Did Graham mayor receive donations to attend a conference?

QUESTION: Has the city of Graham received any donations – anonymous or otherwise – since December 1, 2025? How much money was donated and designated for mayor Chelsea Dickey to attend the N.C. Main Street conference, or any other purpose related to her role as mayor?

ANSWER:  The city has received a total of $5,682 in donations since December 2025, nearly all of which are designated for Graham’s Recreation and Parks department, based on a list of donations that Graham city officials recently furnished in response to a public records request by The Alamance News.

None of the donations that the city received since December 2025 has been designated for Graham mayor Chelsea Dickey other than one that the council’s majority rejected.

Approximately 77 percent (or $4,400) of the $5,682 in donations that the city has received since December are designated for “recreation” – specifically, Arts Around the Square, which is sponsored by Graham’s Recreation and Parks Department.  Graham’s city council resurrected the Arts Around the Square in May 2025 for the first time in 23 years since its original sponsor, the Alamance Arts Council, ended the outdoor festival in 2002.

The city received donations for Arts Around the Square from the following organizations and/or unidentified contributors: United Health Care sponsorship, $1,000; Impact Alamance sponsorship, $1,000; $800 artisan vendor fees (no donor listed); $550 for artisan vendor fees (no donor listed); Duke Energy sponsorship, $500; S&ME sponsorship, $500; and a $50 “cash vendor fee” for Arts Around the Square (no donor listed).

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Graham assistant city manager Aaron Holland told the newspaper Monday that other donations designated for such things as “program registrations” are designated for offsetting the costs for needy children to participate in recreation department programs.

“During our registration process, there is an opportunity to give a donation of any amount,” Brian Faucette, director of the city’s recreation and parks department said Monday.  “For that time period [ending December 31, 2025], I think [five or six] families made a donation that added up to $47.”

The city has received an overall total of $9,930.25 in donations since the current fiscal year began on July 1, 2025.

The city appears to have received only one donation not directly related to the recreation and parks department, a $150 tree donation, as well as a drone for the fire department that the council voted to accept at its meeting on March 10, based on the breakdown that Graham officials furnished to the newspaper.

Meanwhile, speculation about Dickey, generally, has swirled since she was sworn in as mayor on December 9 – and more recently, about whether she “can be bought.”

“Someone anonymously gave $1,500 to the mayor so she could go on the trip the council denied the funds for at [the] last meeting,” said one tipster who recently contacted the newspaper, inquiring about all of the donations that the city had received since Dickey took office.

Council majority rejects $1,500 donation for mayor to attend conference

“The only donation made in my name was for the mayor to go to the Main Street conference that was vetoed,” Dickey told the newspaper Tuesday, referring to the annual North Carolina Main Street conference, which is sponsored by the N.C. Main Street & Rural Planning Center, a division within the state Department of Commerce.

The anonymous donor was later identified as Jane Albright, the owner of the Things Above bookstore on Court Square, who said she wanted Dickey to be able to attend the Main Street conference in New Bern last month.

However, Graham city council member Bonnie Whitaker objected at the March 10 meeting to a proposed amendment that would’ve added $1,500 to the council’s $7,000 yearly travel budget to cover Dickey’s cost to attend the Main Street conference.

“A donor…submitted $1,500 to the city, earmarked for the conference’s costs,” according to a staff report that was prepared for the discussion, which stated that the donation required council approval so it could be “properly recognized.”

By comparison, none of the donations, including from corporate and nonprofit donors seeking to sponsor Arts Around the Square, appear to have required a vote by the council.

Council also voted 3-2 in March to reject donation

Whitaker took issue at with what she considered to be the “bad look” for the council and with having the item included on the consent agenda, which is reserved for noncontroversial items typically approved en masse. Whitaker said the item had been “sort of slipped in” on the consent agenda for both the February and March council meetings.

Whitaker also pressed Dickey about whether she had “worked with the donor” on council business.

The mayor said she hadn’t known who the anonymous donor was at first, but after learning the donor’s identity, acknowledged that she’d communicated with Albright about their shared opposition to removing Sesquicentennial Park from the northwest corner of Court Square.

Dickey had campaigned in last fall’s mayoral race on keeping the park “in its original location, preserving its historic and community significance rather than relocating it elsewhere.”

City councilman Bobby Chin had previously struck the same $1,500 allocation from the consent agenda for the February 10 council meeting.  The motion to delete the funding passed 3-2, with Chin, Bonnie Whitaker, and Ricky Hall voting to delete the funding; Dickey and councilman Jim Young were opposed.

Chin later said that the city had previously participated in the Main Street program, gained little from it, and he didn’t see any point in doing so again.

Mayor attends first day of conference

Even though the council majority barred her from using the $1,500 donation to attend the Main Street conference, Dickey has been forthcoming that she did, in fact, attend part of the first day of the conference, before returning to Graham to attend the council meeting that evening.

In fact, the mayor posted photos from the conference on her Facebook page, including one of herself with Elon downtown director Jill Weston and Downtown Mebane Development director Sarah Williams.

There was no charge for her to attend a portion of the conference’s opening day on March 10, Dickey told The Alamance News.

“I had driven down to [the conference in New Bern] the morning before they [the council majority] vetoed it and did not return after they vetoed it,” she said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.  “I didn’t report my mileage…We had canceled the hotel so we wouldn’t get charged.”

Albright confirmed for the newspaper Tuesday morning that she had, in fact, donated the $1,500 to the city, which she said was subsequently refunded to her.

Dickey continues to maintain that Graham can learn from other downtown revitalization efforts in North Carolina.

“There were workshops for [anything] from planning and zoning to getting community support for the downtown,” Dickey told the newspaper Tuesday afternoon.  “We don’t want to make our downtown a Wilmington or an Asheville, but [it’s valuable] to bring that [knowledge] back to better support our downtown and downtown businesses.”

In a message she posted on her Facebook page with photos from the conference, Dickey wrote, “In 2023 alone, NC Main Street communities leveraged $684 million in public and private investment, 365 net new businesses, and nearly 3,000 new jobs.  Downtown investment works — and I am committed to making sure Graham is part of that story.”

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