A special council meeting on Wednesday, March 18 devolved into yelling and accusations of lies, followed by a 40-minute recess during which council and staff tried to come to some kind of an accord. At issue: the procurement of a laptop, and one council member’s efforts to get that laptop more quickly, even though it violated policy.
Background
In January, newly elected Leland Councilmember Frank Pendleton wanted a laptop. Council members are typically issued an iPad, so the town council took it to a vote on January 12 and agreed to get him a laptop matching the specs of those received by town staff.
According to a legal memo generated in the aftermath of these interactions, “On January 15, Staff and Councilperson Pendleton learned that the estimated time of delivery was 13+ plus weeks. Councilperson Pendleton understandably was frustrated.”
He then asked for contact information for the vendor, which Town Manager David Hollis provided. According to the legal memo, Pendleton went around the town IT department and the town manager to talk with the vendor directly, and was given a sooner delivery date: February 18. This still was not early enough for Pendleton, so he sought an alternative laptop from the vendor.
The legal memo indicates that vendor, Max Hoon, felt some substantial pressure from Pendleton.
“The receptionist told Mr. Hoon via Teams at 16:36 hours that ‘Frank Pendleton called you again right now, it seems like your phone is not set up – it keeps going to voicemail," according to the memo. "He is calling from Town of Leland in NC, said it was his 4th time trying to get into contact with you. Please call him back as soon as possible, thanks!’”
Once they talked on the phone, Pendleton told Hoon he might prefer an alternative laptop that would be delivered sooner. According to the legal memo, Hoon told Pendleton on January 21 that he could cancel the order, and “the call ended with Mr. Pendleton asking Mr. Hoon to “do exactly that and keep him updated on the progress.”
Pendleton later disputed that version of the conversation, according to the memo, and said that he “merely wanted to find out what was possible,” and did not direct Hoon to cancel the order. Regardless, Hoon initiated cancellation. Pendleton continued contact with Hoon during an all-day ‘essentials of Government’ training, which he attended with Hollis and Mayor Brenda Bozeman. Records in the legal memo indicate he texted and called Hoon throughout that day without discussing the matter with Hollis or with the mayor.
Hoon repeatedly discussed the cancellation of the procurement order with Pendleton, and when he suggested talking with staff, Pendleton said “confirm with me first,” according to text records available in the legal memo.
Soon after, IT staff checked in about the original order, found out about the unsanctioned contact with Pendleton, and ended that contact. Hollis also cancelled the order Pendleton had put forward.
Afterwards, the town manager sent an email detailing some of the aforementioned actions. “Injection of persons not expressly authorized by the policy to act on behalf of the town and whose actions do not take place in the checks and balances procedures in the policy exposes the town to risk and creates confusion. I recommend that council notify the town attorney and request advisory legal opinion on this matter,” Hollis wrote.
On February 9, the town of Leland held a special meeting to discuss the matter, though Pendleton went unnamed until he outed himself as the subject of the inquiry. At that time, council voted to direct town attorney Stephen Coggins to look into the matter. That meeting was the provenance of the legal memo.
WHQR requested the invoice for Coggins’ legal services, and the cost of the services rendered related to the “laptop matter” totaled $9,920 in legal fees from Rountree Lossee. That included 29.3 hours of Coggins’ time at a rate of $300 per hour, 2.9 hours at his associate’s rate of $200 per hour, and 4.4 hours of the paralegal’s time at $125 per hour.
An explosive meeting
Initially, the meeting on March 18 reviewing the memo’s findings was rather tame. Coggins presented his findings, noting that the town was not at legal risk because of Pendleton’s interference in the Procurement order.
“It's important to note that no money has changed hands, no subsequent contract or obligation was reached between the town and a vendor. No contractual obligation was binding, and so therefore the town, as I see it, has no liability that arises under that,” Coggins told council.
He explained his findings in detail, and then said, “I don't believe there was any violations of law […] I do recommend that it be explicitly provided that elected members of council have no role, particularly in the procurement process. There's nothing in there that says that they do have a role, but it's probably a good idea to provide that in an explicit manner.”
Councilmember Veronica Carter suggested bringing the matter to the attention of the state auditor to determine how to add language into the procurement process to “help us to understand what we can do to ensure this doesn't happen again.”
Pendleton responded that Coggins would be well-suited to determine that language instead of the auditor, and Coggins responded that he did think the language could be clearer about what elected officials are and are not permitted to do within the government structure of the town of Leland.
As for the auditor question, Coggins said, “I certainly am not going to dissuade or try to dissuade anybody from trying to get advice about how to make your policies better.” But he added, “I'm not sure the state auditor is actually the best source. It may be just the Local Government Commission itself, of which the auditor sits as a member.”
The Local Government Commission (LGC) is a state-level regulatory body that provides oversight for major financial transactions (like bonds) and helps set accounting standards for towns, cities, counties, and other small government bodies.
Carter responded after a bit more discussion: “I will make an amendment that we send this to the local government commission and ask for their assistance.”
Mayor Bozeman said, “I was hoping this was going to be put to bed tonight. I'm tired of it. It's an issue that we need to get rid of.”
After some back and forth about what it would mean for the LGC to dig into the matter, Coggins offered to be the intermediary. “I would be comfortable if your motion was simply to authorize your town attorney to consult with the local government commission regarding the town's present policies and any suggestions for amendment with respect to the role of elected officials.”
Carter rescinded her original motion and moved to do just as Coggins suggested, and the motion was approved unanimously. Bozeman attempted to end the meeting there, but Pendleton wanted to have his say.
Pendleton's remarks
At about 25 minutes into the meeting, he read prepared remarks for approximately 13 minutes.
He began by saying, “if it weren't for the fact that this process has needlessly wasted a huge amount of time and, more importantly, a great deal of taxpayer monies, it would be laughable.”
