The New Watauga CoCommish A House of Cards?

 

Last night, two new Republicans were appointed to fill the empty seats on the Watauga CoCommish created by Big Daddy Ralph Hise's gerrymandering local bill: Tim Hodges and Emily Greene. Tim Hodges lives in current Commish Dist. 4, so he's double-bunked with Ronnie Marsh, who was just elected in November. Emily Greene lives in current Commish Dist. 5, so she's double-bunked with Todd Castle who also just won in November. In other words, these two appointments could almost be considered "honorary," since their appointments can only last for two years, and neither Hodges nor Greene will run (we assume) a primary against the very people who appointed them last night.

Newly appointed County Attorney Nathan Miller tried to explain away the stupidity of provisions in the Hise restructuring bill, asserting to the packed house in the Commish Boardroom that the two appointments must come from the old commissioner districts formerly represented by Braxton Eggers and Todd Castle and that they also must belong to the same political party. In other words, "We get to run for election under the new Hise districts, but we get to appoint new commissioners under the old district map." Which is on its face absurd.

Whatever. The point remains that current Commish districts 1 and 2 have no representative on the board and districts 4 and 5 have two each. The voters of districts 1 and 2 have been egregiously harmed, and any one of them, or a group of them, would have standing to sue to bring down this house of cards.

The Braxton Eggers Era In Watauga Gets Worse

 

Nathan Miller, 
County Attorney to be

When Big Daddy Ralph Hise gerrymandered the Watauga County Commission, he simply vacated two office-holders in Commish Districts 1 and 2 while allowing new elections in Districts 3, 4, and 5. Those elections were won by lopsided Republican majorities, and now those three Republicans get to appoint the reps for Districts 1 and 2 tonight.

We have learned that the Republicans intend to appoint two more Republicans to the other two seats. Neither lives in the commissioner district they are being appointed to represent. District 1, which is largely downtown Boone and the campus of AppState, is majority Democrat. It gets as its county commissioner a Republican who doesn't live in Boone. District 2, which leans Democratic, gets a Republican who doesn't live in that district. Representative government?

It gets worse. The two new Republicans who will be appointed tonight are actually double-bunked with incumbents Ronnie Marsh and Todd Castle, respectively, in Districts 4 and 5. While Districts 1 and 2 will have no resident reps, Districts 4 and 5 will each have two. Among other things, this seems plain screwy.

Democrats, who up until 5 p.m. today, held a 3-2 majority on the County Commish, will now be shut out entirely. How is that fair? How is that not simply an abuse of power?

Braxton Eggers Will Be the Next Chair of the Watauga County Commission

 

The Watauga Board of Commissioners will have a complete turnover of power on Monday, December 2nd, at its regular evening meeting, when returning Republican Commissioner Braxton Eggers will be formally elected chair of the board by the other returning Republican Todd Castle and newly elected Republican Ronnie Marsh.

The new Republican board will also be appointing Nathan Miller as county attorney, and they plan to pass a resolution giving Miller some eyebrow-raising powers of his own. Miller is well known to the authors of this blog for the lawsuit he initiated targeting the voting rights of AppState students (and see here), for the long-running harassment of elections expert and AppState professor Stella Anderson, and for exacting retribution against the town of Boone by unilaterally changing how sales tax revenues are distributed -- among other public and legal activities he engaged in while chair of the County Commission and then as a lawyer for the Watauga GOP. According to the board packet for Monday's commissioner meeting, the Republicans intend to pass a resolution granting Miller what looks like a free hand to act like a member plenipotentiary of the commission, with no guardrails.

The language in the resolution granting Miller a free hand:

The County Attorney is authorized to initiate and pursue legal action for the County on any matter, including but not limited to imminent domain, contractual breaches, declaratory action, and such other matters as the County Attorney deems advisable and in the best interests of the County, without need of further Resolution or Ordinance to be adopted by the Board of Commissioners....

"...and such other matters as the County Attorney deems advisable...." Whoa! From his recent history, we know that Nathan Miller deems a lot of stuff very advisable for his particular partisan disposition.

That's where we're starting the Braxton Eggers reign. Can't wait to see the additional chapters.