Alamance County’s elected leaders have appointed the heir to a prominent local textile and political dynasty to a recently-vacated seat on the county’s planning board.
The county’s board of commissioners unanimously tapped John “Mac” Jordan, Jr. for this position last Monday, filling a post that became vacant last month when a previous appointee declined to serve on this nine-member advisory board.
Matthew Hoagland, the county’s planning director, informed the commissioners that Andrea Webber had opted not to take up her post after the commissioners had selected her and four other candidates to fill seats that became available at the end of December.
With the exception of Webber, the other appointees to these seats had all been recommended to the commissioners by the planning board’s membership. Yet, the commissioners overruled the planning board only on the reappointment of incumbent member Anthony Pierce, a Democrat who had waged an unsuccessful bid for the board of commissioners in 2024.
During a regularly-scheduled meeting in December, the all-Republican board of commissioners unanimously chose Webber as a replacement for Pierce from among several applicants whose appointments weren’t endorsed by the planning board’s membership.
Although none of the commissioners stuck up for Pierce in December, the former planning board member did find a champion on Monday in county commissioner Pam Thompson, who had led the field in last year’s election for the county’s governing board. Thompson urged her fellow commissioners not to overlook Pierce as a planning board candidate simply because of his affiliation with a rival political party.
“I would never want this board to let that get in the way of anything,” she told her colleagues when the planning board’s vacancy came up for discussion. “Anthony has served the community, and he’s a super nice guy.”
Thompson’s nomination of Pierce died for lack of a second. In the meantime, the commissioners had five other applicants to consider for the vacant position – two of whom had submitted their credentials to the county since December’s year-end round of appointments.
Hoagland informed the commissioners that, in making their selection on Monday, they wouldn’t have any suggestions from the planning board’s members.
“Unlike the December meeting, where you appointed individuals for new terms,” he explained, “the appointment tonight does not require a planning board recommendation.”
The commissioners nevertheless had little difficulty in identifying Jordan as their preferred candidate for the vacant position.
The son of a former state legislator, Jordan hails from a family of textile entrepreneurs whose best known member was the late U.S. Senator B. Everett Jordan. The younger Jordan had been one of two people to apply for the planning board since December’s appointments, although his application leapt out to John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, who nominated Jordan after Thompson’s doomed effort on Pierce’s behalf.
The rest of the commissioners rallied around the chairman’s suggestion, noting Jordan’s contributions to the riverside developments in the unincorporated community of Saxapahaw. Jordan even proved an acceptable choice to Pierce’s promoter.
“Mac Jordan – I’ve known him since he was a squirt,” Thompson said before the 5-to-0 vote for Jordan’s appointment. “I can’t say enough nice things about his family.”
In other business
The commissioners were also united in approval of another proposal that requires appointees to the county’s boards and commissions to be up-to-date on their property taxes. According to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens, this new provision will apply to both current and future appointees, although he added that it will be relaxed in the case of any delinquent taxpayers who are “working with the county to make reparations.”
In the meantime, a majority of the commissioners approved a contract with Bobbitt Construction to renovate the county’s former elderly services building at 1946 Martin Street in order to house planning, inspections, and other development-related services.
Members of Alamance County’s staff had chosen Bobbitt over six other competitors for this $4.8 million contract. The commissioners, for their part, voted 4-to-1 in support of the staff’s choice – the only dissent coming from Thompson, who noted this project’s connection to a courthouse expansion that she has also consistently opposed.