He went on to contest the manner in which this meeting was called, complained that Coggins only spent one hour interviewing him, and said “ In fact, I would argue that the town of Leland has spent substantially more money on the attorney fees than what it been would have been for the entire cost of the computer during Mr. Coggins is investigation, I'm sure he spent considerable amount of time discussing the matter with many people.”
He also raised concerns that Coggins was shown the email from Hollis before the February 9 meeting, and said that Coggins’ list of “undisputed facts” was, in fact, disputed. He questioned Coggins’ honesty, and suggested that city staff like Hollis weren’t to be trusted.
“It certainly appears that this was a case built on entrapment, political meddling, violations of the employee code of ethics and insubordination on the part of the town manager. This situation has drug on for far too long,” he said.
As for his defense of his actions involving himself in the procurement process, Pendleton said “I did not call the vendor on January 21 in an effort to expedite the delivery. I called simply to verify the lead time from the vendor and to see if the town manager had lied to me. As it turned out, someone was lying because the vendor told me that the computer would be delivered between January 30 and February 4, which would have been two weeks from the delivery date or from the order date. So someone was indeed lying, either the town manager was lying to me, or the vendor was lying to the staff.”
Pendleton concluded his remarks by saying, “One of the few things that I agree with in Mr. Coggins’ report was I broke no laws, and I should be exonerated in this entire investigation. In addition, I believe that the town manager should immediately move forward with restoring the computer order that was voted on by council on January the 12th.”
That was met with a round of raucous applause from his supporters in the audience.
Councilmember Bob Campbell responded after these remarks: “Pendleton, I absolutely agree with somebody here was lying. And in my opinion, just from what I read, sounds more like you.”
Things got more heated from there, with the crowd shouting out against the rest of council and the town manager.
Councilmember Leland Hyer asked why Pendleton didn’t ask the mayor or Hollis about the laptop sooner, particularly when they all attended an all-day training together. Pendleton replied, “I made that request many times, many times, directly to the town manager, and he gleefully told me, ‘No.’”
Carter asked whether Pendleton would take Leland or the town manager to court so they could defend themselves. And she defended Coggins: “You have an opportunity if you believe that this officer of the court has violated his ethics. He serves a higher authority in North Carolina, [the] Bar Association. So rather than just throw his reputation as a municipal government lawyer under the bus, then take it to the Bar Association. If you believe that we've done something wrong, you can certainly go to the auditor and the local government commission as well. You have that ethical responsibility. So at this point, are you prepared to do that?”
[Editor’s note: Technically, the state regulatory body for attorneys is the North Carolina State Bar, whereas the North Carolina Bar Association is a private, non-profit professional organization.]
Bozeman tried to end the meeting there. But Pendleton asked that the original order for the laptop be reinstated. Carter had more to say, too, trying to suggest that Pendleton had, indeed, canceled the original order – meaning the one council had initially approved, the wait time for which Pendleton had found unacceptable: “how many times did you call the vendor to see if the cancellation had gone through?”
Pendleton said, “I did not attempt to change an order, and I did not attempt to cancel an order. Hence there was no violation of any policy regarding procurement.”
Hyer asked why Pendleton would write, “confirm with me first,” and Pendleton instead suggested there weren’t proper mechanisms in place to prevent him from getting that information. He eventually admitted that he did write that to Hoon.
Hyer continued his line of questioning: “Why didn't you include anyone at the town of Leland in your conversation with the vendor?”
Pendleton got heated: “Because I'd already been lied to at that point. I couldn't trust anything that anybody was telling me, because they told you 13 plus weeks on a lead time that was a vendor told me two? Somebody’s lying.”
Hyer said, “It seems like whenever, every time you bring this up, like everybody's lying, but you Frank, it just seems that way.”
At that point, Bozeman called for a 5-minute break. Some 45 minutes later, the council returned to the dais, only to immediately adjourn.
The recess and the aftermath
WHQR reached out to Pendleton for comment but did not hear back before press time. He also did not respond to previous requests for comment.
Campbell did speak with WHQR, and said during the recess, Bozeman pulled Hollis and Pendleton into another room for a “discussion,” and the rest of council was not privy to it.
Campbell has been on Leland’s town council for a decade, and said it was important to set clear expectations around procurement to avoid any illegal activity. “There are strict regulations as far as purchasing is concerned,” he said. “We’re gonna fix our procedures so that doesn’t happen again. We wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing in how that procedure is written, and be in good legal standing with the state.”
Campbell said he’s unhappy with how tense everything got – but suggests that animosity is rooted in how Pendleton ran his election campaign. “This started way back when he was running for office and the agenda was to fire the town manager and replace town council. And more than once we’ve had people come up and cry for our heads,” Campbell said.
Asked about the nearly $10,000 price tag for the legal memo: “It comes down to — if we had just done something without any substantive support behind it, then we would have been vilified by his supporters.”
He added: “We wanted a legal, unbiased opinion. Was it worth it? I don’t know. $10,000 is a lot of money. But if he had followed policy, none of this would have happened to begin with.”
Campbell said he hopes the temperature comes down from its current boil on council.
“I’m hoping that things will heal and we’ll all come around to a mutual understanding that we’re all there to serve the town of Leland,” he said. “The best way to do that is to set down around the table, talk to each other, be civil, and work together. So it is my hope that that will happen.”
But Veronica Carter isn’t so sure that’s possible. She called the entire laptop debacle “a self-inflicted wound by Mr. Pendleton.”
She agreed that the campaign set the tone for current problems. “Pendleton ran on a platform of getting rid of all the incumbents and going after Mr. Hollis and his salary,” she said. “When that’s your campaign platform, I’m not sure how you expect to govern.”
