Politics and Common Sense? | Eastern NC Now

Politics and Common Sense?

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

It is always interesting to observe how much smoke and mirrors can belch from disingenuous politicians. The American public has been made to believe all politicians lie and all politicians are supposed to lie. This has led to a high level of apathy among the public values. I do not accept the premise that all politicians lie and that deception is normal.

At the October meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, I presented a motion that we, as a governing body, should lobby our North Carolina House and Senate members to work for stiffer penalties for those who sell illegal drugs. The proof that the present system of criminal sentencing is not effective in stopping the sale of illegal drugs is the high number of people who use drugs and who are arrested for selling.

At least half of the people in the Beaufort County jail are there because of drug related crimes mostly for selling or trying to steal the money to buy drugs. That is about 40 people at a cost to the taxpayer of $50 per day. That is more than seven hundred thousand dollars per year. In addition, we have a minimum of 100 other government employees who are hired to provide services to druggies. These services range from probation and parole officers to sheriff deputies, to councilors, to social services employees, etc. That costs us another seven million dollars per year. We collect about 30 million dollars in property taxes each year. Conquering drugs would give the taxpayer a 25 percent reduction in taxes each year. A huge savings.

These are the money costs. There is another large cost in human misery. Broken families, abandoned children and mental treatment and anguish for those who have destroyed their brain and others on illegal drugs.

There were five of the seven commissioners present. Fake Frankie Waters and Stan Deatherage have medical problems and were not in attendance. The motion to increase punishment failed 3 to 2. Tandy Dunn and I were the only two who voted for the motion. RINO Randy Walker allowed that marijuana was not bad, and he voted “no”. It remains a mystery why Democrats Booth and Langley voted against the motion and in effect “for drugs”. The black community is as devastated by illegal drugs as the white community. These three are all smoke.

The board decided to use the services of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners (NCACC) to advertise and interview for someone to replace the county manager. His last date to work will be the end of June 2026. We have a target of January 1, 2026, to have selected those whom we will interview and to have the new manager at work around the first of June of 2026.

The manager works for the seven-member board as taken as a whole. There are many issues to be addressed with the new manager. It is important for all members of the board to be treated equally. It is also important that the board function as a whole in hiring the new manager. That is, no faction of the board negotiates with or interview the job applicant candidates privately or separate from the whole board. The new manager must fully understand that the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners is empowered only to conduct meetings. Other than that, his only authority is the same as any other board member.

Beaufort County is a voluntary participant in a grant program to raise houses above the flood zone. I no longer support this program because the program singles out a few homes and does not provide equal benefit to all homeowners. This and other similar program abuses include repairing the homes of people who never kept the home in repair, absentee owners, non primary residents, etc. There are seven or eight homes in the present program at a cost of about $700,000. The board by majority vote approved accepting the grant from the State of North Carolina.

The Joy McRoy fraud case was discussed. Ms. McRoy is accused of misusing more than one half million dollars of funds belonging to the Town of Chocowinity, the Chocowinity EMS and Fire Department and the Blount’s Creek Fire Department. All of these are majority funded by tax dollars. However, the County Manager has steadfastly maintained that commissioners have no authority because these agencies can spend money however they like once the county writes the check. My efforts to get to the bottom of what is happening to our tax money have failed because the Gang of Four (RINO Randy Walker, Fake Frankie Waters and Democrats Jerry Langley and Ed Booth) have voted against any investigation. The case has been active since 2022. It is time for sentencing or acquittal and a report to commissioners. This fiasco is a good example of ineffective government and smoke and mirrors.

I made a motion for the school system to provide the Board of Commissioners with a report as part of their budget preparation for the coming year as to the actual savings in closing the Snowden School. We would get a final report at the end of the school year. This was voted down by RINO Randy Walker, and the two Democrats, Jerry Langley and Ed Booth. They cannot afford to have the school system prove that there is actually no savings in closing Snowden.

With smoky people like the majority of our board of commissioners holding office, it is hopeful we can elect a fireproof board (no smoke) in the 2026 elections. Politics with common sense have to make a comeback.