Besides the egregious LGBTQ-Murder cover-ups at DSS, the Millions of taxdollars defrauded from taxpayers by the American Legion World Series and the defeat and disgrace of former Commissioner Chairman Eddie Holbrook–this Federal Lawsuit against the City of Shelby and the City Manager, Rick Howell-personally, is the biggest scandal to hit Cleveland County in a very long time. And to use a very very old but appropriate phrase, Holbrook, Shelby and Rick Howell are “about to be broke from sucking eggs. The County may be next.
First, some brief background information:
Mr. Willie Green:
• Mr. Willie A. Green is a former standout NFL professional football player with several teams, notably with the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. Including TWO Superbowl Rings with the Broncos. While with the Panthers, Green earned the nicknamed ”the Mayor or Shelby” due to his unusual civic involvement there. After football Mr. Green became a corporate Vice-President as well as the President of the Retired NFL Players Association in North and South Carolina. Source-Wikipedia, etc.
• IN regard to Mr. Green’s civic involvement, he proposed to Cleveland County a few years ago a program called Cleveland County Promise. A concept of a corporate and county involvement that would fund college educations for qualifying Cleveland County students. Commissioners Eddie Holbrook and Jason Falls, along with Dr. Steve Thornburg killed the idea by demanding that all students attend college only at Cleveland Community College-which limited the effectiveness and scope of the program. Later Gaston County would adopt such a program.
• Mr. Green also proposed to both the City of Shelby as well as Cleveland County to build a “Sports Complex” for local athletes as well as providing a
• Probably the most important factor in this lawsuit is Mr. Willie Green is an Afro-American who has earned his money from outside Cleveland County.
Cleveland County and the City of Shelby:
• Since Re-Construction Cleveland County has been a “hotbed” of Ku Klux Klan activity. The saying, often inscribed on tombstones, “He Was A Good Democrat” was “Code” for being a KKK member.
• As a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Cleveland County was one of 40 counties in North Carolina on a Department of Justice “Watch List” for dissimilatory political practices. Cleveland County was removed, probably prematurely, just a few years ago.
• Cleveland County was sued by the local NAACP in the mid 1990’s because a black candidate had never been elected as a county commissioner. The County settled the case by agreeing to appoint two black county commissioners (Bobby Malloy and Mary Accor) as well as limiting white voters to a fraction less than one for each white vote. A citizens group quickly formed and sued that this “settlement agreement” was unconstitutional. And won. Malloy and Accor were removed from the Board of Commissioners and the settlement agreement was voided.
• Willie McIntosh ran for County Commissioner and won. Becoming the first ever duly elected black Commissioner. McIntosh later became the President of the Cleveland County NAACP.
• While under the DOJ “Watch List” and beyond, a system of “Plantation Politics” was developed where the “white” Shelby businessmen would select certain “black” leaders and turn them into “Uncle Toms” that would serve the white purposes. This Plantation Politics was very evident in the 2018 Commissioner’s Race, Democrat Primary and General Election in the failed effort to get Commissioner Chairman Eddie Holbrook re-elected.
• Over the past years Cleveland County has entered into a number of so-called “Partnerships.” Some partnerships were secret partnerships like the “New Grass Brewery.” In these partnerships the County would supply the cash and the other partners would reap the rewards. If not in cash profit the reward would be in public standing and esteem. The Earl Scruggs Center, The LeGrand Center, Economic Development, etc. comes to mind. One particularly egregious partnership occurred when the Commissioners gave away the Million Dollar Doran Mill Property, let the others strip all the assets out of the property and sell for scrap (estimated to be around a $million) and then return the property to the county by refusing to pay the property tax. Leaving the county with another $Million cleanup bill. The most egregious “partnership” that was not officially a partnership was with the American Legion World Series. To date around $5,000,000 has been secretly funneled into that financial fiasco. And Counting. All the while falsely claiming that the ALWS was not receiving tax dollars. The County even paid ESPN hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover the ALWS while Commissioner Chairman as well as Chairman of ALWS, Eddie Holbrook and his sycophants, were claiming the popularity of ALWS and advertising sales had brought ESPN to town. Nothing but bald-faced lies from ALWS Baseball, Inc. A company not legally associated with the American Legion, just a non-profit shell company set up to hide cash from the IRS as well as provide confidentiality (hiding places) for the whole Shelby operations. As well as phony in-kind campaign donations from sycophant Stanley Crowder to the Eddie Holbrook Re-Election campaign.