1 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:31,180 Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here tonight. I am interim town manager, Russ Overton, and with me tonight is Mayor Harold Onebreck. Mayor Pro Tem and at large council member, Lori Bush. At large council member, Chris Akon Johnson. District A, council member, Brittany Richards. District D, council member, Michelle Craig. B, council member, Michelle Craig. And D, council member, Serica Banzo. And I'll mention that council member, Bella Wong, is out of the country. 2 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:36,440 could not be here tonight. I want to thank the media for being with us tonight on short notice. 3 00:01:36,820 --> 00:01:41,000 And as you know, the State Auditor and his team released a report on Kerry earlier today. 4 00:01:41,540 --> 00:01:46,140 We appreciate all the hard work that is going into it and felt it was important to have a new 5 00:01:46,140 --> 00:01:51,000 conference to answer your questions about our response, which we'll do in just a bit. 6 00:01:52,100 --> 00:01:56,500 We also have copies of another report from outside law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, 7 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:00,220 which Council Commission to conduct a separate investigation back in January. 8 00:02:00,220 --> 00:02:05,800 representatives from Womblebond Dickinson will be at our July 23rd, town council meeting 9 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:10,220 to make a formal presentation of their report and you can grab those copies if you don't 10 00:02:10,220 --> 00:02:15,080 already have them at the front desk as you leave. As a reminder, this conference is being live 11 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:20,820 streamed and recorded and since its new conference will be taking questions directly from the media. 12 00:02:21,420 --> 00:02:26,260 Thank you to all the residents and staff who are here to observe and support the meeting as well 13 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:32,060 and I would encourage you all to contact Kerry's 311 any time with questions you have regarding 14 00:02:32,060 --> 00:02:38,300 this report and our response. I'd like to give a brief summary of the events that brought 15 00:02:38,300 --> 00:02:45,700 us to this point, so we're working from a common foundation. In 2016, Sean Steegel was hired as 16 00:02:45,700 --> 00:02:50,920 Kerry's town manager. In over the next 10 years and to this day, Kerry continued to receive 17 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:55,480 national awards and recognition in finance, safety, and quality of life. 18 00:02:55,780 --> 00:02:59,620 Many international events have made their home and carry, including the soccer tournament 19 00:02:59,620 --> 00:03:01,000 and the Chinese Leonard Fest. 20 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:07,240 And we've opened an award-winning park that contributed significantly to the thriving downtown 21 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:07,820 economy. 22 00:03:08,620 --> 00:03:14,020 But towards the end of Sean's tenure, staff began noticing questionable decisions and behaviors 23 00:03:14,020 --> 00:03:15,160 from our former manager. 24 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:24,460 For example, he eliminated most of all budget positions and deportized key finance department roles such as the internal auditor position. 25 00:03:25,100 --> 00:03:29,280 He often encouraged staff to ignore policies and procedures and did so himself. 26 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:38,760 And he had discontinued exit interviews and the employees satisfaction survey which had previously given staff a safe way to report issues. 27 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:43,760 Because Shon's actions had occurred over time, it was difficult to see what was happening 28 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:48,600 in the moment, but late last year, a clear picture came into focus as a small group 29 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:51,120 of staff brought their concerns to the Kerry Town Council. 30 00:03:51,740 --> 00:03:58,040 Immediately, on November 20, 2025, town council voted unanimously to place Shon on administrative 31 00:03:58,040 --> 00:03:58,640 leave. 32 00:03:59,260 --> 00:04:04,140 Just a few days later, the North Carolina Office of State Auditor, OSA, arrived at Town Hall 33 00:04:04,140 --> 00:04:06,100 to announce the start of their investigation. 34 00:04:06,900 --> 00:04:11,700 Sean resigned on December 13th and two days later the Council appointed me as the interim 35 00:04:11,700 --> 00:04:12,320 tell manager. 36 00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:17,800 Over the last eight months, we've supported the OSA's investigation by providing hundreds 37 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:23,240 of and even thousands of documents to fully cooperate with the interviews they've requested. 38 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:29,100 We appreciate their work in helping us identify the gaps and oversight and process and culture, 39 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:32,760 and I'm glad that the state auditor mentioned that cooperation in this news conference 40 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:33,520 earlier today. 41 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:39,460 This investigation is largely rooted in the former town man's actions, but as an organization 42 00:04:39,460 --> 00:04:44,360 we recognize that our responsibility to understand what happened, learn how we can help 43 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:49,280 prevent it from happening again and make sure our operations and culture meet the expectations 44 00:04:49,280 --> 00:04:55,040 of our staff and our community. The recommendations from the OSA's report will help us do 45 00:04:55,040 --> 00:05:01,500 exactly that. Carry remains a strong organization with amazing staff, financially stable, safe, 46 00:05:01,500 --> 00:05:06,160 and offering our residents and visitors an exceptional place to live and visit. 47 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:11,880 We are moving forward, rethinking how things are done, rebuilding from what was dismantled 48 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:15,000 and taking steps to strengthen transparency and oversight. 49 00:05:15,860 --> 00:05:21,100 As part of this effort, we've developed a public dashboard to track our progress and recommendations 50 00:05:21,100 --> 00:05:27,680 from the OSA and others, and I invite you all to visit and book more at carryinc.gov slash 51 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:29,840 moving forward to follow along. 52 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:32,920 And with that, we'll open it up for any media questions. 53 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:36,060 Yes. 54 00:05:38,260 --> 00:05:48,420 The former town manager in the report is noted as refusing to comply with the terms of a deal for his severance. 55 00:05:48,840 --> 00:05:52,980 Notably, it seems like he may not have given over his phone. 56 00:05:53,180 --> 00:06:00,860 Is the town pursuing that either getting the property back or pursuing criminal charges against him? 57 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:09,420 I'm not aware we have, I'm looking for a attorney, I'm not aware we have authority to pursue. 58 00:06:09,540 --> 00:06:15,160 All we can do is hold the severance, I don't know if you guys know any more than that. 59 00:06:15,660 --> 00:06:20,340 But it's up to the DA and the SPI to pursue criminal charges against things. 60 00:06:20,340 --> 00:06:22,360 We have no authority to do that. 61 00:06:22,620 --> 00:06:28,640 However, we do have authority to withhold his severance if he doesn't comply by all of the conditions which he has not. 62 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:36,780 Could you talk about some material differences between the OSA report and the Womble Bond 63 00:06:36,780 --> 00:06:41,700 Dickinson report and what new information or recommendation the Womble report introduced? 64 00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:46,860 So I can give you my opinion. I'll ask my colleagues to jump in after I'm done. 65 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:51,660 I thought the state auditor didn't excellent job on the what? 66 00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:56,520 Here's all the things that happened. Really bad, really bad. 67 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:03,920 that. The auditor did a fantastic job over the months really digging in deep and finding stuff that 68 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:09,700 honestly I had no idea what's going on. So it's very important for us as a council to hear 69 00:07:09,700 --> 00:07:15,960 these things and see these things. Lomble Bond Dickinson is into the what and I mean the why and 70 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:22,440 the how and that's very important especially if you're trying to fix problems and situations 71 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:27,120 you need to understand the whole picture and the whole picture is the what why and the 72 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:31,800 how and so that's why both of them together will help us move forward. 