WADESBORO — Wadesboro town councilman Chipper Long reached out to the Anson Record to discuss a censure letter he received earlier in the week from town attorney, Aaron Bates, informing him that his fellow council members voted to censure him for his public speech made across personal social media platforms, and not made while representing the town of Wadesboro in any official capacity as an elected town councilman.
The vote occurred at the May 5 town meeting and passed unanimously with a vote of 4-0.
Bates states in the letter to Long, “I am sure you are unaware of this censure as you had exited the meeting prior to closed session. If you disagree with the censorship, you are more than welcome to address it at the next scheduled meeting.”
Which Long says he plans to do.
He says, “They think they can bully me into silence. I will not be silenced.”
In fact, Long addressed everything from the council’s plans to hire a new grant writer, to recent town hall renovations; even the “#Long4TownManager” suddenly popping up across local social media comments with the Anson Record.
Long points out, “This [censure letter] gives legitimacy to a couple of things; first, they [Wadesboro Town Council] are unwilling to work with me. They will not listen to anything I say, even in the meeting. You can see on YouTube where council members push back and roll their eyes when I ask legitimate questions about the budget or other items on the agenda.”
He adds, “I think they just want to push through it. I wasn’t elected to ‘just push through it.’”
Much like in a high school student run body of government, Long is making allegations of peer pressure and inside bullying.
He said, “I have asked through the Freedom of Information Act, I have asked for texts, phone call logs between the town manager and other council members, I have asked for the minutes, session recordings that exist, or transcripts of those recordings — because I have established the evidence of their bullying me in closed session and I want it to continue to mount up.”
As the council’s first openly LGBTQ+ member, Long says the bullying and violating of his protected freedoms has come to the point where he will no longer meet with his fellow council members in closed session.
He says town leaders who, “Don’t know how to read a budget, don’t ask questions, don’t hold people accountable, commit reckless abandonment. You are just a speedbump in the road, a hinderance.”
Knowing the Wadesboro town council has been open to a lot of criticism from its constituents over the last year, Long says he feels it’s important to call the issues out and talk about them openly.
He said, “You have to support the town administration when it is warranted and you have to criticize it, and call it out, when it isn’t doing what it should be doing: empowering employees and creating a work environment that promotes self-success within individual organizations. If you are the town manager, you are accountable for every part of it.”
Long says he doesn’t feel the town of Wadesboro truly needs to hire a grant writer at this juncture.
He explains, “We now have a town manager and town finance director, between the two of them and their staff, they should be able to write all the grants we need. That is an expense of $84-100,000 that we could put back into the budget to soften the blow of the water rate increase from the county for our citizens who can’t afford a rate increase like that, especially when we are raising taxes too.”
Echoing the sentiment of a lot of his neighbors, Long added “We seem to be taxing people and increasing rates, but spending money it does not look like we have because of the loss of Wade Mill and the water increase last time around.”
For example, Long said he believes the recent town hall remodeling was unnecessary given the town’s current financial predicament, and admits he is aware residents are equally unhappy about the expenditures.
He said, “We have spent money on remodeling town hall, redoing the town manager’s office, these are just a couple examples- also moving the town services manager out of town hall and buying one of those small buildings, and then having to upfit it, that was probably $10-20,000.”
When asked about the #Long4TownManager floating around the internet, Long smiled and said he feels honored the people think of him that way.
He says, “If I were town manager of Wadesboro the very first thing I would do is gather all the department heads together and I would find out if they are happy, what do they need, what is their vision for Wadesboro moving forward? The next thing I would do is meet with the citizens and ask them much of the same thing. What is the citizens’ vision for their town?”
Monday night at 5 p.m. Councilman Long will be facing down his critics over his recently issued censure letter at the town council meeting held inside the Wadesboro Fire Department.
Attempts to reach Wadesboro Town Attorney Aaron Bates for clarification and comment have gone unreturned at the time of this publication.
