Beaufort County Commissioners' November, 2023 General Meeting: Discussion of the Register of Deeds Conundrum | Eastern NC Now

And once again, Baufort County's Commissioners take no action ...

    Beaufort County Commissioners have a myriad of responsibilities as Beaufort County's premier local government, and largest taxing authority providing the vast majority of public services in all corporate municipalities, and to a greater extent elsewhere beyond all town and city limits in this county. It is an awesome responsibility to endeavor in the public's court to perform this job well, which is simply based upon three representative objectives: provide integral oversight, prudent policy, and wise budgeting of the public's treasure, thus taken from them by the power provided by general statute.

    At the October's general meeting, Beaufort County Commissioner Hood Richardson brought to the attention of Beaufort County's governing body that the newly appointed Register of Deeds Carolyn Garris was not making hardcopies of all precious documents, most notably deeds of conveyance, where, with North Carolina being a Race to Record State, one might consider such an inaction a dereliction of duty.

• A pure race statute is a law that states whoever records a document first, regardless of whether they had prior knowledge of it, will have priority over others who may have recorded the same document later. This law is only in effect in Louisiana and North Carolina. It is also known as a race statute or race act.

    In Beaufort County, that case made by Commissioner Richardson regarding Appointed Register of Deeds Garris's understanding of her duties remains an issue of the Beaufort County Commissioners, regardless of whether they choose to seize that opportunity to weigh in on the matter as was first proffered by Commissioner Richardson, accompanied in purpose by Commissioner Stan Deatherage, who oft repeated: It is the county's responsibility to "Record documents by as many processes as is possible; stored in as many locations as is feasible."

    Unfortunately, that is not the case here in Beaufort County, even though this valuable public service is one that is paid for by Beaufort County's government, which also requires the prerequisite duties of a commissioner's effective policy, where oversight becomes imperative, when the allocation of the public's purse is paramount. Sadly, a majority of Beaufort County's commissioners are not in concurrence with these fundamental precepts.

The segmented video of Appointed Register of Deeds Carolyn Garris explanation of her understanding of her job as the county's register of deeds is here: below.


    Later in this same general meeting of Beaufort County's Commissioners, Commissioner Richardson fulfilled his previously schedule obligation to broach this subject once again by putting a finer point on this Commissioner's constant concern regarding all county matters, regardless of how small in perception to some, while others understand that there are no small issues in governing of the pesky details.

Commissioner Hood Richardson, as obligated to discuss this matter by a previous agenda placement, retells his concerns to the consternation of a majority of his fellow county commissioners here: Below.