Rockhead "leadership" delivers slap across the face

Last night's town board meeting felt eerily familiar: like the days when commissioners hijacked the will of the people to instead dole out personal favors and paybacks.

Sadly, it happened while commissioners were voting to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Mac Herring, a commissioner who utilized his role as town historian to build bridges between old and new Mooresville after those bridges had been torched in the early- to mid-2000s.

On Monday, town commissioners voted 3-2 to appoint former Commissioner Danny Beaver - a man who the people of Mooresville ousted from local government in 2007 - to serve the two years remaining in Herring's term. The vote, not surprisingly, was split down an old, familiar line: "old Mooresville" versus "new." Ward 2 Commissioner Thurman Houston, At-large Commissioner Bobby Compton and Ward 1 Commissioner Eddie Dingler voted for Beaver's appointment. At-large Commissioner David Coble and Ward 4 Commissioner Lisa Qualls dissented. And they didn't shy away from explaining why:

"Mr. Beaver served for eight years, and it was not a good time for Mooresville," said Coble after Houston made the motion to appoint Beaver to the board. Coble had made a motion for the appointment of another candidate, Gary West, which was seconded by Qualls but died for lack of support. Coble reminded the board that Beaver, then an at-large commissioner, lost his bid for re-election in 2007 when current-Mayor Miles Atkins ran a campaign against him "centered on ethics in government."

At that time, Beaver had voted to hand a multi-million-dollar contract to a town friend rather than follow the recommendation of town staff in the hiring of an engineering firm for Mooresville's wastewater treatment plant expansion. Town staff said the firm that commissioners eventually chose was too expensive. Those town staff members were later fired. Then the Mooresville community fired back by ousting Beaver and Frank Owens, who was surprisingly also among the town's four finalists for Herring's replacement. Owens made a run against Herring for his seat just two years ago and was rejected by the town's Ward 3 voters.

Beaver's controversial past on Mooresville's town board didn't seem to matter to Commissioners Compton and Dingler or to Houston, who himself was appointed to the board in 2006, thanks to a strong push by none other than - you guessed it - then-Commissioner Beaver.

Houston, Compton and Dingler on Monday cited "experience" in their choice to return Beaver to the board.

But is Beaver's brand of experience in the best interest of the town?

Coble and Qualls said, unequivocally, no.

Using the word "tumultuous" to describe the years Beaver was in office - and reminding fellow commissioners of the many State Bureau of Investigation probes into the town during that time - Qualls said she was "disappointed" that the majority of the town board seemed okay with moving Mooresville "backwards."

Coble said that the citizens he spoke with during the selection process for Herring's replacement "overwhelmingly said they wanted our choice to be about moving Mooresville forward."

Houston said Beaver is "connected" in Mooresville and that the former commissioner's "integrity is very great" and that he's "an asset to this board." He said that Gary West and Michelle Beam - the other two finalists out of the original 13 applicants - were too inexperienced to serve. "They haven't participated in anything," he said, adding that maybe they'd be more qualified after they "get a little more involved in the community."

That didn't sit well with Qualls, who quipped: "Every one of us was brand new once."

Qualls herself was originally appointed to the town board in 2012.

She said that choosing Beaver was "a slap in the face to the new people who planned to get involved."

I would take that a step further ...

Last night's decision was a slap in the face to the people of this town who, when given a choice, ousted Danny Beaver from local government. It was a slap in the face to the residents of Ward 3 who, when given a choice, chose a person like Mac Herring to represent them. Danny Beaver's style could not be any more opposite from Herring's. Though local-government politics are non-partisan, Beaver is known to be a rockhead conservative, while we used to tease Herring about being a "bleeding-heart liberal." Herring was gentle and compassionate: sometimes, I'd tell him, to a fault. He talked often of building bridges and of his respect for town staff and of his love for the Town of Mooresville and of his dream to see the town continue to move forward and away from the scandals and controversies that defined it in the early- to mid-2000s.

For those reasons, Beaver's appointment last night was also a slap in the face to Mac Herring.

Shame on the three commissioners who delivered it.

Owens should have let sleeping dogs lie

Mooresville citizens ousted Frank Owens from the town board in 2005 after two terms, the last of which was wracked by controversy and scandal.

He was sent packing rather quietly, considering the political atmosphere and sentiment at the time.

But now, eight years later, he has tossed his hat back in the ring, targeting the Ward 3 seat currently occupied by Mac Herring.

Owens has claimed that he is running for office because Herring voted to saddle Mooresville residents with MI-Connection, a $92.5 million cable company that Owens says the town had no business purchasing. And I fully agree with him on that.

But then Owens decided to get a little nit-picky. He recently went digging through his opponent's 2012 county vehicle-tax records and then broke his neck tattle-telling to the Mooresville Tribune about a $88.86 delinquency on Herring's part, which even a county collections official called “very common.” The Tribune contacted Herring, who paid the tax bill before the article was even published in the paper.

Owens attempted to use this as a chance to show, even further, that Herring is irresponsible with money, stating in the Tribune: “What does it say about a commissioner that uses tax dollars from the town and the county and does not pay all of his county tax dollars?” 

Herring's delinquent tax bill was $88.86. If Herring's vote for MI-Connection is Owens' only real talking-point during this campaign, which seems to be the case, then we need to compare apples to apples.

In 2005, Frank Owens rubber-stamped handing a $25 million engineering contract on what would later become an estimated $150 million project to a town-board friend, voting against the recommendation of town engineers who said the expansion of Mooresville's wastewater treatment plant should be completed by a more qualified (and overall less costly) firm.

At one point in Mooresville's history, such a decision would have slid right through, possibly without the public even knowing. But decades of backwoods dealings and good-ol'-boy politics came to an end in the early- to mid-2000s in Mooresville, when the sleepy town was rocked by one scandal after another, all while Owens sat on the town board. With support from the local media and new blood on the board, a new plan was created for the wastewater treatment plant expansion, which meant the overall price was lowered. And the firm that had originally been deemed most qualified by town engineers was given a supervisory role over the former board's choice of CH2M Hill.

