Board may get a raise

Durham County officials appear poised to OK an increase in the stipends paid to the county's Alcoholic Beverage Control board.

Since 1997, members of the five-member board, which makes policy for Durham's ABC stores, have been paid $50 a meeting, not to exceed $100 a month. Now, the county is considering raising that stipend to $200 a month for members and $250 for the board's chairman. The board oversaw eight stores last year that brought in a total gross income of about $17.5 million.

"This is a major business in our community," said Ellen Reckhow, chairwoman of the Durham County Board of Commissioners. "There is major stewardship and fiduciary responsibility."

The county may soon examine its pay rates for all volunteer boards and commissions.

GOVERNMENT ON THE WEB: Durham County is close to making a deal with a software supplier that will streamline and enhance access to public information.

The county is expected soon to contract with Granicus, a California company whose software allows speedy access to minutes, agendas and archived information for public boards and commissions. The information will be saved and meshed with an audio and video archive on the county's Web site.

Commissioners are expected to approve the $44,400 purchase Sept. 25, and the system will be running a month later. The county will also pay $1,700 a month to maintain the system.

HE SAID, HE SAID, HE SAID: Chatham County Commissioner Tommy Emerson didn't call Commissioner Patrick Barnes a liar at Tuesday's commissioners meeting, but ...

"I don't think Mr. Barnes would deliberately tell something that wasn't true," Emerson said. "If I thought that, I would have gone to Mr. Barnes privately and looked him in the eye, which I did not."

So what was the fuss all about? It all started at a public hearing Aug. 22 where the county was seeking comments on a possible ballot measure to elect commissioners by district. The commissioners voted 3-2 to put the question on the Nov. 7 ballot.

But before the public hearing, Barnes said he called a State Board of Elections official to discuss what commissioners' Chairman Bunkey Morgan and his voting bloc -- Emerson and Carl Outz -- were doing. All three are lame ducks, but they have pushed for redrawing commissioner districts and putting the voting-by-district measure on the ballot.

Barnes told the audience at the hearing that Don Wright, general counsel for the State Board of Elections, said the outgoing commissioners' actions were legal but unethical.

Then Barnes read off Wright's phone number, and encouraged people to call him.

Well, Emerson called.

"I asked if he characterized this matter as unethical, and Mr. Wright denies that he made that statement," Emerson said at Tuesday's meeting.

Then, Morgan said he, too, called Wright.

"I asked him directly," Morgan said. "He said, 'No, I'm not that stupid. I didn't say that.' "

Barnes defended himself.

"In my conversation with him, ... the words he used with me was that it was highly unethical," Barnes said.

So what does the man himself have to say?

"I have no recollection of telling Patrick Barnes that it was unethical, nor would I have any reason to speculate on the ethics of a county," Wright said in a telephone interview.

(Compiled by staff writers Eric Ferreri and Leah Friedman.)