Currituck Residents want to know how Construction of the Tulls Creek Elementary School began without an Easement

This is a developing report

On the heels of county residents learning, the county attorney issued a stay on public prayer at the County’s senior centers; residents learned on Monday that construction on the new Tulls Creek Elementary School started without a proper easement to arrive at the address. County commissioners were both blind and utterly unaware of these issues.

County Commissioner Paul Beaumont, the only member of the board to speak publicly on many issues, said yesterday that county staff knew about the lack of easement for more than a year. Both recent problems are concerning; the county manager, Ike McRee, and county attorney, Megan Morgan, are responsible for carrying out decisions made by the commissioners.

A matter of money

Just one year ago, Currituck commissioners justified McRee’s 200K salary while county attorney because “we needed a seasoned and experienced county attorney.” McRee was promoted to county manager and retained his salary of 100K more than previous managers. Following his promotion, the County hired an inexperienced county attorney at a salary of 100K less than McRee.

A question of performance

Last year, Blackwater Reports started hearing from commissioners that they were unhappy with McRee and were considering terminating his contract. Termination would be costly to the County if he were terminated for anything but cause. MeRee’s contract has the equivalent of a golden parachute should he be terminated.

We are publishing Beaumont’s unedited comment on the Moyock Facebook page on the 22nd:

“I became aware in November that the County did not have an easement agreement in place needed to connect Tulls Creek Elementary School (TCES) to Campus Drive. Without an easement, the project is at a near standstill. Apparently Currituck has been able to get this far without it. I was never informed of the requirement despite the fact that the County has known about this issue for well over a year. The worst case scenario would be redesigning the entrance from Campus to off of Tulls Creek Road. The redesign could cost a significant amount of money, however could delay completion by up to a year. At no time was this risk briefed to me. Discussions are ongoing to find a solution, but nothing is in place st this time.”

This is a developing report, more as it becomes available.