Columns come by Hal Murray of Edenton who writes about transparency in Edenton Town Council affairs, David Larson of Carolina Journal who asks if Democracts can rebrand away from “wokeness” and Keith Throckmorton of Hertford who writes about how a dedicated clergy was the fuel that inspired the American Revolutionary War. 

Transparency and Accountability of Edenton Town Council

By Hal Murray

The Town Council of Edenton created three barriers between themselves and the people that elected them.  Taken as a whole, these impediments lead to a lack of transparency and accountability while discourages resident’s involvement in town council meetings.

Town council was elected by the town’s residents to represent their best interests, and actually listen to their comments/complaints/grievances.  Listening, not just hearing views from the residents makes for representative governance.  Removing barriers between the represented and those elected to represent gives transparency to official actions.  The Town council is making it more difficult, not easier, to listen to the public.  In a disturbing trend, the town council has instituted three practices which do not encourage but rather limit citizen engagement when it comes to town business and finances.  Taken together, the following three town policies weaken accountability and transparency in town governance.  The victims are the residents of Edenton.  

Three Cases in Point:

1) Questions to Council Members

Town council meetings suffer from lack of consistent attendance by the public.  This apathy is reinforced and subtly encouraged by the town council policy of a 3-minute public comment at the beginning of the regular meeting, once a month.  At that time concerns and questions can be put to the council members.  Unless the question can be simply answered, a reply will not come until the next regular council meeting, 30 days later.  At that time, the city manager, not a council member, will offer a reply.  In some cases, the town attorney reviews or writes the reply.  In the end, the reply does not come from councilmen but rather the city manager through the town attorney.  This policy successfully and completely insulates the councilmen from direct and official public contact.  

To become better informed, residents are encouraged to send an email to the town manager [corey.gooden@edenton.nc.gov] to request a copy of the agenda and packet on the Friday prior to the town council meetings.  I understand that the town council gets this same packet at that time.  This gives those receiving the packet, including the town council, a relatively short time to read and understand all the material.  This can be a daunting task as the packet for the July 28^th meeting contained 50+ pages.  I wonder how well-informed town council members can be given the short amount of time they have to digest lengthy packets.

2) Staff Time Allocation for Resident Service

The town council has drafted and will present a policy restricting the time town staff to three (3) “staff hours” to be allocated “on any single request or individual resident.”  Note, the three-hour limit is per request or per individual.  In other words, your tax dollars will entitle you to 3 hours of the town’s attention.  After that, the hurdle gets higher as appeals are needed.  The full text of the policy as presented to town council on July 28^th is given at the end of this article.  

How three “staff hours” was determined or what is a “staff hour” was not disclosed.  The policy does not encourage civic engagement or participation with the town staff or town council.  Again, yet another barrier and hurdle for residents to navigate.

3) Consent Agenda

The “Consent Agenda” is a procedure in which issues before the town council are grouped under one agenda item and voted on as a whole unless a councilman wishes to bring it up for discussion.  In principle, the “Consent Agenda,” is a procedure used by large municipalities to efficiently pass mundane or mandatory items.  At the July 28^th Edenton town council meeting, 9 items before the council were unanimously passed using the Consent Agenda without discussion or explanation.  This, despite the absence of Mr. Sellers and Mr. Turner.  The council did not even take 9 minutes to explain to the public the nature of the items.  If you did not get the packet on Friday, you were left in the dark.

The use of the Consent Agenda is for the convenience of the town council at the expense of transparency in governance while discouraging civic engagement.  At a minimum, in the name of transparency and engagement, the town council should briefly describe items within a “Consent Agenda” to the public in attendance.  A missed or ignored opportunity. 

Summary

This trifecta approach to the business of governance of Edenton requires more vigilance, questioning, and participation on the part of the residents and tax payers of Edenton.  These deliberate policy implementations benefit the town council, while alienating the residents of Edenton.   As the election season approaches in November, keep these issues in mind.  New blood and views are a healthy alternative to the status quo.  

