Burlington city council has tapped attorney Christina Benson for one of the city’s two seats on the appointed board that oversees the state-owned liquor stores in most of Alamance County.
The council appointed Benson on Tuesday to take over a post that fellow attorney Frank Longest had previously held on the Alamance Municipal Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Burlington is also represented by Lisa Kirpatrick on this five-member body, which oversees six state-owned liquor stores that are located in Burlington, Graham, and Mebane.
The council originally chose Benson to succeed Longest after considering five other applicants during a work session on Monday. The other contenders for this position were Ted E. Chandler, Celo Faucettte, Terri McGee-Paylor, Scotty Showerman, and James D. Smith. Longest, who had served on the board since 2023, did not seek reappointment to his post.
Prior to Monday’s work session, city staff members had obtained McGee-Paylor’s consent to serve as an alternate on Burlington’s board of adjustment. The council went on to confirm her in this position on Tuesday.
In the meantime, the council’s five council members vacillated between Benson and Chandler when it debated Longest’s successor on Monday. Benson’s legal experience earned her the support of council members Dejuana Bigelow and Ian Baltutis, while councilman Jeff Smythe and mayor pro tem Bob Ward gravitated toward Chandler – a retired executive at a local concrete company.
Smythe discouraged the rest of the council from hanging too much on Benson’s professional experience as they considered her suitability for the ABC Board.
“They’re not the legal counsel to the ABC Board,” he observed. “So, they shouldn’t be leveraging their legal knowledge in any decision or discussion. . . and I don’t think that weighs into on her ability to serve on the ABC commission.”
In the end, it fell to mayor Beth Kennett to break this impasse, which she did by throwing her support behind Benson, who had been universally acclaimed by the council for the voluminousness of her c.v.
“I do remember being impressed with Ms. Benson’s resume,” Kennett acknowledged, “and you’re right, it was very long.”
The council formalized Benson’s selection for the ABC Board and McGee-Paylor’s appointment to the board of adjustment when it signed off on a so-called consent agenda of presumably routine or noncontroversial items on Tuesday.
Benson, for her part, will join the rest of the ABC Board on Thursday for its first quarterly meeting since May, when its members accepted the resignation of the board’s then-general manager Larry Brooks. Brooks has since been designated as one of the board’s two delegates from Graham.
Among the tasks that will presumably be awaiting the board’s new lineup on Thursday is the consideration of the selection of a new general manager to operate the six stores the board oversees.
