An update from the front | Eastern NC Now

    It's been an interesting few weeks! It seems that now is a good time to give any interested parties and update on what has been going on with the Washington City Council.

    After the election that ushered in a political change for our local government, the three conservative candidates got to work formulating a plan and agenda to execute their many ideas for the coming few years. The foundation of these plans was finding ways to trim the expenses from our government so that we can hold true to the promise of repealing the tax hike that was implemented in 2025. We also have plans to try to bring in land developers to expand housing in our area, which would lower the cost of rent while boosting local economic activity. We have plans to bring in a world-class private school that is essentially free for all who would like to attend. We have plans to bring in business and industry to the area. We were busy getting these plans together after the election.

    But trouble brews quickly. The city council does not have any direct access to the local government. The council must appoint a city manager, and the manager is the executive of the government who gets everything accomplished. The manager relays the information from the various departments of government to the council and gives the council advice or takes the council's advice back to the various departments. One of the most important pieces of information relayed to the council is the budget requests from the various departments. The budget is typically put together in the first half of the year and officially adopted by June 30th. The budget is an estimate of how much each department is going to spend, and the government makes sure it has enough money 'budgeted' to cover 100% of the potential costs of each department. After the full year, by June 30th of the following year, an annual audit is performed so that all parties know how much of their budget they actually spent. For example, the police department may have guessed that they might spend $10 million for the 12 month period, but when it's all said and done, they may have only spent $9 million. There is a difference between how much is budgeted and how much is actually spent.

    The annual audit tells us how much was actually spent. The audit process begins every July. An outside, independent auditor requests all of the account books, and spends weeks combing through the numbers. Typically, they return the completed audit by October. This year, for the first time in recent history, Washington did not turn their books over to the auditors. There were illnesses in the finance department, excuses or reasons were given, but either way, the books were not fully turned over to the auditors. The last time I personally spoke with the auditors on December 10th, the books had still not fully been submitted. So, we do NOT know how much money we actually have. We aren't sure how much we actually spent last year from the 2024-2025 budget. That was our first discovery and problem.


    The budget process begins in January, but requires the audit to get underway properly. Without the audit it becomes quite difficult for us to make a good and true budget. I requested some specific information from our finance department. I wondered how much debt each department had, how much of the budget we'd spent; were we significantly under or were we on point with our budgeted estimates, and most importantly, how much available cash did we have. For example, if I wanted to pay off some debt, how much money was available to do that. I could not get any straight answers. They simply did not know. I requested this same information from Greenville and received it within hours. I am not sure if they have a better system of accounting or if they are better accountants, but they could provide this information quickly and cleanly and we could not.

    Then we ran into the first real impediment. We invited the mayor-elect to review our plans, hoping that she'd be on board. She didn't make it past the first bullet point, which was to appoint a city manager. She did not like any of the names we put forward. She suggested that we consider eliminating the city manager position and making the mayor the city manager. She suggested three other names. What was clear was that she did not support our initial choice. While this sounds contentious, it is less than it may initially appear. With a group of people, finding concensus will always be hard. Ultimately, most decisions will devolve into a vote and the majority will decide the outcome.

    While we couldn't agree on who should be interim, we all agreed that finding one was the most important first step. The city government is at a standstill without one, and we have far too much to do to be standing still. We created multiple potential interim city manager contracts that we wanted to consider. We put them all forward to be voted on by the council. We figured it would be best to have the discussion in public for the world to see and hear. Our deliberations and thoughts should be known and open to criticism. So we asked for not one, but two separate  interim manager contracts to be added to the inaugural agenda. In addition, we had in mind to begin a search for an assistant city manager. The city had been paying a gentleman a great deal of money with that title, but that gentleman had no known responsibilities. We figured we'd use that position, at a much reduced salary, to help with economic development. If the interim focused on the budget and running a lean and efficient government, the assistant could focus on economic development and growing the city. The city government could shrink while the city economy expanded.


    Since we were looking at efficiency, we also added a contract to aid the interim with the budget and one for an expert to look into providing uninterrupted electricity to the city. Why not eliminate power outages immediately?

    The costs of all of these contracts combined were substantially lower than the cost of the former city manager's office for the calendar year 2025. Importantly, we were not necessarily voting on any one in particular. We were voting for the option to begin looking for each position in the event that we wanted to do that. It seemed important that we discuss all of these ideas openly in front of the public.

    But on our inauguration night, two hours before the inauguration, we all saw the message flash onto social media: the city council meeting had been cancelled. They cancelled it due to weather. To their credit, it was cold, but that didn't seem like a justifiable reason to cancel the inauguration of a newly elected city council. Most importantly, who was the 'we' who made this decision to cancel and delay the inauguration of the newly elected councilmen and mayor? I never received a clear answer on that.

    The meeting was cancelled and rescheduled as a 'special meeting' two days later. This is important. At that meeting, according to NC Statute, the very first thing that should have happened was the newly elected are sworn in. No old business, no discussions. The new council should have been sworn in and taken office. That did not happen. The old council removed all of the new council's agenda items, and Councilman Tyre gave the city attorney a twenty minute public scolding. I suppose that's how they feel is best to treat city workers. The new council was sworn in and because it is a 'special meeting', the new council was not allowed to add any items to the agenda. We had to be sworn in and not begin the hunt for an interim.


    Naturally, we promptly called another special meeting. As a city, we did not have an acting city manager. We are behind on our audit. We are behind on our budget. Half of the departments have no department head or brand new department heads. We needed to get cracking! We called the meeting and proposed that HR be allowed to begin a search for an interim, an assistant, and that we consider using a specialist to give us advice on how best to proceed with Washington Utilities. Washington Utilities hasn't had a qualified department head in 6 years. They haven't had an advisory commission meeting in two years. And the city has robbed them of their financial resources to the maximum extent legally allowed for over a decade. It seemed like a quick outside opinion was in order. So we arranged for all of these considerations to be addressed at the special meeting.

    At that meeting, Mr. Tyre immediately grumbled about having to be at another meeting, which was comical as he was the one who removed those items from the initial agenda. He also didn't like the idea of hiring an assistant to help with economic development or bringing on an expert to give his advice on Washington Utilities. As a matter of fact, I have a really difficult time understanding what he wants except to oppose. I suppose his position is best characterized as opposition. Nonetheless, we garnered support to begin the search for an interim and for an assistant. There was a large turnout and concern over bringing in an outsider to give their opinion on how to improve the Utility company. That was probably due to a misunderstanding of the purpose more than any true apprehension, I suspect.

    For several weeks, three councilman had been meeting potential candidates for interim city manager. The morning following the special meeting, I invited all of the councilmen individually to meet with a few candidates proposed by the League of Municipalities. Mr. Tyre flatly refused to meet anyone who met with me. Mr. Horton did not respond to my messages. The other councilmen and I met with different candidates separately. (Three of us cannot legally meet outside of a scheduled meeting). After meeting with half a dozen candidates, we each had our favorites. To our astonishment, an interview day was set up without our advice, consent, or input. The city manager is 100% the choice of the city council. I was shocked to discover that none of the city councilman had set this up. Moreover, the favored choice of a few of the candidates was not on the list of those to be interviewed. When we requested that the name be put on the list we were told that it could not be!