“Between 2006 and 2011 LB Electric did work for the town of Ranlo but failed to secure permits to do so. A complaint was filed in 2011 by the former town attorney and in 2013 the Ranlo commissioner (now Mayor) was reprimanded by the Electrical Contractor’s Board, fined, and put on probation.” This is accurate
Source Gaston Gazette
“In 2016 there was a shake up in town leadership. You might hear rumors of wrong doing (FB gossip), you may hear arguments that it was over the police force needing to grow (meeting minutes), it may have even been political power grabs (meeting minutes and Gazette story). Bottom line, the town coordinator was forced to resign. He was being paid 65k/year and received over $53k plus six month paid insurance as a severance, not exactly walking away in shame. Two commissioners and the Mayor resigned in protest and fearing that the police chief would be installed creating a conflict of interest. That left only Ronnie Laws, Wade Morton, and Doug Moore on the Board. Tim Anderson was police chief at the time and as predicted, was put in as Town Coordinator shortly after. The Mayor’s role remained empty until Lynn Black was elected in 2017.”
The Gaston Gazette confirms most of this between these 2 stories
https://www.gastongazette.com/article/20160311/NEWS/160319766
https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20171107/lynn-black-elected-ranlo-mayor
The salary of the town coordinator is corroborated here but I was unable to locate a source to confirm the severance package.
“Since 2017, the town has used LB Electric for many projects. The total from March 2017 through today is $65,549.36. Some are small projects like hanging the Fall Festival banner ($163) and installing the welcome flags ($244), but some of the larger ones are installing grinder pumps ($6001), and a wire lamppost at the park ($9926). The town paid $4453 to repair the fire signal motor even though the FD has a separate budget. There are no bids on file for any of these projects, they were just handed to LB Electric.”
The attachment to the facebook post confirms the dollar figures.
I don’t believe that any illegal actions took place.
The local ordinance has a statutory reference to this state law which does carve out exceptions based on dollar amounts and population. There is not a requirement for bids for goods and services under $30000 nor is it considered a conflict of interest for board members to contract with the town if the population is low enough.
Per this summary from the UNC School of Government “In these jurisdictions, governing board members as well as certain members of the social services, local health, or area mental health boards, of the board of directors of a public hospital, and of the local school board may lawfully contract with the units of government they serve, subject to several limitations contained in the exception. First, the contract may not exceed $20,000 for medically related services and $40,000 for other goods or services in any twelve-month period (note this requirement specifically applies to any twelve-month period, not necessarily a fiscal year). In addition, the exemption does not apply to any contract that is subject to the competitive bidding laws, which includes purchase and construction or repair contracts with an estimated cost of $30,000 or more.”
This quick reference, also from the UNC School of Government has several helpful graphs and tables indicating the monetary thresholds.
