Farewell to Harnett County

Farewell to Harnett County

Vice Chairman Gary A. House

Harnett County Board of Commissioners

I realize that this blog may seem like it is a couple of months premature but I believe the timing is right.

In my eight years as a Harnett County Commissioner, I have met many wonderful people and I have helped anyone who has called me to the best of my ability.  I have honored my promises to be accessible and to listen.

I have also honored my promise to fight to restore inpatient mental health beds in Harnett County.  After a 6 ½ year struggle, those beds are now operational and people in our community are receiving the care they need.  The facility’s census remains high and it is doing well.

My fourth promise while campaigning eight years ago was to stop the backroom deals.  That promise proved to be more challenging that the first three promises. 

I had the fortune of working with Randy Rogers, a whistle blower who was a Harnett County employee, in my time on the Board.  When I became a Commissioner, no one gave me a manual on how to deal with a whistleblower.  Some of the information Mr. Rogers shared with me appeared to implicate elected officials, employees, and contractors.  I always made Commissioner Jim Burgin aware of any information Mr. Rogers shared with me.  Neither the outside nor inside legal counsel for the County would talk to me confidentially.  I was basically left on my own to deal with a whistleblower that had massive amounts of knowledge about the inner workings of the County.  I have seen and verified enough that I have NO doubt that Mr. Rogers’ claims are legitimate.

Harnett County officials decided to seek legal action against Mr. Rogers and me.  That action in itself is a classic, well documented way to deal with a whistleblower, to keep him quiet.  Someone other than me must have thought Mr. Rogers had a lot of incriminating information for the County to spend nearly ½ million dollars trying to keep him from speaking.

Even though the public may not realize it, due to Mr. Rogers bringing attention to the corruption, there have been retirements in both the public and private sector.  The elected officials that may have been involved no longer hold office.  Much of the network that was in place has been eliminated.  There are still a few bad apples left in the cart but the major players are no longer in place.

In that sense, I, with the help of Mr. Rogers, was successful in stopping some of the backroom deals. 

I have come to the conclusion that no one will ever be able to clean up everything.  The players change but the corruption and attempts at political and financial gain will always be with us.

Over the last couple of years, I have been an outspoken voice for our school system.  I did not want to leave my elected seat with massive overcrowding in our schools.  I have fought to bring attention to this issue.  Our children deserve better than what we are giving them.  Our teachers deserve higher supplements than they receive.

In the eight years that I have been on the board, I have voted for one tax increase.  The reason I voted for the increase was simply that our schools need more money to deal with the influx of new students moving to our County because of Ft. Bragg.

I do feel good about leaving office with the Harnett County employees having better health insurance than they have had over the last few years.  We have many great employees in Harnett County.  I know that we lose some of those employees to neighboring counties that offer better pay and benefits.    I challenge the incoming board to fix this issue. 

Even though it has been at great personal sacrifice, I would not trade the experience that I have had over the last eight years for anything.  It has truly been an education that I wish everyone could have.

I leave the Harnett County government knowing that I did my best to serve the people of my district and County in a fair and equitable manner.

I leave the County in the capable hands of Manager Tommy Burns.  Other counties will no doubt try to hire Mr. Burns away from us.  I hope that he loves living in Harnett County enough that he will not be lured by other offers.

I will always cherish the friendships that I have foraged throughout the County and among the County employees.

It has truly been a wonderful ride.  But the time has come for me to rest, for a little while.