Beaufort County Commissioners choking off public access | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    In about 1998, shortly after I was elected to the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, several of us who watched local government closely realized the news articles, and for that matter reports from the ruling class of commissioners, did not fit with what actually happened at commissioner meetings. There were convenient cover ups and distortions that made certain misbehaving commissioners look really good. On many, occasions I believed I had attended the wrong commission meeting. What was reported both privately and publicly did not happen at the meeting I went to, while other things that did happen did not get reported.

    I saw one commissioner, who has since passed away, so I will not name him, argue a hot local issue one way, then vote the other way. I was with him after that meeting while we were talking to the public. He would feel people out as to where they were on that issue. He was always on the same side they were on, either by saying he argued against it or he voted for it.

    My observation of today's politics is sad. There are more lying politicians and there are more incidents of lying today than I have ever seen. Many of these deceptions are for no gain at all.

    Beginning with the election of Gary Brinn and his ascent to the throne of chairmanship, there has been a battle to film all parts of commissioners' proceedings. The majority do not want to do it. The state law says all decisions of a governing body must be made in an open public meeting. That is, open to the public and "public" in the sense that it is advertised so all who want may attend may know in advance what will be considered. The spirt of "open meetings" is that it is not only the decisions (votes) that should be public, but the debate and discussions that go into making the decisions should also be open to the public.. There is no legal requirement to film meetings but I would argue that with today's technology, all meetings should be recorded and broadcast online. Even closed session should be recorded so as to have a permanent record.

    The Board of Commissioners was asked in the early days to appropriate money to film meetings. By majority vote, they flatly refused. The Beaufort County Republican Men's Club collected donations to film the meetings, believing truth to be a good thing. Randy Walker came forward and donated his time and equipment to the filming effort. We could not pay him very much to begin with A few years later, after the Board of Commissioners realized Randy was there to stay, they appropriated money to fund the filming of the meetings. The meetings were shown on local cable TV.

    The show was a tremendous hit. The public was amazed. Both the local newspaper and the commissioners had to make serious changes in their tactics for reporting and discussing news items originating in commissioner meetings.

    The filming of the budget workshops enlightened the public even more.

    Beginning with the Brinn Dynasty, and continuing with the Frankie Waters Dynasty and now into the Jerry Evans Dynasty, more and more of the filming was dropped. Motions for filming were made by me. Thesewere voted down by the RINO's (Republicans In Name Only) and Democrats.

    This year, the budget retreat and the budget hearings were not televised or recorded. Because of the lack of cameras, these meetings were held with very little discussion. Short answers were given to all questions and not any important questions were actually answered.

    Randy Walker was approached a few months ago by commissioners with the complaint that he was keeping the camera on me too much and deliberately making me look good.

    During budget hearings, Fake Frankie Waters made the statement that the camera "was on Hood too much." He said this as he was making the motion not to fund Randy Walker's job. The $110,000 that was spent on the new meeting room allows for fixed cameras. The plan is to fire Randy Walker and use an employee in the Social Services Department to put the fixed camera version on cable TV.

    It is interesting that the filming was started by real Republicans and essentially killed by Fake Republicans.

    The effort to deny the public information about their government will likely continue until enough conservative commissioners are elected to make changes. We are going backwards instead of forwards in terms of government transparency in Beaufort County.

    The budget this year is now set to grow by $700,000 with an increase in of one cent in property taxes and more in fees. These motions were made by Fake Frankie Waters. But, this game will probably not be over until June 10 when the budget ordinance is scheduled to be passed. I predict the real wheeling and dealing will be done at the Monday June 3rd meeting beginning at 5:00 PM. All departments are lavishly funded so the argument will be over who to give more money to in order to buy votes for some commissioners. It is possible the budget ordinance could be enacted immediately after the June 3rd public hearing. If you are interested in the budget, show up.