73 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:40,840 I'd also like to share I believe something that both of those resources did which was 74 00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:47,400 important was to illustrate what I would call an implementation gap so we do and we've talked 75 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:52,140 about this as a body fairly frequently we have a lot of policy and a lot of those policies 76 00:07:52,140 --> 00:07:58,880 just weren't followed. And that is, you know, often with any governmental body, you can have 77 00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:03,540 the policy, but we also need to have the mechanisms in place to make sure that those policies 78 00:08:03,540 --> 00:08:08,440 were followed. And, you know, anecdotally, I always think of it sort of like, you can have a really 79 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:14,360 great drawing and sketch of a building and you can have the best architectural plans. But if the 80 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:19,900 building inspector isn't on the job and making sure that corners aren't cut and, you know, there's 81 00:08:19,900 --> 00:08:25,920 not, you know, a misinterpretation of the plans, then you're not going to get an ideal 82 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:26,800 final product. 83 00:08:26,940 --> 00:08:32,840 So I feel as though the Womble report really to me was an expansion on the work the state 84 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:39,660 audited, as the mayor said, identifying, here's the problems, and I feel like our commissioned 85 00:08:39,660 --> 00:08:45,740 report with Womble really did a great job of identifying those gaps that we need to close 86 00:08:45,740 --> 00:08:50,860 to make sure that our policies are pretty uniformly and always adhered to. 87 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:57,080 And then I would, one more item since we all have read the report and you get an opportunity 88 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:03,080 to do it in a bit, is it really talked about the operational issues and challenges that we have, 89 00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:07,700 not just with a council manager form of government, but when you have a large organization 90 00:09:07,700 --> 00:09:15,480 with part-time leaders and a professional town manager who's leading the organization. 91 00:09:16,300 --> 00:09:22,600 And I'd also like to chime in on the mayor's why part of the Womble report. 92 00:09:22,980 --> 00:09:27,420 I thought it was very helpful to talk very specifically of the why. 93 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:31,120 What are the vulnerabilities associated with a council manager form of government? 94 00:09:31,580 --> 00:09:33,760 What are the safeguards that you need? 95 00:09:34,020 --> 00:09:35,560 How can you increase transparency? 96 00:09:35,560 --> 00:09:42,880 the how and or the why and then the how really dovetail nicely together because the 97 00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:48,800 wobble report also gave us pieces of the puzzle to put together so that we can make 98 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:50,680 sure that this doesn't happen again. 99 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:57,400 Let me add that the wobble report had 21 recommendations and the OSA report has 13, all of 100 00:09:57,400 --> 00:09:59,900 those recommendations will be on the moving forward web page. 101 00:09:59,900 --> 00:10:13,940 And you guys mentioned in your comments in the State Auditor's report as well, that people didn't see notice this quicker because it was a lot of different things over time. 102 00:10:14,260 --> 00:10:16,680 And there are a lot of recommendations in that auditor's report. 103 00:10:17,580 --> 00:10:26,620 But how do you now go about what if somebody making up and just hypothetically, what if somebody does something in one month? 104 00:10:26,620 --> 00:10:28,700 And then six months later, they'd do something again. 105 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:33,220 Like, how do you not see that if it's happening at all? 106 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:40,380 So I'll start by saying a lot of the problems in my mind were controlling information. 107 00:10:41,500 --> 00:10:45,760 He was a master at making sure he had information from staff. 108 00:10:45,940 --> 00:10:47,660 And he had information from Council. 109 00:10:48,140 --> 00:10:50,240 And he determined who got what information. 110 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:52,100 That was a big problem. 111 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:53,840 And that was correct in on day one, 112 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:57,420 when we swore in Russ Overton as the intermanager. 113 00:10:57,900 --> 00:10:59,380 We no longer have that 101, 114 00:10:59,700 --> 00:11:01,660 where one person controls that information. 115 00:11:02,580 --> 00:11:05,560 So we meet in three by fours, which means 116 00:11:05,560 --> 00:11:09,820 the mayor and two council members and the intermanager, 117 00:11:10,020 --> 00:11:13,400 the attorney, the clerk, and other senior staff members 118 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:14,200 are there as well. 119 00:11:14,260 --> 00:11:17,080 So we're all sharing information at the same time 120 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:20,100 to prevent that kind of thing from happening again. 121 00:11:20,420 --> 00:11:22,560 I don't know if you guys have anything to add to that. 122 00:11:22,560 --> 00:11:26,300 For me, it would be two words, culture, and transparency. 123 00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:32,140 And on day one, the mayor put forward a process and a request for us 124 00:11:32,140 --> 00:11:34,220 to stream everything we do. 125 00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:34,680 Exactly. 126 00:11:34,820 --> 00:11:35,340 Day zero. 127 00:11:35,580 --> 00:11:36,120 That was a zero. 128 00:11:38,380 --> 00:11:41,440 And so everything we do is transparent. 129 00:11:41,900 --> 00:11:46,780 And we also made a commitment to each other that any information that we have, 130 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:51,680 we share with the broader group, which I think is also indicative of this body, 131 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:55,500 wanting to move forward together, so that's the transparency. 132 00:11:55,860 --> 00:12:02,260 The culture part is ensuring that those guardrails are there, 133 00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:08,000 so that staff feels comfortable to share with us should there be an issue. 134 00:12:09,060 --> 00:12:15,360 So putting forward an anti-rotalliation program, putting forward a whistleblower, a tip line, 135 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:19,240 those types of things are important to make sure that our staff feel comfortable, 136 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:23,860 so they don't feel bullied, so they feel like they can share that information with us. 137 00:12:24,180 --> 00:12:27,800 And that will be taken as a policy to council at next Thursday's meeting. 138 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:30,860 Yes, sir. 139 00:12:31,100 --> 00:12:37,040 I know one thing that came on in the report is that 62% of people of the staff had 140 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:42,120 car into credit cards, access credit cards, so I know in Raleigh, they said they have 141 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:47,260 60% and Charlotte 10% are you cutting that down since that report is coming out? 142 00:12:47,260 --> 00:12:48,220 I'll start with that. 143 00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:52,580 But we've already taken steps to cut it, we'll continue to look at that and make further 144 00:12:52,580 --> 00:12:56,500 steps to cut it down, and that's something we'll be looking at moving forward. 145 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:02,480 All while knowing that the town has to make purchases, and we'll look at how to do that 146 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:02,880 differently. 147 00:13:03,580 --> 00:13:08,120 And I'm just saying when I interviewed with the town auditor, I did it for two hours 148 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:11,720 and 40 minutes, and it was, did you know this? 149 00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:17,640 And there are 800 peak cards, and I'm like, well, is that normal or not normal? 150 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:19,920 Well, Charlotte has about that many. 151 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:21,140 Well, how many do they have? 152 00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:26,200 So they looked up all that information after we asked questions back because we didn't know. 153 00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:30,940 And I can tell you, re-inner manager does not have a peak card. 154 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:33,400 Our town clerk does not have a peak card. 155 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:39,920 So they're already, by example, reducing the number of peak cards because that was a problem. 156 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:43,360 that was a cultural issue that is being addressed. 