NHC Board of Commissioners Chair Bill Rivenbark apologizes for election language in emails
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The chairman of the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners is apologizing for sending replies to emails on his official government account asking for votes.
On June 17, the Board of Commissioners approved a budget for the new fiscal year that zeroed out funding for the nonprofit Port City United. The vote was 3-2, with LeAnn Pierce, Dane Scalise, and Commission Chair Bill Rivenbark voting in favor.
A number of emails to commissioners thanked them for zeroing out that funding. Rivenbark replied to at least two of the emails with the phrases, “Remember Dane and I in November” and “Remember to vote for Dane and I in November.”
In a Facebook post on June 25, Rivenbark released the following statement on Facebook:
In light of recent media attention to my NHC commission emails, I wanted to share my position on the situation. In the days and weeks leading up to what was the most intense budget cycle of my tenure, I received many, many emails & calls from constituents advocating for issues important to them. I did not realize my brief email replies to a few constituents may have been improper, although I should have known due to our ethics training. I have since reviewed the guidelines and take full responsibility for my mistake. I apologize for this oversight and commit to ensuring it does not happen again.
City and county employees can’t engage in campaign activities while on the job. According to G.S. 153A-99, no employee may use county funds, supplies, or equipment for partisan purposes, or for political purposes except where such political uses are otherwise permitted by law.
WWAY reached out to all five commissioners before Rivenbark released his statement on Facebook, and heard back from two of the four.
“I don’t think he did it with malicious intent,” Pierce told WWAY. “It was just a response to an email… Mistakenly sent from the wrong email account.”
“It is truly disappointing that our county commission chair chose to violate in principle and the rules around campaign finance laws to solicit votes from the public using his county email account,” Jonathan Barfield Jr. told WWAY. “This is something that county employees are strictly forbidden to do. We all should know better.”
Barfield Jr. and Rob Zapple voted against the budget.