But that didn't happen before the town's manager – apparently based primarily on commissioners' persuasion, including (by then former) Commissioner Owens – fired the town's engineer and utilities director, both of whom had vehemently stood up for the best interest of the town's taxpayers against Owens and his ilk … and in spite of personal risk. One commissioner said that the personnel files of the two employees were “completely empty” of any prior disciplinary action at the time of their firings. For more on the CH2M Hill scandal, click here and here. 

But the CH2M Hill controversy was just the tip of the iceberg.

Also during Owens' last four years as commissioner:

• In 2001, Mooresville's librarian was indicted and later pleaded guilty to embezzlement for using public money for her private use. But her indictment came in spite of an apathetic Mooresville Town Board and only after an activist blew the whistle and persistently demanded that something be done about it. She also went to the press. An independent review by the Mooresville Tribune raised the possibility that tens of thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise had been stolen from or through the library for half-a-dozen years before the indictment. 
• In 2003, the town's former internal auditor, whose job it was to help prevent financial mismanagement and possible theft like that which had occurred at the library just a couple years prior, stated publicly for the first time that the town lacked financial controls and that her detection of those deficiencies – and her insistence that the town institute change – is likely what led to her firing after only eight months on the job. 
• In 2004, the then-town manager fired the new town librarian, supposedly for spending more than town policy allowed for a meal. This resulted in another black eye on the town because of widespread scrutiny from newspapers and local television news about the overspending habits of Mooresville's government, primarily via travel and dining expenses. 
• In 2005, despite the town having a full-time auditor, a finance director and an outside accounting firm that annually conducted an audit of the town's books, it once again took a concerned citizen – through his own volunteer financial probe – to identify a shortage in the inventory at the Mooresville Municipal Golf Course, which was already operationally bathed in red ink. A follow-up audit of the golf inventory showed about $5,000 of missing merchandise from the golf course pro shop. An editorial in the Mooresville Tribune stated: “The litany of mismanagement gets longer and longer, our town commissioners say little about it, and you, the taxpayers, foot the bill.”
• Also in early 2006 - just after Owens was voted off the town board - the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) visited the Town of Mooresville and confiscated town computers. To date, no one knows what the FBI was looking for, but most assume it had something to do with the town board, against procedure, granting its friend's engineering firm the lucrative $25 million engineering contract for the wastewater treatment plant expansion. One former commissioner said the FBI told commissioners that the agents were looking into actions of prior town-board members. He said he was specifically asked by the FBI if he thought former commissioners were receiving “kick-backs” for preferential awarding of contracts. “I don't believe they received money for it,” he said, “but it certainly showed poor judgment.”

And now word is finally public about a 2001 FBI investigation into Owens for public corruption, following a state probe into a Mooresville gambling hut. 

One former public official, during an interview about the investigation, said: “Frank Owens has a pattern of abusing power, whether it's as a police officer or a commissioner.

“We have gotten past the yahoo-style of government and crookedness and the 'you-aren't-my-friend-anymore' high-school politics.”

I could not agree more. A vote for Frank Owens on Tuesday is a vote to move Mooresville backwards. It's really just that simple.

Two years ago, commenters on this blog resurrected the issue of Owens' gambling and the 2001 FBI investigation. Owens contacted me via private message on Facebook at that time, asking me to remove the comments and to contact him. I did call him, and while stating that he was "just trying to lead a good, Christian life," he insisted that the gambling accusations were false. He offered to meet with me and tell “the truth” about what "had really happened." I saw no need; after all, he was a private citizen at the time, which meant that whatever had gone on in his private life was no longer the public's concern. Still, his behavior while he was a commissioner was and is fair-game for public scrutiny.

Now that he's running again for public office, the fact that he was investigated by the FBI for public corruption has become relevant for reporting; Owens' personal character is once again the public's business.

But Owens has clammed up again. He apparently doesn't want to talk about the scandal anymore; he still has not responded to Report questions sent in mid-October about his involvement in illegal gambling and the 2001 FBI investigation and grand jury. And the only thing that has changed from two years ago, when he wanted to talk about it, until now is that he's eyeballing a seat on Mooresville's town board.

Yes, Mac Herring, the Ward 3 incumbent, voted for MI-Connection during his first term on the town board. He made, in my opinion, a multi-million-dollar mistake. And I don't take that lightly. But if Herring's vote was so heinous, why did no one challenge him when he sought (and won) re-election in 2009? If Owens' motivation is to remove Herring from office to, as he claims, protect the taxpayers from a tax-and-spender, why did he wait another four years to do it? He could have run against Herring in 2009, but he didn't. In fact, no one did. Herring ran unopposed.

I was here, with a front-row seat, when Owens was last a commissioner. He and other board members gave the town one black eye after another. Far from being apologetic, they banned together and thumbed their noses at the public, over and over. Visits from SBI and FBI agents became almost commonplace. Shameful reports by newspapers and television news stations were plentiful; in fact, the material that Owens and other town-board members gave the Mooresville Tribune was enough to fill a wall with awards for investigative reporting and community service. The town became a laughingstock, notorious for scandal and controversy.

It was an ugly, politically restless period in Mooresville's history. I don't want to see it repeated, nor do I believe that anyone who was on the board at that time deserves a second chance to govern and shape policy in this town.

Herring voted for MI-Connection. But the SBI has not been in Mooresville since he's been a commissioner. The FBI hasn't visited, either, except – in the first few months of Herring's first term – to look into the actions of Owens and his fellow town-board members.

The public is smart enough to draw its own conclusions about that. And come what may on Tuesday.

Feds once targeted Owens for public corruption

Frank Owens, who is once again seeking a seat on Mooresville's town board, was investigated by state and federal authorities for public corruption during his last term as town commissioner.

According to several current and former law-enforcement and public officials, all who asked their names to be withheld, Owens was first investigated by Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE), in combination with the Mooresville Police Department (MPD), then the case was sent to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2001.

