstrom store.

Tukwila police said based on their initial investigation, the incident appears to be a targeted act of violence between two parties. Officers added that both parties involved fled the scene immediately after the incident. They also noted that no injuries were reported.

RELATED | Shots were fired in the parking lot of the Southcenter shopping center; No injuries were reported

Although there were few casualties, shoppers who witnessed the shooting told KOMO News they were outraged by the level of violence in broad daylight.

“It’s a public place where families and everyone comes out, so I don’t know why they would risk anyone’s life,” said shopper Sade Soliai.

Given that the shooting occurred in the middle of the day, KOMO News examined the magnitude of the violent crime problem in the mall and surrounding area.

Using the Tukwila Police Department’s crime mapping website, KOMO News uncovered numbers that suggest violent crime in the mall is still worse than in previous times, particularly when compared to pre-Covid years.

Data shows that year to date, from January 1, 2024 to September 28, 2024, there have been 30 violent crimes at the mall and within a half-mile radius of the mall property.

According to the figures, this is a slight decrease compared to 33 violent crimes in the same area in the corresponding period in 2023.

Nevertheless, KOMO News learned that the numbers for the current year 2024 are still higher than between 2019 and 2022.

During the same period of these years, there were 18 violent crimes in 2019, 15 cases in 2020, 27 cases in 2021 and 28 cases in 2022.

Several high-profile incidents have occurred at the mall over the past five years, including the November 2022 murder of a shopper in the Southcenter Mall parking lot. The murder occurred when a man and his wife interrupted three suspects who were trying to steal their car. Ultimately, all three suspects in this case pleaded guilty to murder.

A year earlier, in November 2021, a Rainier Beach High School graduate and her 18-year-old boyfriend were shot and killed at the mall the day before Thanksgiving. The 17-year-old victim later died in hospital and no suspects were ever arrested.

In January 2024, the body of a murdered taxi driver was found in the shopping center parking lot. Police said the victim was likely stabbed elsewhere and then dumped on mall property. An absent U.S. Army soldier was eventually arrested and charged with murder in the case.

Regarding Friday’s shooting, Tukwila police did not respond to KOMO’s requests for updates on the status of the investigation or the search for suspects in the case.

Schools in the Clinton system are facing a roofing need that administrators say is getting worse and more costly. Total repair costs are currently estimated at over $11 million.

That was the message John Lowe, executive director of technology and support services for Clinton City Schools, delivered to the Clinton City School Board last week.

Both the city and county school systems have had roofing issues for some time, and Lowe said the estimated cost for four of the five Clinton City schools for total roof repairs is about $11,299,600 supplied.

“Going back to the (state) Needs Based Capital Fund, that window opened Aug. 1 and the filing deadline was Sept. 13,” Lowe said. “We met that deadline and I filled out 14 different applications that Dr. (Linda) Brunson was able to sign together with our district representatives. These applications allocate over $6 million for roofing and I included approximately $2.5 million for HVAC needs.

“There is no guarantee that we will receive funding, but in 2021-22 I received almost $900,000, so we can hope for some support from the state in this area,” he continued prices change.”

The $11 million estimate accounts for every school in need, except the newer Clinton High. Among those numbers were cases, Lowe said, that he considered high priority based on their current condition.

“I needed those estimates to support the grant,” Lowe explained. “So you can see some of the updated numbers as well as places that are high priority for me right now. This is Building 300 at LC Kerr, where multiple leaks have occurred in four of the six classrooms. The next equally high priorities are Sampson Middle, both the academic wing and the gymnasium, and then there is the Sunset Avenue wall.

“That wall, I mean, I don’t sleep on it because we have that dividing brick facade,” Lowe confirmed. “If action is not taken, the brick facade above office wing 800 will eventually fall away, from the upper part to the lower part. We have to deal with it.”

The wall project alone, Lowe said, is estimated to cost about $280,000, money he noted is included in his capital expenditure plan. Although there are plans to make the repairs, Lowe said more help is needed.

