Carolyn Garris: A long line of disrespect for the law and proper procedures | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:   Hood Richardson

Leopards do not change their spots.  Patterns of behavior tell us a lot about people and allow us to make decisions in the voting booth about who we trust with our money, justice, and to preserve the Constitution and Bill of rights.  Lately we, as a Nation, have made some bad decisions.  Look at the US House and Senate and the Biden Administration.  Those patterns of behavior have been there for years, we probably saw them but chose to take the easy way out and ignore them.  We cannot afford any more mistakes in electing people from Washington DC to Washington NC.  

We, as Republicans, have a duty to keep our party as clean and wholesome as possible.  We have a lot of work to do.  Primary elections are the place to start cleaning up the Republican Party and thin the RINO herd.  Remember the adage, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”.

There is a lot of controversy and ethical questions surrounding Carolyn Garris, as Chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party and now Candidate for Register of Deeds. Fake Frankie Waters made another move to protect and insulate her and her bad behavior at the December County Commissioners meeting.  He made the motion that nothing be heard about the behavior of Carolyn Garris in her capacity as Register of Deeds for six months.  It passed five to two. I voted against it and Stan Deatherage voted against it.

Why would any public official vote to protect another public official?  When an elected official does that he becomes an accessory to whatever parts of the law Carolyn Garris violated.  

Frankie quickly picked up four Commissioner votes.  The two RINOs, John Rebholz and Randy Walker  are running for County Commissioner in the March elections and should be smart enough to not support someone carrying Garris’ baggage.  The two Democrats, who voted with Fake Frankie Waters are Ed Booth and Jerry Langley.  Of course they voted with the RINOs.  Their vote keeps the Republican Party split.  That helps the Democrats.

Garris is really important to Fake Frankie Waters.  Garris, as chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party, did not challenge Fake Frankie Waters to sit on the Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee after he gave money to the Democrat Candidate for Sheriff during the 2022 elections.  

Garris, on her own, stopped recording hard copies of the deeds within a few days of taking office at the beginning of January of this year.  She did this on her own without the approval of the Board of County Commissioners.  The Board of Commissioners is responsible for the care of these records. The register of Deeds is the custodian. There were six months remaining in the budget year. She violated the law again by going into a new budget year on July 1 of 2023 with no notice to Commissioners of not hard copy recording deeds. She failed to notify commissioners that less labor and materials are required to only record on the internet.  She is running a bloated payroll.  Commissioners appropriated, in the continuation budget, money for personnel and supplies to record paper copies in deed books as has been done for hundreds of years.  What Garris did is a violation of the County Budget Ordinance, which is law.

In addition, Garris, on her own, without the approval of the Board of County Commissioners, hauled away seven truck loads of materials stored in the Register of Deeds work area.

Carolyn Garris obtained the Register of Deeds appointment upon the retirement of Jennifer Leggett Whitehurst by deceit.  As Chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee she was notified of the vacancy and failed to notify the Executive committee until she had lobbied enough votes to get the appointment.  The job pays $70,000 per year.

Carolyn Garris was supposed to resign from her position as Chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party upon announcing her run for any public office. See “2023 Plan of Organization, Beaufort County Republican Party” Page 14 item G.  She held a fund raiser more than a week before candidate sign up began on December 4.  If she did resign, there has been no public notice, as of this writing, as to who the new or acting chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party is..  The reason for the required resignation is that Republican Party leaders are not supposed to use their position in the Party  for advantage in primary elections.   By not announcing her resignation she has created another ethical violation.

Carolyn Garris is placing her campaign signs on the right of way roads and streets in violation of the law.  She is allowed to do that only 30 days before the primary election.  Another violation of the law.

Carolyn Garris had no experience or background or education to handle the Register of Deeds job before her appointment.  She came into the job ethically challenged for failing to timely disclose the resignation of Jennifer Whitehurst.

Tim Melton, a Republican, is also running for Register of Deeds.  He has several qualifications that far surpass ethically challenged Carolyn Garris.  Melton has had Basic Law Enforcement training, is a trained paralegal, has worked as probation officer.  We need to elect someone who is not ethically challenged to handle our important papers and documents.

Melton says: “I will record your deeds and other valuable documents on hard copy.  Electronic copies are useful but electronic recording is not reliable.”  

These papers should be recorded as a hard copy and backed up electronically.  Without the hard copy any electronic disturbance renders these documents unavailable.  That may not sound like much, but if you happen to be involved in a real estate transaction while the records are not available it could have a big impact on your transaction, depending of course on how long the computer is down.

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