TOPSAIL BEACH — Two weeks after voting on a new mayor, following the death of Morton Blanchard at the beginning of the month, a new official has joined the board of commissioners in Topsail Beach.
READ MORE: Topsail Beach commissioners appoint second mayor in 6 months
The board voted Nancy Thomason in 3-1 at Monday’s meeting. Thomason fills the seat of Frank Braxton, who was voted in as mayor on March 14.
Thomason was one of four people up for the seat, including Ed Broadhurst — who received one vote — Rob Grossman, Robert Sarbone, and Alex Arab. Applicants were accepted by the board over the last few weeks, though by the meeting two had withdrawn, Braxton informed.
Mayor Pro Tem Tim Zizack accepted all the nominations in a motion and there was no discussion before a signed ballot vote was taken by the commissioners. However, the nominees spoke before the board ahead of the vote.
Broadhurst, who has served on numerous boards and committees on the island, assured commissioners he would not be re-running for the seat if chosen.
According to the town’s charter, when someone exits the board mid-term, the commissioners are qualified “electors of the town” until the next election cycle. Voters will head to the polls this November to cast ballots on a new mayor and commissioner.
To the commissioners, Broadhurst expressed a desire to see new, younger people step up and find their place in local government to lead the island into the future.
“Whatever choice you make today is a good one because all candidates who applied are wanting what’s best for our community,” Broadhurst said.
Rob Grossman, who also asked for consideration as mayor a few weeks ago and last year after the passing of Mayor Steve Smith, apologized first and foremost to the board for speaking out of turn at its last meeting. He iterated his 35 years as an attorney prepared him to work on complex problems with varied people. A board of adjustment chairman, Grossman added he was against the new safety building proposed for the town and believed in conservative spending of taxpayer money.
“There are 500 tax-paying people in Topsail,” he said. “That would be $12,000 per payer. I won’t do that to my fellow residents. I’m here for controlled growth.”
Sarbone is a three-year resident who has owned property on the island since 2016. As an entrepreneur he expressed bringing common sense and energy to working with people, cultivating ideas, and basing decisions on logic and facts.
Arab — whose family has owned property along the North Carolina coastline since the 1940s — worked in the health sector, including being certified as a teacher, athletic trainer and physical therapist. The latter of which he said helped him manage staff and budgets for firms and his own business. He also listed his numerous civic callings, including volunteering with the Historic Society of Topsail Island and as a member of the town parks rec and advisory board.
Thomason noted she had grown up in Topsail Beach, working summers on the island since her family bought its home there in 1951. She moved to Topsail full-time in 2015 to take care of her mother and inherited the family home. She was an advocate for Topsail Beach to conserve The Point last year and helped locals, including Roy Costa and Nancy Patten, work with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and the town to secure the property.
Thomason’s background is in finance, having graduated with an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill and going on to work for Wachovia as well as the bio-tech company Aviceda Therapeutic for years.
“I will listen,” she promised constituents after the vote.
Thomason joins the other newest board member, John Best, who filled a vacancy on the board last fall after Mayor Smith passed away and Morton Blanchard was voted to fill his shoes, causing another shift in the board. The board also voted Monday to ratify Best’s seat appointment, as suggested by town attorney Steve Coggins.
“It’s out of an abundance of caution,” Coggins said, noting the mayor votes on the board only in the event of tie-breakers per the town’s charter. “But there’s no statute that covers it one way or another when you have [a tie] by written ballot procedure.”
Commissioners chose to write the candidates’ names for recent open seats. There was a tie twice, as broken by the mayor, in Best’s vote in November.
Coggins nitpicked the language of the statute noting a mayor’s vote to break a tie must be the “equal number of votes in the affirmative and votes in the negative,” meaning “yes” or “no” votes.
“But when you have a selection by ballot, somebody’s writing down ‘Joe Blow’ on a ballot or ‘Jane Row,’ technically not ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” he said.
The ratification vote — with Best recusing himself — was just going a step further to ensure everyone was on the same page. Zizack asked if the board should change the charter’s language to clarify the mayor’s tie-break vote for written ballots.
“Certainly couldn’t hurt,” Coggins said. “With the breadth of the language of the charter and state statute … I would feel better if there was something more precise.”
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