Beaufort County Commissioners Hear Mayor Adam O'Neal | Eastern North Carolina Now

Political sparks fly and recriminations fill the room as the Mayor bitterly absorbs the end of a hopeful dream.

    Belhaven Mayor Adam O'Neal drove nearly 30 miles west from his Town of Belhaven to present the news from his hamlet on Pantego Creek, and, right now, the news is not good. The news from the eastern end of Beaufort County is a visceral loss for many, and yet it is a political /legal victory for others; the final destructive razing of the former Pungo District Hospital, and later Vidant Pungo hospital.
Belhaven Mayor Adam O'Neal gives an honest assessment of governmental behavior unbecoming to it's citizens' bureaucrats, who received their share of the blame this night:     photo by Stan Deatherage

    At the nexus of this calamity of community effort, unrealized after so much effort, is the historic center of Belhaven's health care - Pungo District Hospital, and the mayor who sought to stem the inevitable tide against all large corporate and crony odds - Mayor Adam O'Neal. In the end, the hospital, both the old structure and new, would be razed in the dead of night and would 'leave a 10 feet high pile of rubble' - as per Adam O'Neal at the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners meeting, January 3, 2016.

    And what a meeting it was once the Mayor took the podium, and little did Mayor O'Neal hold back. At this point: What did he have to lose?

    The Mayor of Belhaven, with his Belhaven Town Council firmly behind him, began in 2013 to save the community's hospital. So committed was the Mayor to save the former Pungo District Hospital that he walked to Washington, DC from Belhaven to talk to lawmakers and reprised that mission of committment by walking to Raleigh from Belhaven to speak with lawmakers there.

    Along that long path to keep the most complete health care available for his constituents, Adam O'Neal, as a Conservative Republican, enlisted the unique alliance of the NCACP, and far closer to home the help of the Beaufort County Commissioners, by the slimmest of magins of support, and when Commissioner Stan Deatherage left the board in December of 2014, that Beaufort County Commissioner support evaporated as well.
Conservative County Commissioner Hood Richardson, who worked tirelessly on behalf of his Belhaven and Pantego constituents, vociferously presented his understanding of how government should operate here in the county of Beaufort: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage

    Once the Beaufort County Commissioners folded, all that remained was Conservative icon, Commissioner Hood Richardson, who remained an ardent, and vdneraable hands-on supporter, worker until the '10-feet-high-rubble's' bitter end. At this Beaufort County Commissioners' meeting that pointed, precise support was unwavering, and The Hood did not hold back.

    It began with Mayor O'Neal laying full blame on the County of Beaufort's inspection department's impropriety of interjecting themselves into a legal matter that was within the sole domain, and purview of the Town of Belhaven. To rub salt into the Town's wound, - the county's rendering of an unfavorable opinion of the former hospital's suitability of viability to an interested party, Pantego Creek LLC, who were enjoined in that lawsuit against the Town of Belhaven on the hospital's Stay of Demolition, - that judge employed the county's improper opinion as the predominate basis to rule that the demolition could go immediately forward.
Beaufort County Manager Bryan Alligood energetically expressed what he understood of the situation, and one could sense that this issue may not be finished: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage

    These were hard, hurt feelings bandied about at this public meeting; the kind that always happen when the Little Guy, with the better motive, is beat up by The Big Guy, just because they are better connected with the crony class. And, undeniably, the crony class in Beaufort County usually wins, as if this big dumb drunk abusive uncle, who only has the raw intelligence to punish others, will get away with it every time because 'he knows a guy who knows a guy'. That is the end result of abject, unbridled cronyism, and those on the receiving end know well the look of it.

    What we saw and heard at this meeting were two lions of government accountability - Mayor O'Neal and Commissioner Richardson express: 'We may have lost, but, we will not go quietly'.

    No other commissioners offered any commentary of real substance; however, the specious comment of the night award goes to Beaufort County Commissioner Ron Buzzeo in defense of any, or all actions by the county. Without belaboring the point, one could sum up Commissioner Buzzeo's argument by his statement, 'the county was right to supercede Belhaven's authority due to the county's liability of allowing a structure to exist within its borders, reminiscent of the Oakland apartment building that caught fire, where scores of residents and visitors lost their lives.'

    To be perfectly clear, this once existing community hospital did exist on a large waterfront lot - waterfront on two sides of it - was never an apartment building, with no history of vagrants living on the premises. The vacant building was not a nuisance to the community; however, curiously, did give great cause to its strawman owners, the Pantego Creek LLC, to beg the county to use its public offices to offer an official opinion to use as evidence with an intellectually distant judge to achieve their desired end result - the final destruction of this community's hospital.
Commissioner Buzzeo offered his allegorical reference of the Oakland tragedy that fell flatter than a fritter, but did successfully remind everyone where his political heart was in this matter or the razed public hospital: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage

    From the better perspective delivered this night in the annals of Beaufort County's government, the cards were stacked against the Town of Belhaven by Beaufort County's Crony Class doing Vidant Health's bidding to expand their monopoly of the region's health care, and for what? What do these Cronies have to gain from pledging their fealty and allegiance to the largest industry in eastern North Carolina?
After so many spoken words following the Mayor's adamantly presented exposé on governmental overreach, the sly grin of incredulity crept across his lips more than once: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage

    Beaufort County's government has nothing gain and much to lose in regards to the representative respect from its non crony class citizens, the regular folk; however, for the Pantego Creek LLC, their fealty to Vidant may take on another financial form, and, hopefully, maybe not. Time will tell when we discover who actually winds up with the ownership of downtown waterfront property, where the public's hospital once stood. The final ownership of this property will speak volumes, and, as an optimist, the Town of Belhaven should wind up with that property, or at least a controlling interest of such, if there is to be ny sense of fairness here.

    It truly will be a matter of propriety, and that knowledge to the community at large will eventually be made known.

    But, remember this, improper behavior can and will happen anywhere, especially when Big Government learns that they can advantage one over the other, and to the extent that certain parties reap the benefits that the rest of us pay for in so many ways. Beware of Big Government, and those that become its staunch advocates.
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Comments

( January 8th, 2017 @ 10:26 am )
 
I speak from experience: Sometimes, there is just absolute defeat, and then all you can do is regather what is left, and deal with your wounds until you regain your strength.

And only then if you have the spirit of a Viking.

I sometimes I believe that the strains of my Norse heritage has served me well, or been my bane.

I would not be surprised if Adam did not have a bit of it himself.
( January 7th, 2017 @ 5:53 pm )
 
Fair written piece, and it is a tragic tale; near Shakespearean in scope, but, so Beaufort County in its final throes of such an allegorical mess.

Such a damn mess.



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