The case apparently went before a federal grand jury either the day before or after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America. And that's where the story seems to end and speculation begins.

Owens is now challenging incumbent Mac Herring for the Ward 3 seat on Mooresville's town board. Election Day is Nov. 5.

State begins gambling probe

The public-corruption investigation began with ALE and the Mooresville Police Department in late summer 2001. The state agency asked for local assistance when it began investigating reports of illegal gambling at a bingo hut on Timber Road in Mooresville. Owens, a 30-year veteran of the Mooresville Police Department who retired as captain in 1996, was at the end of his first of two consecutive terms as an at-large town commissioner. He served from 1997 to 2005, when he lost his seat to Frank Rader. The seat is currently occupied by Rhett Dusenbury, who is being challenged this year by David Coble. 

Mooresville had a specialized unit that assisted ALE with the 2001 public-corruption investigation.

“There was legitimate bingo in one part of the building, but the back of the operation held real, poker-related gambling,” one officer recalled.

As part of their undercover operation, two ALE officers, driving an unmarked, white Mitsubishi Eclipse, made their way into the Timber Road bingo/gambling establishment. According to several accounts from people close to the investigation, Owens was inside the bingo hut when the undercover state agents walked in.

Owens apparently decided to use his connections as a high-ranking official to determine the identities of the undercover agents by calling the Mooresville Police Department with the Mitsubishi's license-plate tag number. He was connected to Dispatcher Sheila Caldwell, at which time he asked her whether the call was being recorded. Caldwell then switched him to a line that was not being recorded.

Owens asks dispatcher/officers to violate law

Within minutes, the Eclipse's tag number was run for the first of several times through the N.C. Division of Criminal Information (DCI). It is illegal to access systems such as DCI for purposes not specifically authorized in the law and by people who don't have specific authorization. As explained by one officer, all law enforcement personnel must acknowledge, via certification, that they understand it is illegal under state and federal law to use DCI for purposes other than law-enforcement business.

The Town of Mooresville, at the time, apparently did not have a policy regarding police officers running the plates of vehicles for non-law-enforcement people and purposes. That policy became effective on Sept. 18, 2001 – shortly after the ALE officers busted the gambling operation and a grand jury was convened – according to public records obtained by the Report. Still, say current and former law-enforcement personnel, officers and dispatchers knew that running tag numbers for non-law-enforcement personnel for non-law-enforcement purposes was illegal.

Mooresville police were almost immediately notified that the the license-plate number of the vehicle the ALE agents were driving had been run through DCI. “Since undercover tags are flagged, DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) quickly alerted the police department to the tags being run,” recalled one officer.

Though Caldwell – who did not respond to e-mailed Report questions this week – provided Owens with the information he requested of her, in the hours after the initial time the tag was run, the then-commissioner also called on other law-enforcement officers to run the tag number. Those officers were later interviewed by the FBI and subpoenaed to testify to the federal grand jury.

Owens 'outs', chases state agents
Upon learning that the license-plate on the Mitsubishi Eclipse was registered to government agents, officers say that Owens, who was still inside the gambling establishment, outed the two ALE agents, verbally identifying them as “cops” to those who were present.

“It was almost as if Frank Owens was working security for the gambling house,” said one officer.

The two ALE officers, once identified, immediately exited the building and fled in the car registered to the town.

But Owens wasn't letting it go that easily, said sources in interviews with the Report. Instead, the then-commissioner trailed the ALE agents down NC 115 toward Davidson – sometimes at high rates of speed – until they finally made their way onto I-77. That's when Owens finally backed off.

Undercover Mooresville police officers witnessed the entire event, including the car chase. They were stationed along Timber Road in unmarked cars and were wearing transmitters, which provided constant communication with the ALE agents. The Mooresville officers followed Owens as he chased the ALE agents down NC 115.

Why didn't they pull Owens over, especially knowing what had just transpired and considering he was an easy target for speeding while chasing the agents? Simple, said one source close to the case: “They didn't want him to follow them back to the police department. They were trying to keep from having their cover blown.”

FBI launches public-corruption probe, federal grand jury convened

It wasn't until a follow-up visit to the Mooresville Police Department that the ALE agents positively identified the man who outed them as “cops” inside the gambling hall and then took it upon himself to chase them down NC 115. They were able to identify Owens in a photo of town commissioners hanging on a wall at the Mooresville Police Department.

The case was handed to the SBI to investigate. Considering the sheer number of people who helped Owens by calling in the tag number of the undercover vehicle, the case began to appear much more complex than a case of mere gambling. That's when the FBI became involved and started investigating a possible public corruption case: “I was contacted by the FBI and told they were investigating the corruption of a public official,” said one former law-enforcement officer who later became a federal witness.

At least two Report sources say they were interviewed by FBI agents.

“I told them the truth: Owens asked me to run the license plate," said one source. "There was no rule in place for us not to do that. Owens told me it was on a suspicious vehicle parked at BJ's (where he worked at the time); I had no idea it was an ALE agent that was monitoring the gambling house. If he did that, shame on him.”

The late Capt. Leon White, a loyal friend of Owens', apparently told federal authorities the same story about the tag being on a suspicious vehicle at BJ's.

“Obviously, they had gotten their story straight,” said one former officer. “So the FBI just decided to put the case in front of a grand jury and let them offer that lie there, with no lawyers present.”

Said another: “I testified in front of the grand jury. I told the truth because it was the right thing to do.” However, he said, “The FBI is very secretive. They didn't share any information with me.”

The case stops
The grand jury was convened, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred at the same time. That's where the story essentially stops. Any information after that is speculative at best:

“After 9-11, it was clear they weren't going to follow up,” said one source. “I was a federal witness, and they never called me back. They said the reason they didn't continue with the case is because the gambling never met the threshold; the house didn't make enough money to make it a federal crime.”

Other law-enforcement personnel say while federal officials may have suggested that the dollar-amount was the reason for dropping or closing the case, it wouldn't have likely been the actual cause. “When it comes to public corruption,” said one source, a dollar-amount made at the gambling house would not matter. The fact that a commissioner would be involved in illegal activity and then interject himself in a criminal investigation “undermines people's trust in government,” he said. And that would have been more pressing to law-enforcement investigating public corruption than a specific dollar amount made at a gambling house.

