Wayne Godfrey for Mitchell County Commissioner

01/20/2020

This post is to discuss the need for a jail.
The topic for the need of a jail may be a tough subject for a lot of people but the facts definitely dictates the need for one. Now please understand, I’m not saying we need to build a jail as soon as possible, but we do need to take a look at these figures and place a new jail high on the priority list. I have some numbers that honestly surprised me when I received them. I’ll list the numbers the way I received them from the county.
From July 1st, 2002 to June 30th, 2014 we as a county spent $3,443,558.69 to house prisoners out of county. Now these figures do not include transportation costs to the jail they were housed in, from the jail to court hearings, overtime for some of those transports, trips to the jail for interviews and follow up interviews by investigating officers and the District Attorney, and of course some medical transports that may have been needed, and this is to different counties. The costs for these counties for housing are not the same as some are higher and some are lower. I’ll break those down now. From July 1st, 2014 to present, the figures are per person per day, as were given to me;
McDowell - $50.00, Madison - $50.00, Yancey - $40.00, Avery - $40.00, Caldwell - $50.00, and Buncombe - $55.00. In fiscal year 2014 all prisoners went to McDowell County for a total cost of $473,382.00. From 2015 to 2016 McDowell County $455,550.00, Madison - $3,750.00, Yancey - $10,050.00, for a total of $469,350.00. From 2016 to 2017; McDowell - $466,360.00, Avery - $9,240.00, Buncombe - $3,355.00, for a total of $478,955.00. From 2017 to 2018; McDowell - $423,150.00, Avery - $16,945.00, Buncombe - $20,130.00, for a total of $460,225. From 2018 to 2019; McDowell - $601,750.00, Yancey - $13,320.00, Avery - $2,440.00, Caldwell - $21,502, Buncombe - $18,245.00 for a total of $657,255.00. I do not have the figures for this fiscal year (July 1st, 2019 to June 30th, 2020) but I will get what are there to date. So in total from July 01, 2014 to June 30, 2019 we have paid other counties a total of $2,539,167.00. So since July 01, 2002 to June 30, 2019 we have paid a total of $5,982,726.00. I’m sure the numbers for the rest of 2019 to today those numbers have put us over $6,000,000.00. Again, that does not include transportation costs, trips for court, trips for interviews and follow up interviews, medical trips, and District Attorney trips, and also overtime expenses and officers off of patrol taking a prisoner to jail. If Mitchell County would have built a new jail back in the early 2000’s we could of built a fairly nice jail for this amount of money so it would have been paid for by now. If not it would be close. We can’t build a jail today that cheaply, but the longer we wait, the costs will only go up.
I think we need to build one with more beds then we need and rent them out to other agencies. The U S Marshals Service is paying over $120.00 a day per inmate. It’ll create more income to help pay off the cost of the new jail, not to mention create more good jobs for Mitchell County.
Arrests keep going up due to drugs, thefts, burglaries and such. Costs will only go up as we go forward. I really don’t think very much of that $6 million dollars are making their way back to Mitchell County coffers. I think it is safe to say we are helping other counties pay off their jails, if not, we’re helping with upgrades. The Sheriff and his Deputies are doing a top notch job fighting the drug problems and the other related crimes that go with it. We do have a problem with m**h and opioids in this county. With a jail we can help offenders, while in jail, with treatment and education and possibly a job so that when they are released they would at least have a running head start to better themselves instead of repeating offenses and ending up back in jail, losing a job, a home, or even having their children removed from the home.
Thank you for your time.
Wayne

01/18/2020

Yard signs are in! If you would like a yard sign message me, send me a text, or email me! 385-3511 or wgodfrey841@ gmail.com. I would appreciate your support!

01/12/2020

Important dates to remember! Thank you Harley Masters!

