Beaufort County Commissioners slide deeper into the Heart of Darkness | Eastern North Carolina Now

 By:  Hood Richardson

We hoped the November elections would change things for the better.  That hope has faded into the darkness of socialism trending toward communism.  Even though Beaufort County and, for that matter, most of the United States seems to be conservative, the Republicans came up short again.  Nationally and in Beaufort County, it looks like two thirds of Beaufort County votes conservative.  Why are the Democrats still in charge at the courthouse and on the Board of Commissioners?

The short answer is the bad leadership of the Republican Party from Washington, DC to Washington NC. The national Republican leadership did not want a red wave, they only wanted to win enough seats to have a majority.  They miscalculated, lost the Senate, and barely became a majority in the House.  The leadership spent a lot of time and money looking after themselves and not their Republican base.

The same thing happened in Beaufort County.  Are we to the point of saying “As Beaufort goes so goes the nation.”  Beaufort County has the same leadership situation as Washington, DC.  The Beaufort County Republican Party leadership has their fair-haired boy, Fake Frankie Waters.  Republican Fake Frankie gave money to Democrats this year.  Carolyn Garris and Paul Varcoe saw to it that there was no money to support conservative candidates.  They donated to others outside the County.  Cleaning up this mess at the county, state and federal levels should be our goal in 2023.  We elect leaders at all levels next year in both political parties.

Nothing changed on the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners.  The Democrats installed Frankie Waters as Chairman and Jerry Langley as Vice Chairman.  Both Fake Frankie and his loyal side kick John Rebholz voted for a Democrat to hold an office that a Republican was running for.  That is, disloyal Republicans John Rebholz and Fake Frankie Waters voted for Democrat Jerry Langley to be Vice Chairman.

After electing the chairman and Vice Chairman, the majority of the Board proceeded to vote for some very disappointing things. 

There was a vote to award a contract for stream channel clearing, that was low bid for approximately $111,000, to the second low bidder for $171,000, a more than 50 percent increase.  No attempt was made to renegotiate or rebid the contract. The excuse was that the County assumed the contractor did not have the personnel and equipment to perform on two contracts at the same time.  When questioned about whether or not the County consulted with the low bid contractor or tried to negotiate with the second low bid contractor, the answer was that they knew what they were doing and there was no need to do any of this.  That is $60,000 wasted.

Then by a vote of five to two the Board voted for John Rebholz to set up a chartered committee to provide housing for working people in Beaufort County.  I asked if the County was going to provide financial aid to home buyers and Rebholz responded by saying: “Not to begin with.”  This is one of the worst ideas that anyone has come up with other than Rebholz support for a new Jail with only 54 inmates.  Our jail is 40 percent empty!

There is an abundance of reasons for Beaufort County to not wade into the cesspool of public housing.  Governments providing housing is socialism.  The Federal Government and the state government funds all kinds of subsidies, grants and rent payments at this time.  This is another dive into the vat of socialism.

I remember the old days when schools provided “teacherages” for teachers and companies provided residential villages for workers.  Now modern socialism demands that we, the county taxpayer, provide housing.  Most of this will probably be subsidized or free housing. 

Carolyn Garris was appointed to the Register of Deeds vacancy.  The county manager, and John Rebholz conveniently ignored the Board action last month in making their presentations.  The Board action was to request that the Republican Executive Committee present a qualified candidate to replace Garris.  Garris is chairman of the Republican Party.  Garris conveniently cancelled the executive committee meeting so there would be only one candidate.  John Rebholz, Fake Frankie Waters, the manager and the County Attorney went along with this, at best, unethical procedure.  Doing the right thing does apply to our local elected officials and bureaucrats in the same way it does to those in Washington, DC.

I raised the issue about the cost of providing 24-hour nursing for the jail.  The last jail report showed 54 inmates.  We have three nurses.  Some days there are two working at the same time.  One is always on call.  When we contracted with an outside company, they were present in the jail four hours each day unless there was special need.  There was rarely a special need.  The Board failed to make a change in nurse coverage.  What do these three nurses do with their time with only 54 patients and 24-hour service?

I am getting complaints about emergency room service in the Beaufort County hospital.  It has taken over three months to get an answer from East Carolina Health (Vidant).  Jerry Langley is on the Hospital Board.  He reported that Vidant would not send someone to talk to me about emergency room conditions.  A part of Vidant’s contract is to provide emergency room services.  They have greatly curtailed service in Belhaven.  I requested the Clerk to send every commissioner a copy of the Vidant lease.  Some commissioners were uneasy about this.  Ed Booth’s comment was that he would not read the agreement because: “People die every day…”

I initiated a discussion about communications among the board, the chairman and the manager. This has to do with critical information at critical times being kept away from some board members.  The example I gave was when Fake Frankie Waters, and his cronies consulted lawyers about dissolving the seven-million-dollar hospital trust fund without informing all commissioners.  A lot still goes on in the back room and we will see a lot more with Rebholz funding housing, and the construction of a new jail.

It is unfortunate that we have so much corruption in this County.

If you want to change government, you have to change the people who are running government.


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Comments

( December 30th, 2022 @ 3:23 pm )
 
I am all ears: What "work" would that be Big Bob?
Bubba said:
( December 30th, 2022 @ 3:19 pm )
 
So liberal Big Bob is back on this site. Most readers did not miss you. The problem is that Democrats only "compromise" is to do it all their way, and their fellow travellers, the RINOs are all-in with that. Lefties do not meet in the middle. It is their way or the highway, and their way involves gouging the taxpayers.
Big Bob said:
( December 30th, 2022 @ 2:06 pm )
 
Politics is about compromise. Treating elected commissioners so disrespectfully may not be the best way to get things done. Its OK to disagree on the issues but the election is over. You don't have the votes to get everything you want. My advice, save the attacks for the next election cycle and get to work. Remember, you catch more fly's with honey than with vinegar.
( December 13th, 2022 @ 9:20 am )
 
It looks like Tammany Hall is the role model for Beaufort County government with the Boss Tweed role split between Jerry Langley, Frankie Waters, and the county manager. RINOs Waters and Rebholz playing footsie with Democrats is the cause. Those pushing transparency and good government are marginalized by these rogues.
( December 13th, 2022 @ 8:21 am )
 
As Frankie is yet still chairman of the Center-Left Coalition, he has led his merry band of Democrats away from transparency, and may wish to rewrite the NC General Statutes for Beaufort County, by way of Leftist county policy, in the bargain.

This is the way "Secret Sleepers" operate.
( December 13th, 2022 @ 7:52 am )
 
That contract boondoggle has a strong whiff of corruption. Didn't Stan Deatherage try to get some honest policies established for county contracts? That apparently went nowhere. I wonder whose buddy that second bidder was? We are not getting transparency in government, and that hurts our taxpayers.



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