Corruption by secret governance in Beaufort County | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This post appears courtesy of the Beaufort Observer.

When decisions are made in secret we end up with corrupt government.

    It happened at the Commissioners meeting on October 1, and again at a special called meeting on October 22 2018. The Beaufort County Commissioners approved an ordinance and a contract without a review by the board in open session. Simply put, they did the same thing the Democrats did when ObamaCare was passed.

    On October 1, by a vote of six to one, an ordinance regulating solar farms was approved without a review by the entire board in open session. The proposed ordinance was presented three days before the meeting. During the 22 years I have been a commissioner we have never approved an ordinance, or for that matter anything else, without a review of the item in public. This is a prime example of backroom dealing. With only three days for commissioners to look at the ordinance and zero time for the public to review, a public hearing was held at the October 1 meeting and a vote taken.

    I objected to the procedure because it was a cram down. There are several regulations in the ordinance that are un-enforceable. Moreover, there are other serious defects. There is a good chance the solar industry may sue to get reasonable regulations. The method of enforcement is questionable because outside contractors are empowered to make enforcement decisions. That appears to be an unlawful delegation of government power to private parties.

    It is not that I am against any solar ordinance but this ordinance is intended not to regulate the industry but to stop all solar development in Beaufort County. The courts will have a field day with this, at great expense to the taxpayers, if this is challenged in court.

    The bad thing about the solar industry is the number of politicians at the federal and state levels who have been bought off by the large sums of money funneled to the Federal and state Democrat and Republican caucuses. There is no question the public pays subsidies to the industry and this results a higher cost for electricity. All of this came out of the Obama administration. The only good thing about solar is that land owners in Beaufort County can make in one year of leasing what they could make in five years farming. I favor the local farmer.

    This ordinance has major flaws in that it presents regulations that are virtually impossible to enforce. It is the work of Ron Buzzeo and Frankie Waters.

    It happened again on October 22. FEMA threw a monkey wrench into the collection of yard waste generated by Hurricane Florence. Beaufort County had a contract in place for a company to collect the waste. The contract was developed in advance and was to be activated simply by us calling the contractor. The contractor would go to work within a few days of the call. FEMA claimed, because of new federal regulations, that our contract should be re-bid with some changes or they would not pay us for the cleanup. This is why waste has not been picked up.

    We re-bided the contract according to FEMA requirements. Beaufort County staff did not make the decision of who to award the new contract to based solely on price. They used a system that is used for employing professionals. This system is subjective which means the contract can go to whomever is the favorite bidder as opposed to a competitive bidding process. The contract was awarded to the company that had the bid before FEMA required us to change the contract.

    Here is the ugly part. The Board was never presented with a copy of the new contract. We were given the agenda (one sheet) and another sheet talking about the process. The amount of money the contractor is to be paid was never stated. The manager gave a brief summary. The Board voted five to one to approve the contract. Jerry Langley was absent. I voted against the contract because I have never seen it. Does anyone see anything wrong? The meeting may have lasted ten minutes.

    The issue is the same with the solar ordinance and the trash pick-up contract. Secret government. Failure to follow an open public process. Failure of allowing both the public and the Board of Commissioners to examine the issues, the terms and conditions of the ordinance and contract. In both cases the Board approved an ordinance and a contract without performing their fiduciary duty to the public. Who is going to pay for the lawsuits that will probably come from the flawed solar ordinance? What if FEMA refuses to pay all of the cost of trash pickup or there is a contractor dispute with the county for trash pickup? The County is required to pay the contractor and then negotiate with FEMA to get our money back. The answer is that you, the taxpayer, is on the hook in both cases.

    With the election of Fake Frankie Waters, along with the other phony Republicans to the Board within the last four years, we are making more and more decisions in the backroom. Our budget is in excess of 60 million dollars per year. We only meet once each month and that meeting is getting shorter and shorter. That is because more and more decisions are made in secret. Fake Frankie Waters is using the same tactics that resulted in the failure of Tri-County Telephone Company, the Beaufort County Hospital and the Belhaven Hospital. That is, Secret Governance.

    The present Board of Commissioners is providing no oversight to county government. A part of that proof is in their willingness to accept whatever the staff presents to them as gospel. That is why we have spent ten million dollars of savings and have 8 million dollars that is off budget this year alone. Now they are trying to build a new jail complex again without the public knowing what is going on, and have added 90 employees during the past three years.

    This is why the sheriff is wildly spending money. Because of lack of oversight, we just three months ago, wrote a check for $346,000 for medical care for one prisoner. The Sheriffs excuse was he did not know anything about it until he got the bill. Not one word of reprimand was issued to anyone, nor was anything done to prevent it from happening again. This is gross negligence. During this month the Sheriff is spending $80,000 for new guns and changing uniforms again. Why? If there was money in the Sheriff's budget for these un-necessary expenses why did the Board of Commissioners take $346,000 out of fund balance to cover the medical bill?

    You can stop all of this by not voting for Fake Frankie Waters and Ernie Coleman on November 6th. Help clean up the Beaufort County swamp.