157 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:46,180 None of us have any cards. 158 00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:53,880 With one of the recommendations to make Peacard transactions more transparent as well to the public. 159 00:13:54,340 --> 00:14:05,600 And I wanted to comment on that because I think a really important thing to note is the form of payment doesn't illustrate whether or not a transaction or a payment is acceptable or not. 160 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:11,060 So there's problematic parts of any kind of form of payment 161 00:14:11,060 --> 00:14:15,040 we like checks as we all know you can't just pop a check in the mail anymore 162 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,540 and feel really confident that it's going to safely arrive at its destination. 163 00:14:19,460 --> 00:14:22,620 So one of the things I've been doing is really trying to look at this 164 00:14:22,620 --> 00:14:28,980 and say, okay, well if we don't pursue payments via credit card, 165 00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:30,660 what is the best practice? 166 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:32,860 And what is the ideal payment? 167 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:35,400 I had a discussion with a colleague about this just today. 168 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:43,640 it's not necessarily a bad thing that credit cards are being used to make a lot of the purchases 169 00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:50,420 that are necessary and it doesn't illustrate fraud on the behalf of the staff broadly. What it is 170 00:14:50,420 --> 00:14:58,460 is a standard way of purchasing things that we need to examine like so many things we're doing right 171 00:14:58,460 --> 00:14:59,400 And examine it. 172 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:05,200 And make sure that that's the best way to go about it. And if we're going to continue with primarily 173 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:10,160 peacard purchases for a lot of things, how do we do that do it well and do it safely and 174 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:11,680 make sure the money is safeguarded? 175 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:16,980 And the elaborate spending that the auditor talked about, there will be checks and balances 176 00:15:16,980 --> 00:15:21,140 to prevent that from happening. And we're working on a plan for that. 177 00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:29,980 And one of those plans was we added two positions in the finance. One is a auditor for the 178 00:15:29,980 --> 00:15:36,640 One more thing that was noted was I'm not sure exactly how it was described, but something 179 00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:46,380 about the former town manager making last-minute decisions about things which cause some 180 00:15:46,380 --> 00:15:54,700 of those P card purchases to have unnecessary fees and or cancellations to venues and things 181 00:15:54,700 --> 00:15:59,680 like that. So, as we're looking at policies, making sure we're being 182 00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:03,240 plantful would be among the things that we will continue to do. 183 00:16:07,490 --> 00:16:12,410 I know there's been a lot of talks towards the town manager, but under this, the 184 00:16:12,410 --> 00:16:18,370 auditor, describing this is really a culture of extravagant spending, not just by the town manager, 185 00:16:18,750 --> 00:16:24,670 how did that culture develop without the town council recognizing its sooner? And I know we've 186 00:16:24,670 --> 00:16:29,670 here in a lot of, we didn't know, but everybody knows how much money is in their bank account 187 00:16:29,670 --> 00:16:35,050 and what that spending looks like with your own budget and at stewards of the taxpayer's 188 00:16:35,050 --> 00:16:37,770 dollars, how do you miss it? 189 00:16:38,210 --> 00:16:42,410 Well, I think there's, there's a lot of complexity there. 190 00:16:43,750 --> 00:16:48,210 These staff makes hundreds of thousands of decisions, we make thousands of decisions, we're 191 00:16:48,210 --> 00:16:49,210 a thousand decisions. 192 00:16:49,210 --> 00:16:52,830 So they bowled down summaries is what we see. 193 00:16:53,930 --> 00:16:56,810 I'll tell a story, which I think is very important. 194 00:16:57,670 --> 00:17:02,310 While we might have seen bits and pieces over the last few months, 195 00:17:04,230 --> 00:17:07,590 I didn't know what was going on with them. 196 00:17:08,030 --> 00:17:10,430 And then early November of last year, 197 00:17:11,190 --> 00:17:15,670 staff member came up and told me, these things are happening, 198 00:17:15,670 --> 00:17:20,610 which was shocking and I'm like disgruntled employee maybe, then another one. 199 00:17:21,030 --> 00:17:28,290 That's not right, and then on November 13th he lied in front of the council about fund balance. 200 00:17:30,420 --> 00:17:32,500 By November 20th he was gone. 201 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:41,100 The problem was it was all based on that one fund balance issue until we got four staff members 202 00:17:41,100 --> 00:17:43,440 to come in to close session. 203 00:17:43,660 --> 00:17:45,920 We usually don't talk about what happened in close session, 204 00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:48,240 but I got permission to. 205 00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:51,480 They came in close session risked their careers 206 00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:54,360 and told us, here's everything that's going on. 207 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:56,720 We were in there for hours and hours. 208 00:17:57,260 --> 00:17:58,560 I don't tell you who those people were. 209 00:17:58,660 --> 00:18:00,000 It wasn't random staff. 210 00:18:00,580 --> 00:18:01,540 It was the interim manager. 211 00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:03,220 It was the town clerk. 212 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:05,680 It was the chief strategy officer. 213 00:18:06,300 --> 00:18:08,060 And it was the assistant town manager. 214 00:18:08,060 --> 00:18:12,620 top-level people in the organization went way to 215 00:18:12,620 --> 00:18:16,320 minute, these things, these bad things are happening, 216 00:18:16,780 --> 00:18:19,820 and Council doesn't know, they need to know this now, 217 00:18:20,140 --> 00:18:23,260 and they risked it all just so we can know. 218 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,160 And we heard it, and I can tell you that close session, 219 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:28,100 not a dry eye was in there. 220 00:18:28,580 --> 00:18:31,780 It was heartbreaking, but we immediately made the 221 00:18:31,780 --> 00:18:33,380 hard decision, and he was gone. 222 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:36,640 He was locked out of his accounts, he was locked out 223 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:39,160 building and he never returned. 224 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:42,820 I would, I want to add something there. 225 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:50,900 I feel like the accountability and the oversight was definitely low because of the trust 226 00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:53,640 that the council had in the manager. 227 00:18:54,500 --> 00:18:57,980 And I feel when, I mean, this is my first time. 228 00:18:58,100 --> 00:18:59,480 I was new back then. 229 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:05,060 But I felt like a lot of people who have been with the organization for very long 230 00:19:05,060 --> 00:19:15,100 of time, they felt very torn and shattered and, to an extent, they felt cheated and in 231 00:19:15,100 --> 00:19:15,840 mere swords. 232 00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:23,880 So I feel like, at some point, there was a realization that this is bad for the organization 233 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:35,040 and we need to move forward, but as soon as the realization came and we had the facts, the 234 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:40,960 It was, we stayed in close session for six, seven hours that night and we took the decision. 235 00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:47,000 So I understand that, you know, these issues that we're talking about, they were not. 236 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,720 They did not develop like overnight. 237 00:19:50,820 --> 00:19:53,220 They were there for many, many years. 238 00:19:54,120 --> 00:20:01,000 And as in last May, you have mentioned this, that towards the end of the tenure, 239 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,200 or I feel like people started observing these issues more prominently. 240 00:20:06,420 --> 00:20:11,080 And that's when the realization started popping in that, hey, we need to have checks and balances. 241 00:20:11,340 --> 00:20:12,320 What is happening here? 242 00:20:12,380 --> 00:20:15,640 There were questions that were being asked, and there were no answers. 243 00:20:16,740 --> 00:20:18,900 At least that's my version of understanding. 244 00:20:19,220 --> 00:20:25,680 And the fun balance question happened at a quarterly meeting, and by that time, we had 245 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:29,380 two or three council members that were going, what's going on with the fun balance. 