A crowd of residents, city officials, and county staff stuffed into the Durham County chamber room on Tuesday night.
Claudia O. Hager was officially sworn in as the new county manager. She was promoted to the position on November 4 after the previous manager, Kimberly Sowell, resigned under mysterious circumstances following two months of leave.
The commissioners described Hager as nurturing, competent, creative, and a team player with a high sense of integrity. Commissioner Wendy Jacobs was visibly emotional during the board’s remarks. She has served on the board for 12 years, all of which have overlapped with Hager’s employment with Durham County.
“Anyone who works in Durham County government knows that the first car to be in the parking lot and the last one to leave every night is Claudia Hager’s car, and that has been for years,” Jacobs said.
Hager first worked for Durham County in 1994 when she was a graduate student at North Carolina State University. She became a budget analyst and budget and management services director from 1997-2000. Hager returned to Durham County in the same position in 2014 and has been with the county ever since.
Jacobs says Hager was the architect behind the recent education bonds, and helped keep the county financially stable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hager has stepped in as interim county manager twice in the last four years after the dismissal of former managers Wendell Davis and Sowell. Durham city manager Wanda Page, deputy manager Bertha Winbush, communications director Beverly Thompson and chief of staff Karmisha Wallace all sat together in attendance to honor their friend.
During a turbulent last few years, community has been even more important, Hager said. Hager lost her husband to colon cancer in 2018. She says the support from her network of friends and family helped her get her through the difficult times. Many of Hager’s family members, including her parents and her son William, attended the ceremony.
“I’m grateful and I am honored and I will do my best to serve and be committed to doing good government work which, in my opinion, needs to be excellent at all times,” Hager said.
The community is still in the dark about Sowell’s dismissal. County officials, including some board members, have said that the details behind her leave and resignation are “confidential personnel information” and will not be released to the public. Hager will have the responsibility of rebuilding trust within the Durham community during her tenure as the county’s top executive. With a calm demeanor and big smile, Hager assured the audience that she was prepared for whatever the job threw her way.
“As a nation, we are facing many unknowns right now, from the economy to the recent changes in the political landscape, yet through it all, I will say what I always say, we will get through this season, working collaboratively with an eye on the future,” Hager said.
Following the rest of the ceremonial items, about half the room cleared out. The remaining 30 to 40 community members were there to speak in opposition to the board’s proposal to build a new training facility for the Durham County Sheriff’s department at 100 Electra Road. The project would cost roughly $16 million dollars.
Board chair Nida Allam pulled the item in response to emails from community members who wanted more discussion around the proposal. Allam suggested that the board push the item to the next available work session on January 6. County sheriff Clarence Birkhead said his department was prepared to give updates to the proposal, but obliged the board’s request to postpone.
Pushing agenda items when clarification or further discussion is needed is not uncommon for city and county officials. The board prepared to move on, but the fiery group of residents insisted on being heard anyway.
Residents made many of the same cases against the sheriff’s facility that were made against ShotSpotter; the city and county should budget for more community-focused resources that get at the heart of issues like homelessness, food insecurity, and gun violence.
One resident, who introduced themselves as Jackson, said he’s concerned that youth in Durham, like his niece, are losing out on resources in favor of unnecessary funding for increased policing.
“I firmly believe the substantial investment in taxpayer money demands scrutiny, especially when our community has so many pressing needs that remain underfunded as it is,” Jackson said. “To briefly summarize, expert-led research, large-scale police training facilitation, facilities that specialize in highly militarized scenarios often lead to increased use of force by the police officers who attend them.”
Elizabeth Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, says that she interviewed over 50 officers from across the country in the past year. Many of them cited being overworked and overextended, taking on the responsibility of other positions, but equipment, as Johnson notes, was not a high priority.
“Police are asked to do too much,” Johnson said. “They’re expected to be mental health counselors, social workers, substance abuse experts and more, in addition to their role of solving crime. What I didn’t hear named as a challenge in these interviews was the lack of a multi-million dollar training facility like the one we’re discussing tonight.”
Johnson is a native of Atlanta where the term “cop city” was first coined.
”I have seen the extreme pain and division suffered over a cop city in Atlanta. People have died. People have been charged with crimes as a suppression intimidation tactic, and I don’t want to see Durham go through the same pain and division that my hometown has gone through,” Johnson said.
Commissioner Nimasheena Burns pushed back on the scrutiny levied at the sheriff’s department, saying that it is disproportionate to other departments that Burns argues also deserve public attention.
“I come from a family of protest. Where I come from, it’s not just about posting on the internet, it’s about doing your research,” Burns said. “I want y’all to look at the hypocrisy that happens with one department and not another one.”
Burns says many items related to the sheriff’s department have been pulled from the consent agenda multiple times.
“Y’all can come back to this at work session, but I’m going to implore you and beg you, no matter how this falls, do your research and look how elected officials are treated in this county.”
Follow Reporter Justin Laidlaw on X or send an email to [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].