[1:03] Welcome, everyone. My name is Gene Hamilton, chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, and I call this July 28,

[1:10] 2026 business meeting to order.

[1:15] So as many know, this meeting was called in order to fill the vacancy after the death of Commissioner James

[1:34] the appointments first and then follow with the other items in order I do not

[1:44] need a motion just if there's no objections I check the rules and

[1:47] procedures okay so then as I want to say first that this first item is to

[1:59] make an appointment for the vacancy I want to start by thanking all the

[2:03] folks who put their name forward, all the candidates,

[2:10] Ronnie Dossy, Leah Bergman, Maria Palmer, Pam Hemminger,

[2:14] Renuka Sewell, and Eric Valera.

[2:16] Thank you so much.

[2:18] The strength of this county is the strength

[2:22] of the people who step up to serve.

[2:25] I also want to thank the Orange County Democratic Party

[2:28] and for really driving this process and we appreciate the applications that we received

[2:39] and for working together on this.

[2:44] So is there anyone signed up to speak on this topic?

[2:50] No.

[2:51] Okay.

[2:53] Yes.

[2:54] One person, one.

[2:56] Yes.

[2:59] State your name.

[3:02] Good morning.

[3:03] Apologies, Madam Chair.

[3:04] My name is Brian Link and I'm the President of the Chapel Hill-Carborough Association of Educators.

[3:10] On the one hand, I wish I wasn't here this morning.

[3:13] It's with a heavy heart on behalf of our organization that we send our condolences to the Bedford family.

[3:19] Jim Zeta Bedford was a champion of our community for all aspects of our community.

[3:23] She was a wonderful individual and human being.

[3:26] She was a great champion of public education,

[3:29] and she's someone who our organization proudly supported.

[3:35] I can think just, it's still shocking to me.

[3:37] It was on vacation when I saw the news,

[3:40] just having been with her in the last months

[3:42] over this very difficult budget.

[3:45] And of course, she was always the person

[3:47] who was the most prepared, literally brought a binder

[3:51] this thick of all the items in the budget

[3:54] when she would agree to meet

[3:55] and sit down with constituents.

[3:57] She was just a lovely, lovely person and human being and a great public servant, and I am sorry to all of you to have lost such a friend and colleague, and I'm sorry for our community.

[4:09] The good news is that I also get to stand here this morning on a much more positive note.

[4:15] As you noted, Chair Hamilton, our community is a strength. We have wonderful public servants, and I want to be very clear.

[4:25] I am not here to say anything else about any of the other individuals who you name, but

[4:30] I'm here this morning to strongly endorse the candidacy of Ronnie Dossi to become the next

[4:37] county commissioner. The Orange County Democratic Party has spoken and spoken clearly. She will

[4:42] be the candidate this fall. She's running unopposed. She will be joining you all on

[4:47] the board, right, come the end of election season. And I think in this perilous time,

[4:54] time. It's all the more important that we begin the process now to begin building those

[4:59] important relationships so that Ms. Dossi can hit the ground running and work with you

[5:05] all to meet the needs of our community. I've known Ms. Dossi for a long time. Our arcs

[5:11] in public service have overlapped in terms of she started on the board at the same time

[5:15] that I became an officer in this organization. For the past 12 years she is championed,

[5:21] right, notions of equity. She is championed being an independent thinker. She is someone

[5:26] who will ask questions. She is someone who is not afraid to take a stand. She embodies

[5:30] all that is good in our community. And while I understand that this board, excuse me,

[5:36] this commission ultimately gets to make the decision and you merely take the recommendation

[5:40] of the party under consideration, I think the majorities that she achieved at the

[5:44] party meeting, both for the candidacy going forward and for filling the interim vacancy,

[5:49] recommend her to be supported. And in my remaining time, I want to thank you all

[5:55] in a difficult budget season for coming up and stepping up. We are very

[5:58] appreciative, thank you, and we look forward to working with you as you

[6:01] continue to do this good work. All right, thank you.

[6:06] All right. Commissioners, any

[6:13] discussion. Are we ready to vote? I just have a brief comment since I missed our

[6:21] last meeting. Today I just wanted to briefly share my deep sadness and the

[6:27] reason why we are here today, the loss of our dear colleague and friend James

[6:31] Etta Bedford. As mentioned, she served the County Commission with integrity,

[6:36] compassion, and very little fanfare. James Etta cared deeply about education,

[6:41] mental health, folks with disabilities, and folks whose lives presented challenges.

[6:46] She served as chair without arrogance, but with a mission to do the work of the county.

[6:51] When she left the chair, she did not take the easy way out, but signed up for more committees

[6:56] than ever.

[6:57] And she was deeply engaged in those assignments.

[7:00] And I am going to feel her absence every time I drive to Whitted because she and

[7:03] Jean and I used to carpool.

[7:06] So today, although I recognize my and everyone's individual talents, I dedicate

[7:11] myself and hope that we all strive to be more like Jamesetta in our service to

[7:15] the county and I hope that Jamesetta's successor will also aspire to those same

[7:20] qualities and care for Orange County. Thank you.

[7:28] I will just I mean it was

[7:30] already stated but just remind that what we're doing today is to fill the

[7:35] vacant position to the end of Jamesetta's term and as we know Ronnie

[7:44] Ronnie Dossi has been chosen by the Orange County Democratic Party to be on the ballot

[7:49] in November.

[7:50] So we have ballots in front of us, so we will go ahead and vote.

[8:07] We'll have our Lord Jensen to the board collect our ballots and read out the results.

[8:24] Thank you, commissioners.

[8:26] I will read out the name of the person voting and who their vote was for.