After all, said one former officer, gambling was just “an instrument” of the bigger public-corruption case.

A former federal official said it is plausible that federal authorities dropped the case because the amount of money did not meet a threshold for white-collar fraud and embezzlement or criminal enterprise. “With too few federal representatives, the bigger players – the more sexy cases – were going to get the action,” he said. “The dollar amount (made at the gambling house) would be a legitimate consideration in making the determination” of whether to pursue the public-corruption case.

But he said it is more likely that the public-corruption case was no longer pursued because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “There was a wholesale realignment of investigative priorities” after 9-11, he said.

Before the terrorist attacks, the FBI had “investigative priorities, and terror and counterterrorism weren't even on the list,” he said. “Federal agencies were turned on their head because of September 11th.”

What was happening in Mooresville, he said, “could have been a federal crime, but the concept is you go after the bigger fish. It's piranhas versus sharks.”

One of several sources speculated that perhaps federal authorities did not have a strong enough case against Owens. “I don't know if the FBI couldn't put all the pieces together for a federal case or what. I feel if (the grand jury) thought they could have indicted him, they would have. I think it just stopped at the grand jury, and (the FBI) didn't present a strong enough case.”

However, he said, “They (FBI agents) are secretive. They don't share information. They wouldn't tell why it stopped.”

'Systematic retaliation' and unanswered questions

No matter the reason for the case being “dropped” or “closed” or “stopped” – and despite the lingering question of why the state didn't pick the case back up when the federal government's attention was directed elsewhere – the fact that the case was not followed through meant local officers involved in exposing and investigating the gambling house suddenly became sitting ducks. The top brass at the police department, including then-Police Chief John Crone, had been largely kept in the dark about the state's investigation. And the target of their probe – a town commissioner in part responsible for overseeing the operation of the government, including the police department – had been investigated by the FBI, and his friends had been forced to testify in front of a federal grand jury, yet he was clearly not being held accountable. Owens was free to move on with his life – and, if he wished, to make things very uncomfortable for police-department employees who participated in the investigation.

At the police department, the specialized unit that worked with the ALE agents was immediately disbanded.

“They started systematically getting rid of people and demoting people after the FBI called off the investigation,” one former officer said. “It was systematic retaliation.”

One source said Owens approached Crone, telling him to terminate at least one of the officers involved. The Report asked Owens about that in an e-mail of questions sent on Oct. 16 and 17 to three different e-mail addresses he owns. To date, Owens has not responded to any of the questions.

We asked Owens to point out any discrepancies or possible misinformation in the detailed accounts provided by Report sources. He did not respond.

We asked him: if the police dispatcher had already provided him with the information he was seeking on the tag, why did he ask several other people to run the tag, too? Owens did not respond.

We asked Owens if he has ever been involved in illegal gambling in Mooresville and, if so, if he was involved while he was a police officer and/or a town commissioner. He did not respond.

We asked him if he was ever interviewed by the FBI while it was investigating him for public corruption. Owens did not respond.

We have offered, in another e-mail, to post his response(s) if he ever changes his mind.

Miles Atkins files for mayor

At-large Commissioner Miles Atkins has made official his bid for Mooresville mayor.


He filed earlier today at the Iredell County Board of Elections office in Statesville, according to a press statement released just moments ago by his campaign. 


The filing period for Mooresville's town and school boards opened today. Voters will decide on Mooresville's new mayor during a general election on Nov. 8. Atkins will leave vacant his at-large seat, which is up for election this year. Also up for grabs: The seat of Ward 1 commissioner, currently held by Mitch Abraham, and Ward 2 commissioner, held by Thurman Houston.


Seats on the Mooresville Graded School District Board of Education that are up for election this year include those currently occupied by Sue Wilson, Roger Hyatt and Larry Wilson.

Atkins with son, Liam, at the Iredell County Board of Elections
(Photo courtesy of Atkins' campaign)

Atkins, 48, was first elected as at-large commissioner in November 2007. He has considered a bid for mayor since last fall, and he publicly announced his intentions on March 29.

“In serving the Town of Mooresville as a commissioner for the past four years, it has become abundantly clear we need maturity, experience and commitment to lead Mooresville not just for one term but for several,” says Atkins. “As mayor, I will convert the abundant knowledge I have accumulated since 2007 and chart a specific course for the future of Mooresville, not just for a few years, but for decades to come.”

Here's the rest of today's press release:

With the overall theme of “Vision into Action,” Atkins outlines his three platform planks as follows:

Community: Combine the strengths of 28115 and 28117, guide responsible growth and thoughtful revitalization, promote forward-thinking ideas that enhance citizens’ quality of life and encourage community building through active participation and cooperation.

Economy: Attract diverse and emerging businesses that spur quality job creation, advocate for small business and entrepreneurship and collaborate with all levels of government to address issues and opportunities for new and existing Mooresville businesses.

Government: Push for transparency and accountability, connect citizens and their government, demand fiscal responsibility from town staff and increase effectiveness in town services.

“My wife and I have lived and paid taxes here for the past 14 years, have raised our children here and have made a family commitment to the future of Mooresville,” says Atkins.

Among those 14 years of community leadership, Atkins has led and/or served on the Mooresville Ethics Advisory Committee, Citizens Mass Transit Initiative, United Way of Central Carolinas/Mooresville, United Family Services, Mooresville Historic Preservation Commission and Mooresville Museum, and he graduated from the Mooresville Citizens Academy, Mooresville-South Iredell Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class and the Raleigh-based Institute of Political Leadership. He is an active member of the Rotary Club of Top of the Lake – Mooresville and serves as a senior warden of the vestry at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church.

A graduate of Auburn University, Atkins is currently working toward his master’s degree in Strategic Leadership from Mountain State University. He and his wife, Kim, live in Mooresville with their daughter Rett, 11, and son Liam, 10. Visit www.milesatkins.com for more information.

