About two dozen of the county’s top Republicans gathered for a brief, 20-minute meeting Saturday morning behind closed doors at the party headquarters and ultimately selected Haw River mayor Kelly Allen to be the county’s fifth county commissioner.
Allen was named by acclamation after no competing candidate was nominated. Henry Vines, who had attended and hoped to be considered for the appointment, left a few minutes before the meeting dispersed, saying he had not garnered even a nomination for the post.
Only members of the county Republican Party’s executive committee (made up of party officials, including precinct chairs from across the county and elected Republican officerholders), and candidates interested in appointment were putatively to be allowed in the meeting, according to the parameters established by county party chairman Kathy Page – in a change from past meetings for selecting a commissioner replacement.
Allen will be installed when the commissioners next meet on Monday morning, December 2. In addition to her swearing in that morning, the board will have the swearings-in of incumbent county commissioner Pamela Tyler Thompson, who led the balloting in the November 5 election; chairman John Paisley, Jr., who placed second in November to garner re-election; and Ed Priola, a newcomer making his first bid for a commissioner seat.
Alamance News publisher Tom Boney, Jr. was present outside the meeting at the I-85 Plaza in Burlington, handing out copies of a letter he had written to party chairman Page on Thursday, explaining why the newspaper objected to the closed-door proceedings. [Read a copy of the letter HERE.]
Publisher: Why is this year different?
In his letter, Boney insisted that the previous GOP executive committee meetings to fill all recent Republican commissioner vacancies – in 2014, 2016, and 2021 – had been done openly and that there was no discernible distinction that should have led to this year’s secrecy. “I see no reason to jettison that admirable pattern of transparency,” Boney said in a letter to Page, “particularly when I fail to see what anyone gains by the secrecy you have proposed.
“What about this year’s proceedings is so different or unique that it should give rise to such proposed secrecy?” Boney questioned.
The current county commissioner chairman, John Paisley, Jr., was initially chosen for a stint on the board of commissioners by an open process of the Republican executive committee in 2014 to fill the balance of a partial term on the board of commissioners caused by the resignation of former Republican county commissioner Tom Manning.
Again in 2016, the executive committee met in an open meeting and made two recommendations – one for a short-term appointment (of Roger Parker) for the remaining seven months of then-former county commissioner Dan Ingle’s term on the board, and the second to designate Amy Scott Galey as the party’s replacement for Ingle on the fall ballot.
Similarly, three years ago, in 2021, the executive committee met openly, this time by the online Zoom platform (in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic), to choose a replacement for county commissioner Amy Scott Galey, then chairman of the board, who had been elected to the state senate the preceding November.
Agreement, disagreement with newspaper publisher
Some participants entering Saturday’s meeting said they agreed with Boney that the proceedings should be open, but they added that they would not challenge Page on the issue. Others expressed contempt for the publisher’s efforts and position.
Among the latter, Leonard Harrison, who had placed fifth in the Republican primary in March, said he disagreed with the publisher’s efforts, and particularly resented what he considered to be Boney’s attack on the party’s chairman.
Meanwhile, Fred Galey, the husband of state senator Amy Scott Galey, went so far as to engage in an expletive-filled rant at the publisher on the sidewalk portico outside the headquarters on his way into the meeting.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “The meeting should be closed [specifically] to you.”
Sen. Galey, who arrived separately, was more reticent. “I don’t have anything to say,” she said, while rejecting a copy of the publisher’s letter. “I’m not interested.”
Vines, who had hoped to be considered for the appointment, said, “I’ve been to all the previous selections,” adding that he had done so as a Democrat “who wanted to attend as a concerned citizen.” Vines changed his party affiliation to Republican in about 2020. “I don’t agree with it [the meeting being closed],” he said.
District attorney Sean Boone said he was “completely cool with it being open,” as he entered the headquarters.
Newly-elected commissioner Ed Priola said, “It would be the better path to have an open meeting and let in the sunlight.”
Two incumbent commissioners were present: chairman Paisley and vice chairman Steve Carter.
In a separate letter to Paisley, sent at the same time Thursday as the letter to Page, Boney had observed that the presence of three or more commissioners (i.e., a quorum of the board) would turn the Republican gathering into an “official meeting” of the board of commissioners, which would be required to be open to the press and public under the state’s Open Meetings Law. [Read letter to commissioner chairman Paisley HERE.]
Page had obtained an opinion, which she shared with the newspaper, from the Republican Party’s general counsel in Raleigh, Kyle Offerman, contending that all four incumbent Republican county commissioners could be present at a closed executive committee meeting without violating the state’s Open Meetings Law. He said the executive committee meeting should not be considered an official meeting of the commissioners even if all commissioners were present.
County attorney Rik Stevens is said to have told the four Republican commissioners after reviewing Boney’s letter that while he wasn’t sure Boney’s interpretation of the Open Meetings Law was accurate, he felt it would be “safer, legally” not to have more than two members present.
Commissioner Thompson forwarded the newspaper publisher a copy of a text she had sent to Page after Boney notified all four commissioners of his concerns about their potential presence at the Republican meeting creating a violation of the Open Meeting Law. She told Page, “I would like to suggest that the meeting Saturday be public if you are going to have three or more commissioners.”
Instead, the commissioners apparently decided among themselves that the two senior members, Paisley and Carter, as chairman and vice chairman, would attend and the other two would not.
Neither fellow commissioners Thompson nor Bill Lashley, whose term expires December 2, was present.
Haw River to decide how to fill mayor’s chair
Haw River’s town council next meets on the evening of December 2. Mayor pro tem Lee Lovette will likely preside, inasmuch as Allen will have resigned by then in order to be sworn in as a commissioner that same morning.
The council could discuss or determine a procedure by which to select a successor for Allen. Inasmuch as Allen’s mayoral term lasts until 2027, it will probably be only a one-year interim appointment, with an election scheduled for the remaining two years of Allen’s term in November 2025.
Allen, 69, was first elected to the non-partisan Haw River town council in 2009 as a write-in candidate. She was re-elected in 2013 and 2017. In 2019, she challenged then-mayor Buddy Boggs for the council’s top post and won. She was reelected as mayor in 2023.
The council was deadlocked 2-2 on who should fill out Allen’s town council term and ultimately left her seat vacant until the next council election in 2021.
Allen is a 1973 Cummings High School graduate; she later studied in the nursing program at Alamance Community College. She is a retired nurse from Alamance Ear, Nose, and Throat. She has been married for 48 years to Charles “Charlie” Allen.
