WILMINGTON — A city council member argued Wilmington is failing to abide by rules governing appointments at a recent meeting, noting another member has served six years over the limit on the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority board.
READ MORE: Appointment committee nomination becomes controversial sideshow for council
At the June 18 meeting, council member Salette Andrews raised a motion to replace council member Charlie Rivenbark, who has served five consecutive three-year terms on CFPUA. His current term is scheduled to expire on July 1.
“Council member Rivenbark has served for a total of 15 consecutive years and is under the impression that rules don’t apply to him,” Andrews told Port City Daily this week. “Five other members of the city council are OK with that. Councilmember Joyner and I are not.”
Council denied Andrews’ motion to remove Rivenbark from the CFPUA board in a 5-2 vote June 18, with Joyner and Andrews dissenting.
Mayor Bill Saffo argued Rivenbark has done an “exceptional job” on the board and has developed technical knowledge from years of experience.
“If council member Rivenbark wants to continue on, I will support that position,” Saffo said at the meeting. “But I think also that Salette brings up a very good point, that we have set a precedent over a number of years of allowing council members to stay on particular boards that maybe should have rolled off.”
CFPUA was created to consolidate the formally separate water and wastewater systems of Wilmington and New Hanover County in 2007. The public utility’s bylaws set forth appointment and term limit rules in its articles of incorporation:
“After the initial terms each member of the Authority shall be appointed for a three-year term. No appointee shall serve more than three full consecutive terms. An appointee who serves three full consecutive terms shall not be eligible for re-appointment to the Authority for one year.”
City attorney Meredith Everhart said Rivenbark is legally able to serve as a “holdover” on the CFPUA. NC General Statute § 160A-62 states appointed officers must continue to hold office until their successors are chosen and qualified.
Though it isn’t illegal, Everhart said hold over terms are inconsistent with the articles of incorporation agreed upon by the city and county.
“It wasn’t necessarily intended for extended periods of time,” she said at the meeting. “It was mostly intended to cover in between elections, but yes it does allow holdover positions.”
The 11-member CFPUA board consists of five members appointed by county commissioners, five members chosen by the city, and one member jointly selected by the city and county.
The mayor noted he was open to discussing changes to the appointment process in the future.
“I do feel that currently with where you folks are at with the authority, and the amount of time and money and effort that we’re spending there, I would like to continue on with the group that we have,” he said.
Council member Luke Waddell, who is also on the CFPUA board, argued institutional knowledge is essential for the position. He made a motion to deny Andrews’ request, but added he thought she would make a great addition to the utility board at some point in the future.
“Thankfully, the majority of the Council agreed it was wrong and voted to deny the resolution,” Waddell told PCD.
During the meeting, council member Kevin Spears said he would be open to changing the council’s appointment soon but believed it should not be immediate.
Andrews said she brought the resolution forward specifically because Rivenbark’s term is concluding at the end of the month. She emphasized she was not trying to diminish the importance of technical expertise or imply Rivenbark had done “anything less than a stellar job,” but noted another member, William Norris, will be replaced soon because his term is ending on the same date.
“Some people run this as a club that you and I are not invited to,” she said, “that does not welcome fresh ideas and that does not want to follow the rules that they agreed to in the articles of incorporation.”
At the meeting, Andrews raised concerns that Rivenbark had repeated terms without a formal reappointment process every three years. PCD reached out to the city to ask about Rivenbark’s appointment history but did not receive a response by press.
Rivenbark countered that similar concerns had been raised several years ago, but he had been formally appointed his last term. He pushed back on Andrews’ claims about the board failing to incorporate new ideas and touted CFPUA’s successful installation of its carbon activated granular filtration system to address PFAS contamination.
In June 2017, StarNews reporter Vaughn Hagerty broke the story of high concentrations of the compound found in the Cape Fear River.
“When the PFAS report was made by Professor [Detlef] Knappe and Vaughn Hagerty, who is now our PIO, we didn’t know what PFAS was,” Rivenbark said. “And everybody accused us of knowing about it and not doing anything about it. And that was just a complete lie. It was a falsehood. We had a great board and did everything we could.”
A June 2017 internal review of CFPUA’s GenX response found the utility acted in an “appropriate, professional, timely, and scientific manner.” But several board members, including Rivenbark, expressed frustration that they were not informed of CFPUA staff’s involvement in PFAS research preceding the Star News exposé.
Several CFPUA staff members were involved in a November 2016 study — “Legacy and Emerging Perfluoroalkyl (PFAS) Substances are Important Drinking Water Contaminants in the Cape Fear Watershed of North Carolina” — which found PFAS concentration in the area.
NC State engineering and environmental professor Detlef Knappe collaborated with CFPUA staff on the study. Over a month before the Star News story, Knappe sent an email to CFPUA surface water operations supervisor Ben Kearns citing a new study about the health impacts of the chemicals:
“I found the following abstract about GenX toxicity, which purports that GenX is even more toxic than PFOA. GenX concentrations in Wilmington, Brunswick, and Pender greatly exceed the current health advisory level. I think it is important that we push to dramatically reduce inputs of GenX and similar compounds into the Cape Fear River!”
Andrews said she raised the motion to help bring awareness of how the city’s appointment process works. She argued water quality was a core issue of her campaign and cited her history as a cancer survivor and the loss of her 22-year old son, an Iraq War veteran who died of cancer after exposure to toxic chemicals. This was a driving force in her commitment to ensuring residents have access to safe water.
She also raised concerns about Rivenbark’s position as chair of the city’s appointment committee, which selects members of the city’s boards. Saffo recently appointed Andrews to the three-member committee, also including Waddell.
Andrews told PCD dissenting opinions on appointments are not given appropriate attention in committee reports to council. She argued the appointment committee is not sufficiently advertised to include public involvement in decisions and applying for vacancies.
“Reports are typically received by the council with little expectation of debate,” Andrews said.
Port City Daily asked the city if the committee has a regular schedule or minutes for meetings but did not receive a response by press.
Waddell said he was unaware of any concerns regarding public input at appointment committee meetings.
“These meetings are, of course, open to the public,” he said. “I readily post vacancies on my social media as well as via my monthly newsletter.”
Andrews raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest related to board applicants with business ties to elected officials. She highlighted the application of Cape Fear Commercial senior vice president Lindsey Hess; Rivenbark is also a senior vice president at the company.
CFPUA spokesperson Cammie Bellamy said CFPUA does not have any contracts with Cape Fear Commercial or its affiliated companies Cape Fear Development, or Cape Fear Construction Group, but noted the lease for CFPUA’s administrative building at 235 Government Center Drive is with Matt Properties. Cape Fear Commercial is Matt Properties’ building manager.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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