Misfeasance has now become malfeasance by the Gang of Five as they ignore problems in the EDC | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    What is wrong with government, at all levels, was on full display Monday night (4-2-12) at the Beaufort County Board of Commissioner's meeting. It was an astonishing display of arrogance and pure rudeness exhibited by a group of commissioners, led primarily by Chairman Jerry Langley, that was embarrassing, if for no other reason than that there were several young people in the audience. We are sure they left with a very jaundiced view of "government."

    Here's the breakdown.

    Citizen Warren Smith dutifully signed up in advance to speak as required. We'll leave the nuances to your perception from the video below, but note that he was immediately admonished by the Chairman to limit his comments to "three minutes." What you do not see in the camera shot below is the body language and catty, middle schoolish remarks by several of the commissioners. It was nothing short of an indictment of their Mama's raising of them ... no we take that back, we actually believe their Mamas raised them better, but the arrogance of sitting on that elevated platform with a hammer has gone to their head.

    Now we will concede that both what Mr. Smith said and the way he said it did not comport to the apparent desire of these "officials'" idea of how a humble serf should present ourselves to them as masters and their august position. In Redneck language, Warren stuck it to them. And their best defense was crass rudeness.

    But except for the disrespect toward a citizen who has exhausted hours of his time investigating a situation that these self-anointed potentates have created themselves, the worst part of the whole exhibition was the substance of the issue.

    What Mr. Smith was addressing is a boondoggle of corruption and misfeasance that has cost the taxpayers of this county more than six million dollars. That is a conservative estimate of the direct expense these five people have stuck the taxpayers with in foolish spending on a totally inept and ineffective economic development program.

    To repeat what we've said before, the EDC has offered no evidence--zero, zip, nada, none--that they are directly responsible for creating ANY jobs that would not have been created without them. What Mr. Smith was saying Monday night was that the numbers they do put out are bogus. Yet watch what kind of response it gets.

    We would try to be more gracious toward the possibility that "while they meant well, they just didn't know any better," that is impossible to honestly do when you consider that for nearly a year now the Gang of Five has been told over and over again, with tons of documentation to support it, exactly what the truth is about their boondoggle.

    We find it despicable the way Chairman Langley treats Mr. Smith but we know him to be a strong person and certainly more than capable of taking care of himself. But the example this treatment conveys to other citizens who might would become involved in government, but who will not accept being treated like this, is the much bigger problem.

    The real damage here is that the failure of the Board to respond to the mess in the EDC simply reinforces the prevailing attitude in many people's mind that government is so corrupt that it does not matter what ordinary people think, say or do. "They're just going to do what they want to do and the public be damned," is the too oft heard reaction.

    Yet the Board does nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, except continue to make the problem worse. The actions of the infamous Gang of Five have now turned from misfeasance to malfeasance. This Gang of Five is now suborning the Economic Director and his cronies violating the law.

    The details we'll publish later, but the essence of their malfeasance is their failure to comply with the law that requires an annual report on the economic development program, which contains specific documentation required by law, and their adherence to the ethics laws of North Carolina, not to mention violating the Public Records and Open Meetings laws.

    Yep, they have been violating N. C. G. S. 158-8.8 for several years. We will show that there is no question about that fact. That's the law that requires public officials to file ethics disclosure statements and participate in ethics training. Again, we'll have more on that later. But just know that last night every one of those commissioners knew about both violations of the ethics law but continued to ignore their legal duty. Watch the video and ask yourself: What are these arrogant politicians actually doing to get in compliance with laws they know they are violating and have been violating while they squandered over six million dollars of the taxpayer's money? What is their response? And if you can decipher a constructive response, please let us know. We have not seen such.

    They have imposed far larger costs than six million dollars on the hard working people of Beaufort County who are suffering from an economic depression--yes, that is the correct term--worse than anything any of these commissioners, and their families who sponge off the taxpayers, have yet to experience. They not only have wasted six million dollars, but they have failed to provide an effective economic development program that could have benefitted all of the businesses and employees in Beaufort County. And the Gang of Five has imposed higher taxes on employers in the depth of a recession that kills jobs. That tax increase on many small businesses has done more harm than all the things the EDC has tried to take credit for in the last three years.

    But when presented with an opportunity to take action to begin to correct their misfeasance and now their malfeasance, they only cast derision on the messenger.

    It was a disgusting scene.

    The video below shows Mr. Smith's presentation. What you miss is the body language of the commissioners during the presentation, but you get a glimpse of Chairman Langley's graciousness in the video.



   We do want to say to Mr. Smith: Thank you for your interest, concern and hard work in seeking to improve the economic development program in Beaufort County, and we commend you on your courage...and thick hide.