Publisher and editor of the Chatham News + Record Bill Horner spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Brighton McConnell on Wednesday, May 11.
He details a recent piece covering a quartet of first-time candidates running for Siler City town government, a millionaire supporter and sweeping (but potentially plagiarized) promises.
Audio here (~18 minutes long)
I used a program to create an AI autogenerated transcript of Chatham News & Record publisher Bill Horner speaking with WCHL about the Siler City elections. (I have not made any manual corrections)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
siler city, candidates, chatham, question, affordable housing, commissioners, duke university, billionaire, newcomers, policies, claims, chatham county, election
SPEAKERS
Bill Horner, Brighton McConnell
Brighton McConnell 00:00
Well, we’ve been following a lot of the Orange County elections in this primary election cycle but over in Chatham County, the Siler City elections in the cycle, have a little bit of everything going on.
There’s a vacant mayorship, there are several Commissioner seats that are going to be open on the town board. And we also have a block of younger candidates that are running together. They’re called Unity 2022. And there’s a lot to dig into with this group. Our friends over at the Chatham News and Record newspaper just did a big story on them, the backgrounds of these gentlemen and also kind of the reaction that we’ve gotten from the Siler City community, more on the bad side than the good, I think it’s fair to say, we also have a long post from the editorial board of the Chatham news and record that was sounding the alarm about this group that was published this week. Joining me now on the phone to share some more details about this as publisher and editor of the Chatham News and Record Bill Horner. Bill. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today on 97.9 the Hill to dive into this fascinating story.
Bill Horner 01:00
Sure. Thanks for having us. Glad to.
Brighton McConnell 01:02
Absolutely. So there’s there’s really so much to get into here. I think we could probably do a full hour on this. And I can only imagine how much work here your team over at the paper is put into it. So the best thing I can tell people to go do is if you don’t know much on the background, be sure to go read their reporting on Chathamnewsrecord.com. But for a quick overview, what can you tell us about this unity 2022 Group bill, and as you were doing your reporting, kind of what you were hearing from Siler City residents about how they felt about this group of young candidates.
Bill Horner 01:35
Sure, well, well, first thing you mentioned that there’s there’s a lot
to this, the story that we published last week was 5000 words long.
Now, to put that in context. And the typical newspaper story is
somewhere between 508 100 words, a story of about 1000 words is kind
of considered long. So to be 5000 words, I don’t know that we’ve ever
published a 5000 word article before it’s a magazine length article,
just because there’s there’s so much there. But just to kind of give
you some context. Siler City’s town board of commissioners is made up
of seven commissioners and the mayor is nonpartisan. So there’s they
don’t pile as Republicans from Democrats. And the election was
supposed to take place last November with COVID and the census and
everything else that was moved to march them with the map issue, and
so forth. It was moved to May. So the next Tuesday, the primary is
actually going to be the election for Siler cities town board. So
there are five races five of the seven actually eight if you include
the mayor, five of those eight seats are on the ballot this year, four
of those races are contested. And you’ve got a mayor in that large
seat and then the two district in district one on this front. What
happened is we’ve had multiple candidates file for each of those
seats. But among among those names are for newcomers for young man who
are newcomers who are new to Siler City. One of the things that we
found out in researching is that they all registered to vote in Siler
City between November and January. They’re all new to town and they
are assumption with a man named Courtney Jordan, who is kind of pace
himself as a billionaire. He’s not on any of the the regularly
accepted list of billionaires they’re typically if you go to any major
website, you can find the same five men or same five people listed as
billionaires. He is described in some foreign publications as a
billionaire. One of the one of the stories with soft said that he sold
some software an app for about $350 million. That’s a long way from
from millionaire at any rate, he has come to town with an organization
called Startup father. And it looks to be like a pure philanthropic
effort on his behalf to kind of help Tyler city out. What they talked
about doing is bringing prosperity and Fowler sitting helping out with
poverty, with affordable housing and so on so forth. And in the
meantime, you have these four candidates as Nick Guyardo, who’s
running for Americans chip price and Donald Matthews. Dean pico Jr.
who is running for the at large see it against income and Cindy Brian
J. Underwood, Samuel Williams, who’s running against Alberta, often a
district one and then Jared pica, who apparently is the pickles
brother who was running for the district five seat against Louis
Stabler who’s the incumbent and regular Fox. So we started hearing a
few weeks ago about these four running as a bloc running as a unity
ticket. You couldn’t find anything online about them. So we did some
digging, and had a couple of interviews and that’s where things really
really got confusing because the relationship Between Courtney Jordan,
this apparent millionaire who came to Siler City from Durham to create
the startup, Sylar and these four candidates is really kind of hard to
tie because they kind of disavow relationships with each other. But
there was a candidate form at a church and Siler City a couple of
weeks ago, a couple of Sundays ago, recording Jordan was there and our
reporter actually sat near him. And it was clear that he was
supporting these four candidates, because every time any one of them
spoke, he would leave a standing ovation, they were about five people.
