When is Change Not Change? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Looks like the Beaufort County Commissioners are serving up a large helping of Obama style change. Obama promised change. Sure enough things changed, for the worse. Cannot say we did not get change.

    Al Klemm, along with Jay McRoy, has been too easy to work with during the past several months in rewriting the Economic Development Commission Laws and By-laws. They serve on the Economic Development Commission by appointment of the Board of County Commissioners. When I made suggestions in open meetings during the Commissioners reviews, I got everything I asked for. None of my suggestions was too small or large for Klemm and McRoy to turn down or even question. That made me suspicious. Both Klemm and McRoy have sat on the EDC board for more than five years and have their finger prints all over the six million dollars in either bad deals or bad investments we have made.

    Some interesting things have happened that make me suspicious about what the Gang of Five is really doing. Some of these are presented in this paragraph. Klemm pulled the rewrite of the Laws and By-laws from the agenda of the September Commissioners meeting. The County Manager has hired an experienced EDC Director from another county who will start work on November the first. Tom Richter and Evelyne Roberson the Chair Woman of the Beaufort County EDC, in an interview with the Sanford Herald, indicated the new Director was selected and hired from a field of twenty applicants by the EDC. His salary is to be $100,000.
This image is from back in 2004, back when Commissioner Hood Richardson had hair ... uh, strike that comment: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Let me explain why the statements in the above paragraph do not jive with what had gone on in open Commissioner meetings. I believe the final version of the rewrite of the Laws and By-laws was pulled from last commissioners meeting so they would have to be approved after the November elections. The Commissioners specifically instructed the County Manager to make the final decision on who to hire without approval from the EDC Board because the new Director reports directly to the County Manager and not the EDC Board. The intention of the majority of the commissioners was to break the link between the EDC Director and the EDC Board and to make the EDC Board advisory. So, how did the EDC Board come to believe they hired the new Director; This is indicated in more than one statement made to the Sanford Herald. Discussions among Commissioners were for a salary significantly less than $100,000. The Gang of Five has been unwilling to discuss and adjust the staff of the EDC which is still in place and is still shared with the Committee of 100.

    When I put all of this together I see no future change in the EDC and the way they have been doing business. The Gang of Five has stalled and delayed the approval of the Laws and By-laws until after the November elections because they do not plan to change anything. We will go back to business as usual with the EDC. Stan Deatherage and I thought the EDC budget would be cut and significant changes made in operations at the EDC as a part o the budget process. Nothing happened other than Klemm and McRoy elected friends of County Commissioners such as Evelyne Roberson to the leadership of the EDC and the votes we thought we had disappeared. It is the same old influence peddling we have seen with the EDC for years. The only change will get out of this is that things will get worse.

    I hope I am wrong. If I am right the taxpayers are getting taken again.

    Voters will continue to get this kind of wasteful county government that has failed to provide oversight in the management of county affairs during the past ten years if they do not change out some of the Gang of Five during the 2012 elections. We tend to think in terms of who we elect to office. This is one of those years that we need to be aware that not electing commissioners who are members of the Gang of Five can be more important than who we do elect.