The nine items within the Consent Agenda of the July 28^th council meeting are given below.

a. Hazard Mitigation Resolution – Dewayne Whealton

b. Auditor ALG Letter & Fraud Questionnaire – Thomas, Price, Scott, Adams & Co. – Virginia Smith

c. Work Authorization – 2402-2003 Amendment No. 1 – Corey Gooden

d. Work Authorization – 2402-2302 Amendment No. 1 – Corey Gooden

e. Work Authorization – 2402-2402 Amendment No. 1 – Corey Gooden

f. Town of Edenton Program Income Policy – Corey Gooden

g. American Rescue Plan Allowable Cost and Cost Principles Policy & Resolution – Corey Gooden

h. American Rescue Plan Nondiscrimination Policy & Resolution – Corey Gooden

i. American Rescue Plan Record Retention Policy – Corey Gooden

Policy on Staff Time Allocation for Resident Service Requests

1. Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that Town staff allocate their time in a fair, efficient, and consistent manner when responding to requests for service, complaints, or inquiries from individual residents. This policy establishes internal guidelines to prevent the excessive use of Town resources on a single request or individual, while promoting transparency and equity in service delivery.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all departments and employees of the Town of Edenton involved in public-facing services, including but not limited to Public Works, Planning, Zoning, Code Enforcement, and Administration.

3. General Guidelines

• All requests for service from the public shall be logged and documented, including the date, nature of the request, and time spent responding.

• Town staff shall make reasonable efforts to address requests in the order received and in accordance with departmental priorities and workloads.

• Staff shall limit time spent on any single request or individual resident to no more than 3 staff hours, unless the request involves a health, safety, or code compliance matter.

• For ongoing or complex matters requiring more than 3 hours of staff time, written authorization from the Department Head or Town Manager shall be required.

• Requests that do not serve a public purpose, or that fall outside the scope of Town responsibilities, may be referred to the appropriate agency or declined with written explanation.

• Chronic or repeated requests from the same individual may be reviewed by the Town Manager to determine if further engagement is warranted, and may be subject to service limits.

4. Appeals and Oversight

Any resident who believes their request was improperly dismissed or not given appropriate attention may submit a written appeal to the Town Manager. All appeals shall be reviewed within 10 business days. The decision of the Town Manager shall be final. If an appeal is made towards a request from the Town Manager, then the appeal will be reviewed within 30 days by the Administrative Committee. The decision of the Administrative Committee shall be final.

5. Effective Date

This policy shall become effective upon adoption by the Town Council and shall remain in effect until amended or repealed.

CAROLINA JOURNAL — Can Democrats Rebrand From ‘Woke’?

BY DAVID LARSON

Key Democrats say they are done with it. Polling shows Americans are tired of it. But can Democrats successfully move on from “woke” and redefine their identity moving into the 2026 elections?

After the 2024 elections, leader after leader in the Democratic Party joined the chorus, blaming “woke” for the party’s travails.

James Carville, who was a key Clinton strategist, said during an episode of his podcast, that the “woke era” “killed” Democrats in the 2024 elections, adding that, while he thinks the party is “beyond it” at some level, “the image stuck in people’s minds that the Democrats wanted to defund the police, wanted to empty prisons.”

US Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said “over-the-top wokeism” is a “valid attack” on Democrats and needs to be addressed. Former US Congressman Tim Ryan, a Ohio Democrat who lost his Senate race to JD Vance, said the party needs a complete rebrand from this mindset because the name Democrat caused too many people in his state to immediately discount his candidacy.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and US Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona were quoted by Yahoo News saying their party needed to reform the way they speak by tossing out woke phrases like Latinx instead of Latino, or justice-involved individuals instead of prisoners, or economically disadvantaged instead of poor.

Even Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mr. Democratic Socialism himself, said the party needs to move away from “woke” and towards a focus on working class concerns.

BIGGER FISH TO FRY

And if you look for it, you can see the attempt at a shift already taking shape. Democrats across the country, and here in North Carolina, are starting to avoid focusing on the cultural issues (whether DEI, LGBTQ, CRT, or whatever other acronyms get pulled into the vague term “woke”). Instead, it seems they plan to shrug and accuse Republicans of being divisive or distracting when they try to reverse these policies.

This means many of the biggest “woke” victories are being unwinded without much pushback.

Rainbow flags that covered everything every June — from corporate branding to town squares — were conspicuously absent, or at least greatly reduced, this summer.

When President Trump called on DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to get rid of Black Lives Matter Plaza, she shrugged and said, sure. Her actual quote was that she had “bigger fish to fry” than to fight over it. So it’s gone.

When the General Assembly gathered this week to override Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes — including of bills banning DEI in both the UNC System and the K-12 system in North Carolina; and another bill defining male and female as the two recognized genders and preventing transgender males from playing on girls’ sports teams — Stein’s reaction was on a different planet from Democrat reactions in 2016 over HB2, known as the “bathroom bill.”

Rather than defend DEI and gender theory, Stein said these overrides were just a “distraction that divides us,” and the General Assembly should focus on passing a budget instead. Like with Bowser on the Black Lives Matter Plaza situation, it was more of a shrug and a framing of Republicans as the ones bringing up divisive cultural issues.