246 00:20:29,580 --> 00:20:30,800 This doesn't add up. 247 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,860 I remember thinking, why did somebody ask that same question 248 00:20:33,860 --> 00:20:34,980 three different ways? 249 00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:36,540 Like he already said no. 250 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:43,040 So that was the defining moment. 251 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,600 At that moment, I said, this guy's got to go. 252 00:20:46,060 --> 00:20:49,460 And so now I'm gathering information from that third day 253 00:20:49,460 --> 00:20:52,440 to the following third day, the make sure he was gone. 254 00:20:53,540 --> 00:20:56,520 So I know that to get to your culture question, a little bit, 255 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,020 is culture entrusted a road at a way in the organization. 256 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:02,360 When the manager doesn't follow the same rules 257 00:21:02,360 --> 00:21:07,320 that everyone else has to and so we want to write that ship. 258 00:21:07,860 --> 00:21:15,860 Yeah, I want to share that I don't believe that it's accurate to classify the culture of our staff as one of extravagant spending. 259 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:23,300 I believe that what we had was pockets of poor decisions and poor money management that we need to address. 260 00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:31,780 But I would stand by the fact that our staff works diligently to deliver the best product, the best services possible. 261 00:21:31,780 --> 00:21:37,920 And to do that at the most reasonable cost they can without compromising safety or quality. 262 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:47,960 So I don't think broadly a wide culture of extravagance is completely accurate as a way to describe the culture with the staff here at the town of Carey. 263 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:54,620 And if someone could correct me if I miss what the number but I believe I had been ten years since we did an employee survey. 264 00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:54,940 Yes. 265 00:21:55,800 --> 00:22:00,220 And in our former town manager about that length of time since he had been. 266 00:22:00,220 --> 00:22:16,180 So, obviously, hindsight is 2020, but looking back, why would staff trust to come to, to, to, to, whoever, when we had not been coming to them and saying how are things going? 267 00:22:16,820 --> 00:22:28,860 And then I can only speak for myself, but in my 101 conversations of saying to the former town manager, are you sure the staff is okay if we cut that potential for mayor increase back? 268 00:22:28,860 --> 00:22:36,000 and him saying things like, well, look, they're also happy, and he said it, and I remember 269 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:43,880 at least one public meeting, you know, like, they're also happy, why do we need to ask them? 270 00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:53,450 And so, you know, we were not, we're moving forward at this point, and we're making the opportunity, 271 00:22:54,810 --> 00:22:59,590 and hopefully continuing to build trust with staff as well as the public. 272 00:22:59,590 --> 00:23:07,130 But I think we've tried really hard to make the point over and over again, and not since November. 273 00:23:07,410 --> 00:23:20,450 I believe I've heard lots of this, my two and a half years on council, how much we, how we know we could not be all the wonderful accolades that we haven't carry if it weren't for our staff. 274 00:23:20,810 --> 00:23:29,250 And so continue to build that culture of making sure that staff know and putting the things in place to make it where they can come to us. 275 00:23:29,250 --> 00:23:32,130 So we can do better moving point. 276 00:23:32,970 --> 00:23:34,770 Yeah, I'll add as well real quick. 277 00:23:35,110 --> 00:23:39,530 A long answer to your question is, you know, 278 00:23:39,590 --> 00:23:43,490 counsel for many months now has been awaiting the results 279 00:23:43,490 --> 00:23:45,850 of many of these simultaneous investigations. 280 00:23:46,150 --> 00:23:49,470 And so we now have many data points to help give us 281 00:23:49,470 --> 00:23:50,950 a fuller picture of what happened. 282 00:23:51,030 --> 00:23:53,630 And so to answer your question, I think, two of, 283 00:23:53,910 --> 00:23:57,490 we have our annual audit that noted that one of the deficiencies 284 00:23:57,490 --> 00:24:05,250 was tone at the top, and so that really did originate from the town manager, and you combine 285 00:24:05,250 --> 00:24:11,250 that with what the state auditor found, which was a culture of workplace intimidation, 286 00:24:11,390 --> 00:24:12,550 and retaliation. 287 00:24:12,810 --> 00:24:20,030 And so I think those two data points combined to say that we really had a top-down problem, 288 00:24:20,030 --> 00:24:45,530 And a culture problem explains how some of that that those issues arose and the origin of a lot of those problems and how removing the town manager while we have a lot of policies and procedures to review, but addressing the tone at the top will address many of those issues that happened because of the culture that existed when he was here. 289 00:24:45,530 --> 00:24:52,970 Did anyone else get let go or be removed because of this or is there one person to blame? 290 00:24:53,890 --> 00:24:56,230 Dan Alt was also he resigned. 291 00:24:56,610 --> 00:24:57,130 He resigned. 292 00:24:57,850 --> 00:25:00,830 He came with Sean from Elgent. 293 00:25:02,490 --> 00:25:04,510 Don't know any connection other than that. 294 00:25:04,510 --> 00:25:05,050 He resigned. 295 00:25:05,190 --> 00:25:05,750 He was gone. 296 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:10,220 Yes. 297 00:25:10,220 --> 00:25:16,760 Okay, if you guys said, you can push back a little bit on the culture of extravagant spending, 298 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:26,800 but it was flagged for a $733 executive van used to transport attendees, 12 miles to a holiday dinner. 299 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,060 It ordered an outline, $1,600 for Ray van's sunglasses. 300 00:25:31,420 --> 00:25:36,620 A lot of these things appear to be extravagant spending. 301 00:25:36,620 --> 00:25:50,460 So to put you back against that one, we're also talking raising taxpayer property rates and all of those things is really hard to understand how you find that not to be extravagant spending. 302 00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:55,520 Why is $733 to go 12 miles, not considered extravagant spending? 303 00:25:56,100 --> 00:25:58,560 I didn't defend every single expense. 304 00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:03,960 I defended the broad and majority of those expenses. 305 00:26:04,620 --> 00:26:08,700 Those costs outlined in the auditors report and also in our 306 00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:11,960 Womble report, Thurfsert, hard stop. 307 00:26:12,780 --> 00:26:19,120 I make no excuses for those expenses, that spending pattern was unacceptable. 308 00:26:20,260 --> 00:26:24,640 Also, that is not reflective of the habits of the broader staff. 309 00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:31,180 So what I really take issue with is only the culture of inappropriate spending. 310 00:26:31,180 --> 00:26:34,040 I think that is broadly not applicable. 311 00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,920 I work with a lot of the staff day in a day out. 312 00:26:37,020 --> 00:26:44,460 And we also, I think it's also important to know that we can sit here as a council and ask for policy changes 313 00:26:44,460 --> 00:26:49,280 or ask for changes in, you know, try to change the culture and such. 314 00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:54,420 But the ones that are actually implementing the changes, implementing the controls and getting 315 00:26:54,420 --> 00:27:01,200 things under control will be the staff. So they can't be both things at the same time. They can't 316 00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:07,240 be out of control spending all the time across the board and individuals that can help 317 00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:13,680 us write the ship. So that's my point. It's right there in the middle. I think is an accurate 318 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:20,440 way to portray the situation right now. So I add to that as well. I had an email today saying 319 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:28,200 those expenses explained by the auditor who are horrifying. I agree. We were notified. We knew 320 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:34,260 we got rape and sunglasses. I didn't think they were 100 or whatever it was they cost and 321 00:27:34,260 --> 00:27:40,180 I was told as part of marketing because we rebranded it and it had our new brand on there. 