New Scotland County board is sworn-in

LAURINBURG — Clarence McPhatter, Tanya Edge, Ed O’Neal and Jeff Shelley were each sworn in as the newest members of the Scotland County Board of Commissioners this week.

All four were simultaneously administered the oath of office by Scotland County Clerk of County Philip McRae on Monday.

Edge, O’Neal and Shelley, all Republicans, earned their seats during the 2024 General Election. Edge unseated longtime commissioner John Alford and Shelley unseated Darrel “BJ” Gibson. O’Neal won the seat left vacant by Commissioner Whit Gibson, who did not seek reelection.

McPhatter faced no opposition and secured another term on the board of commissioners.

Each of the newly sworn board members’ terms expired in 2028.

One of the newly formed board’s first acts was reelecting Tim Ivey, nominated by Bo Frizzell, as the chairman and electing Commissioner Frizzell, nominated by O’Neal, as the vice chair. Both were elected unanimously on Tuesday.

In other business, the board voted to not renew its contract with lobbying firm Checkmate Government Relations and to instead invest money toward hiring a grant writer. The cost to renew the contract would have cost the county $80,000, said County Manager April Snead.

Prior to the decision, Commissioner Darwin Williams asked the manager how much money Checkmate had brought into Scotland County.

“I can’t just give you an amount,” Snead said. “It’s honestly relative. You have to weigh what we can do —what you can do as commissioners, what I can do as county manager, what our own department heads do ourselves I guess you could say to lobby for funds and so some fund that we get from the legislature we’ve done those just because of our own efforts and the connections we have. Other funds our lobbyists have helped.”

Commissioner Ivey told fellow board members to keep in mind that while commissioners can lobby local senators and representatives, they do not have boots on the ground in Raleigh.

“They (Checkmate) go beyond that,” Ivey said. “They go around the table to the other 49 senators … and knock on their doors and sit at their desk cause one person can’t do it and that’s what they do … There’s a whole team of ‘em running around at the State House legislature all day just knocking on doors to advocate … I don’t know if we can do that,” Ivey said.

It was Commissioner O’Neal who posed the option of creating a grant writer position and to not renew the contract.

“I also feel like a grant writer who works 40 hours a week for us is probably going to give a lot more bank for your buck than a lobbyist who has 40 of 50 clients and they’re knocking on doors on behalf of them,” O’Neal said. “I think I would rather have someone who works 40 hours a week for our interest and our interest only and we can talk to (Rep.) Garland Pierce and our other elected leaders. We can help push that.”

The board decided to review the position after two years to see the impact, if any, the decision has been made.

Williams said that Hoke County was able to secure funding for a new courthouse and aquatic center.

“We need to figure out why Hoke is getting all this growth. We need to figure out what’s going on and how do we approach it the way they did,” Williams said.

“We have the same lobbying firm that they got and they seem to be getting all the benefits and we’re getting none,” Frizzell said.

Frizell said that he heard the commissioners in Hoke did much of the leg work.

“Well we need to start knocking,” Williams said.