From the Durham Herald-Sun (2/4/10): On a day when reports surfaced that her predecessor did business through a secret e-mail account, Gov. Beverly Perdue told city and county managers from around the state they have to follow the law and operate open governments.
“You’ve got to be transparent,” she said at an annual seminar for city and county managers Wednesday in Durham. “If you’re not opening up everything you do in your city or your county, you ought to open it up. In this kind of day and age, everybody understands that the work you do and I do is public business. There is no ‘behind closed doors.’ There are no more dinners. All of that is history. We live in a different time.”
Perdue’s comments came as reports surfaced that an aide to former Gov. Mike Easley said in a deposition that Easley had used the secret account.
The deposition came in an open-records lawsuit seeking access to e-mails not previously released to the public.
Easley also is being investigated by federal authorities, who two weeks ago secured indictments of another of his former aides who allegedly was doing favors for developers while simultaneously accepting from them free travel and other benefits.
Perdue said corruption allegations are “a big problem” for the state, separate and apart from those it faces over the economic and its education system. She vowed to root out any malfeasance in the state’s administrative ranks.
“If we find people who work for the state of North Carolina who aren’t following those ethics codes and that set of behavior standards, sure, I understand the law and you’re going to have your due process, your day in court to fight me, but if I have my way, we’re going to fire you. There is zero tolerance for that kind of behavior in this administration,” she said, drawing applause from the managers.
Perdue devoted the bulk of her remarks, however, to the economy.
Revenue shortfalls will force the elimination of programs in the state’s next budget, she said, after telling the managers “all of us will have to do more with less.”
The governor also vowed to cooperate with local officials in any effort that promises to bring jobs to the state.
“No matter how small or large, if I can help you get a business in your area, call me,” she said.
That made at least one of the managers in the room happy.
Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield, whose staff has been prodding the N.C. Department of Transportation to OK plans for a new veterinary hospital on Morreene Road, said he’d be taking Perdue up on her offer.
The project is believed likely to bring up to 70 jobs to the city, but is stalled because DOT wants the clinic’s owners to pay to move a sewer line.
Talks were scheduled Wednesday between the project’s sponsors and DOT engineers. But Bonfield – who’d previously termed the snarl “very, very frustrating” – said if the governor is willing to help, he’s willing to ask.
“It will be by e-mail, not dialed, but it’ll be [today],” he said when asked if he’d be contacting her. “I welcome that kind of commitment.”
by Ray Gronberg, Herald-Sun Staff Writer