Redmond still standing by her sweetheart deal

As part of the N&O’s profiles of candidates for Raleigh Mayor, the newspaper ran another story taking another look at Billie Redmond’s dealings on Wake County’s Citizens’ Facilities Advisory Committee, a citizen’s committee tasked with deciding how to spend bond money. As you recall, as co-chairperson of the board Redmond enthusiastically supported a proposal to overspend $4 million of taxpayer money on property for an Apex school, knowing the deal would net her company a cool quarter-million in commissions. Fortunately, the Commissioners torpedoed the deal and put a new policy in place that all property must be appraised first.

In today’s article, Redmond inexplicably still thinks that was a great decision:

Redmond said she’s proud of the way she handled the episode. “It was a great process and it was the right process,” she said.

At the time, Redmond sought the approval of Tony Gurley, who was then chair of the Commissioners. She also consulted Wake County school board chairwoman Patti Head. Whom she apparently did not consult was the Wake County attorney’s office, who would’ve likely blown a fuse over the whole deal. If she thought it might even look shady, as she apparently did by asking around the way she did, why did she go through with it?

Gurley also hasn’t learned anything from the debacle. His quote:

“We were not concerned about the appearance of conflict as much as whether there was a legal issue,” Gurley said at the time. “We wanted people engaged in the business of building schools.”

Why wasn’t Gurley concerned about the appearance of conflict? As even current school board chair and fellow Republican Ron Margiotta said, whether or not there was a legal issue with it, this deal stinks to high heaven. Why does Gurley think it’s not his job to protect the public’s purse from shady deals? Isn’t that why he was elected?

I think voters should think very carefully before electing someone who might put her business interests before the city’s interests. Redmond’s past raises some serious ethical questions.