Now, the kicker in all of this is I don’t just go around looking at building construction drawings and specifications for the fun of it. A major HVAC equipment manufacturer representative in Charlotte I once dealt with, when he found out I live in Cleveland County, asked me why his company was not allowed to bid on the chillers for the new Health Department in Cleveland County. As a part of my work in the nuclear construction business I had been responsible for developing drawings and specifications for HVAC systems, including chillers. I was also responsible for reviewing contractor bids and selecting construction companies. I knew all the Building Codes and the ins and outs of chiller design, including Computer Room cooling. I knew where the problem areas were, including contractors trying to cut corners, and how to make sure all the problems were fixed up-front. So, I decided to look into this and you are now reading about what I have found.
There is more to this conflict of interest issue. Especially the “appearance” of a conflict of interest issue. All ethics policies and even North Carolina law prohibit conflicts of interest, even the appearance of conflicts of interest. How did Greg Melton ever get appointed by the County Commissioners to serve on the CCC Board of Trustees in the first place? Why have none of the other CCC Board of Trustees as well as the School Board never raised this issue and dealt with it? Why has Holland & Hamrick gotten basically all the construction work for Cleveland County agencies for around 20 years-especially after all the budget cost overruns on about every project they are involved with? Why has Cleveland County agencies, and their Boards, NOT checked behind Holland & Hamrick work and found the mistakes and shoddy workmanship that myself and others have discovered?
Well, this brings up several other concerns. Like who makes sure there are no kickbacks involving Holland & Hamrick? I have attended school board meetings and commissioner meetings and even offered my engineering services for free to help the school board get the new North Shelby School project built according to all applicable Codes and Standards as well as develop some sort of cost control process. The school board was not interested. The school board was especially not interested in cost control. They even said “money was no object.”
Later I discovered the new North Shelby School Project was not even needed. The Shelby Middle School, built for 800 plus students only had 400 students. The 80 students attending the old North Shelby School could easily been fit into an empty wing at the Shelby Middle School. It was like the school board had to have a new North Shelby School just to funnel taxpayer dollars to Holland & Hamrick and for no other good purpose. I could go into the Commissioners GIVING to Roger Holland, Greg Melton and another partner the old Doran Mill property valued at $1.6 million for nothing, allowing them to strip the old wooden beams from the old mill building, sawmilling the beams for flooring for the NewGrass Brewery owned by Roger Holland, Greg Melton and David Dear, as well as selling an alleged $1 million in scrap metal and then turning the property back over to the county.
All of this, including the attached letter below, indicates problems and top level personnel issues that the CCC Board of Trustees have refused to do anything about. Just like all the other issues they have covered up that has been recently publicized by myself and others.
And this long article has reported about only one CCC Board of Trustee, Greg Melton. I will write another article or two regarding the other 11 Trustees. But I, myself, have already concluded that the level of scandals that are coming to light will likely require getting rid of most to all of the present CCC Board of Trustees, some school board members and some Commissioners too.
As far as the donors to CCC with their names in big letters on the various buildings, I can only suppose they want their names OFF those same buildings before the TV news comes out in regard to the mounting scandals. Perhaps they want to continue their donations with the requirement that CCC takes their names off the building.
Stay tuned. We are not even close to fully reporting the scandals at CCC.
[gview file=”http://citizensforgoodgovernment.org/online/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Stan-Anthony-letter-to-BOT-Complaint-Nov-15-2016.pdf”]