Elected Arrested for Tampering with Public Records at City Hall

In today’s news roundup, we have a town manager who is suing for defamation and breach of contract after he was accused of purchasing a $1.25 million fire truck without authorization. An elected official has been arrested after going into a City Hall filing cabinet and tampering with a public document. And a Pennsylvania community has hired a high school principal to be their next manager.

All that and more news after the job postings.

It is free to post all of your senior and executive level recruitments over at the AAME job board. If you would like to include them in this newsletter, select the $199 option.

In the January 20th issue of the newsletter, I spotlighted a story about Gray Town Manager Michael Foley being fired for supposedly making an unauthorized purchase of a $1.25 million fire truck.

Foley filed a lawsuit alleging defamation and breach of contract stating that these and other allegations communicated by town council Chair Michael Johnson were “false claims and disparaging remarks” in violation of the separation agreement that contained a non-disparagement clause.

Warner selectman Michael Smith was charged with tampering with public records after he replaced a document in a locked file cabinet in Town Hall last July, police said.

On July 23, Smith wrote “NO F—ING WAY” on the town’s check manifest related to a request to take money from the transfer station reserve fund to pay for an invoice. In place of his signature, he wrote, “FU,” according to police records.

The town administrator is on leave pending a criminal investigation, but no details are provided in the story except for a sympathetic quote by a resident suggesting she’s being railroaded.

Raleigh expects an over $800 million hit to its tax base for the budget year that begins July 1. Wake County Tax Administrator Marcus Kinrade explained three factors that are cutting away at the property tax revenue his office collects.

One of them has to do with the “Blue Ridge Loophole,” after a housing project in Mitchell County was granted an exemption even though it was 99.9% owned by for-profit investors. State courts ruled the 0.1% nonprofit ownership allowed it to qualify.

Now developers are rushing to exploit it.

The Village of Somers unanimously approved a $3.5 million water main extension along 12th Street. To help pay for it, the village is billing property owners at a rate of $107 per frontage foot. The bigger the lot, the bigger the bill.

For retiree Patti Tetzlaff, that means an assessment of nearly $58,000 — more than $71,000 with interest on the 10-year payment plan.

The Village Administrator said the village worked diligently to bring costs down, securing nearly $2 million in tax increment funding that helped reduce the original estimate from $150 per foot to $107 per foot.

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