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November 29, 2012 (Special Meeting) Page 1301 The Board of Commissioners for the County of Cabarrus met for a Special Meeting in the Multipurpose Room at the Cabarrus County Governmental Center in Concord, North Carolina on Monday, November 29, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. Present - Chairman: Vice Chairman Commissioners Elizabeth F. Poole Larry M. Burrage Christopher A. Measmer Robert W. Carruth H. Jay White, Sr. Also present were Mike Downs, County Manager; Richard M. Koch, County Attorney; Jonathan Marshall, Deputy County Manager; Pam Dubois, Deputy County Manager and Megan Smit, Clerk to the Board. Call to Order Chairman Poole called the meeting to order at 3:06 p.m. Discuss and Consider Approval of the Bond of the Cabarrus County Register of Deeds Poole: Welcome, everybody. And what we're going to start with, what - yeah I'm good - okay. Whenever you walk in I've done something (inaudible.) Okay. What we're going to start with is that I asked our attorney to give us some background and make sure that all of us ... you do have in front of you Article or Chapter 161 which covers the register of deeds office and I asked Rich if he would kind of go over this. I didn't have time to read it word for word before getting here and just kind of go over it and give us some background first and then - then we'll open for discussion. Thank you. Koch: Thank you, Madame Chair. You have before you Chapter 161 of the North Carolina General Statutes which prescribes the duties for the office of register of deeds for the several counties of this state. If you look on page 1, under 161 -4 that is the statute that requires that a bond be provided by the register of deeds for the faithful performance of the duties of the office. The maximum amount of that bond is $50,000.00 under the statute and that is the amount that previous boards of commissioners have determined to be the sufficient amount for the bond for the register of deeds of this county. Now, really, not many of those other individual statutes under 161 really touch on the purpose of this hearing, it really goes more into the - into how to go about applying for the bond and what the requirements are and what the relative obligations are of the parties. Those are actually contained in Chapter 58 of the North Carolina General Statutes which is specifically starting under Article 72 of Chapter 58. So I'll actually be talking about a number of specific statutes under that particular chapter. (Inaudible - Multiple people conversing at once) Koch: Just by way of background in this particular situation, customarily the county because there is a requirement, not only for the office of the register of deeds, but also for other elected and appointed offices within the county that that particular officer give a bond. It applies to the office of sheriff, it also applies to the finance director - which is an appointed position, rather than an elected position - and then there's a couple of other offices which are set out in the statutes for which a bond is required. Because of that requirement, the county's procedure in the past has been to - to utilize a particular surety, or bonding company, to provide those services for these elected and appointed officers and then the customary procedure is. for that officer to make application to that bonding company for approval and issuance of the bond. That is the procedure that has been employed in the past, it was also the same procedure that was employed in this particular case involving the election of Mr. Small to the office of register of deeds. Mr. Small shortly after the election results were in made application to the county's bonding company. That was submitted to them and in their underwriting decision they decided to deny the bond. The reason for that was not disclosed to the county, but that was the decision of the bonding company. When that was learned, the county manager wrote a letter to Mr. Small advising him of that action, at which time, as I understand it Mr. Small indicated to the county manager that he would secure his own bond. And then, subsequently, did that and submitted a bond I think sometime last week or at the end of the week before - a proposed bond from Western Surety Company - White: Who is that? Koch: Western Surety Company, it's actually, I think there's been a merger - it's CNA /Western now. The bond itself actually indicates "Western Surety Company" and they are a company that's licensed by the Department of Insurance of North Carolina and are in good standing with that department in this state. When Mr. Small provided that bond, it was reviewed by the Safety and Risk Director, Tony Harris, the county manager and myself to determine if it was compliant with the statute aside from the - you know, making a determination as to whether the company was a company in good standing. We