01/12/2020

Today I want to touch on the Department of Social Services. If you all remember, Sara Ross was hired as Director of this Department a year ago. She was given a pretty nice pay package and for that she was given a contract to sign that said she must relocate to within 30 miles of Mitchell County. She was given $12,000. up front to move, as it was reported 85 miles, and given 6 months to make the move. She signed the contract. Six months passed, she never moved. When asked about why, she stated that there was not any homes that was suitable for her, her family, and her dog. She couldn’t find a home at all. After all, her dog was used to having 30 acres to run in. When I inquired to see what was listed for homes that was for sale in the county, there were over 300+ homes on the market. Rentals are a little tuff to find I’ll give her that. The point to all this is that she signed a contract stating she would make the relocation happen and it didn’t happen. At that point the Commissioners were given a couple of options in my opinion, a) give her an extension of time to relocate and if not, return the $12,000 moving allowance, b) demand the relocation money be returned to the tax payers. The very least that MS. Ross could have done was, a) ask for an extension of time to relocate or b) return the moving allowance given to her on good faith. In my opinion, she should not of received any money until she moved and produced receipts for the expenses and I also feel the amount was excessive to move just 85 miles. It is also my opinion that both parties are at fault here. Both parties did not live up to the letter of the contract. It is also my opinion, that contract negotiations have been damaged here by the commissioners and Ms. Ross, Ms. Ross has now learned that there are no teeth to a binding, lawful contract and can come out with a reward for not honoring the contract. Remember, she was gifted the relocation monies as an incentive payment. So why should she honor a contract or directive? There is no negative action to be taken against her. The commissioners failed now because all contracts can be reneged on because there is a precedent set because of this. If they won’t enforce her contract, how can they enforce any contract? Then to make matters worse, the Commissioners gave MS. Ross a county vehicle, and a county credit card in order to drive back and forth from home to work. How many working people are getting paid to drive to and from work, with expenses paid, especially if you live 85 miles away? Not many I’m sure. Then at the last DSS meeting with the commissioners, she blamed the negativity of the tax payers talk and Facebook rantings, as well as what is being reported in the Mitchell News Journal, as to why she can’t get any new Foster care homes in Mitchell County. I feel that the taxpayers, and citizens have lost all faith and trust in both Ms. Ross and the Commissioners. I feel that Ms. Ross and the Commissioners are good people, that have made very bad decisions and are now having to deal with what they have done. Anyway you look at this, it’s wrong. My hat is off to Commissioners Harding and Grindstaff for at least wanting to table and discuss the situation before deciding to take any action. However it was all overruled by vote from the other commissioners and all voted to give her the money as an incentive except for Commissioner Harding. Thank you for your courage and strong stance to be the lone voice of reason. We need more commissioners like you who aren’t afraid to take a stand or voice your opinion. I feel others believe this also, given how many people are wanting change and how many have filed for a seat on the commission. Twelve of us so far. With more coming on board after the primary thru the Independent side.
Thank you all!
Wayne

01/12/2020

Mitchell County residents please let me know your concerns, complaints, items, things, programs wanted or your opinions of and for our county.

01/11/2020

I would like to touch on a few things that are happening within our county with the current commissioners, and why I am asking for your vote on March 3rd.. There have been some controversial decisions made in the last year or so, and those decisions were made without so much as an explanation to us as to why. I think as tax payers, we deserve to know the commissioners reasoning behind the decisions they have made. They are answerable to us, after all we elected them to work for us, on our behalf.
I’ll list the decisions then offer my thoughts on them. I may have to do this in several posts so this post is not so lengthy. Here they are and not in any certain order. Transparency, Toe River Health District, Department of Social Services, property purchased for the new school, Ambulance services, and the Fire Departments. I have other issues I would like to address that are not listed that pertain to our future needs such as the YMCA, the need for a jail, our current drug problem and the crime related to it, new business and jobs, and the lack of positive things for our youth to do and safe places for them to go.

I’ll start with Transparency. I feel that every meeting should be live streamed on the internet so everyone who wants to be informed can be. I have witnessed a meeting that had such a large turn out that a lot of citizens were turned away because the meeting space was limited due to fire regulations. The seating capacity is only 45 people. At a recent meeting with the county’s multiple Fire Departments and Fire Chiefs, a citizen live streamed the meeting on her cell phone. It was told to me that she had 100 people viewing that meeting. I don’t know if that number is accurate or not, but if she had say, 50 people watching then I would say it was a success since the meeting room was filled to maximum capacity, so 50 or more people were able to see the meeting. So yes, I think it would be beneficial to stream all of these meetings. They could also post recordings of the meetings on the County web page so anyone could view the meetings at their leisure. It could also be recorded and played on the local radio stations for the citizens who do not have access to the the internet.
I admit that I do not know all the legal laws regarding “Closed Executive Sessions”, but I will read up on them so I understand them better. From what I have read so far, closed sessions doesn’t mean that the results are forever secret. Once an item has been permanently decided, it should be disclosed to the citizens, other than for personnel, then those are restricted. We have had several executive sessions in the last few weeks. What were the reasons for those meetings, and what were the outcomes? We know that the County Manager was removed from her position, but we were not given a reason why. We don’t need a blow by blow, but some kind of explanation would be great. It leaves a lot to the imagination for the public to decide as to why. It’s not fair to her or any employee for that matter to leave it in the air like this. If elected I promise you that there will be as much transparency as allowed by law. It tends to keep all parties rightfully informed plus it keeps everybody “HONEST”. If they are going to have the meeting on the three ambulance service proposals at 10:00 AM this coming Monday morning, they should have another meeting in the evening sometime so everyone that wants to be informed or wants to speak can have an opportunity to do so. A lot of us have jobs that we can’t just leave to attend this meeting. At the very least a decision should not be made until the public can voice their opinions or concerns. Thank you for your time. I’ll be posting again on the next matter soon. Please feel free to share this post if you like.
Wayne

01/11/2020

Hope to see you there!

Up coming event at the center.

01/06/2020

I created this new page to help you get information and answer any questions you may have.