ROCKINGHAM — After several rounds of nominations and voting, the Richmond County Board of Commissioners finally decided on a new chairman — but one member didn’t get a say.
During Monday’s meeting, a majority elected Dr. Rick Watkins to chair the board.
However, Commissioner Justin Dawkins — who joined the meeting by phone from Belgium while on work-related business — was told by County Attorney Michael Newman that his vote wouldn’t count.
While Watkins wound up with the chairmanship, it wasn’t an instant decision.
In fact, Watkins actually started the process nominating Jeff Smart to continue the role, seconded by recently elected Commissioner Jamie Gathings. Commissioner Jason Gainey nominated Andy Grooms, who seconded his own nomination.
When it came time for the vote, that’s when the issue arose.
Watkins, Smart and Gathings raised their hands for Smart, and Gainey, Grooms and Commissioner Robin Roberts raised their hands for Grooms, with Dawkins verbally saying “aye” over the phone.
Although the vote was 3-4 in favor of Grooms, County Manager Bryan Land said, “We have an impasse.”
“Obviously this has never happened in my tenure,” Land added with a chuckle.
Grooms noticed the omission and asked why Dawkins wasn’t able to vote.
Newman cited information from the UNC School of Government regarding proxy voting and voting by phone, saying that emergency orders allowing the practice during the COVID pandemic have since expired — though he didn’t say when, specifically.
“No question you can participate by telephone,” Newman said, but added that the School of Government says state statute doesn’t allow voting by phone or proxy for local governments, though it is allowed for private corporations.
Newman said he was reviewing such articles earlier in the day “just by happenstance.”
According to a post from Professor A. Flemming Bell II of the UNC School of Government, “…the vote of a … commissioner participating in a meeting by telephone or proxy would not stand up if tested in court, because there is simply no statutory authority for the practice.”
“The Open Meetings Law mentions meeting by conference telephone call, but that law is not an enabling statute — it only supplies rules that must be followed if a board is otherwise meeting properly under the general city enabling or county enabling laws,” writes Bell. “The enabling statutes establish detailed rules for holding … meetings, but they do not mention meeting by phone or proxy, in contrast to the statutes for private corporations, which allow for proxy voting and the like.”
Freyda Bluestein had a similar opinion on the topic in 2013.
Newman went on to say, echoing Bell, that remote participation should be noted in the minutes and how the commissioner voted can be recorded, “but it doesn’t count as an official vote.”
While the exclusion was in effect at the December meeting, it was not mentioned earlier in the year at times when Dawkins and other commissioners participated remotely.
Minutes from the November meeting, when now-former Commissioner Toni Maples was not physically present, do not indicate her remote status or whether or not her votes were counted — just that she was present and that all motions carried unanimously.
In July, Dawkins, Maples, Roberts and Gainey were all remote, leaving only three commissioners physically present.
When Grooms brought up the fact that commissioners have been voting remotely for the past four years, Newman replied that none of those votes were tied or “of consequence, it’s always been unanimous.”
Based on that, Grooms then asked, “So no votes by phone have counted the last four years?”
Newman said they were recorded as being made remotely, reiterating that it didn’t matter because there was no tie-breaker or consequential votes.
Dawkins then chimed in, asking if the past minutes were going to be revised, adding, “I’m just going to call bullshit and go on the record.”
Gathings piped up, asking Dawkins why he wasn’t at the meeting, adding that if he can’t be at the meetings because of his job that he was “neglecting the voters.”
“You need to give the job up,” Gathings said.
Turning back to the leadership selection, Gainey asked if they could put it off until the next meeting.
Citing a general statute that says the board “shall” elect a chairman and vice chairman on the first Monday in December, Newman said it would “be preferable…to try it again” since there had only been one vote.
“There’s no rule on the number of rounds,” Newman said, “it’s when you all are convinced that you’ve reached an impasse that can’t be cannot be broken tonight.”
Watkins again nominated Smart, with another impasse. Then Grooms moved to recess the process to the next meeting.
“Ideally, I’d love to come away from this meeting with a chair and vice chair,” Land said. “This is definitely not good.”
Despite Grooms’ motion on the floor, without a call for a second, Smart nominated Watkins, which was seconded by Gathings. With Roberts’ support, Watkins got the win.
Smart and Watkins then switched seats to carry on the meeting with the election of the vice chairman, the new chairman thanking the old for his service in the position.
“I hope that we can move forward in a positive direction so that we can…conduct the business of the county,” Watkins said.
Gainey nominated Grooms for vice chair, which was seconded by Roberts; and Gathings nominated himself, seconded by Smart.
When Watkins asked if there were any more nominations, Roberts nominated Smart, saying “I just want to get it done.” However, since she seconded Grooms’ nomination, Newman said he didn’t think she could nominate someone else.
The vote created the same impasse, with the same allegiances as the chairman election, as did the second round, prompting Grooms to move to recess the election to the next meeting.
Gainey asked if they were allowed to do that and Newman replied, “It’s the only option that would be available” given the “silence” by the General Assembly on such a scenario.
That vote, again, caused the same impasse.
The floor was, again, open to nominations with: Grooms nominating Gainey, who seconded; Gathings nominating himself with Smart seconding; and Roberts nominating Smart, with a second from Watkins.
That led to a 2-2-2 impasse.
Another vote between Grooms and Gathings came to a 3-3 tie.
Smart then nominated himself, seconded by Gathings, with Grooms going for another try. Despite previously nominating Smart, Roberts sided with Grooms, leading to another 3-3 split.
Again, Grooms moved to recess the vice chairman election to the January meeting, with Watkins being the tie-breaker, allowing the motion to carry so the board could move on with other business.
Smart then asked Newman what were to happen if the chairman wasn’t able to fulfill his duties prior to the next meeting.
Newman said that would normally fall on the vice chair, but there isn’t one and there’s no answer in the general statutes.
“I believe that the board would have to have an emergency meeting to select a…temporary vice chair to act, in the event something like that were to occur,” Newman said.
“We can’t even get a vote for one right now,” Gathings said. “I say we stay here until we get it.”
Grooms nominated Smart as temporary vice chair and before a second was made, Gathering said, “We couldn’t even vote him in on a six-people vote here, I don’t see how we’re going to nominate him to stand in for somebody else.”
Watkins asked if that was permissible and Newman said, “What has got everything tangled up now is that there was a motion to recess … and an affirmative vote of a majority, so the motion to recess the selection of the vice chair has been decided.”
“I think what’s got everything tangled up is we’ve been allowing people to vote by proxy for four years, and now all of a sudden tonight they’re not able to,” Grooms retorted.
Board Clerk Dena Cook said there had been a quorum at “a majority of the meetings.”
Gathings then fired back, saying Grooms had told him recently that votes shouldn’t be allowed by phone: “So now it’s different, you want them to vote through the phone?”
Grooms said he had reached out to the School of Government and was told it was left up to local boards to make a decision on remote voting.
“It’s up in the air … Some say this, some say something else,” Grooms said.
Watkins reiterated what Newman had said about the recess motion already being passed, encouraging the board to move forward with the meeting.
“If an emergency were to arise, we can always have an emergency meeting,” said Gainey, to which Watkins replies, “Absolutely.”
Gainey then said he didn’t think anyone feels ill will toward Smart.
“We all appreciate him; some minor philosophical differences, but he’s led well,” Gainey said.
“Obviously, he ain’t led too well, y’all voted him out,” Gathings quipped.
NOTE: This story has been edited to remove redundancy in a sentence. 11:13 p.m. 12-3-24.
