Which is it King Frankie, Did You or Did You Not? | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This post appears courtesy of the Beaufort Observer.

    I have written a couple of articles about the County Manager signing the Social Services memorandum of understanding without the approval the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners. It is actually worse than signing without approval. This issue had never been discussed by the Board. The closest we came to this was a single short statement made by the Social Services Director during the February Budget Retreat that there was a reorganization of Social Services that would be coming down from Raleigh.

    This is a major reorganization, the creation of another level of bureaucrats In addition there is a requirement that Beaufort County pay for an annual MEDICAID audit and then pay the state for any overpayments the audit finds. Talk about flogging yourself.

    This is more of the back room clown car antics we have seen from King Frankie Waters and the gang of six. Aside from the fact that the Manager signed agreements that place a financial burden on the tax payers of Beaufort County without public discussion there is the problem of the smoke and mirrors dog and pony show put on by King Frankie and the Manager at the meeting. We were told we had no choice but to sign the contract so the Manager did it for us. Looks like we only need a manager. What do county commissioners do?

    What the smoke and mirrors dog and pony show came down to was, to sow confusion as to whether the Manager acted entirely on his own or whether he had consulted with King Frankie before signing. Both King Frankie and the Manager did a good job of covering for each other. Smoke and mirrors.

    Having people sign contracts without the proper public meeting is a big deal to me. Having people signing contracts with only King Frankie's approval is an even bigger deal. Good government is never conducted in the back room..

    I have been around long enough to know there is one chance in one thousand that the Manager did not get some kind of approval from King Frankie before he signed.

    In order to clear the air, I made the following motion at the August Commissioners meeting: "Unless the Beaufort County Manager had prior approval from the Chairman of the Board to sign the Memorandum of Understanding for HB/630/Session Law 2017-41 and the MEDICAID and NC Health Choice Recoupment Plan in advance, the Board by vote to either ratify or reject the Manager's signature of the document(s) and an appropriate report of the action of the Board be made to the proper authorities."

    What it means. If the Manager acted without the approval of King Frankie, we should confirm or deny the contract. If the manager had the approval of King Frankie, we did not need to do anything.

    We did nothing. I did not get a second. This means King Frankie approved the signing in advance. Now we have another example of back room dealing. KING FRANKIE DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHOIRY TO APPROVE THE SIGNING WITHOUT A VOTE OF THE BOARD. Just how much back room dealing is going on?

    On the other hand, if the Manager signed without any approval, we have argue manager. King Frankie the ball is in your court. Did you of Did you not give the Manager approval??

    We know the Manager and king Frankie played this same game when they sent the building inspector do the illegal inspection of the Belhaven Hospital and file the illegal letter with the court. That got

    the temporary restraining order lifted and within hours the hospital building was torn down. This cost Belhaven a hospital and 50 high paying jobs. Is King Frankie helping you or hurting you with his back room dealing?

    All County business should be conducted in front of the public with all commissioners allowed to completely address the issue. King Frankie shut me down on the water meter fiasco during the August meeting simply because he did not want information to come out about his false and misleading statement about having to replace water meters. That is costing us 4.7 million dollars with no pay back..

    Can we afford King Frankie?