322 00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:46,380 These expense to the holiday dinner by the way everybody paid their own way at the holiday 323 00:27:46,380 --> 00:27:51,760 dinner, but I didn't know that costment. We're going to fix all that. That's not a problem, 324 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:59,700 but I wanted to address the tax increase. All the damage that has been done with the extravagant 325 00:27:59,700 --> 00:28:07,980 expenses has minimal impact on the tax rate. Those expenditures, the extravagant expenses, 326 00:28:08,500 --> 00:28:15,840 what has a bigger impact was the information he withheld from us. We haven't hired a police officer 327 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:20,260 10 years, and he kept telling us, we are fine, we are fine. 328 00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:26,200 We haven't built a new fire station, we are fine, we are fine, and now we find out, instead 329 00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:31,360 of a five-minute response time, we have a 12-minute response time out west, that's the problem, 330 00:28:31,660 --> 00:28:36,540 and that's what we got to dig ourselves out of, and that's how he impacted the tax rate, 331 00:28:36,940 --> 00:28:40,700 not with the extravagant expenses, but I totally agree it was horrifying. 332 00:28:42,110 --> 00:28:54,130 Yes. In the report, the town clerk recalls a quote and I'll read it that Mr. Skull said, 333 00:28:55,030 --> 00:28:59,530 if Council Member Bush ever gets upset at me, I'll let everybody know about the tuition. 334 00:29:00,090 --> 00:29:07,430 Do you ever overtly or otherwise threaten any of you with consequences for things like that? 335 00:29:07,430 --> 00:29:15,830 not me. I can tell you my story of the tuition, and then Laurie can explain it. She's 336 00:29:15,830 --> 00:29:24,110 explained it a million times, but he called me and said, you know, Laurie's doing 337 00:29:24,110 --> 00:29:30,270 professional development and told me what the tuition was and he said like $6,000 at 338 00:29:30,270 --> 00:29:34,970 the time, I don't think that's a good idea. And I said she would probably see that and 339 00:29:34,970 --> 00:29:39,090 campaign if they found out she spent $6,000 on the education. 340 00:29:39,710 --> 00:29:40,270 I disagree. 341 00:29:40,470 --> 00:29:42,210 I totally backed her as professional development. 342 00:29:42,330 --> 00:29:43,570 That was our conversation. 343 00:29:44,730 --> 00:29:50,710 And then I thought about it and I go, you know, the council needs to see this or know this. 344 00:29:50,810 --> 00:29:55,250 I don't know if they do and I send an email and that's part of public record you can go find it 345 00:29:55,250 --> 00:29:56,730 where I question him. 346 00:29:56,990 --> 00:29:59,970 And that's when it all started and then Lorry can explain. 347 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,380 I'm going to explain which she has, how her end of that played out. 348 00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:12,500 So in 2023, I started looking for a way to increase my skills as a public servant. 349 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:18,200 It started thinking about going to law school or public policy. 350 00:30:18,580 --> 00:30:25,420 So I met with UNC School of Government Dean, I met with other academics, and decided to go after a master's 351 00:30:25,420 --> 00:30:27,400 public policy and administration. 352 00:30:28,060 --> 00:30:32,080 There's no North Carolina State School that does that. 353 00:30:32,100 --> 00:30:34,560 Here that allows you to do it if you don't already have 354 00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:35,640 an undergraduate degree. 355 00:30:36,380 --> 00:30:38,540 That was a 2023, 2024. 356 00:30:39,580 --> 00:30:45,100 I was interviewing for an enrollment program in Northwestern. 357 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,600 Had already started looking at meetings 358 00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:51,860 and the town manager said, you know the town will pay for that. 359 00:30:51,860 --> 00:30:55,820 So really, okay, I'll check with HR. 360 00:30:56,260 --> 00:31:00,960 So I contacted HR and all of those are in the public record. 361 00:31:01,780 --> 00:31:03,240 HR said, yeah, absolutely. 362 00:31:03,980 --> 00:31:04,740 We'll pay for this. 363 00:31:04,740 --> 00:31:08,960 We had multiple emails back and forth about the process and how do you do this? 364 00:31:09,540 --> 00:31:10,680 I said, hey, I got it. 365 00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,260 I think it's time for me to, I think I should let the rest of Council. 366 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:16,020 No, no, don't worry, I'll do that. 367 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,860 I see them all on every Council week. 368 00:31:19,180 --> 00:31:20,600 He sees all of us. 369 00:31:20,900 --> 00:31:21,320 I said, all right. 370 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:31,880 So I know he told half of the council members, but he didn't tell everyone, and unbeknownst to me when I asked him hey does everyone know, he said oh yeah, I got that cover, no problem. 371 00:31:32,740 --> 00:31:44,540 So that was in 2024 when that happened. So come 2025 and 25 when the mayor sent the email, that's when I found out that he didn't know. 372 00:31:44,540 --> 00:31:57,640 and soon after that, even though I'm still in school and still going after my masters, I didn't think that it was right for me to do that. 373 00:31:57,860 --> 00:32:01,840 And so I took ownership and responsibility and paid it back immediately. 374 00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,080 But I do not know. I take answer your original question. Did he do that with anyone else? I couldn't speak to that. 375 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:14,460 I can say he never once, overtly, threatened me in any way, just to answer your question directly. 376 00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:22,300 And I've never been, obviously, in y'all's position, but I just, I spoke to a lot of people in 377 00:32:22,300 --> 00:32:23,000 carry today. 378 00:32:23,260 --> 00:32:28,980 There were no alarm bells from you guys when there was the staff of then-everyways restaurant, 379 00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:30,340 the fine dining steak house. 380 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:36,100 There was the Ray Bands, which you said maybe was a marketing thing, but Ray Bands everybody knows 381 00:32:36,100 --> 00:32:37,720 I feel like our extensive sunglasses. 382 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,040 The book, the Dancing Queen video, 383 00:32:40,580 --> 00:32:44,180 I mean, this all happened in front of everybody's faces. 384 00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:47,940 Like, does that seem to be an appropriate use of tax dollars? 385 00:32:48,020 --> 00:32:50,620 I know that everybody is probably going to say no. 386 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,600 But how does that happen in front of everybody's face 387 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,060 and nobody questions it when it's happening? 388 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,460 I mean, that's a good question because I like the analogy 389 00:33:01,460 --> 00:33:09,040 of oiling a frog and water slowly, this kind of way it was, for six years, this guy was 390 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:13,720 outstanding. We were named the number one government in the United States in his tenure. 391 00:33:14,740 --> 00:33:19,200 So there was a lot of that we were getting, last year we got 40 national awards. Everything 392 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:26,740 is going great. All our indicators were outstanding, bond rating agencies, highest rating, 393 00:33:26,740 --> 00:33:28,240 All these things are positive. 394 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:33,300 So when things are going on, you think that, wait a minute, 395 00:33:34,420 --> 00:33:37,840 it's, you don't question, we know now, we should have. 396 00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:39,380 How much of that cost? 397 00:33:40,460 --> 00:33:44,360 So yeah, we're going to definitely address, well, 398 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,600 we already have been addressing any cost. 399 00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:51,820 But we didn't know about the cost of the Dancing Queen video. 400 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:52,800 I had no idea. 401 00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,260 Of course, I would have said, whoa, timeout. 402 00:33:55,260 --> 00:33:56,920 That's way too much, that's crazy. 403 00:33:57,220 --> 00:33:58,440 We didn't know it existed. 404 00:33:58,700 --> 00:34:00,120 Yeah, didn't know it existed. 405 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,800 We thought staff on their own time created the stance 406 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,480 for our entertainment to open up our quarterly meeting 407 00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,980 to set the tone of the quarterly annual meeting, 408 00:34:14,500 --> 00:34:16,700 to set the tone, that's what I thought. 409 00:34:17,340 --> 00:34:18,860 And it was their time and their effort. 410 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,880 I had no idea we were spending thousands of dollars 411 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,200 video taping that. 412 00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,140 And why would we do that? 413 00:34:25,660 --> 00:34:28,640 I didn't know that, but, you know, I can say I don't know. 414 00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,200 People don't believe it, that's fine. 415 00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:35,180 But we'll make sure that we know everything moving forward. 