N. Meck town leaders’ cronyism costs taxpayers, gets town busted by county

In the sleepy little Mecklenburg town of Huntersville, the local pols and bureaucrats are showing they can be just as sneaky and shady and bumbling as the big boys and girls in Raleigh and DC:

If the newly elected Huntersville town board thought they wouldn’t have much to worry about over the next two years, they can think again. Adopting a new policy requiring stricter thresholds than currently required by state law for when formal and informal bids have to be approved by the town board would be a good place to start. By taking the lead and becoming the first town in North Mecklenburg with a policy on bid thresholds, the new town board would be doing their part to help protect Huntersville taxpayers against corrupt town officials in the future.

Ron Julian was an elected member of the Huntersville town board from 2007-2015. He was an appointed member of the town’s board of adjustment before that. He is currently licensed by the state as a general contractor with a limited building license (License #54760). As a long-time public official and licensed general contractor, you would fully expect Mr. Julian to be very familiar with the laws and regulations regarding submitting bids, including the thresholds under which formal or informal bids are not required. It was this knowledge of bid thresholds, combined with his relationship with former Huntersville town manager Greg Ferguson, that resulted in Mr. Julian and his wife being paid $97,025 by the town for demolition and repair work from August 2016 through January 2017.

According to the UNC SOG, under North Carolina law (specifically Article 8 of Chapter 143, sections 129 and 131), local governments are required to bid out purchases of “apparatus, supplies, materials, and equipment” costing $30,000 or more, and contracts for construction or repair costing $30,000 or more. Local governments do have the ability to adopt stricter thresholds than state law that would require bidding on other types of contracts or for contracts costing less than $30,000. If Huntersville had already adopted a policy requiring oversight by the town board of contracts less than $30,000, it’s highly likely the contracts discussed below would have been awarded to a business other than Teron Service, Inc.

Teron Service, Inc. (“Teron”) is a North Carolina business incorporated by Julian and his wife, Teresa Julian, in 1996. You can view the company’s annual reports filed with the NC Secretary of State’s Office here. Mrs. Julian is listed as the company’s President and Mr. Julian is listed as the Vice-President. The nature of the business is listed as “consulting.” Teron holds a valid contractors license through Mr. Julian. There is no website that I could find for Teron, but according to the company’s listing in the Huntersville Chamber business directory the focus of the business appears to be property management. I was unable to find a listing for the company in the Lake Norman Chamber’s business directory for some reason.

In June 2016, a proposal for demolition work was submitted by Mr. Julian on behalf of Teron to the Town of Huntersville [see below]. The proposal listed 13 properties to be demolished at a total cost of $142,600.00. This proposal did not include the cost of any asbestos surveys. The former town manager never informed the town board that he was awarding demo work to a former town commissioner. […]

*And WHY would you?  (Move along. Nothing to see here.)*

[…] Interestingly, none of the Mecklenburg County demo permits for the seven properties above listed Teron as the contractor. Each permit listed “Black & Sons, Inc. W C”, a contractor based out of McDowell County that has an H classification license – which covers grading and excavating work, but also allows them to perform demo work. Black & Sons, Inc. has been in the demo business for over 20 years and regularly does work in Mecklenburg County. So why wouldn’t the town just hire Black & Sons, Inc. directly to perform the necessary demo work?[…] 

*Yeah.  Um, how come?*

And then there was a little problem with environmental regulators:

Did you know the town of Huntersville received a Notice of Violation from the County’s Air Quality Department in August because the contractor used to demolish town-owned properties failed to submit any of the necessary asbestos surveys and NESHAP notifications? If you weren’t aware, don’t worry, neither was the town board. They only learned of this violation about a week ago and it wasn’t because the town manager informed them. And in case you haven’t already guessed, the contractor responsible for failing to submit any of the necessary asbestos surveys and NESHAP notifications that resulted in the violation was Teron Service, Inc.

So not only did Teron screw the taxpayers of Huntersville out of thousands of dollars for no-bid demo work with the approval of former town manager (now current town manager of Waxhaw) Greg Ferguson, they couldn’t even be bothered to submit the standard asbestos related paperwork. […]