The charges of graft in which prominent Elizabeth City business men and members of the city administration are named will be aired in the courts. City Manager Miles W. Ferebee says that he will himself take the imitative by instituting suits for slander against W. L. Jones, president, and L. B. Culpepper, secretary and treasurer of the W. L. Jones Construction Company, and possibly George Culpepper, dealer in automobiles, road machinery and almost everything else that street paving and road contractors use.
At a meeting of the Board of Aldermen Monday night, the City Manager called for an investigation of every purchase made by his office during his administration. A citizens committee composed of C. E. Thompson, L. R. Foreman and J. B. Flora was appointed upon motion of alderman Jerry Hughes. But the City Manager has no idea that this committee without judicial powers can proceed far enough to suit him.
“I shall not be satisfied,” says Mr. Ferebee, “until the malicious business of hampering the city administration and grafting upon its contracts is broken up and I believe I owe it to myself and to the city to enter suits against every man against whom I have concrete evidence.
“In their despicable business of loading up contracts with commissions for themselves certain men, notably L. B. Culpepper and W. L. Jones, have represented to various concerns doing business with the town that controlled me and certain members of the Board of Aldermen and that in order to do business with the town I had to be paid. To protect themselves these men have represented that I must not be approached personally, but could be handled only through them, and the bidders for city business were cautioned not to discuss with me the amount that they said I was to get.
“Their methods are obvious. Pretending to get money with which to bribe me, they have sought only to get money to put in their own pockets. They have put me and put the city in a false light with numerous contractors and supply houses doing business with the city and have damned my reputation by representing me as a common grafter.
“They have created the impression everywhere that no one can do business in Elizabeth City without paying graft, and the city has been constantly hampered by contractors and others padding their prices to pay secret profits to local individuals who render the city no service at all and whose only claim to a rake-off is there false representation that they have to split their profits with me.
“I have suffered under the ignominy of these false representations for months and I shall go to the courts for redress.”
Thus speaks the City Manager in an exclusive interview given this newspaper this week. Mr. Ferebee insists that he had documentary evidence upon which to proceed and says he believes that numerous contractors who have done business with the city will substantiate his charges when put on their oaths.
This then is the latest development in Elizabeth City’s latest municipal scandal.
Powers of Citizens Committee Are Limited
The public should not expect any great revelations to come from the investigation by the Aldermen’s committee. Contractors and others who have paid money to members of the Board of Aldermen or to parties claiming to influence the Board of Aldermen are not going to incriminate themselves by talking to a committee, if they can help it. The committee hasn’t the powers of a grand jury.
Contractors and others who have been approached with demands for side profits by local individuals are not willing to talk openly because their talking would incur the hostility of every grafter in Elizabeth City and every grafter in every other town in North Carolina.
From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Aug. 6, 1926
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