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MOUNT OLIVE — The first meeting of the new year for the Mount Olive Board of Commissioners became a marathon two-and-a-half-hour session with, at times, heated exchanges.
Just before the public comment portion of the agenda, Mayor Jerome Newton, using the first meeting of his second term in office, criticized previous board members and some town employees, saying they attempted to orchestrate his failure during his first term.
“The first term was challenging, not because I did not have a plan, not because things were not in place, but because, initially, the mayor did not have the support of anyone on the board or the staff; not the commissioners, not the town attorney, and even the town clerk,” Newton said.
Newton said one commissioner, who he did not name, made it clear they did not support him.
“A commissioner said to me, ‘You don’t have our support, we don’t trust you, we don’t respect you,’” Newton said. “Certain commissioners had decided it was not good for the mayor to succeed.”
Newton also said some commissioners met behind closed doors to strategize against him. If accurate, the meetings could have violated North Carolina’s open-meeting laws.
He also said some town staff members did not keep him informed.
“The former town manager threatened the interim town manager and told him not to support me,” Newton said, adding, “The town attorney was also directed to keep things from me, and he did, all to keep me from succeeding when they should have been concerned about the problems we had in this town.”
Later in the meeting, another exchange involved a proposed 10-year lease agreement with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to take over the former Hurricane’s football facility in town. The lease would have allowed the organization to construct an additional building on the property for a youth wrestling facility that would become town property at the end of the lease.
A representative with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes had proposed the lease at a meeting last year and the board agreed to advertise the proposed lease to meet regulatory requirements. The town attorney issued the advertisement and created the contract at the board’s direction. It appeared to be a welcome agreement at the time, but the atmosphere had shifted at this meeting of the board when Newton challenged the location of the home office of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is located in Kansas City, Missouri. Newton asked the town attorney if the town could legally enter into a lease with an out-of-state organization. Town attorney Carroll Turner said there were no restrictions as to who the town could lease the property to.
Newton also questioned Turner’s choice of newspaper for the advertisement, Wayne Weekly. Turner responded he chose that paper to “save the town money.”
In what was unexpected to the two local representatives from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in attendance at the meeting, the board voted 3-to-2 to deny the lease, with the two new board members, C.J. Weaver and Gena Messer Knode, casting the two votes to approve the lease.
In another lease discussed, Danny King, the founder of the local non-profit ADLA, Inc., asked the board to lease the organization three acres of land near the Carver Cemetery for the purpose of creating a community garden to grow produce for local people in need.
After King’s presentation, town attorney Turner told the board he had been advised there was already an agricultural lease on the property with an area farmer. Turner said the lease was a “verbal lease,” which triggered some board members questioning who had made the verbal agreement on the part of the town and how it was structured.
The board asked for a more detailed report on what land was available near the cemetery before taking any action.
In other business:
Mayor Newton conducted the swearing in of four new board members for the Housing Authority, including Pernell Bricky, Ed Fennell, Donna Price and Sadio Sykes.
Caroline Bari, of the N.C. Division of Water Infrastructure, repeated a presentation on the town’s consent order with the state involving the ongoing wastewater treatment woes and the moratorium on the town which prevents any more flow into the wastewater treatment system. Bari will be back on Jan. 12 to make two more extensive public presentations on the issue at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. to allow broader community participation.
The board approved Interim Town Manager Glenn Holland’s request to cancel a contract with Mid-Carolina Council grant administrative services, which had been assisting the town in applying for grants to deal with the wastewater issues in town. Holland said that Bari has agreed to help with the final steps in those grants, which could save the town $425,013 by canceling the contract.