“My capital expenditure plan for this school year is to bid and rehabilitate that wall, but we’re going to need some assistance from the Needs Base Public School Capital Funds or an infusion of some (money) from the County Commissioners Fund Balance will help us do that because it will be an expensive project,” emphasized Lowe.

The director also explained in detail how the contractors should repair the wall and when funds will be available for the project.

“The recommendation is to take the brick façade off, replace the windows and install vertical metal roof panels as we are getting water through the current brick façade,” he said. “We made every possible attempt to patch it; We replaced the edging on the bottom and coated the wall with a water repellent to try to contain the problem, but we are now at the point where we have no more paving.”

The Sunset wall isn’t the only place Lowe said she’s at her patch limit.

“We’re also running out of pavers for the 300 Hall at LC Kerr,” he said. “As you know, we keep going back up there and covering the shingles even more and now it looks like a patchwork quilt, but then new leaks keep popping up elsewhere. That’s why I’m sharing these estimates to show where we stand in terms of our roofing needs. This really helped me prepare our applications for the Needs Based Public Schools Capital Funds Grant.”

Regarding the scope of the total roofing needs, Lowe’s provided estimates detailing the estimated 2024 construction costs and the 2024 consulting fee, which were equal to the total cost of the project.

• Butler Avenue – (Building 300) construction $243,000, consulting $19,000; a total of $262,000

• LC Kerr – (gym wall) construction $27,000, consulting $4,000; total $31,000; (300 buildings) $148,500, $12,000; total $160,500; (Building 01.15-Kimbrough Road, end of 200 Hall) $196,500, $16,000; a total of $212,500.

• Sunset Avenue – (Elevation Wall) construction $259,000, consulting $21,000; total $280,000; (Triangular building on Kerr Street side) $636,000, $51,000; a total of $687,000; (Auditorium) $315,000, $25,000; a total of $340,000; (700 Hall at Finch Street) $423,000, $33,800; total $456,800; (Combined Auditorium and Finch Street Hall – not charged as a whole) $738,000, $58,800; a total of $796,800.

• Sampson Middle – (Total area of ​​Sampson Middle – not calculated as a whole) Construction $3,720,000, Consulting $335,000; total $4,055,000; (Academic Wing) Construction $2,025,000, Consulting $162,000; a total of $2,187,000; (Gym Wing) $1,695,000, $136,000; totaling $1,831,000.

Based on these figures, the estimated total construction cost is $10,426,000 with consulting fees at $873,600 for a total cost of $11,299,600. While it is a steep hill to overcome, and while plans are underway to address the worst problems, he stressed that urgent help from other sources continues to be needed.

“There is some good news on LC Kerr, as I mentioned, such as our 2021-22 needs-based funds that I just filed this summer, our recent final reports, and my numbers are exactly the same as theirs. The offers were only slightly below our proposal, which was around $57,000.”

While these funds are only intended for the projects listed on their applications, such as new construction, Lowe said the possibility of using these grants for roof repairs at LC Kerr is an option.

“You (NC DPI) immediately said that we would not like to refund these funds, and I responded that I did not want to refund them either, but according to your information, they can only be used to the extent that was suggested in the grant application.” he said. “They said that’s true, but let me discuss this with my boss Dennis Hilton. Dennis then comes back to me and asks: Are there any other roofing projects at the locations that were included?

Lowe continued: “I said, yes, sir, there is; We have an urgent need at LC Kerr Elementary. It’s far more than what we have left, but would that be eligible?” What ultimately came out of it, and I got this in writing from the Office of School Planning, was that we were going to use the $57,000 that we were awarded for can use the LC Kerr project.

“This is helping us tremendously and I had already budgeted a certain amount for this product,” he added. “I hope the project goes through and receives a fair bid so I can shift the rest of my budget toward the wall at Sunset and both of these issues can be resolved with this capital outlay. That is my intention and then we will tackle the others as best we can, hopefully with the help of the district commissioners.”