Beaufort County Ethics Policy - A Good Cover-up | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Ethics can be either a curse or a blessing. Depends on who is holding the whip. Depends on what whoever is trying to do to their enemies and how they are trying to protect their friends. There is sometimes a wide gap and sometimes a narrow gap between ethics and criminality.

    All counties are required to have a written ethics policy by North Carolina General Statute. It is odd that we are required to have the policy because of the bad behavior of some of our past legislators. The Beaufort County written policy, until recently, consisted of a single sentence attesting to our support of ethics.

    There have been two significantly bad situations that I have observed that could be easily handled by an ethics policy. That is why I placed the ethics issue on the agenda.

    One issue involves the indiscriminate and selfish political use of closed session information. During our debate on the use of closed session information Commissioner Booth said ...."those (commissioners in) closed sessions are bound by NC General Statutes not to discuss what happened in closed session." I have done a brief computer search of the statutes and cannot find such a law. There may be some case law about divulging closed session information.
    When the County can no longer be harmed by closed session information it can be discussed publicly and at that point in time the minutes of the closed session become public. I believe confidential information about the Beaufort County Hospital lease/sale was used by some Commissioners who placed Beaufort County at a huge disadvantage during negotiations. The result was we had to take what UHS dictated.

    The second situation occurs when County Commissioners are appointed to boards and commissions and use those positions to obtain work for themselves from employees of the boards and commissions on which they serve. This makes it almost impossible for the appointed commissioner to say "No" to his customers.

    I presented both situations and asked for a committee to examine the issues and present language to stop these practices. None of the model ethics policies address these issues. My motion for a committee failed with Commissioners Cayton, and Deatherage voting with me. Then, Jay McRoy quickly made a motion to adopt an off the shelf policy that does not regulate these issues. The vote was 4 to 3 to approve the McRoy motion. The only reason the vote was not 5 to 2 was that I made the comment to Commisioner Booth that I was satisfied the vote would be 5 to 2 (the Gang of 5) and he showed me the difference by voting with Stan Deatherage and me. His confidence in making this strange vote was proof to me that the Gang of 5 is still in business.

    I am committed to exposing those commissioners who use closed session information for political purposes and personal gain in such a way as to harm the interests of Beaufort County. Commissioners who use their position to obtain business for themselves and who harm the interest of Beaufort County need be exposed.