Mecklenburg board votes to replace Commissioner Ella Scarborough. Here’s what we know.
A tumultuous week of questions over the status of county commissioner Ella Scarborough came to a head on Tuesday, as the Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners voted to approve her official medical leave and seek an interim replacement to fill her at-large seat.
Her position as a board member has been unclear for months. She has been absent from recent meetings, and her ability to fully participate prior to her absence has been in question since before the pandemic.
The commission voted 5-3 to seek an interim replacement for Scarborough. Board chairman George Dunlap said the county will develop procedures to better outline that process in the coming days.
Tuesday’s commissioners meeting marked the first time the board voted to approve medical leave for Scarborough. But she notified Dunlap and county commissioner Dena Diorio of her intention to take leave as early as October.
Board members said Tuesday that they were not aware of that request.
That leave request was for 60 days of leave. She wrote Diorio and Dunlap again in December, saying that she would be out “the foreseeable future as I am still dealing with health challenges.”
On Monday, she again wrote to them, along with other county officials, saying that she wanted to “continue my paid medical leave of absence until further notice.” Dunlap said he believed that the latest request was made by her children on her behalf.
‘A living legend’
Scarborough has been a commissioner since 2014 and was the top vote-getter in the 2020 election. In 1987, she became the first Black woman elected to serve on the Charlotte City Council in 1987. She also ran for U.S. Senate, and ran for mayor twice.
“She is a living legend,” commissioner Pat Cotham said Tuesday, speaking through tears. “She has done so much for this community.”
Commissioner Vilma Leake, citing Scarborough’s status as a legacy Black political actor in Charlotte, made a motion to continue paying Scarborough through her leave. That motion passed 5-3.
“That is showing compassion,” Dunlap said.
North Carolina statute lays out medical leave for county commissioners and says that officials on leave should not receive their salary “unless the leave of absence is granted by reason of protracted illness.” If the reason is protracted illness, the county “shall not deprive the official of the benefits of any sick leave to which the official may be entitled by law.”
Two other motions, one to delay the decision to pay Scarborough and another to pay only for her health benefits, both failed.
Proponents of the motion to only pay for medical benefits, including commissioners Susan Rodriguez-McDowell and Laura Meier, argued that the board should consider the commissioner position on its own, rather than Scarborough’s personal history of service.
They also said the public should not have to pay the full salary of a commissioner who is not participating. Commissioners make $31,715 a year.
“We need to make this decision not based on the person — and there is no question Commissioner Scarborough is an icon, there’s no question about her service — but what we are doing I believe is setting a precedent for the future,” Rodriguez-McDowell said. “This is about governance … We need to protect the integrity of this board.”
Commissioner Leigh Altman said the discussion to not pay her salary was “really unseemly, frankly.”
“Commissioner Scarborough is an icon, and I join those asking for dignity and respect for her,” she said.
Replacing Scarborough
During the meeting Tuesday, Dunlap laid out some of the steps the board will take to find Scarborough’s replacement.
He said people will have one week to apply for the job. Once the applications close, county commissioners will review them with each picking nine to interview. The commissioners will then interview the candidates as a group.
After the interviews are complete, the board will discuss who to appoint as the next commissioner during a public meeting. It is unclear when that meeting will take place.
The applicants must be Democrats who reside in Mecklenburg County.
Commissioners disagreed on some of the criteria that they hope to prioritize. Some, for example, want to find a Black woman to fill Scarborough’s seat. Others wish to limit the pool to previously elected officials who could jump into the job more quickly.
Medical leave
When asked last week whether Scarborough was on medical leave, Dunlap told the Observer that she had previously requested to be on medical leave, but that there was “no such thing” as a formal medical leave process.
The county did not respond last week to The Observer’s requests about Scarborough’s status as a commissioner.
On Tuesday, though, the county formally embraced the medical leave process. Dunlap and Diorio said they were not aware of the formal process until recently.
Dunlap said he saw a recent interaction about the process on Twitter between Charlotte attorney Larry Shaheen and another citizen. Once the board was aware of the law, they began the process of pursuing that option.
Cotham said she wished the board was aware of Scarborough’s previous requests for medical leave.
“I wish that in October we would have known, because I think it could have helped prepare us,” she said.
This is a developing story. Check back for more details.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 6:09 PM.
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