RICHMOND COUNTY — The Richmond County Board of Commissioners has elected Dr. Rick Watkins as chairman after several rounds of contentious nominations and voting. The process was complicated by one commissioner’s inability to vote, leading to disagreements among the board members.
Watkins initially nominated Jeff Smart for re-election as chairman, with recently elected Commissioner Jamie Gathings seconding the nomination. Commissioner Jason Gainey nominated Andy Grooms, who seconded his own nomination.
In the first round of voting, Watkins, Smart and Gathings supported Smart, while Gainey, Grooms, and Commissioner Robin Roberts voted for Grooms. However, when Commissioner Justin Dawkins attempted to cast his vote remotely, County Attorney Michael Newman intervened, stating that Dawkins was ineligible to vote by telephone.
During the pandemic, Gov. Roy Cooper had issued an emergency order allowing county commissioners to vote by proxy or telephone, but that order has since expired. Newman explained, “No question that you can participate by telephone, but the School of Government says that Chapter 153A, Article 4 does not allow you to vote if you’re participating by telephone, nor does it allow voting by proxy. The General Assembly allows those types of votes only for private corporations.”
Newman added that he had been reviewing related articles from the School of Government “just by happenstance” that day.
Grooms challenged Newman’s statement, noting that commissioners had been voting remotely for the past four years. Newman clarified that those votes were neither consequential nor tie-breaking.
“So no votes by phone have counted in the last four years?” Grooms asked.
Newman reiterated that remote votes were recorded but had always been part of unanimous decisions.
Dawkins expressed frustration, saying, “If we’re saying no votes by phone count, there’s been several times where we’ve had three people out at one time. So are we going to go back and revise every minute that we’ve had over the past two to three years?” He added, “I’m just going to call (expletive) and go on the record.”
Gathings responded by questioning Dawkins’ attendance at meetings. He noted that Dawkins had only attended two meetings in the past year and said that missing meetings due to work obligations was neglecting voters. Gathings suggested if Dawkins couldn’t fulfill the responsibilities, he should “give the job up.”
Smart sought clarification on the meeting’s requirements. Newman explained, “The General Assembly requires every county to elect a chair and a co-chair on the first Monday in December.”
Gainey proposed postponing the election to the following month, but Newman advised another vote, noting there was no limit on the number of voting rounds. “It’s when you all are convinced that you’ve reached an impasse that can’t be broken tonight,” Newman said. “An option would be a motion to recess this appointment process to a later time.”
Watkins nominated Smart again, but another impasse followed. Grooms then moved to recess the process until January.
Bryan Land, the county manager, urged the board to resolve the matter. “Ideally, I’d love to come away from this meeting with a chair and vice chair,” Land said.
In a final round, Smart nominated Watkins for chairman, seconded by Gathings. Watkins secured a majority vote and was elected chairman.