New Hanover Co. ABC starts new era Saturday

It’s probably not how Billy Williams expected to wrap up his career, but New Hanover County’s long-time ABC administrator is gone. Spending controversies have surrounded him and his board for months, but a whole new chapter starts tomorrow.

It’s going to be a very long Saturday for new board members. They’re meeting bright and early at 8 a.m. to start phone interviews with the 11 finalists they’ve chosen to replace Williams. Almost 250 people applied for the job. The interviews are expected to take all day. Once they’re done, the board has two more weeks to make another cut.

County Manager and interim ABC chair Bruce Shell says they’re looking for the best person they can to handle running the $31 million operation.

“I hope that the ABC board will continue to be successful in a profit way, but also more importantly be more transparent and more accountable to the public,” Shell said. “It is a government. They do work in a fishbowl, so they need to operate in a way that the government knows what they’re doing in a more direct way.”

Shell’s referring to Williams’s last few months on the job, when he and his administrative team came under fire for excessive spending, salaries and other issues. Since then all members of the ABC board have resigned.

Shell said the ideal candidate is someone who can handle the job of working in a governmental environment with a business twist. He says he hopes to find that person in the next two months.