416 00:34:35,220 --> 00:34:39,080 And I think that's a key point, as Chris has said, moving forward. 417 00:34:39,580 --> 00:34:41,780 Can taxpayers get their money back? 418 00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,060 How does that, I mean, that was taxpayer dollars, 419 00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:45,900 that were spent. 420 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:50,880 How can they feel, how, they can't get their money back, 421 00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:51,480 what can they do? 422 00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:56,600 But you've heard the expression when you know better you do better, and I can tell you personally, I know better now. 423 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:12,120 And, you know, looking back, I feel as though it's important for you to take responsibility for seeing it and not acting on it as, I don't want to say aggressively, but as adamantly as I should have. 424 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,740 The reband sunglasses are an excellent example. 425 00:35:16,420 --> 00:35:19,520 The park open here is something for council. 426 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,640 No thank you, right? 427 00:35:22,060 --> 00:35:24,280 That wasn't enough when I said no thank you. 428 00:35:24,460 --> 00:35:26,260 What I should have said is, what the hell are we doing? 429 00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,680 Putting our brand on reband sunglasses and giving them out at no cost. 430 00:35:30,900 --> 00:35:34,420 That is the response that I failed to make at the time. 431 00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,380 There is no explaining that away as, you know, 432 00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,620 but it's what I should have done. 433 00:35:40,620 --> 00:35:48,400 going forward, you can rest assured that we will be reacting that way if that were to happen. 434 00:35:48,660 --> 00:35:54,380 But I think that kind of behavior is going to be exceptionally unlikely in the future. 435 00:35:55,540 --> 00:36:10,320 So that's just me speaking for myself and accepting the responsibility in that situation where my reaction wasn't to the level of I think what I was seeing as far as the way money was being spent in isolated cases. 436 00:36:10,620 --> 00:36:16,320 I would like to add something about that retreat. 437 00:36:17,620 --> 00:36:25,880 That was the first year that was right when we took the oath, Michel and me. 438 00:36:26,780 --> 00:36:29,600 It was two-month into the office when we went there. 439 00:36:30,300 --> 00:36:36,160 We were blown away by the professionalism of the staff. 440 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:44,100 We were too new. We were trying to soak in the following year. I started questioning a little bit. 441 00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:53,160 Why is council going for dinner? Why are we not cutting this like something on those lines? 442 00:36:53,780 --> 00:36:57,270 So I think it kind of started coming naturally to answer your question. 443 00:36:57,270 --> 00:36:59,310 It was a slow process. 444 00:36:59,590 --> 00:37:02,350 Being only, like, way, short period of time in the office. 445 00:37:03,290 --> 00:37:07,030 And, like, but the others are saying, I would echo the same message. 446 00:37:07,030 --> 00:37:08,190 We're looking forward. 447 00:37:08,790 --> 00:37:12,910 But we also have to remember that we do not lose sight of what happened in the past. 448 00:37:13,210 --> 00:37:14,190 Because that's critical. 449 00:37:14,550 --> 00:37:15,770 We have to take accountability. 450 00:37:16,210 --> 00:37:17,990 We have to take mistakes we're made. 451 00:37:18,370 --> 00:37:21,370 And we have to make sure that, as we're moving forward, 452 00:37:21,730 --> 00:37:24,970 we keep those learnings within our site. 453 00:37:26,310 --> 00:37:32,730 I can offer the perspective as one of the two newest council members to say the culture that's 454 00:37:32,730 --> 00:37:40,050 described in this report is one I don't recognize so it already no longer exist in my seven 455 00:37:40,050 --> 00:37:48,070 months now in office. I can see the effects of the changes that Russ and my colleagues have made 456 00:37:48,070 --> 00:37:56,070 immediately that none of what is described there is familiar to me in my term so far. 457 00:37:56,990 --> 00:38:00,690 One thing that stood out to me that the auditor said in our exit conference, but as 458 00:38:00,690 --> 00:38:05,570 well as I think in his remarks today, was about being more transparent and maybe if you 459 00:38:05,570 --> 00:38:12,450 have sometimes things that you all will agree or taxpayers may different on is doing an 460 00:38:12,450 --> 00:38:18,450 session. Be transparent about those decisions as you make those decisions. So I think we're doing that and 461 00:38:18,450 --> 00:38:20,190 will continue to do more of it. 462 00:38:26,340 --> 00:38:30,640 Yes. The Council, as it was noted in the report also has a fairly 463 00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:39,980 significant budget for cars and that's something that's pretty unusual in the entire area. Never heard 464 00:38:39,980 --> 00:38:47,060 of a Council member getting a specific allocation for car maintenance or whatever else. Can you 465 00:38:58,350 --> 00:39:06,450 I'll just say that you can take my entire paycheck, and it doesn't add up to minimum wage with the hours I put in. 466 00:39:06,770 --> 00:39:09,310 So if you want to fault me for that, go ahead. 467 00:39:09,310 --> 00:39:15,330 I get paid $29,000 a year, probably work 60 hours a week. 468 00:39:17,330 --> 00:39:20,330 And it's basically a stipend. 469 00:39:21,370 --> 00:39:25,190 And so I don't even remember how we set that. 470 00:39:25,350 --> 00:39:27,810 I think we tried to take the politics out. 471 00:39:28,230 --> 00:39:32,550 And that's probably why we need to put it back somewhere where people can see it. 472 00:39:33,030 --> 00:39:38,330 Because it got where we went over 10 years without an increase in salary. 473 00:39:38,330 --> 00:39:43,990 And we go, well that's not right, and we don't want to make it political, it shouldn't be a campaign item. 474 00:39:44,590 --> 00:39:49,950 But if people, and actually when we made the change, I know we made it after the next election. 475 00:39:50,190 --> 00:39:54,070 So if you didn't like it, you could vote us out and then it came into play. 476 00:39:54,730 --> 00:39:56,390 So that's how it was created. 477 00:39:57,030 --> 00:39:59,230 It wasn't designed for us to make money. 478 00:39:59,290 --> 00:40:00,770 God knows we don't make money. 479 00:40:01,510 --> 00:40:03,450 And it's not a cost of living. 480 00:40:04,030 --> 00:40:05,110 It's nothing near that. 481 00:40:05,310 --> 00:40:06,450 It's just a stipend. 482 00:40:06,450 --> 00:40:10,670 And, like I said, it doesn't even add up to minimum wage, Chris, I don't know. 483 00:40:10,850 --> 00:40:16,250 Okay, and when Harold is saying I make $29,000 a year, that includes his car stipend. 484 00:40:16,730 --> 00:40:17,870 Yes, that's all in. 485 00:40:18,470 --> 00:40:27,310 I shared on some social media outlets last year, my W2, for 2024, was $27,000, $50,000. 486 00:40:27,430 --> 00:40:31,990 That was everything, that was before $4,000 in taxes, right? 487 00:40:31,990 --> 00:40:43,790 And that is driving around a 60 square mile town in my own car, on my own dime, on my own gas, with my own insurance, with my own cell phone, with my own electronics, on my own internet. 488 00:40:44,130 --> 00:40:45,770 We don't have offices here. 489 00:40:46,430 --> 00:40:50,790 So, I don't think that that stipend is unreasonable. 490 00:40:51,790 --> 00:41:00,390 There's minimal compensation offered to council, and that's one of the other things I was really surprised during the entire process. 491 00:41:00,390 --> 00:41:04,190 So how many people did not understand that we're part timers? 492 00:41:04,990 --> 00:41:09,710 So often when I share a full-time job during the day, people are surprised, and that's 493 00:41:09,710 --> 00:41:14,730 one of the challenges also when it comes to oversight in general, because we are part-time 494 00:41:14,730 --> 00:41:16,550 body and not here full-time. 495 00:41:17,010 --> 00:41:21,110 It would be very difficult, even if I did want to be here full-time, because we could work 496 00:41:21,110 --> 00:41:25,590 full-time even at our current salary, but I wouldn't be able to keep a roof over my head, 497 00:41:25,590 --> 00:41:27,690 and particularly wouldn't be able to afford to live here 498 00:41:27,690 --> 00:41:30,130 and carry on $27,000 in $50. 499 00:41:31,170 --> 00:41:32,190 I think it's a little bit more now. 500 00:41:32,270 --> 00:41:33,050 We get what three? 501 00:41:33,050 --> 00:41:33,910 I have no idea. 502 00:41:34,230 --> 00:41:39,010 I think there's a flat raise and increase to our base salary, 503 00:41:39,150 --> 00:41:42,330 which I think is pushing $14,000 now. 504 00:41:42,910 --> 00:41:44,750 And we get a flat raise. 505 00:41:44,830 --> 00:41:45,930 All of us the same amount. 506 00:41:46,250 --> 00:41:48,910 I think it's 3% each year. 507 00:41:49,370 --> 00:41:54,470 So that's why when I saw that inclusion of the car stipend, 508 00:41:54,470 --> 00:41:59,310 I mean, if people think it's fair, it could be reduced by a couple hundred dollars, maybe, 509 00:41:59,490 --> 00:42:03,190 because I think the majority of us drive Hyundai's, do I remember that correctly? 