Mebane’s longstanding boast to be “positively charming” might’ve been undercut last week by a testy exchange that occurred during as a city council meeting turned to a proposed townhome development.
This public tête-à-tête took place last Monday night as the city council prepared to hear a request to transform the former Kingsdown Mattress site between Washington and West Holt streets into a tony mixed-use development with 87 townhomes and 7,800 square feet of commercial space.
Before the council heard the details of this proposal, councilmember Katie Burkholder asked her colleagues to let her sit out this particular item since the project’s developer had enlisted her to market the individual townhomes in her professional capacity as a real estate agent.
“Because of my potential pecuniary interest. . . if this proposal is passed,” Burkholder went on to add, “I’d like to request that the council allow me to recuse myself from the application and the request.”
Burkholder’s request for recusal came on the heels of a minor upheaval last month after she cast the deciding vote for another development in which the owner of her real estate agency had been professionally involved. The city attorney subsequently acknowledged that he had cleared Burkholder to participate in that vote on account of her own lack of “pecuniary interest” in the matter.
But Burkholder’s failure to publicly disclose the project’s connection to her agency’s owner stirred a fair amount of online debate in the wake of her vote; a story in last week’s edition of The Alamance News outlined the particulars of how the city attorney concluded that she did not have a direct conflict of interest in participating in the July vote.
See story on controversy from July council meeting, including council member’s and city attorney’s response : https://alamancenews.com/why-did-mebane-councilmember-vote-on-site-whose-sale-is-being-handled-by-her-realty-company/
Burkholder’s actions in this earlier case may have been on the mind of fellow councilman Sean Ewing, who abruptly cut in with a question about his colleague’s recusal request last Monday.
“You’ll be earning a commission on all this if approved?” Ewing inquired before Burkholder affirmed that she would.
Ewing then launched into a brief diatribe in which he appeared to admonish Burkholder for having a career that can conflict with city business.
“There’s a lot of issues in government with trust right now,” he declared, “and I hope this [appearing to refer to the need for recusal] is very rare moving forward.”
Ewing’s harangue didn’t go over well with Tim Bradley, the city’s mayor pro tem, who insisted it wasn’t germane to her request for recusal.
Bradley went on to defend Burkholder’s handling of her potential conflict in the case of the former Kingsdown site.
“We live in a very small city, and if you’re going to participate and work in the community…there are going to be times when you’ll run into a conflict,” the mayor pro tem added after he made a motion to allow Burkholder’s recusal.
“I think she has handled this well, and I think the recusal is appropriate,” Bradley said.
Burkholder held her peace as the rest of the council convened a public hearing about the proposed townhome development.
The council proceeded to hold a vote on the rezoning request that initially deadlocked with Bradley and councilmember Montrena Hadley arrayed in support of the project while Ewing and councilman Jonathan White were opposed.
The stalemate was ultimately broken by mayor Ed Hooks, who added his support to the 3-to-2 decision in favor of the rezoning request [See separate story in this edition].
[Editor’s Note: file photos of council members from previous Mebane city council meetings.]