But Democrats will have to do more than just set aside the “woke” agenda. They will also have to find some issues that the voters care about and convince those voters that Democrats are the ones to champion them.

In a strange twist, Democrats are even pushing back on Trump policies using what were conservative talking points:

• Tariffs get in the way of free trade
• There shouldn’t be any visible daylight between America and its allies (like NATO, Ukraine, and Taiwan)
• The rule of law is vital in immigration decisions

It’s doubtful that they will try to run to the right of Republicans on these issues though. They’re likely just trying to find points to criticize the Trump administration on, but it is surprising nonetheless to see these kinds of comments from what had been seen as the anti-trade, non-interventionist, border-chaos party. Democrats in some West Coast cities are even calling for more law and order on issues like drug enforcement and theft.

Whether “woke” is truly dead is yet to be seen. And certainly not everyone in their base is done with it. There is a core of the American left wing that still holds these values just as strongly and is not ashamed of it. They are bound to push back on any planned Democrat rebrand, especially towards the center.

Some in the party leadership, as well as their consultants who are looking at the polling, want to move on. But to truly do so, Democrats will need to form a new brand and new policy priorities, quickly. The important midterm elections are already well underway. And they will be a test of if Democrats have truly “moved on from woke” and started to develop new approaches, or if, after a long focus on identity, they can’t find one of their own.

David Larson is managing editor of Carolina Journal.

The Pulpit, Cheerleaders for the American Revolution

BY KEITH THROCKMORTON

Powerful preaching of the whole word of God by fearless and dedicated clergy was the fuel that inspired the American Revolutionary War.  Their boldness was a foundation for the American colonists stepping up and defeating the mighty British Army and winning our independence.

Colonial preachers such as George Whitefield energized the American Revolution.  George Whitfield was an Anglican cleric who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement (First Great Awakening).  But, as it was known, the colonial pulpit began with influential clergymen like Joseph Cotton; in 1630, he was a Puritan pastor in Boston.  For 150 years, the educational influence through the inspirational preaching of Cotton, Jonathan Edwards (evangelical patriarch), George Whitefield, Dr. John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence), Samuel Davies (Patrick Henry’s pastor),  and James Caldwell inspired the colonists and colonial leaders to fight for independence.

June 7, 1780, was a day of profound tragedy for the Reverend James Caldwell, a Presbyterian minister.  Known as the soldier parson because of his ardent support of the Patriot cause, he was with the Continental Army in Morristown as a chaplain.  Tragically, war came to his home, and a British soldier killed his wife Hannah Caldwell during the Battle of Connecticut Farms, who fired into her house.   Caldwell quickly found an opportunity for revenge when he participated in the defense of Springfield, New Jersey, the last major battle of the American Revolution in the North, on June 23, 1780.  A mixed band of Continentals and militia was stubbornly defending the town from 2500 British and Hessian regulars when they began to run low on musket wadding.  Caldwell did not hesitate.  Running into the Springfield Presbyterian Church, he gathered up hymnals and passed them out to the troops to tear out the pages for wadding, all the time yelling, “Give ’em Watts Boys!” Hailed as a hero of the battle in this American victory; however, Caldwell did not survive the war.  He is buried beside his beloved Hannah in the churchyard cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he served as pastor for 30 years.

These are just a few colonial pastors that fueled the colonists to fight for independence from England.  These clergies were giants as pastors, preaching the whole, uncompromised word of God and totally dedicated to leading their congregations to think and live biblically.  Some clergy wore soldiers’ uniforms to fight tirelessly with pen and sword for the cause of Christian civilization on the North American Continent. 

It is estimated that over the colonial period, clergy members preached approximately eight million sermons, each sermon lasting one and one-half hours.  Further, it is estimated that an average 70-year-old congregation member would have heard 7,000 sermons over their lifetime, with a total of approximately 10,000 hours of concentrated listening.

For the Congregationalists, Sunday mornings at church was not only a time to be updated on the latest news, see friends but a time to be blessed with hearing God’s message from the pastor.  As a result, most colonial pastors spent eight to twelve hours daily praying, studying, and preparing their sermons.  Likewise, Congregationalists followed the homilies closely, took mental notes, and discussed these messages with their families on Sunday afternoons.

The fruits of the dedication of these pastors to God and their congregations was a Christian heritage for America.  Today, the question is, what has happened to America?  The answer is boldly preaching and everyone living the uncompromised whole Word of God, the Bible.

Keith Throckmorton, Fairfax County Police (Ret) Resident Perquimans County