SOUTHPORT — The former mayor’s declaration to withdraw a Southport alleyway has sparked a city investigation into similar declarations made for city property since 1930. It comes in an effort to avoid singling out Joe Pat Hatem, former mayor and current candidate, and to devise a unified response.
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The Southport Board of Aldermen held a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the city’s dispute of a declaration of withdrawal filed by Hatem and his wife, Anita, in 2020.
The document claims ownership over the alleyway next to their property at 109 E. Owens St. because the house was constructed in the alleyway purportedly around 100 years ago. North Carolina state law allows for individuals to claim property in this manner if it has been abandoned for 15 years or more.
The Hatems filed the declaration to withdraw in 2020 after they purchased the house, transferring a declaration of withdrawal filed by the previous property owner, Tommy Harrelson.
Both were recorded at the Brunswick County Register of Deeds unbeknownst to the Southport Board of Aldermen, of which Hatem was leader of at the time. The deeds office is not required to make notifications or validate documents it files.
The board revealed Tuesday another property owner, David and Kimberley Anderson, also filed a declaration of withdrawal for the same alleyway in 2024.
“How many more exist?” Alderman Robert Carroll asked.
Carroll put forth a motion to direct staff to bring forth every document of similar abandonments citywide since 1930.
“We’re going to ICE the alleyways,” Carroll said, jokingly referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The alderman’s thinking was that documents dredged up by staff would illuminate how the alleyway mix-up occurred in the first place — whether the original or any subsequent property owner used the proper procedure to obtain the alley.
Typically, a municipal government has to vote to transfer or sell its property, though the North Carolina statute offers a different route for abandoned property.
Not only could the process provide clarity in the Hatems’ alley case, but it could help the city devise a universal strategy for the declarations, avoiding the perception of political games.
The move would take significant staff time, according to City Manager Noah Saldo; he suggested the city turn to outside counsel to do the work. The city is already anticipating a $10,000 to $12,000 bill after hiring attorneys to research Hatem’s declaration; adding in staff and city attorney Brady Herman’s time, the alleyway issue has already cost roughly $15,000.
Mayor Alt suggested the price was worth avoiding the precedent set by allowing a declaration to lie unchallenged, in that anyone could claim city property was abandoned and the city would need to prove it wasn’t.
Though, some aldermen suggested a response to Hatem and research on property abandonments could have been done using less resources.
Alderman Karen Mosteller said how the situation was handled “was wrong from the get.”
“We hired outside counsel. We use our staff. We’ve used our funding without a single phone call to the property owner, and for me, and I’m as guilty as everybody else, that is not right,” Mosteller said. “That’s not how Southport should do business.”
She later added the Hatems and Harrelson were treated like “criminals” by the board and the heavy discourse surrounding the alleyway.
At the Sept. 11 board of aldermen meeting, two residents alluded to an issue between Hatem and the city over the alleyway at 109 E. Owens St. When the board went into closed session, they decided to hire outside legal counsel to research the issue, though this wasn’t revealed to the public at the time.
The issue came up publicly at the Oct. 6 meeting when Alderman Lowe Davis announced to the public the board was entering closed session to discuss the Hatems’ declaration, referring to the situation as a “political fireball.” When the board emerged from that session — and according to several witnesses involved Mayor Alt yelling at the participants — it voted unanimously to send a letter to the Hatems requesting they remove their declaration of withdrawal. Alderman Carroll was not part of the vote, as he exited mid-closed session; Mayor Alt only votes to break ties.
The declaration document explains the Hatems are withdrawing a city-owned alley into which their house at 109 E. Owens St. encroaches, blocking the alley’s path. The document does not include evidence of the city’s abandonment, but noted the house has sat in the alleyway since it was built around 100 years ago.
The city’s position, as informed by its hired attorney , is that the Hatems didn’t have standing to file the declaration. More so, the city has never relinquished ownership of the alley.
In the days following the meeting, both Alderman Carroll and Hatem told Port City Daily the timing of the city taking up the issue — only one month before the municipal election — was a political move stemming from Mayor Alt.
Alt denied this, initially indicating to Port City Daily he was made aware of the declaration around the Sept. 11 meeting by John Langley, owner of Southport Sourdough, Bakery and Fresh Market. The business is adjacent to the alleyway and Langley claimed he was told to stop using it; he then found the declaration of withdrawal and gave it to Alt.
Carroll raised an issue with this timeline; Alt, when asked a second time, said he found out on Aug. 14 and told the city manager the next day. City Manager Saldo wrote in a text message he found out “a few weeks prior” to the Sept. 11 meeting.
Carroll also suggested the mayor asked Langley and Paul Winter to bring up the issue at the Sept. 11 meeting, noting Winter is brother-in-law to Paul Gross. Gross is a candidate for the board of alderman and part of the Common Sense Coalition with Mayor Alt and Alderman Lowe Davis.
“This didn’t become political because of who was involved, it became political because we collectively have handled it this way,” Carroll said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Though, instead of calling out the mayor Tuesday, Carroll focused his criticisms and political surmising on Davis.
He pointed out Davis chose to inform the public of the Oct. 6 closed session’s topic (Hatem’s declaration); however, she didn’t do the same at the Oct. 9 meeting, when the board voted in closed session to send the same letter to Harrelson as they did to Hatem. The action wasn’t announced in open session.
“We pick and choose when we tell people what property we’re going to discuss in closed session, we pick and choose,” Carroll said at Tuesday’s meeting. “There is no difference — in my opinion, and I think the rest of this board would agree — there is no difference in the conversation that was had Monday about sending a letter to Pat and Tish [Anita] Hatem and the conversation that was had on Thursday about sending the same letter to Tommy Harrelson.”
Davis noted the city attorney told them to keep the discussion within closed session.
Still, Carroll and Mosteller said the matter could’ve been handled through understanding and communication. Mosteller, through tears, said she wanted to issue an apology for the “circus” both the Hatems and Harrelson were put through.
Earlier this month, both Hatem and Alt told Port City Daily that the situation could’ve been handled through conversation, though neither initiated it. Port City Daily asked Hatem why he didn’t notify the city of the declaration he filed.
His reply: “Being mayor, I said: ‘Well, I’m not going to ask the board of aldermen to abandon an alley on a piece of property that I own while I’m mayor. The alley is not there. It hasn’t been there for over 90, probably 100 or more years. So there really was no urgency to do that because there was no right.”
Alt told Port City Daily he wanted the matter out of his hands, suggesting staff’s handling would be able to keep dealings above board.
Alt said Tuesday the work toward finding a resolution in Hatems’ case could happen parallel to the research into other declarations.
With the Hatems’ home being so old, it’s safe to say the city’s processes for encroachment and abandonment were different, if they existed at all, when the house was constructed. Though, without a city document authorizing the encroachment or taking of the alleyway, technically the city could find the current owner responsible for removing the encroachment, particularly if the owner knew about it before purchase. But the legal defense of estoppel, essentially going back on an implied allowance, could be raised if the city implied the encroachment was allowed and is now reneging on that understanding.
A determination along these lines would likely need to be found in court. The Hatems don’t seem eager to do this, based on their response to the city’s letter read aloud Tuesday.
“I, along with my wife, are interested in resolving this matter amiably for all parties involved,” Hatem wrote, as read aloud by Carroll. “We, along with our attorney, will fully cooperate with the city’s attorney and will work together to reverse and correct any documentation not determined to be appropriate.”
Carroll, in his own words, added: “I believe, a 55-cent stamp — if that’s what they cost today, I forget, I don’t know — could have sent the same letter from our city attorney and or staff and gotten the same response.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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