The first meeting of the new year after county elections involves electing the next Chairman and Vice Chairman. At the Regular Meeting of the Northampton County Board of Supervisors, the annual election of officers exposed a deep rift among not just members of the board, but the county itself.
To begin the process, Supervisor Robert Duer nominated Supervisor Oliver Bennett for the 2018 chairmanship. There was no second, so Mr. Bennett seconding his own nomination. Next, recently elected District One Supervisor John Coker nominated Spencer Murray. District Two Supervisor David Fauber seconded the nomination. The nominations were locked at 2-2, until Spencer Murray broke the tie by voting for himself.
Oliver Bennett stated that he was under the impression that he and Murray had “a gentleman’s agreement”, that Murray would only serve 2 terms. Bennett alluded to what many have witnessed in Northampton–a bias of race, class and culture. Once again, the Franktown/Wellington Neck Mafia has a firm grip around the neck of the county. Bennett noted that he had served the county on the Board of Supervisors for many years and was again disappointed that once again only a certain pedigree was allowed to assume the chair in Northampton County.
“Your time will come,” Bennett said.
Chairman Murray asserted himself, saying that he felt he was very qualified to be the chairman. If asked to serve again in the next term, he said he would also accept the chair then.
“Everything comes around,” Bennett said.
For Vice Chairman, John Coker was nominated by David Fauber. Coker seconded his own nomination. Then, Robert Duer attempted to nominate Oliver Bennett as Vice Chairman. In a rebuke of the proceedings, Bennett refused saying, “I will not be a token”.
The nominations were closed, and ended with four votes for Coker.
As a last act of defiance, Oliver Bennett abstained from the vote.
About the Author
The reality of the situation is this….and I say this with great respect for EVERY Northampton County Board of Supervisor’s member. As all of your readers know, beginning in 2012 when Willie Randall, Bill Parr, Bill Payne and others decided they knew more about what Northampton County needed than the people (as encoded in the 2009 Comprehensive Plan), we began a four year battle that damn near tore this county apart. Randall and crews’ charted course, piloted by Katie Nunez and other county officials, was on its face and in its political gut an attempt to, among other things, gentrify this fine and diverse sandbar, delivering caviar to the chosen few and dog meat to the rest.
Frankly, many who looked under the sheets of the 2014 zoning ordinance considered it an all out war on the minority population that now and always has quilted this community into the colorful matrix that makes it so fascinating. The 2014 manifesto proposed to: 1) eliminate incentives for affordable housing options: 2) eliminate mobile home parks as an allowable use; and 3) rezone thousands of acres of land zoned as agriculture to R-3 without the owners consent, among other body blows.
In our Wardtown Road area, as in other areas of the county, in many instances the lands owned by African-American residents was rezoned to R-3 while the lands owned by white folks like me and my wife were left untouched. Indeed, this is what caused Charles Smith and Leo Kellam to pound on the podium and yell “It Ain’t Gonna Happen”.
Interesting that, in the fall of 2014, when Supervisor Bennett (who now pulls a race card when complaining that he was not elected Chairman) asked Katie Nunez how “his people” (blacks) would benefit from the proposed 2014 zoning ordinance, Nunez answered that “his people” would be able to get jobs in the “service industry” once all those waterfront Hotels, Motels and Condos were built on the Bay and Seaside (by-right mind you). In other words, they could change the sheets and empty the ash trays for the more elite class. This seemed to appease Mr. Bennett…..an appeasement that tilted my head a bit more than off-center.
Indeed, the NAACP, for the first time in their history, rose up and passed a unanimous resolution opposing the gentrification of Northampton County that was the brand of the 2014 zoning assault.
On December 8, 2015, AFTER the people had gone to the polls and registered their overwhelming support for Spencer Murray (who ran on an anti-2014 zoning platform_, rejecting a re-election bid by the pro-zoning Rick Hubbard, the lame duck Northampton County Board of Supervisors voted to enact the gentrification ordinance. And registering a loud and proud vote for that assault on the minorities (and our future), Supervisor Oliver Bennett voted to set those wheels in motion.
It is absolutely incredible to me that Supervisor Bennett hints of race discrimination now when failing to gain full Board support for his bid for chairman, and rejects the offer to again serve as Vice-Chair claiming he did not want to be a “token”. Note here that Bennett did not feel he was a “token” when he served as Vice Chair for the last 12 months, begging the question “what changed?”. He indeed, is the only sitting member of the Board that attempted to rope “his people” onto a gentrification limb that clearly and indisputably attempted to harm minorities at the expense of the elite.
In closing, let me say that I personally like Mr. Bennett. I believe he is a good man, a great coach, an inspiring mentor and I usually agree with his input on the BOS the majority of the time. But during a time when racism is more often than not a headline on our daily news blasts, as Spencer Murray so succinctly responded to Mr. Bennett when Oliver said he wanted to be Chairman to represent the interests of “his people”, we should all work together to represent the health, welfare and safety of “all the people”…all of the time…with no restraint or conditions.
I believe Mr. Bennett deserves to be chairman, as he represents 40% of the population that is African American. His leadership is badly needed now as the African Americans in Northampton are suppressed when it comes to jobs, housing, and a much better standard of living, and they have been shut out when it came to the comprehensive plan–I was there and saw it happen, this is their county just as well as others, so give Mr. Bennett the mantel to get our county moving for all the people, not just the few that control our County. And I would not have Mr. Parr advised you what to do, he is looking out for himself.
How are people to ever become ‘color-blind’ when you all continually remind us that you are black?
I won’t comment on the ‘inside baseball’ aspects of this issue, but Mr. Duffy I at one time washed dishes, toted garbage cans(and steam cleaned the insides of the trucks), spliced peach branches on saplings etc….and always felt that there were no small jobs, only small men.
Why would you or the NAACP, deprive anyone-black, white purple of green- the opportunity to better themselves and to enjoy the benefits of increased self esteem, income and respectability and consign them to penury and or Government handouts?
How short sighted.
An elected official throws a tantrum during a regular administrative duty and local papers cover it like it was a bomb attack. A good coach would have thrown a player off the field for an outburst like that after he lost the coin toss. Shame on the official for that embarrassing adolescent behavior, and shame on the press for trying to make a headline story out of a routine vote.