If you if you could watch the video, you can’t watch the video anymore
because they had it removed from YouTube. But if you watch the video,
and we actually have watched it several times, we actually have a
recording of it. Anytime one of these four candidates b, p stands up
and leaves kind of a standing ovation, they’re about the same five
people that stand up. So we started hearing about just and then usual
thing, this block of candidates who don’t block candidates from
running the block, you know, fairly frequently they kind of run
together. But having for newcomers, is kind of what was so odd about
this and the fact that it was so hard to find out anything about them.
So that was that was kind of how the whole process started for us.
Brighton McConnell 06:16
Once again, we are speaking with Bill Horner, the publisher and editor
of the Chatham News and Record you can find that there intensive and
expansive story on this unity 2022 Block running in Siler City’s local
elections by heading to Chatham news record.com. So, to recap for
people you have these four unexperienced and young folks running for
Siler City positions, they’re making bold promises there, they have
very aggressive tactics, which sound like include kind of attacking
other candidates, and also residents who are kind of calling them out.
You have a millionaire supporter, all of whom are relatively new to
Siler City. And as you are trying to put together this coverage and
try and find out more about these candidates as they are running for
these important positions in Siler City. It sounds like according to
your reporting, there starts to be some inconsistencies that pop up
again, most of those details can be best found in the article, but
what were some of the main things that stood out to you, Bill, as your
team is doing this reporting, and you’re starting to kind of learn
more about these folks?
Bill Horner 07:17
Well, a lot of it started with the with the candidate forum, some of
the clients that they made. So among the things, they talked about
work, the fact that they made a lot of really vague claims about
neglect and malfeasance over the last decade by the existing town
board of commissioners. Couple of them made comments about the fact
that Siler City has spent between 50 and $60 million during the month
of March, and when when someone questioned them about it. They feel
it’s in the minutes. It’s in the minutes and there’s nothing in the
minutes. You got to understand this taller City’s annual budget, the
municipality is taller city, the annual budget is about $17,600,000.
So there’s no way that Fowler said he could spend 50 or $60 million in
one month. Yeah, that was one of the claims that they made. One of the
candidates said, Hey, these guys are telling you lies, lies lies
talking about the existing commissioners, the same candidate said you
know, they’re doing you dirty. They were just, again, very vague
claims, but very damning claims about the existing board of
commissioners. And then one of the things our store looks at closely
is Thomas bus, Samuel Williams. So Samuel Williams, again, one of the
young candidates who’s running in district one, when he introduced
himself, each of the candidates have four minutes to speak. And when
he introduced himself, he said that he was one of the head honchos in
that field description at Duke University Health Systems, and he lists
on the on the questionnaire that he provided for us. He listed his
occupation as hospital manager. In fact, if you go to the his website
right now, it still says that he’s a manager with Duke University
Health System, where he has supervised seven clinics. I’m looking at
it right now. None of that’s true. He does work our he did work for
Duke University Health Systems as an administrator in one of the
clinics in bar chapel. When I heard these comments and watching the
video, the first thing I did, the following day was reached out to the
media relations folks that had Duke University Health Systems, and
trying to get confirmation and I kind of detail out of the story, but
the question I asked them is, is he a manager and they sent me links
to their leadership team. They have more than 100 people on the
leadership team. Most of them are in these are PhDs or have an MBA.