Are you cut out for public service?

Are you tired of sitting on the political sidelines, watching others make decisions about your community, your government and your tax dollar?

Perhaps you're cut out for public service.

An upcoming workshop by North Carolina's Institute of Political Leadership promises to answer your questions about public office and how to effectively campaign.

The workshop, planned for March 17 from 6-9 pm. at the Charles Mack Citizens Center, will focus on the skills needed to run for office, how to formulate and execute a campaign strategy, and how to be an effective public officeholder. Cost is $25 and includes training materials and a light dinner.

This year in Mooresville, the mayor's seat and three commissioners' seats are up for election.

Mayor Chris Montgomery says he will not seek re-election. Commissioner Miles Atkins has announced his plans to run for that seat, which means his at-large seat will be open with no incumbent vying for it.

Seats for wards 1 and 2 - currently occupied by Mitch Abraham and Thurman Houston, respectively - are also up for election this year.

The mayor serves a two-year term, while commissioners serve four years.

Meanwhile, three seats on the Mooresville Graded School District Board of Education - all four-year terms - are also up for re-election.

A primary, if needed, will be held Oct. 11, followed by the general election on Nov. 8.

Other county offices to be elected this year can be found by clicking here.

To reserve seats for the Institute of Political Leadership's March 17 workshop, call the Mooresville-South Iredell Chamber of Commerce at 704-664-3898.

SBI misconduct may not be limited to crime lab

The ongoing revelations of the N.C. State Bureau of Investigations' questionable (and possibly criminal) conduct should come as no surprise to Mooresville.

As an area that has been rocked by one scandal after another, prompting the SBI to visit several times in the past eight years – then in most cases waiting, to no avail, for the results – the Town of Mooresville is no stranger to the SBI sweeping cases under the rug.

Attorney General Roy Cooper recently ordered an independent review of the SBI's crime lab. The results, released late last week, were damning, revealing that the SBI “withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women” (http://%28http//www.newsobserver.com/2010/08/19/635632/scathing-sbi-audit-says-230-cases.html#ixzz0x52LRIZc%29.).

Countless lives have clearly been sabotaged by the very “investigators” who are supposed to be protecting the public's interest. Of the cases that must now be reviewed, three of the defendants have already been executed. Five have died in prison. And 80 are still serving sentences – four of whom are on death row.

On the other hand, it's only natural to speculate that despite botched evidence and investigations, prosecutors perhaps tried and convicted the true criminal. But because of the crime lab's questionable lab practices, those cases now have a real chance of being appealed and overturned, potentially leading to the early release of violent criminals back into society.

After all is said and done, the taxpayers will pay a hefty price. And the cost is sure to be enormous.

But with the exposure of the SBI's misconduct, we have identified only a symptom of the real disease plaguing the bureau and thus our state: the absence of open, honest, accountable practices within the agency and our government itself.

The SBI blood analysts, arguably, are not incompetent. They didn't withhold information, or fall down on their duties, because they are stupid. At least we should hope not. The only way those agents were able to get away with their misconduct is because someone else has allowed, or endorsed, it to happen.

The SBI serves under a director – until recently, Robin Pendergraft. That director is appointed by the Attorney General, an elected position. What's more, the SBI crime lab – as indicated by the Raleigh News & Observer – is charged with using science to prove cases built by district attorneys, also elected positions.

In this sort of arrangement, if one person – just one – is corrupt, or chooses to turn a blind-eye to corruption, the entire judicial system crumbles, and the people left to suffer are the very ones the system was created to protect and serve. Essentially, people’s freedom – their lives – are caught in the crosshairs of law enforcement and politics. And it appears as though the SBI has somehow been ordained to decide if a person is worthy of their freedom. And only after that determination is made will the agents use “science” to fit it.

Even in the midst of public humiliation, politics and favoritism are apparently still at work among the bureau's ranks. Even while the attorney general, Roy Cooper, removed Pendergraft from her position as SBI director – moving her to another unit with no change in pay – he praised her work as the bureau's director, saying, as reported by the News & Observer: “'I think Robin has done an excellent job at the SBI.'”

The problem is clearly deep-rooted in the political structure. And perhaps the most unsettling question is this: if it has been this easy for SBI agents to botch life-and-death cases, just how easy has it been for them to ignore cases of public corruption?

In Mooresville, we're in a unique position – perhaps more so than any other city in North Carolina – to help shed some light on that.

A brief review:

• In 2002, the SBI was called in to Mooresville after a private citizen, earlier in 2001, brought to light financial inconsistencies at the Mooresville Public Library. Town officials allowed the town librarian to resign and she later pleaded guilty to felony embezzlement. Though the SBI was supposedly called in to review the matter, the public, seven years later, has not been informed of the review's outcome.
• Three years later, in 2005, the SBI was called in after yet another private citizen conducted his own well-documented financial investigation of the Mooresville Golf Course which revealed a substantial loss of inventory, and perhaps cash, from the golf course pro shop. The citizens' efforts prompted town officials to call for an outside audit of the golf course, which showed thousands of dollars in merchandise missing from the pro shop. The SBI was called in to investigate, but five years later, the public has not been informed of the outcome of that investigation, either.
• In 2008, the SBI was called in to investigate former Mooresville Police Chief John Crone's Cops for Kids program. Once again, private citizens conducted their own investigation of the program and uncovered, among other questionable items, a receipt for a deposit of $361 in “loose change” from the evidence room into the Cops for Kids account. One month later, the town fired the police chief and called in the SBI. But it took two years – and a new Iredell County District Attorney – before the public would hear anything about that investigation. Crone has been indicted and his next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 8. Town commissioners, from the beginning, expressed skepticism about involving the SBI, citing their lack of confidence in the agency conducting a thorough, timely review. And in fact, when the initial SBI report was complete, town officials said the bureau indicated in its report that it had nothing on which to follow up. At the same time, however, Sarah Kirkman – who was elected Iredell's new district attorney at the same time the Cops for Kids story was breaking – told the Report in February that while she had received a copy of the SBI's report, she still had questions for the investigating agent. Only after that were charges produced by the SBI's “investigation.”

