That's what we wondered Monday as we listened to its president, David Harvey, threaten the county commissioners that if the school merger issue is not discussed, the chapter is going to challenge every economic development project the panel considers.

We're sorry, Mr. Harvey, the school merger issue has been discussed and, as it stands, is moot since the best that could happen today if the commissioners took a vote on the matter is a deadlock.

Commissioners listened last month as the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights made its argument for school consolidation. In our opinion, the case for merger was defeated when the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District and Weldon City Schools Board of Education delivered a statement that said they wanted no part of it.

Isn't that discussion enough? Doesn't that end the debate?

Apparently not because now Harvey is going to challenge anything that could make the county progress. What does that say about the organization? To us, it says they really don't care about the people they represent, that they would rather see people wallow in the misery of poverty than try to pick themselves up and apply for jobs that these economic development projects could afford them.

While we're not the biggest fans of so-called corporate welfare, in which large incentives are given to sway companies to locate in one county or the other, we're smart enough to understand that desperate times call for measures such as these to survive.

Do you really think the county commissioners want to call for a tax increase? They've already pulled the quarter cent sales tax from the holster and are ready to fire that in January because of the huge number of landowners in default, some getting ready to declare bankruptcy.

Yet the president of the county's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wants to continually press the county on an issue which has yet to be proven as effective, coupling a struggling county school system which is behind in its financial audits with two school systems we would say are not perfect but are making strides.

We also wonder if Harvey is speaking for the entire membership of the NAACP, or just himself. We believe the entire membership of the organization would not be as narrow minded as Harvey is being, to turn down the potential for economic development over a school merger issue that since last month's commissioners meeting has run out of steam.

We believe if Harvey is speaking for the entire organization then the membership needs to take a hard look at their platform and ask if it wants to stymie growth in the county and only chase a snipe that is the school merger issue.

If this is just Harvey's little realm and he is going around speaking unsanctioned, well, then maybe, it's time for new leadership. Either way, we're not swallowing the pill — Editor