In Its First Meeting, Wake’s New Board of Commissioners Settled Old Scores

Just after 11:00 p.m. Monday, dozens of residents stormed out of the Wake County Board of Commissioners’ chambers, angry but not really surprised. The night’s fractious, heated meeting—the board’s first since two new members were sworn in last month—had ended the way they’d expected it to, though that didn’t make the betrayal they tasted any less bitter. 

Six hours earlier, more than three hundred people had packed into the board’s chambers and an overflow room inside the Justice Center to urge—no, beg—the county not to sell the defunct 143-acre Crooked Creek Golf Course it had purchased for parkland last summer for $4 million. 

The vote in November 2017 to begin acquiring that property—itself fractious and heated—was a flashpoint in last May’s Democratic primaries, in which incumbents and park supporters John Burns and Erv Portman were defeated 

Spearheading the effort to sell the land was Commissioner Greg Ford, who received an election cycle’s worth of hate mail over the holidays after he announced his intentions last month. For Ford, this was a course correction: The old board had erred in bailing out the golf course and catering to the needs of its affluent neighbors over the county’s other responsibilities, especially public schools. 

For the park’s supporters, this was treachery. Their corner of South Wake was long overdue for a park—everyone agreed on that. They’d fought for a park for years. They’d been promised a park. And now they had a deal for a park, but the county wanted to renege—all because, in their eyes, Ford was being petty and spiteful. 

 “For me, this is about character and integrity,” Ford said at one point, before being cut short by bellowing laughter and boos from the crowd. 

In the end, the board voted 4–3 to sell the land. As expected, Ford was joined by Commissioners Jessica Holmes and James West, who’d opposed buying the property, and newcomer Vickie Adamson, who defeated Burns. Less predictably, fellow newcomer Susan Evans, the former school board member who defeated Portman, joined Sig Hutchinson and Matt Calabria in voting against the move; she said she wanted more time to make a decision.

During the campaign, Evans and Adamson were the beneficiaries of deep-pocketed donors Ann Campbell and Dean Debnam. Along with their spouses and PACs, Campbell and Debnam donated nearly $200,000 to defeat the four Crooked Creek-supporting commissioners, whom they criticized for spending millions on a park while not giving the school system what it needed. 

The dispute over the park boiled over in April, when Ford, Holmes, and West released an open letter hinting that Hutchinson, Calabria, Burns, and Portman may be engaging in pay-to-play after they scheduled a campaign event with park supporters. Those commissioners, in turn, pointed to Debnam and Campbell’s largesse as evidence that the election was being bought.  

That tension still lingered Monday. Several park supporters invoked those campaign donations in criticizing Ford, and Hutchinson accused him and his allies of doing their benefactors’ bidding: “A much-needed park has been reduced to political payback by rich voters,” he said.  

As a sop to the neighborhood, commissioners voted to place the Southeast Wake County Park, already in development nearby, atop the county’s priority list. But that didn’t satisfy Crooked Creek’s supporters. 

Following the vote, most audience members rose angrily from their seats and marched out, some folding handwritten signs with heads hung and others shouting threats of litigation. They pooled in the Justice Center’s corridors, bewildered at what they’d just witnessed. Nearly seventy people had signed up to speak, all but one in favor of the park. Many left not feeling heard. 

“Their minds were made up,” said Linda Sandell, walking toward her car. “It’s a disgrace, and it’s a slap in the face for this community.”

For nearly four hours, park supporters had described the land’s natural beauty and its potential for recreation. They noted that it had the support of local municipalities, the Sierra Club, and the Southern Environmental Law Center. And, they said, the park was a promise. By selling the land, the board was breaking that promise.

The new board, Ford countered, is not beholden to the decisions of its predecessor, and elections matter. Adamson echoed his sentiments: The purchase last year was a poor business decision “for the benefit of one neighborhood,” she said. 

After the Crooked Creek Golf Course closed in 2015, neighbors sued to prevent the property from being developed into residential housing. They dropped the lawsuit last year, when the county agreed to explore purchasing the property under several conditions, including the homeowners association giving up its right to restrict the development of the property.

The homeowners “fulfilled their end of the bargain,” Brian Edlin, an attorney for the Crooked Creek Community Association, told the board Monday. “Now what you want to do is undo that bargain.” 

Per county policy, the Crooked Creek land will first be offered to the school system. If the school system doesn’t want it, it’s unclear what happens next, or what the sale will mean for the neighborhood. A lawsuit seems imminent—indeed, Hutchinson encouraged park supporters to take their fight to court. 

Another unanswered question: What does this contentious debate, so early into the board’s run, portend for its future? 

Nothing good, says Hutchinson.   

“After something like this, how do you begin to work together?” he asks. “It’s for the leadership of this board, whose job is to build a board and build harmony, to find common ground, and for the first full meeting of this board, to pull a stunt like this, it’s unconscionable.”

Clarification: This story originally attributed the pay-to-play accusation, made last April, solely to Ford. 

Contact staff writer Leigh Tauss by phone at 919-832-8774, by email at ltauss@indyweek.com, or on Twitter @leightauss.