Interestingly, however, when Crone himself called the SBI to Mooresville in November 2002 to investigate $4 of missing money from the police department's evidence room, the SBI moved quickly. The Mooresville Tribune first reported on Nov. 6, 2002 that Crone had called in the SBI. Within seven months, the SBI had investigated the matter, a grand jury had indicted the former evidence-room custodian, and the custodian had pleaded guilty to embezzlement. It took seven months, start to finish, for the case to be opened and closed when the police chief called in the SBI. But when the town called the bureau in to investigate that same police chief for misappropriating $361 of money from the evidence-room – as opposed to the custodian's $4 - it took two years and a new DA for the SBI to produce results.

Such inconsistencies beg the question: Is it less about what you know, and more about who you know, when dealing with the SBI? Does the SBI use selective leniency and favoritism depending on a person's political influence and/or his or her perceived community status?

Unfortunately, we may never know the answers to those questions.

But thanks to the tireless efforts of a few dogged reporters in Raleigh, what we do know is that the SBI has at least been consistent the past decade. Whether “investigating” violent criminals or public corruption, the agency has demonstrated – consistently – laziness, incompetence, neglect or, worse yet, corruption … and perhaps a combination of them all.

Unfortunately, long before the Raleigh News & Observer began asking questions – and long before Cooper ordered an audit of the SBI crime lab – the people of Mooresville had learned to distrust the SBI, an agency they used to rely on as being legitimate, credible and trustworthy.

While people in this community worked courageously and tirelessly to uncover and expose corruption, the SBI repeatedly dragged its feet and used its authority to employ delay tactics and provide loopholes for those who enjoyed membership in the dwindling political patronage system of Mooresville.

The SBI’s stubborn refusal to do its job in Mooresville led to a community unnecessarily divided and polarized. The intangible harm that resulted from this monumental failure will be difficult, if not impossible, to measure.

While these new revelations about the SBI confirm the long-standing suspicions held by many in Mooresville, this is nothing to celebrate. The truth has now been exposed that the largest investigative agency in this state has dropped the ball on some 200 criminal cases. What remains unknown is how many public-corruption cases the agency has approached and treated with the same careless and reckless attitude.

Town officials to meet with billionaire hotelier John Q. Hammons

Mooresville officials are scheduled to meet today with Langtree at the Lake developers and billionaire hotelier John Q. Hammons.

The lunch meeting with Hammons -- who Langtree says is planning to build a hotel/convention center in the planned Langtree at the Lake development in Mt. Mourne -- was mentioned by Langtree CEO Rick Howard and Attorney David Parker at Monday night’s public hearing.

Town Manager Steve Husemann, in an e-mail to the Report today, said that the purpose of the lunch is "to talk about procedures for building permits, utilities etc.

“Obviously,” he added, “a show of support from the town and community is important as well. I would not expect any SAID (special assessment improvements district) bond discussion; in fact, none of the right people to discuss that issue will be present."

Husemann said he expected that town planners Tim Brown and Craig Culberson would attend the lunch, as well as Ryan Rase from engineering. Mayor Bill Thunberg and Commissioner Chris Carney were apparently the only two elected officials invited to attend. Carney told the Report that he had a scheduling conflict and would not be able to attend the lunch; he said today that he had asked that Commissioner Miles Atkins – who Parker said Monday night had been asking “the most piercing questions” of Langtree – be invited to the lunch in his place. Atkins was unable to be reached for comment at lunchtime today.

Husemann also said that he, as town manager, planned to attend the lunch. “I will be there to smile and shake hands,” he said. And “no,” he added – even without being asked the question – “Langtree will not be buying lunch for any city employees or commissioners.”

He said the meeting “is likely to be today, but I don’t believe that has been confirmed.”

More details on Monday night's discussion will be posted later ...

Closed Doors and Conflicts

Though very little has been discussed publicly about Langtree at the Lake’s request for the Town of Mooresville to issue millions in bonds to pay for the massive mixed-use development’s first phase of infrastructure, much has been said behind closed doors.

E-mail exchanges over the past month between Langtree Attorney David Parker and town administrators provide a more thorough glimpse into the discussions – sometimes quite heated – between the development group and the town.

Langtree: ‘The vultures are circling’

When Langtree asked Iredell County late last year to issue $46 million in bonds, Parker said that Langtree would continue building even if Iredell didn’t approve the deal, but that the developers would likely wait at least a year, until the recession is over. But in a Jan. 29 e-mail from Parker to Mooresville Town Attorney Steve Gambill, Parker said: “We cannot go forward without the infrastructure financing.”

In a Jan. 30 e-mail Parker appears to beseech Town Manager Steve Husemann: “Although I cannot tell you how much time is of the essence in this for us because of the tone that my voice would take, I do understand that our need does not control your requirement of vigilance. That being said, the number of developers that go under daily is astounding and the vultures are continually circling in the sky over all of us.

“We would very much like to survive to build this project,” Parker said.

He went on to state that Langtree “suffered a 120 day delay” trying to negotiate the bond deal with Iredell, only to discover that the county “has no interest in getting into the infrastructure business in any fashion and would have had to take the infrastructure as part of its deal according to their bond counsel.

“Had we known that the County would back off,” Parker continued, “we would have pursued the annexation (with credit against the Utilities payments) months ago and not been in such a state.

“Please help us,” Parker pleaded.

But in previous e-mails – and those written the week leading up to the Feb. 2 town board meeting – Parker’s disposition wasn’t as conciliatory, as exchanges between him and town administrators turned heated.

Biting the hand that could feed you

On Jan. 29 – just days before the February town board meeting, when Langtree was scheduled to request that the Town of Mooresville annex 143 acres of the Mt. Mourne development – Parker e-mailed Gambill and Husemann, discussing the addition of a preliminary-assessment resolution to the Feb. 2 town-board agenda.

