The character of Beaufort County government revealed in 6.5 minutes | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

Klemm provides the swing vote to deny public access to county decisions

    Did you watch the discussion at the December 2 County Commissioners' meeting on video recording of county meeting? Chances are you didn't. It came at the end of a long three-hour meeting. But there are few views more telling of the character of Beaufort County Government than this vignette. You can watch the clip below but without this background you probably would not catch the nuances contained in the video.

    Here's the "story behind the story."

    At the last meeting an issue was raised about videoing Jail Committee meetings. Hood Richardson, in accord with long-standing practice, had previously asked the County Manager to have a Jail Committee meeting recorded. It was not. According to totally reliable sources (have never proven to not be correct) what happened was that County Manager Randell Woodruff told board chairman Jerry Langley that Hood had requested the Jail Committee meetings be recorded. We don't know what Langley told Woodruff but we do know what happened next. Woodruff called most, if not all, of the commissioners on the phone and took a poll/vote on whether to record the meeting. As Langley no doubt knew, or manipulated it to happen, the vote was to not record the meeting.

    At the next full Commissioners meeting Richardson made a motion to record all Jail Committee meetings. That motion passed, so subsequent meetings have been and apparently will be recorded and made available.

    What happened? Al Klemm cast the deciding vote.

    Then, as an aside, when the next meeting was recorded Al made a grandstand performance trying to sell the idea of building a new jail. You can make what you want of those facts, but to us it's pretty clear. What is obvious to us is:

    • Langley did not, and does not, want the public to be able to see, and a permanent record kept of, the Jail Committee meetings.

    • Klemm apparently switched his earlier voting not to record, to then having them recorded because he wanted a venue to try to justify his position on the jail. But most importantly, it is a clear demonstration of Klemm's swing vote.

    • Woodruff did not want to make the decision of whether to record or not, even though the practice had been long established that if a Commissioner wanted a meeting recorded it would be..

    • Langley wanted to maneuver behind the scenes to make it appear that he did not kill the idea but rather that "the board" did so. But he did not have the nerve to allow that decision-making to be made in the sunlight of public access.

    • Woodruff knew what he was doing--in originally taking the poll--was wrong...a violation of the intent and spirit of the Open Meetings Law, if not necessarily the letter of the law. That explains why in this video he says "I just don't want to be put in the position of having to poll the commissioners ..." knowing full well that such behind the scenes decision-making by a governing board is not appropriate. We don't know whether he has conferred with legal authorities but we do know if he has they told him that telephone decisions are permitted, provided the press is notified and allowed to be present when the calls are made. That is in fact long-standing state policy on interpreting the Open Meetings Law. And it makes perfect sense. The courts have long held that "decisions of public bodies should be made in the open, unless there is a legally permitted exception  -  and the law lists those exceptions." This decision was not such an exception. Woodruff knows this. The way we know he knows is that he sat in on a workshop conducted by a School of Government expert who said just that. But apparently, Woodruff did not have the backbone to stand up to Langley when Langley decided he would hide the Jail Committee decision-making.

    • We think Richardson is not pure in this either. He is grandstanding  -  making a bigger issue out of a simple solution than needed to be done. We think his motive is political. He wanted to put Klemm and Langley on the hot seat and expose them as antagonists of public access. And both Langley and Klemm fell for Hood's trap.

    • So was it resolved? No. It will come back in the January meeting. We will predict now that how it eventually plays out will be determined by Al Klemm. If the public is denied access to the jail decision-making, Klemm will shoulder the blame.

    • In all of this, the opponents of a new jail are laying the foundation for a lawsuit that challenges the legality of the decisions that were made in pushing that project to fruition that violated the law.

    But beyond all of these nitty-gritty absurdities, what this situation shows is the character of county government under the Langley/Klemm autocracy.

    What it clearly shows, as repeated over and over, is that Klemm has a ring in his nose with a leash tied directly to Langley's little finger. When Langley jerks Klemm's leash, Al does what Jerry wants done. For Al, how he votes cannot be a matter of principle. Were that not true he would not vote one way in one meeting and the opposite in another on the same issue.

    But we suspect Langley is being very careful not to jerk Klemm's leash too hard or too often. If he loses Al's vote on the major issue(s) of the jail he loses a new jail.

    We have no doubt there is a quid pro quo here. We don't know what it is, but that is the only thing that makes sense. Klemm is doing Langley's bidding for some reason. He either has been promised something or he expects to be able to call in his chips at some point in the future on some issue that is important to him.

    The jail project will involve a lot of money. Klemm and Langley have already stacked the deck to control who gets that money. Keep an eye on this.

    We think Langley wants a new jail because he plans to be Sheriff someday. We think Ed Booth simply does not have the guts to buck Jerry.

    Robert Belcher is in a bind. If he continues to vote for an expensive jail project he knows that is money that will come out of the schools' hide. And the schools are his pet project and those votes make up most of his electoral vote. So if he does not play Langley's game he can't get the votes to do what he wants for the schools. He is indeed in a bind. And his voter base will turn against him if/when they come to realize that a new jail equates to less for the schools.

    But none of this matters if Al Klemm either does not run in 2014 or if he is defeated. And he knows this. Watch him over the next few months. As the cost of the jail becomes more of a concern to the public and as we get closer to the May 2014 primary, we suspect you will see Al either abandon Langley or he will try to get what he can before he falls by the wayside.

    All of this drama plays out in this six and a half minute video: