Kingstown is a MINO–Municipality In Name Only!!! North Carolina State Treasurer’s Office -Local Government Commission-Takes over Kingstown’s Finances!!! Local News Kept It Secret!!! City of Shelby and Cleveland County NEXT??? Report and arguendo by Robert A. Williams

For a long time now, I have been reporting Cleveland County is BBOKE! The Commissioners and County Manager Brian Epley will not admit the truth despite all the signs.

Signs such as saying Cleveland County has good “Bond Ratings” yet all recent financing has been done by pay by the month loans. Installment loans. Many Tens of Millions of Dollars in installment loans. The new Health Department (with leaking roofs), the new North Shelby School (with settling and cracking floors) and James Love Elementary School, that I know of, used as collateral for the latest $30 million of loans. Another $6 million loan for a shell building. And who knows what else. $6+millions to finance the American Legion World Series, Baseball, Inc, run by Commissioner and now former Commissioner Eddie Holbrook. Financially propping up money losers like the Earl Scruggs Center, the LeGrand Center, the Shooting Range.

Plans to use the LeGrand Center as loan collateral for a loan. Two sales tax referendums pushed by the Commissioners that failed by wide margins. The new property tax evaluation with major and significant increases in VALUE, increases almost totally on residential property and not commercial property owned by buddies of the commissioners. The ‘Electri-Cities’ assessment of Shelby leadership as “ineffective.” All city and county projects financially dependent on “Grants.” All signs of bad financial management practices. All signs of being broke!!!

Now, news from a North Carolina newspaper hundreds of miles away, has these passages regarding the North Carolina Treasure’s Office Local Government Commission (LGC):

“Though the LGC is tasked with overseeing the finances of local state governments, it has no actual punitive arm to enforce good financial practices, short of assuming a town’s finances entirely — a dramatic action taken as a last resort.
Some towns, like Kingstown just east of Charlotte, have had their finances recently taken over by the LGC.
The state-level agency’s most recent UAL (Unit Assistance List) as of December 2020, includes more than 100 towns, counties, and public utility authorities with budget problems, issues paying utility bills, or shoddy record-keeping and reporting practices.”

After a brief bit of research, there is an indication that the LGC depends on agency audits to determine whether or not a local government is in trouble. If you remember back a few years ago, Cleveland County Schools was forced to do an audit regarding their scandal with misuse of school credit cards-PCards. The Schools hired an auditor and provided selected things to audit. Things that CCS top administrators knew to be OK. And the Audit came back clean. Of course, that is unethical and illegal, and the District Attorney’s Office was already hiding the results of an SBI investigation.

Knowing all of this, perhaps Kingstown was just being more honest than Shelby, the Commissioners and Cleveland County Schools. And found themselves on this list.

List, or no list. The signs are there and the Commissioners, County Manager-Brian Epley, Cleveland County Schools and the City of Shelby have already shown themselves to be capable of all kinds of mischief. And there are plenty of sure signs of corruption. Clearly shown by dummying records like School Board Chairman Robert “Luke” Queen has taken to doing at CCS.

Stay tuned folks. When we hear more information. We will pass it along to YOU!!!

But remember my last article. Nothing “Makes Crooked Places Straight” like a few years in the slammer. A lesson two Buncombe County Managers, county employees and a bribing contractor learned the hard way. When justice hits Cleveland County, it will hit hard!!!