The resolution, which was given to commissioners just before they were expected to vote on it, set a public-hearing date for March 2. The resolution passed 5-1 (Commissioner Miles Atkins opposing), but the public hearing was postponed until tomorrow, March 9, because of last week’s inclement weather.

A final-assessment resolution – a document that requests the Local Government Commission to look at the proposed special-assessment financing between Langtree and the town – would be brought up for consideration at a later date, Parker explained in the Jan 29 e-mail. “Bear in mind that the notice only goes out to the Benefitted Property owners and a version is published in the newspaper,” Parker wrote. “NO one other than the Benefitted property owners have legal standing to protest the Notice and we will waive protest if you would like.”

Also, Parker wrote to town administrators, “I do not think that you realize that we cannot keep on having delays and avoid splitting up this property.

“We ask for no special consideration, but after over a year of delays due to slow down by (town) Staff, it would appear that further delays only damage the Town’s reputation for encouraging a higher quality of life.

“We are asking for annexation solely because we have to be annexed in order to ask the Town to ask the LGC (Local Government Commission) to allow the Town to issue the bonds which the Town does not back but are rather secured solely and completely by our property as improved,” Parker said to Gambill, adding, however: “You are now saying that you do not think that we are an ‘Economic Development’ project where a tax check swap will work. Steve Husemann is apparently saying that he cannot think of a way to offset our taxes, hold them in abeyance, or do a swap.

“Being lulled into asking for annexation on a bait-and-switch is not a very appealing situation for us,” Parker said.

Husemann responded on Jan. 30 (the Friday before the Monday, Feb. 2 town board meeting): “Just to be very clear! There is absolutely no agreement at this time that we will defer, waive, credit or in any way credit Langtree for taxes that they will pay after annexation.

“I recall about a 30 second discussion on this topic in which I said that I did not believe that what you were asking for was legal,” Husemann said. “That is certainly not a bait and switch.

“If you were going to pursue this further, you should have done so before the last minute,” Husemann said. “Any discussion on this matter needs to be presented to the entire Board in public session. I have never even suggested to the Board that such a move was pending.

“If you proceed with the annexation with the expectation that some future swap will be approved, you do so at your own risk,” Husemann added. “There is absolutely no commitment or promise from me or any other staff member at this time.”

Parker responded to Husemann that same day, copying Gambill and Mayor Bill Thunberg: “I do not ask for things, considerations, or agreements that cannot stand the twin tests of both public and judicial scrutiny.” Parker said he is “happy to conduct business in the bright light of day, as people that know me will attest.”

It was about four hours later that Parker sent an e-mail to Husemann individually, pleading for help on behalf of the developers.

Closed Doors and Conflicts

After the regular session of the February town board meeting, Mooresville commissioners went into closed session to discuss economic incentives for Langtree.

Though the details of that discussion are unknown, continuing e-mails between Parker and town administrators after the February town-board meeting indicate that things quickly went sour behind closed doors.

The Friday before Monday’s town board meeting, Husemann wrote in an e-mail to Parker: “It is my feeling that our willingness to proceed with this very complicated bonding process is sufficient incentive. I know that you are concerned about additional taxes but we are going to incur costs as well. We need to get a fire station built before that 1st building is occupied. Then we will have to man it.”

Husemann told Parker that if Langtree wanted to negotiate an agreement with commissioners at the Feb. 2 board meeting, then the developers would likely want to contact Russ Rogerson – executive director of the Mooresville-South Iredell Economic Development Corporation (MSIEDC) – “and ask him to present it to the Board.”

Rogerson did in fact approach commissioners in closed session on behalf of the MSIEDC. He apparently asked for economic incentives for Langtree, which is a top financial sponsor of the MSIEDC’s Partners in Progress campaign. Additionally, Rick Howard – Langtree’s CEO – is on the MSIEDC board of directors.

In closed session, Rogerson apparently broached a subject that he wasn’t allowed to discuss in closed session, per the Open Meetings law – and his request for incentives for developers apparently wasn’t well received by all the commissioners.

The day after the Feb. 2 town board meeting, Parker clarified in an e-mail to Gambill: “We are not asking for incentives. It is possible that (John Q.) Hammons will ask for incentives, but Langtree has never asked for any – Russ was not correct.”

In an e-mail to Husemann, Parker said: “I will take the blame for the conversation about incentives not being stopped immediately – I did not foresee that possibility. I fully concur with Steve Gambill that under the Open Meetings law, the SIAD (sic) could not be discussed under the Motion for Closed Session.”

The Open Meetings law allows commissioners to meet behind closed doors to discuss a limited and specific list of confidential matters such as personnel, litigation, economic incentives, etc. The board must provide to the public the subject of what they will be discussing behind closed doors and the accompanying statute that allows them to discuss that particular subject confidentially. Additionally, the law clearly states that the discussion cannot stray from what was advertised as the subject matter. Minutes of closed-session discussions must be released to the public once their release would no longer compromise the matters at hand.

“Russ apparently thought that he was going to talk about the bonds (in closed session) and when he found out that he could only talk about incentives, he did his best,” Parker said in the e-mail to Husemann. “We have not asked for those in the past.

“The tax issue should have never been raised with the Board by Russ the other night,” Parker stated. “I wanted this to go away and merely be looked at later inside the context of the Utilities Agreement. Our understanding was that we would not withdraw the Voluntary Annexation Petition and that we would not be involuntarily annexed until we had a CO (Certificate of Occupancy) – I was simply trying to preserve the original understanding in this new context of having to be annexed now in order to be considered for bond issuance.”

In an e-mail on Feb. 3, Parker wrote to Gambill: “The only thing we wanted on the taxes was to keep our agreement under voluntary annexation that we would not start paying taxes until we had a CO – just trying to keep the same deal that we had before.

Agreement? What agreement? With whom?

The “agreement” to which Parker referred in several e-mails prompted a response from Gambill and Husemann, both of whom said that such an agreement seemed illegal.

