BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WECT) – The Brunswick County Division
of Social Services had its first board meeting Tuesday since a fellow
DSS board member and a reporter were removed from its last meeting.
Things were less heated during Tuesday's meeting, but there
were still some tense moments – mostly surrounding Board Chairman and County
Commissioner Charles Warren and Board Member Patricia Sykes.
The board voted to go before the county commissioner and ask
to bring on Gary Shipman as the board's attorney.
Shipman previously worked for the DSS board, but was
dismissed. County commissioners voted 4-1 not to hire Shipman to represent the
DSS board. At the DSS board's last meeting, board members discussed hiring an
attorney, but Warren told commissioners one of the applicants they wanted to
hire withdrew her name from the list.
Sykes worries that hiring Shipman would cause a conflict of
interest because the attorney is
representing Warren in his attempt to stop county commissioners from trying to
remove him from the DSS Board.
Like any public body, the Social Services Board keeps a
record of the minutes from its meetings, and board members have to approve
those minutes. Sykes questioned the
wording on the minutes from the board's most recent meeting regarding the
conflict that ensued.
The minutes say Warren requested Chief Deputy Miller to
escort Sykes out and she left the meeting, but Sykes claims that's not
true. After a quick banter back and
forth, the board voted to put off approving the meeting minutes until the next
time the meet, at the end of February.
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