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MOUNT OLIVE — Residents of Mount Olive are fed up with water problems and transparency issues plaguing their town, and they took the Board of Commissioners to task for it at the regular monthly meeting on Monday night, Dec. 2.
During the public forum portion of the meeting, several citizens spoke up about the water discoloration that town water customers have been experiencing for several weeks now. Citizen Cindy Bell stated that she was concerned that an alert about the water went out just before the town offices were closed for four days for the Thanksgiving holiday. The alert assured citizens that the water was safe to drink despite some discoloration.
“Do you really think your reassurance, your words, give us confidence that the water is safe?” Bell stated. “Stop and think about the many things we have been told just this past year that would be done, and we’re still waiting for. There’s no confidence and there is no trust.”
Cindy Bell added that the town board has known about these problems with the town water, and did nothing about it. “Instead of taking responsibility for your commitment as elected officials to uphold the well-being of this town and its citizens, you choose to do nothing and our town gets further behind,” she said. “It’s a very sad state of affairs.”
Later in the meeting, Mayor Jerome Newton stated that he was unaware that the problem with discolored water has been going on for more than a few weeks.
However, Commissioner Deltreese Simmons said, “My cousin said a year ago her water was brown. How come [Town Manager] Jammie [Royall] said this was the first time he’s heard it? I was told I can still drink it; it’s only rust chips. Think I’m gonna drink it? I have an 11-year-old son. You think I’m gonna let my 11-year-old son drink it?”
The water discoloration is part of a larger problem with the town board and town management, said Mount Olive resident Gerald Bell, and that’s a lack of transparency. He stated that he had visited Cody, Wyoming last week and the county’s newspaper had a detailed reporting of “every penny that had been spent in the county from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.”
“I have gone from 100% transparency and accountability in Cody, Wyoming to zero here in Mount Olive,” Bell said. “I would hope that we could move in the direction of 100%. I think we really need to.”
Not directly related to the water issue, but still a problem for the town’s water and sewer system, Southerland Street resident Amy Herring told the board that a ditch tile had collapsed by her property and created a big hole.
“Several people from the board have been to see it, but we’ve yet to see anybody do anything about it,” Herring said. “This hole is getting larger and larger, and I’m terrified that somebody’s child is going to fall into this hole.”
During his report to the board, the town manager stated that he and his team were working on the issues discussed during the public forum. “We have done everything that we could,” he said. “We are on top of it now. We have talked with the state. We will see a noticeable improvement within the next couple of weeks.”
Commissioner Simmons, however, didn’t seem to believe that statement. “I wouldn’t drink that water,” Simmons said. “Our town manager said that water is good to drink, somebody bring him a glass of it.”
He also called for the board to have an emergency meeting within the next 10 days and reallocate $100,000 that he said was set aside in the budget to fix the town’s water problems. No motion or discussion was made to that effect.
However, the other commissioners had plenty to say on the issue.
“I’m just gonna take the gloves off. I’m tired of being Mr. Nice Guy,” said Commissioner Tommy Brown. “Everything y’all got up here and talked about, we tried to address. But then, the story is laid out that somebody’s got an axe to grind or it’s a racial thing. There’s nothing further from the truth. There have been members of this board that want accountability and that want to see things moved in a positive direction. … Some of us are trying, but if it’s not the majority of the board, the ones that are trying, their hands are tied.”
Mayor Pro Tem Barbara Kornegay stressed that the town is working to fix its issues, and urged patience. “Give this team a chance to do their work and come up with the right kinds of solutions,” she said. “They’re not just sitting out there waiting for someone to fix the problem. We need to do a total review of the situation before we decide, let’s just spend money.”
When it came time for the mayor’s monthly report, Mayor Jerome Newton stated that he was embarrassed by what had transpired during the meeting. “Something has to change, because you elected us to do the will of the people and as such, there are some things that we thought had been done have not been done,” the mayor said, later adding, “I don’t think we were elected to bicker with each other and to accuse each other, but we were elected to do the job of this city. It comes down to what I said before. We must come together and form a strategic plan that we can follow step by step, that we know what we’re doing. Even if we can’t fix something, you’ll know that we’re working on it because you see it. It has to be in front of you. It has to be transparent. Transparency is a thing that’s going to bring about trust in this town.”
He urged the town residents to continue to let their issues be known and vowed that the board will do its best to address the issues facing the town.
In other business, citizen Brenda Davis voiced concerns about single-family dwellings that have become boarding homes. “When you’ve got lots of people living in single-family housing, you’re overtaxing that water system,” she said. “For many significant reasons, we need to be addressing those problems. We can’t continue to watch the decline.”
Town Attorney Carroll Turner brought before the board a proposed ordinance that would define minimum housing standards by limiting the number of people who can reside in a single-family dwelling. He asked that the town board look over the proposed ordinance and further discuss it at the January meeting.
The board also unanimously approved an easement request from North Carolina Natural Gas to run a gas line to the Evangelical Christian Center on Pollock Street.