“I was not a party to any agreements concerning taxes and annexation,” Gambill wrote in a Feb. 4 e-mail to Parker, “(and, as I have stated before, I do not believe that property taxes can be abated per NC Constitution). I say this to be clear that I have not been involved in any agreements, formallyl (sic) or informally, where I have in any way stated that property taxes would be abated,” Gambill added. “I realize you are not saying that I have been but I have an obligation to be clear on this point.”

A clearly frustrated Husemann jumped into the e-mail discussion, responding to Parker: “I just read your E-mail that you sent to Steve Gambill and once again fear that you are trying to imply that some type of agreement exists or existed that has never existed,” Husemann wrote. “I made it very clear to you last week that we never agreed that you ‘would not start paying taxes until you had a CO.’ I said I thought it was illegal and Steve (Gambill) sent you information to that effect.

“If you ever intend to make such a claim,” Husemann added, “please send me such information immediately. I am uncomfortable with an inference that such an agreement exists when in my opinion there has been no agreement and would like to put this matter to rest before we move forward with discussions about the special assessment bonding process.”

In an e-mailed response on Feb. 4 to Gambill and Husemann, Parker said: “There has been no agreement on tax abeyance, rebates, or anything else – only discussions at a hypothetical level.”

So why, then, the repeated references to an agreement? Who, on behalf of the Town of Mooresville, led Langtree to believe that a potentially illegal agreement regarding taxes could be reached?

The answer to that question was made clear in a Jan. 28 e-mail from Parker to Gambill. The answer? Mayor Bill Thunberg.

“We did not discuss this this AM,” Parker said in the e-mail to Gambill, “but my agreement with the Mayor and others is that we will not pay Town taxes until we get a CO.”

Mayor gives public the finger

It is unclear if Thunberg documented any such agreement with Langtree in e-mails. He has ignored repeated requests over the past few weeks from the Gatton Report to provide any and all e-mail correspondence with any Langtree at the Lake official. Those e-mails, according to the N.C. Public Records Law, are documents that belong to the public. By ignoring the Report’s request for those records, not only is the mayor violating law, he is also giving his constituents the proverbial middle finger.

As soon as he has decided to comply with the law, I will post any relevant e-mails here.



Click on each document below to read the e-mails that were sent to the Report by Husemann; I have placed them in chronological order (except for the first one):



Jan. 28 e-mail exchange:



Jan. 29:





Jan. 30:




Feb. 2:

Feb. 3:


Feb. 4:


Feb. 18:

Feeling left out? Monday meeting will give Mooresville residents first glimpse into proposed Langtree financing

Langtree at the Lake – the $800 million mixed-use development in Mt. Mourne – was announced a couple years ago with much political and public fanfare.

But earlier this month, Langtree developers approached the Town of Mooresville, asking commissioners to consider issuing millions of dollars in bonds to pay for Langtree’s first phase of infrastructure. The request, unlike the original announcement of the project, slipped quickly and quietly onto the town board’s agenda.

Just a few months ago, Langtree was asking Iredell County to issue the bonds. (See http://thegattonreport.blogspot.com/2008/11/bonds-for-billionaires.html and http://thegattonreport.blogspot.com/2008/11/county-to-langtree-too-many-questions.html and http://thegattonreport.blogspot.com/2008/11/tice-says-she-voted-with-group.html and http://thegattonreport.blogspot.com/2008/11/corporate-welfare-so-what.html .) Langtree's proposal was met with some resistance at the county level, but it is unclear exactly why negotiations ended; the county took no official vote that definitively rejected Langtree's proposal.

The first public mention that Langtree intended to seek the issuance of the Special Assessment Improvement District (SAID) bonds from Mooresville instead of Iredell County was made just three weeks ago at the February town board meeting. Still, a public hearing on the matter will be held in just over a week from today, on March 2.

Langtree was scheduled to appear before Mooresville commissioners at the February meeting, but only to request annexation of about 143 acres in its development. Just before that meeting, however, a resolution was put before commissioners to call for a March 2 public hearing to determine if the town wants to move forward with helping Langtree form a SAID, which would allow the town to issue $15 million to $20 million in bonds to pay infrastructure costs related to the first phase of the project. If bonds are needed for the infrastructure of future phases, that number could jump to $46 million.

The resolution request apparently took at least one commissioner by surprise. “I appreciate the sense of urgency here, but it feels like a freight train is bearing down on us,” Commissioner Miles Atkins said at the board meeting, according to the Mooresville Tribune. “I think it’s incumbent upon us to not just drop the document (bearing a brand new resolution) down on the desk.”

Still, commissioners voted 5-1 that night (with Atkins opposing) to adopt the resolution, which set the public hearing for March 2.

But this Monday, Feb. 23, commissioners and the public will have an opportunity to learn more about the SAID financing that allows developers and municipalities to work together on infrastructure costs for private developments.

The N.C. General Assembly passed the SAID financing tool into law in August to help stimulate the economy. In essence, the law allows municipal governments to issue bonds on behalf of private developers. The bonds are sold, and the developers’ property is designated a SAID and put up as collateral. The developers – and eventually the benefitted property owners and merchants – repay the debt through property assessments. While SAID financing has been used for years in other parts of the country, Langtree developers are the first to take it for a spin in North Carolina.

This Monday’s meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at 6 p.m. in the Charles Mack Citizens Center. Commissioners are expected to hear presentations about SAID financing from several third-party participants at the meeting. Langtree will be on hand to answer questions but does not plan to make a presentation, according to a press release issued by the town this week.

Members of the public will not be allowed to comment or ask questions at Monday’s meeting. Instead, "This meeting is for town commissioners to hear presentations concerning the proposed SAID being requested," states the town's press release. "Scheduled presenters will discuss the legal framework associated with SAID and the financial investments associated with the designation."

Town Manager Steve Husemann said Monday's meeting "is an effort to make as much information as possible available to both the town board and the citizens.

"This is entirely new legislation," he said, "and we will all be learning about it together."

The public will be able to comment on the proposal at the public hearing, which is scheduled during the town’s regular monthly board meeting on March 2 at 6 p.m. in Town Hall.