He’s not listed among them. And finally, they confirmed to me that he
was in that he he worked at one clinic and was kind of an
administrator helping out one clinic. And he also made the claim that
they that he was in the car Researchers would do about bringing to
urgent care facilities to Siler City, and that he was going to bring
any food they’re putting he’s bringing seven or eight clinics to
Chatham County. And of course, we asked that question I asked that
question to the Duke officials. And they said, We have no plans, we’re
having no conversation at all to get a solid city. So we found out the
next day, when we were actually about ready to get a press with the
story that published last week that he was no longer employed by Duke,
we got confirmation from them. And so that just raised a lot of
question. But he said a number of other things, too, one of the things
that he said, is that, that one of the focal points of their campaign
is that they weren’t going to make it so that if you’re paying rent in
Siler City, your rent would never go up. And that’s a quote, he said,
if you’re paying rent, your rent will never go up, which I think would
surprise you to some landlords there. And he also talked about the
fact that he had signed a pledge to bring 100 high paying jobs to
Siler City within the next year, paying $40,000 A year and he said
that a couple of times, and someone in the audience
Bill Horner 11:16
kind of recognized that gap. Because what they had actually said
earlier, a couple of other candidates had said earlier, they were
going to bring 1000 high paying jobs. Well, we know that the campsite,
the Chatham advanced manufacturing site in Siler City, is is the focal
point of a lot of attention. And we’ve just gotten no word about
vinfast 7500 jobs averaging about 51,000. You and I can make the
promise writing that we’re going to bring 1000 jobs to Siler City in
the next year. And we would, we would be fine in saying that, because
that’s probably a good bet. But the four of them said, Hey, we found
this place, that doesn’t happen, and we’re going to resign. So those
were just some of the things. And then of course, the next week, the
campaign website comes up, which has these 70 items or policies and
objectives that they have focusing on a number of different areas
economic development, they seem on policing, sustainability,
affordable housing. And as we resource you can enter some of the
wording for these policies into Google and you find that they are
plagiarise lifted from other candidates and other states and
locations, platforms. I shared this list of seven new policies with
Chip Price who is a who is actually a sitting at large Commissioner,
he’s running for the vacant Mayor seat. I gave the 70 policies to him
and asked for his feedback. And then if you look at the policies,
anybody who knows anything about town government can see some of these
things are in process. Some of them are things that towns do. Anyway,
some of them are quite outlandish, including the thing about the rant
about keeping a lid on rent. And they also talk about the fact that
they’ve got $100 million pledge to create an affordable housing loan
fund, they’re also talking about doing a $45 million bond issue for
affordable housing, you can’t promise those things and they would not
identify who the $100 million donor was. So it’s your prize for making
making some assessments about that. I said that he counted at least
20, they would require at least 25 New Town employees to make these
policies work. So that was a really a real red flag to come out and
say, Hey, we’re making these 70 promises to you. But we have no way
there’s no it doesn’t indicate on the website that none of the
candidates were to answer our questions about this. We called and
emailed each other and we got we’ve still gotten a response to the
question, how are you going to pay for that? So that just kind of
started the red flags. And then, of course, some of the other things.
Follow that. You had a group of people Siler City who were very
concerned who started a Facebook page called Save Our Sylar, which has
a lot of good research, more stuff than that we found and some stuff
that we found as well, that’s worth checking out. And then you had
some competing Twitter sites, kind of walking back and forth. And then
you had this battle going on the next door social media platform,
between one of the candidates and a resume who were just kind of going
after each other. It just raised, you know, so many questions and so
many red flags. And again, the bothersome thing for me as a journalist
is, hey, if you want to come in and work inside out to help change a
town, let’s get this be specific talk about how you’re going to do
with and since that, that since the day of that candidate form, which
is coming up two weeks now they have not answered any of our
questions.
Brighton McConnell 14:58
Once again, we’re speaking with Bill Horner, the publisher and editor
of the Chatham News and Record Chatham news record.com. The place to
go to find this in depth report on the Unity 2022 Block running for
Siler City positions. Bill, I’m afraid we’re starting to bump up
against our time here. But again, you kind of you kind of just
indicated this to the papers Editorial Board has put out kind of their
own statement kind of sounding their words are sounding the alarm
about this block. Can you briefly kind of summarize that and share
what you think the main takeaway for readers should be?
Bill Horner 15:30
Yeah, I think they’re just there’s so many red flags. And look, it’s
not the time in Siler City for to hand over the keys to town hall, to
for newcomers, who clearly have no idea about how a municipality
works, about how town administration works. And that’s what what
happened is the former elected again, you’ve got a seven member board
plus a mayor, you almost have a majority there because the mayor votes
in the case of ties. And all the questions about Courtney Jordan,
which you know, we could spend another hour talking about him. And
some of the things we found out about but you know, the issue is, and
we do say, you will need to read this piece, because we do say, look,
there’s some things that they have brought to light as things, not
anything that we didn’t know. But there are some issues in Salt Lake
City that needs to be addressed. And the commissioners need to address
those issues. But do you want for folks who are brand new to town who
don’t know the history who don’t know the people who don’t know, the
players and don’t know how things work making this decision? So the
purpose of the editorial this week, and we don’t endorse candidates,
it’s just a practice that we have that I felt so strongly about this,
I thought it was necessary for us to really lay out what might happen
if they get elected. And that was not the time because of all the good
things are happening. Now is not the time to bring in four brand new
cars.
Brighton McConnell 17:05
Once again, Chathamnewsrecord.com, the place to go to find that
piece from the editorial board, but also, again, the 5000 word in
depth report on this. And I imagine that the newspaper gonna continue
to be doing some excellent coverage ahead of primary early, early
voting, and I should say as the early voting period wraps up, and
primary elections are set for Tuesday, as always, Bill Horner thanks
so much for the time and thank you so much for the work y’all are
doing and we look forward to catching up again soon.
Bill Horner 17:34
Thanks, Brian. Anytime we appreciate your reporting as well. Thanks very much
From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2022, 10:19:04 AM EDT
Subject: Audio & AI autogenerated transcript of funny stuff going on in Siler City elections