SEANC silent about 'no confidence' vote

by Will Doran, News and Observer, February 14, 2015.

After standing by embattled former executive director Dana Cope, the leadership of the State Employees Association of North Carolina faced a direct challenge at a meeting Saturday.

At least one of SEANC’s several dozen districts had publicly called for a vote of no confidence in the 11-member executive board.

“Upon receiving a serious complaint of misappropriation of funds, the Executive Board conducted a hasty, less than thorough and flawed investigation and released a letter attacking the whistleblower,” reads a resolution from SEANC District 37, which has 650 members.

It was unclear as of Saturday evening whether that vote of no confidence passed, as well as whether any other items were discussed or voted on. The five-hour meeting was closed to everyone except SEANC officials, and results of the meeting were not made public.

Although SEANC is made up of current and retired state employees, the group is private and not subject to open-records or open-meetings laws.

The executive board is elected and overseen by SEANC’s district chairs, who make up the 59-member committee that met Saturday.

At least two security officers controlled access to the group’s headquarters Saturday, ordering anyone who was not a SEANC member to leave. One of the security officers said after the meeting that no members of the executive board would speak to the news media.

The executive board’s president, Wayne Fish, and both vice presidents, Ross Hailey and Stanley Drewery, could not be reached later for comment. SEANC general counsel Tom Harris and communications director Toni Davis also could not be reached for comment.

Five people approached after the meeting either remained silent or said they had no comment.

Other meeting attendees reached by phone later in the afternoon, including one who had previously supported the vote of no confidence, said they were not allowed to speak about anything that happened at the meeting. Joseph Qubain, the district 37 chair who introduced the no-confidence resolution, could not be reached for comment.

Landscaping deal

Cope resigned Tuesday after a News & Observer investigation into questionable spending on landscaping, flight lessons, entertainment and eyebrow waxing, among other items. At his direction, SEANC spent $109,000 with a landscaping firm that also has done extensive work at Cope’s Raleigh home; one of those checks, for nearly $19,000, was the product of a phony invoice to a defunct computer services company.

It’s not clear whether Cope attended the meeting.

In his resignation statement, Cope admitted blurring the lines between professional and private lives. Fish has called the N&O’s investigation into Cope’s spending false but hasn’t identified any specific inaccuracies.

After the N&O’s investigation, which was aided by SEANC whistleblowers – and former executive board members – Betty Jones and Art Anthony, Fish issued a statement attacking them.

“I am disappointed that two of our fellow members – two people who swore to work to advocate for and protect state employees and retirees – would take these sorts of steps to try to publicly embarrass and discredit our association,” Fish wrote.

Cope was known as an often confrontational voice while lobbying on behalf on the organization’s 55,000 members. He increased the group’s political spending via the SEANC Employees Political Action Committee.

Cope had also gotten the group more involved in local politics, including trying to defeat Lorrin Freeman in last year’s primary for Wake County district attorney.

Freeman won. The day before Cope resigned, Freeman announced that she had asked the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal inquiry into SEANC’s spending.