510 00:42:04,010 --> 00:42:04,570 Yeah, the majority. 511 00:42:05,430 --> 00:42:10,970 So, you know, it would be an accurate sort of probably accounting for the expense I actually 512 00:42:10,970 --> 00:42:13,750 have in my car, my wear and tear, and that kind of thing. 513 00:42:14,410 --> 00:42:18,350 But I don't think the car stipend is unreasonable at all. 514 00:42:18,350 --> 00:42:24,350 you mentioned something I thought was good. I'm the only mayor in Wake County with that in office. 515 00:42:24,910 --> 00:42:31,410 I'm probably the only mayor out of the top 50 municipalities in the state without an office. 516 00:42:31,910 --> 00:42:34,790 We didn't think that was important. We thought that was a waste taxpayer money. 517 00:42:34,950 --> 00:42:37,430 And we gave it up many years ago. 518 00:42:39,110 --> 00:42:43,530 So it's not like we're trying to throw money around waste money and build salaries. 519 00:42:44,130 --> 00:42:45,630 I mean, that's not what it's about at all. 520 00:42:45,630 --> 00:42:54,890 I would like to add something for the car allowance and in this, I feel like everybody has their own decision that they have to make. 521 00:42:55,390 --> 00:43:12,950 As a console body and I had a conversation with Auditor Balik about this and he made a statement or his comment was that I don't mind you having that money allocated for the car given to allowances for the console. 522 00:43:12,950 --> 00:43:16,570 but go word in front of public, let people know. 523 00:43:16,910 --> 00:43:19,050 Be transparent about this information. 524 00:43:19,610 --> 00:43:20,670 And I think that's fair. 525 00:43:21,090 --> 00:43:23,250 I think if this council wants to keep that allowance 526 00:43:23,890 --> 00:43:27,490 and people know about this and they're ready to pay for this, 527 00:43:27,810 --> 00:43:29,330 then so be it. 528 00:43:30,210 --> 00:43:31,730 I think in my individual capacity, 529 00:43:31,950 --> 00:43:33,790 I just want to share since you probably referring 530 00:43:33,790 --> 00:43:37,210 to the report you will see, I declined some of the benefits. 531 00:43:38,410 --> 00:43:41,730 And that's only because my husband had his benefits 532 00:43:41,730 --> 00:43:46,750 and we were as a family using his benefits, and I didn't feel necessary to take those. 533 00:43:47,270 --> 00:43:52,950 It's nothing against a particular policy, but it's more about I just didn't feel that 534 00:43:52,950 --> 00:43:55,170 I needed, and that's why I declined it. 535 00:43:56,310 --> 00:44:02,210 I'm a weight counting public school employee, and I made more family and I made the choice 536 00:44:02,210 --> 00:44:07,470 for me to work half time when I was running for office, and it's fortunate that we were able 537 00:44:07,470 --> 00:44:12,790 to make that choice because the average resident cannot afford to run for office, no matter what 538 00:44:12,790 --> 00:44:19,570 office it is. Because first of all, even with a PhD as a public school educator, I could 539 00:44:19,570 --> 00:44:24,690 not afford to live and carry by myself. I depend on my husband's salary. And of course, 540 00:44:24,850 --> 00:44:29,950 I did going half time and cutting my salary in half. But for the hours that I put in, I make 541 00:44:29,950 --> 00:44:35,070 a whole lot more as a public school teacher than I do as a town council member. So I took 542 00:44:35,070 --> 00:44:44,790 significant decrease to become a council member, but if we decided and we should revisit all of these policies. 543 00:44:46,350 --> 00:44:54,670 Most of these policies were made before most of us were in office, and so like so many things were revisiting everything it seems like. 544 00:44:55,210 --> 00:44:59,970 And so that's among the things we should talk about. And if we decide that the car... 545 00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:09,520 I'm going to respectfully ask that our stipend is increased because I have a kit going to college 546 00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:19,000 in two years, and another one behind that, and it would be difficult for my family to cut back the amount of money that we have coming in. 547 00:45:19,860 --> 00:45:24,040 But I do recognize that she has correct that the auditor did say it's an utter transparency. 548 00:45:24,900 --> 00:45:27,280 So who is to blame for this? 549 00:45:27,580 --> 00:45:32,220 Like I feel like from the auditors or your response 550 00:45:32,220 --> 00:45:35,880 and the auditors report, basically, 551 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,960 SQL was very much named and I feel like 552 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,260 got a lot of the blame, but now you guys are saying 553 00:45:42,260 --> 00:45:44,040 that you're taking accountability, 554 00:45:44,740 --> 00:45:45,840 I don't want to put words in your mouth, 555 00:45:45,940 --> 00:45:48,660 taking accountability, trying to learn from this 556 00:45:48,660 --> 00:45:50,060 and move forward. 557 00:45:50,060 --> 00:45:58,140 So, would you blame staff a little bit, would you guys blame yourselves for not stepping up? 558 00:45:58,240 --> 00:46:01,380 Who is really to blame for all of this going on? 559 00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:05,560 I think people want to pin blame on somebody and I'm getting a lot of it, 560 00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,420 but I can tell you that a lot of it has to do with the vulnerabilities 561 00:46:10,420 --> 00:46:15,240 of the health council manager form of government, which is all the municipalities in North Carolina, 562 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:21,780 Carolina must mid-sized cities in the nation, and that vulnerability exists in all of our brothers 563 00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:23,240 and sisters in Wake County. 564 00:46:23,980 --> 00:46:29,760 If it could happen to them tomorrow, so I hope they will model themselves after the changes 565 00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:30,700 we make. 566 00:46:31,180 --> 00:46:34,000 Pollock Mountain saw this, Rocky Mountain saw this. 567 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:41,360 These vulnerabilities will continue to be exploited until people put an infrastructure to stop 568 00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:41,840 it. 569 00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:47,860 And so we did not have the infrastructure in place, and we suffered from the vulnerabilities 570 00:46:47,860 --> 00:46:49,640 of Council Manager of our government. 571 00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:56,160 So if you want to blame us, blame me, that's fine, but really it's the Council Manager 572 00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:57,040 of Foreigner of Governments. 573 00:46:57,300 --> 00:47:01,560 And it's important to understand what a Council Manager of Foreigner of Government was designed 574 00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:02,140 to do. 575 00:47:02,460 --> 00:47:09,120 It was designed to create a wall from the elected officials and operations because when 576 00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:15,040 You break down that wall, now you have corruption with elected officials and the operations. 577 00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,520 However, what it doesn't take into account is your professional, not the professional. 578 00:47:20,100 --> 00:47:24,060 And that's what happened to Kerry, Rocky Mount, Pollock Mountain, and others. 579 00:47:25,100 --> 00:47:29,980 So we're determined as we move forward, put the infrastructure in place so that this doesn't 580 00:47:29,980 --> 00:47:30,920 happen again. 581 00:47:31,580 --> 00:47:36,020 And will the infrastructure cost taxpayers more money for safeguards that you're talking 582 00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:37,220 about? 583 00:47:37,220 --> 00:48:00,800 Well, the great thing about the Womble report and haven't taken a moment when you leave to look at it, it actually talks about what are the things you can do with at a low cost that are more aligned with putting in the safeguards, all the way up to hiring consultants, right, that would actually cost more money, implementing tiplines, obviously, would have some cost. 584 00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:07,040 So depending on the recommendation, I think there were 21 from Womble, it depends on the type 585 00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,620 of recommendation and whether or not there would be a cost associated with it. 586 00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:11,660 Some of them are not. 587 00:48:11,660 --> 00:48:15,480 Some of them are policies, procedures, oversight. 588 00:48:16,020 --> 00:48:22,560 Obviously, one of the biggest recommendations in the Womble report is the resumption of the internal 589 00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:27,380 auditor position, which we already approved in this last budget. 590 00:48:27,380 --> 00:48:52,380 So the loss of that position, by the way, which was not known to any of us, but putting that position back in place, getting someone here, who can start doing all of the reviews, the clear-eyed review of every single department, and giving us recommendations on what we should do, that's a really key position to help us move forward. 