[8:30] We have one vote from Earl McKee for Ronnie Dossy,

[8:38] one vote from Gene Hamilton for Ronnie

[8:40] Dossy,

[8:43] one vote from Sally Green for Ronnie Dossy,

[8:48] one vote from Phyllis Portie Ascot for

[8:51] Ronnie Dossy, one vote from Marilyn Carter for Ronnie Dossy, and the final vote from

[8:58] Amy Fowler for Ronnie Dossy.

[9:00] Congratulations, Ms. Dossy.

[9:01] Congratulations.

[9:09] Congratulations. Thank you so much, Ronnie, for stepping up in this really hard time.

[9:14] I know your background will fit us very well. I look forward to working with you.

[9:24] We know that you can – we will talk more about when you will officially start and take the oath of office.

[9:33] In the abstract, it mentions August 25th, but, you know, there is some flexibility, certainly

[9:41] over the summer we do less, but definitely when the fall comes to be ready to take on

[9:49] the duties.

[9:50] Thank you.

[9:55] Do you want to make any comments?

[9:57] Yes.

[9:57] Come on up.

[10:02] Good morning, everybody.

[10:04] Thank you so much.

[10:05] I always like to start with a huge gratitude for what you all do, the sitting board members,

[10:11] not just in hard decisions like this, but in the way that you lead for the Orange County

[10:16] residents every day.

[10:18] So thank you, and thank you to the county staff for all the work you do.

[10:23] Sometimes until things are visible to people, they're not aware of how hard the work

[10:30] is behind the scenes and I want to lift that up today and offer gratitude for everything

[10:35] you do. I want to also thank my family and friends and supporters and folks who've been

[10:42] with me along my growth journey. When I started this work, literally when I thought about

[10:48] joining the board and about 20 school board, Chepo-Carville City School Board in 2015,

[10:53] the first person I met with was James Eddabedford. And I remember her, we sat at the coffee

[10:59] shop down the street and I offered to buy her coffee and she said, you can't buy me coffee

[11:04] because I can't accept anything and I was like, it's $2, like let me buy you coffee.

[11:09] And that was my first lesson from her of like the integrity and the commitment that even

[11:14] when nobody's watching, that the way you behave matters.

[11:18] And so her shoes are too big to feel.

[11:21] I'm not going to try to do that, but I will commit to serving in a way that honors

[11:25] her legacy and I hope that she can look down with pride at the service that the board continues

[11:32] to do in her absence. So I don't have a lot more to say than thank you and I look forward

[11:38] to joining you and learning from you and thank you for all you do.

[11:51] Being efficient we have other items on our agenda and Commissioner Carter.

[11:58] Madam Chair, thank you. I would like to ask the Board to agree that I withdraw from the

[12:05] meeting now that we've had our consequential vote today. I'm taking an economic development

[12:12] class at UNC School of Government, and this morning they're talking about economic development

[12:17] strategy. So in progress, so with your forbearance, I will withdraw from the rest of the meeting

[12:23] if that's consistent with our rules of procedure.

[12:28] All right, so everyone in the discussion, anyone agree?

[12:34] All in favor?

[12:35] Aye.

[12:36] Any opposed? None.

[12:37] Thank you, Marilyn, for being here.

[12:39] Go learn about economic development strategies.

[12:42] Gratitude to all.

[12:48] Next up we have a public comment for things not on the agenda.

[12:53] Is there anyone signed up?

[12:55] Being none, we'll go on.

[12:57] announcements, petitions and comments by board members, can we? I'm seeing none.

[13:03] Okay, sorry. Commissioner Green. Yeah, I just want to remind everyone that

[13:09] the Arts Mill is going to be reopened officially on Friday, August the 7th.

[13:14] It's going to be a grand reopening with galleries, tours, food trucks, beverages,

[13:21] which is art making activities and our own legendary band High Funk Motown inspired liquid

[13:28] pleasure.

[13:29] So it should be great fun and when I saw Katie last a couple of days ago, she particularly

[13:34] wanted me to encourage all of you all to try to attend.

[13:38] All right.

[13:40] Thank you very much.

[13:41] And best of your fellow?

[13:42] Yes, briefly.

[13:43] Since our last meeting I did fill in on my newly assigned DSS board and Lindsay Shoemaker

[13:49] shared on how the burden that SNAP changes at both the federal and state level will negatively

[13:54] impact the county budget. She also reported that the idea of a consolidated human services

[14:00] department had negatively impacted morale at DSS. And along those lines, the DSS chair

[14:05] Oscar Fleming sent us the BOCC an email outlining their opinion and opposition to such a consolidation.

[14:12] All right. Thank you. We, I'll just say again thank you to all the candidates who submitted

[14:23] applications for this. They can see. Thank you for the comments. We have our regular,

[14:30] or we have a business meeting on August 25th in which we will be back to our regular amount

[14:37] of issues in front of us.

[14:40] All right, there are no proclamations,

[14:42] resolutions, special presentations,

[14:44] we have no public hearings,

[14:46] no other items in the regular agenda,

[14:49] no reports, we do have a consent agenda,

[14:53] and any removal of any items from the consent agenda?

[14:57] No, I approve all of this.

[15:00] consent agenda. So Vice Chair Farrell moves approval of a second. Commissioner Portiasca

[15:05] seconds it. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. That passes 5-0. Moving on to the county

[15:13] managers report. Nothing today. Nothing today. County attorneys report. Nothing today. Just

[15:21] note there's information items about follow-up. We have no closed session. Do I have a motion

[15:27] to adjourn. Second. All in favor and opposed none. We are adjourned. Thank you very much

[15:35] for taking time in the middle of summer for this meeting.

BOCC Business Meeting - July 28, 2026

Transcript