To the Editor:

On June 23, 2016, I described the political process in Beaufort County as “costly, counter-productive, hypocritical and self-serving.” County commissioner Robert Belcher has taken great offense at the characterization.

Mr. Belcher has laid out several points in his objections to the letter quoted above.  First, he contends that I inappropriately described the $6.5 million recently given to the Beaufort County Community College (BCCC) from the $2 billion raised by the Connect NC Bond Act as a “grant.”  He agrees that there was a bond issue and that $6.5 million of the funding will be given to BCCC, and does not deny that the college will use the funds to initiate a Public Safety Training Complex, but somehow chokes up at my describing these funds as being a “grant” intended to help BCCC in “revising the programs being offered in its curriculum.”  Long story short, the college gets the $6.5 million in proceeds from the bond issue, they will establish a new training center, and to be perfectly frank I don’t care what we call the arrangement so long as the check clears.

The second objection concerned my writing, “The appointment of college trustees is never a politically neutral decision, and some nominations have correlated with the election efforts various appointees have made on behalf of county commissioners.”  Mr. Belcher offers the example of the appointment of Bill Wall as being evidence that the buddy system is not at work in Beaufort County.  Strangely, Mr. Belcher omits any mention of the remaining three trustees appointed by our commissioners.  His silence speaks volumes, and surely leaves several of the appointed trustees as having been “damned with faint praise.”

Mr. Belcher further writes, “We are a poor, Tier 1 county.  Our tax collections are static or declining.  Our largest taxpayer no longer contributes 25 percent of our tax base, but closer to 17 percent.”

Keep in mind: Our tax collections are not “static or declining.” The commissioners have just raised taxes and fees in Beaufort County by over $2.5 million, they will be given an additional $575,000 in new state sales taxes, and local taxpayers are going to be kicked again with next year’s revaluation.  What is certainly static or declining is the economic life of this community, and this is in great part due to Mr. Belcher’s leadership in fostering the county’s tax-and-spend budget increases from $52 million to $61 million while he helped spend $7 million in cash reserves during his first three years as a board member.

The commissioner might take note that the ratio of our largest taxpayer’s contribution to the budget is falling for two reasons: slowing capital expenditures and the enormous increase in county spending voted for by Mr. Belcher.

When Commissioner Belcher mentions his reluctance in “overburdening the county purse strings,” he actually seems to have overlooked much of his own record.

Taxpayers and voters should recall that when Robert Belcher was elected the budget was at $52 million.  It is now $60 million.  In his first two years as a commissioner, Mr. Belcher aggressively supported a $40 million mega-jail, voted to spend $2 million in jail feasibility studies, and then consistently voted to deny the residents of this county a vote on the project.

Just for the record, this was a jail with a capacity of 350 inmates.  That is enough beds to have housed 1 out of every 50 adult males in the entire county.

In closing, Commissioner Belcher has suggested that I look in the mirror.  What I see is a man with many shortcomings, but I am not a public official and when my private actions do not match my public positions and opinions the taxpayers are not harmed.

 

Warren Smith
Beaufort County