By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. And it happened at the Aug. 26 special meeting of the Blowing Rock Town Council.
By 4-1 vote, local resident Greg Bergstrom was removed as a sitting member of the Blowing Rock Planning Board because of a letter to the editor he penned in the Aug. 21 issue of High Country Press.
In the letter, which he wrote in response to another resident’s previously published letter, Bergstrom questioned the Town Council’s and town staff’s transparency and honesty. The issue in question: a proposal to raise the height of a utility pole used for communications among fire, police and public works employees from 57 feet to 80-feet, on the town-owned property near the water storage tank in the middle of Green Hill Circle.
Mayor Charlie Sellers acknowledged at the outset that he called for the special meeting because of concerns that the Town Council and town staff were not depicted fairly or accurately by Bergstrom and that his remarks were especially egregious since he sits on the Planning Board.
Sellers said he didn’t want to deprive Bergstrom of his First Amendment rights to free speech but especially since he was an appointed member of the Planning Board his depiction of the town council, staff and the process were neither accurate nor appropriate.
Commissioner Cat Perry stated that an appointed member of an advisory body such as the Planning Board should be held to a higher standard and similarly expressed a concern that the Town and the actions of the Town Council were inaccurately depicted and untruthful.
Before entertaining any kind of motion or vote, Sellers allowed Bergstrom to address the council members. He stated that he did not sign his letter as a member of the Planning Board and was exercising his personal right to express an opinion. Then he essentially doubled down on his criticism of the Council in not being transparent in the Green Hill Circle issue.
Bergstrom’s Aug. 21 letter followed the Aug. 15 meeting of the Planning Board in which he was argumentative with Town Manager Shane Fox and didn’t seem to grasp the idea that a conditional zoning request allowed for more public input than a special use permit application, which is a quasi-judicial process limiting the permissible dialogue between and among board members, as well as their communication with other relevant constituent interests, including town staff and local residents. That is not the case with a conditional zoning permit, which is a legislative process without those restrictions.
In the same meeting, Bergstrom implied that the Town was being applicant, judge, jury and executioner regarding the utility pole issue, apparently failing to understand that the final say in the matter was not up to the Town Manager or any member of staff, but decided upon by the Board of Commissioners, whose members are elected representatives of Bergstrom’s peers, the town residents, and who are not employed by the Town.
Commissioner David Harwood stated that while he didn’t like or agree with Bergstrom’s depiction of events or town council decisions, he felt that censuring Bergstrom was sufficient and he moved to that effect. Since the motion to censure did not get a second, it died.
Commissioner Doug Matheson followed with his own motion, to remove Bergstrom from the Planning Board, because he felt that Bergstrom’s actions at least reflected a conflict of interest, one of the four reasons for potential dismissal outlined in Town Code (16-3.1.1) and the Planning Board By-Laws (Article III, Section 4). Commissioner Pete Gherini seconded the motion and it passed, 4-1, with Harwood being the lone dissenting vote.
There was no subsequent discussion as to whether the vacated seat on the Planning Board will be filled.