591 00:48:52,380 --> 00:48:56,580 And I hate to say it, but in every crisis there is an opportunity. 592 00:48:57,540 --> 00:49:03,180 And maybe what we are here is an opportunity for our regional partners and our regional 593 00:49:03,180 --> 00:49:10,940 municipalities, the 550 municipalities, I think in North Carolina, to use us as a case of what 594 00:49:10,940 --> 00:49:13,220 they can do to strengthen their own government. 595 00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:21,560 The transparency implementation, the policies and procedures, looking deeply into your culture, 596 00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:30,060 taking the temperature of your staff and not relying on a single point of communication through 597 00:49:30,060 --> 00:49:37,160 the town manager that conchiers type of service where we all thought it was working was actually 598 00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:44,140 not working and really creating a lot of problems. So I think we're a cautionary tale and 599 00:49:44,140 --> 00:49:49,660 some respect, but for us it's an opportunity to take everything we've learned and move forward 600 00:49:49,660 --> 00:49:52,780 together. Yeah, I'd like to echo what the mayor and mayor 601 00:49:52,780 --> 00:49:56,520 Protem just said that the wobble report in particular doesn't 602 00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:01,060 excellent job of looking at those systemic failures and the systemic 603 00:50:01,060 --> 00:50:07,220 fixes. And I think what the auditor's report points to is one person 604 00:50:07,220 --> 00:50:12,280 might have exposed those vulnerabilities, but the responsibility for fixing it 605 00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:16,760 will lie with all of us with the seven of us and the rest of staff to make those 606 00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:22,060 systemic changes to reinforce those guardrails to make sure it doesn't happen again. 607 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,720 I would just add one more thing here, my apologies. 608 00:50:26,500 --> 00:50:27,660 I just add one more thing. 609 00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,100 I've heard and I want to address this big elephant in the room. 610 00:50:31,380 --> 00:50:34,820 A lot of people have seen like on social media in some places. 611 00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:36,560 They say, why aren't you just doing it quickly? 612 00:50:36,940 --> 00:50:37,960 Now you know this. 613 00:50:38,380 --> 00:50:40,460 It's not that quick fix. 614 00:50:41,220 --> 00:50:42,960 There's policy recommendation. 615 00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,940 There will be discussion, public hearing. 616 00:50:45,940 --> 00:50:50,560 And there's a whole process for the council before the policy gets adopted. 617 00:50:51,100 --> 00:50:52,300 Russ, am I right? 618 00:50:52,720 --> 00:50:52,920 Yes. 619 00:50:53,140 --> 00:50:56,960 And I just point out all of that will be online so the public can follow it on our website. 620 00:50:58,500 --> 00:50:59,960 We have time for one more question. 621 00:51:00,380 --> 00:51:01,460 I think you may have had one. 622 00:51:20,690 --> 00:51:25,750 So my understanding is our authority comes from the legislature and we do not have authority 623 00:51:25,750 --> 00:51:31,170 to change the council manager form of government without going to that. 624 00:51:34,010 --> 00:51:40,710 I would just say that, you know, you mentioned that the council is part time and that's an issue. 625 00:51:41,630 --> 00:51:47,410 I don't think that was an issue. I don't know what other thing, but I feel like the issue was more 626 00:51:47,410 --> 00:51:52,070 off that a person was very successful in his role and he was able to see a lot of information 627 00:51:52,070 --> 00:51:56,670 from the council for the very longest period of time. And there was trust that was built 628 00:51:56,670 --> 00:52:00,350 over the period of time because of the successes that down has seen. 629 00:52:01,730 --> 00:52:08,830 I think I know that some of the council members in mayor has mentioned that he works 630 00:52:08,830 --> 00:52:13,950 60 hours and we all, even though this is a part-time rule, a lot of us have put a lot 631 00:52:13,950 --> 00:52:19,810 of time into this position and it's definitely more than part-time I would think. 632 00:52:20,650 --> 00:52:24,610 I want to share one of the benefits of not having a full-time council, somebody like me, 633 00:52:24,610 --> 00:52:27,290 There's nothing in this for me, I always joke, right? 634 00:52:27,530 --> 00:52:29,010 It's not that I don't care deeply 635 00:52:29,010 --> 00:52:31,070 and wanna do this job and do it well, 636 00:52:31,350 --> 00:52:34,050 but there's not financial gain here, right? 637 00:52:34,050 --> 00:52:38,370 So it really does attract a certain type of individual 638 00:52:38,370 --> 00:52:39,970 that's looking to lead, 639 00:52:40,510 --> 00:52:44,310 but I feel is though any of those sort of fundamental changes, 640 00:52:44,730 --> 00:52:48,610 they would have to be, I think, probably a statewide change 641 00:52:48,610 --> 00:52:52,710 realistically, but with us examining 642 00:52:52,710 --> 00:52:57,800 where our responsibilities lie. I do feel as though I wouldn't necessarily use the word 643 00:52:58,350 --> 00:53:05,850 blame but the responsibility for fixing this does fall on us on this on the body of which I belong and we're 644 00:53:05,850 --> 00:53:12,410 taking it extremely seriously. I mean this is I can speak for I think my colleagues and I rarely do that 645 00:53:12,410 --> 00:53:17,340 but I can tell you this kept us up at night. I've so it's been really challenging and one of the other 646 00:53:17,340 --> 00:53:23,680 bigger challenges for us now is to answer that question directly about how will these fundamental 647 00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:29,400 changes affect taxes? One of the things that were included in this past budget is a correcting 648 00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:35,380 of that lack of staff that allowed a lot of the stuff to not be seen, to not be noted, 649 00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:40,520 to not have a treasure position those things. So that was included in the budget that we just 650 00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:46,180 passed. So there are, of course, tax-inplific implications to those decisions. They were previously 651 00:53:46,180 --> 00:53:51,160 by and large, not the police officers, but a lot of the other positions were previously funded 652 00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:58,120 and then unfunded positions. So there is that tax implication that that was just passed 653 00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:03,660 as part of our budget and I hope that anybody has an interest in how that came about. There's 654 00:54:03,660 --> 00:54:10,460 a lot of recorded work sessions and a lot of recorded meetings where we discuss this quite thoroughly 655 00:54:10,460 --> 00:54:15,500 if anybody wants to dig into that. Yeah, the last thing I would add is the virtue of moving 656 00:54:15,500 --> 00:54:22,820 not slowly but deliberately is we don't have to guess what the fixes are. We have 13 recommendations 657 00:54:22,820 --> 00:54:29,780 from the auditor that we will take seriously and plan to address and we have 21 recommendations 658 00:54:30,300 --> 00:54:40,440 from the wobble law firm and so because we have so thoughtfully investigated what transpired 659 00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:47,060 to know how to move forward, we know what the fixes are now and so we know what the work ahead 660 00:54:47,060 --> 00:54:47,880 of us looks like. 661 00:54:48,140 --> 00:54:48,780 And they're public. 662 00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:49,560 They're public now. 663 00:54:49,580 --> 00:54:50,260 They're still well. 664 00:54:50,860 --> 00:54:57,620 I think what I was trying to say is it's not like I know what the issue is and next one hour 665 00:54:57,620 --> 00:54:59,920 I can go and make a decision and move the needle. 666 00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:05,260 I think there's a process that we have to follow which is which definitely requires several 667 00:55:05,260 --> 00:55:09,660 steps and it's time consuming and that is where I said it's slow. 668 00:55:09,660 --> 00:55:16,920 especially with transparency, because we have to schedule these meetings and that's what makes it take longer. 669 00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:22,220 And just to close this out, I think it's an important message for our residents to hear. 670 00:55:22,460 --> 00:55:27,220 Carey is still carey. Carey is still one of the most desirable places to be. 671 00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:33,340 Live work, play, run a business. We're a safe community. We're a thriving community. That has not changed. 672 00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:38,040 We're a good value for the dollar. We have the second lowest tax rate in White County. 673 00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:45,420 and the highest quality of life. So, carry is still carry. We will start to move forward and this 674 00:55:45,420 --> 00:55:49,120 Council is committed to doing that. Yes, thank you for being here. Thank you for your 675 00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:49,460 questions.