'It shook me up pretty bad': Parks and Recreation board members shocked amidst accusations
When city volunteer Darden Jenkins turned on the television earlier this month and heard his name mentioned during a Fayetteville City Council meeting, he was shocked.
“You’re talking about volunteers, and people are saying untruths about you,” Jenkins said Tuesday. “It shook me up pretty bad.”
The “untruths” Jenkins was referencing stemmed from allegations of disrespectful behavior by some members of the 15-person Fayetteville-Cumberland Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, which Jenkins currently serves as the vice chair of, according to the board’s website. The city and the county each appoint seven members, while the school board appoints one member, according to the city.
During the City Council’s Sept. 11 meeting, Councilman Derrick Thompson motioned to remove Jenkins, a city appointee, from the board and send a letter to the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners requesting they remove two of Jenkins’ colleagues appointed by the county — Harold Smelcer, the chair, and Vickie Mullins.
“It’s because of conduct,” Thompson said.
Thompson's motion came after Councilwoman Shakeyla Ingram brought the matter of removing the trio to the Appointments Committee, which agreed that it should be voted on by the council. Thompson and Ingram both serve on the committee, and Ingram is the council’s liaison to the Parks and Recreation board.
Thompson said some of the alleged misconduct took place in front of council members.
“We can’t have volunteers disrespecting staff and other volunteers in an unorderly fashion that gives a negative attitude to an entire meeting,” he said.
Nearly two weeks later, none of the three have been removed — and all three say they haven’t heard from the City Council on the matter. So what happened?
Council discussion
After council members Ingram and Thompson introduced the issue at the Sept. 11 meeting, the council debated what to do, with several members pointing out that the council’s policy on board removals only outlined a procedure for removal for attendance issues.
“I think that we should develop a more robust policy, perhaps, that gives someone an opportunity to defend themselves against an accusation,” Councilman Mario Benavente said. “I’ve got my concerns about us kind of just flying by the seat of our pants with this.”
When Councilwoman Courtney Banks-McLaughlin asked if any of the members in question had been notified or warned of their potential removal, the council went silent.
Thompson argued that the Parks and Recreation board members would have been given a copy of the rules of decorum, noting that two board members sent emails about their colleagues’ alleged actions.
Two emails attached to the agenda item for the motion to remove Jenkins described complaints about “hostility” and “disrespect.”
Lynnie Guzman, a city-appointed member of the board, wrote in a March 13 email to all City Council members that she felt Jenkins was “the biggest offender of making this an uncomfortable environment — it seems like he thinks our group has greater authority than we do.”
Guzman said she had one year left in her first term on the board but was considering resigning because of “hostility, disrespect, and borderline bullying” she believed was directed at Michael Gibson, the director of Fayetteville-Cumberland Parks and Recreation.
In a second email dated Aug. 2, Guzman thanked Assistant City Clerk Jennifer Ayre for attending the board’s Aug. 1 meeting but said she continued to see “unprofessionalism and hostility from certain advisory board members.”
“Sometimes it seems as though Darden, Harold, and Vickie can gang up on Michael and some issues,” Guzman said in the email.
When reached by Facebook last week, Guzman declined to comment for this article.
An anonymous email from another board member who was considering resigning, also sent Aug. 2 to thank Ayre for attending, suggested that City Council members and county commissioners should attend the board’s meetings “to experience first hand the current tone and atmosphere.”
During the Sept. 11 council meeting, Councilwoman Kathy Jensen requested Thompson amend his motion to remove Jenkins, instead suggesting Thompson motion to have the council’s Policy Committee meet and create a policy for situations involving board member conduct.
Thompson declined her request.
“We’re not gonna sugarcoat this anymore. We got people on this committee that is cussing city staff out, and there’s been witnesses,” he said. “Y’all can vote any kind of way you want to. I’m not amending anything.”
A vote on Thompson’s motion to remove Jenkins resulted in a tie. Ingram then motioned to have the Policy Committee review the council’s policies on board member removal and bring the issue back to the Appointments Committee. Her motion passed unanimously.
'We knew nothing'
In both public comments they made at a Monday meeting of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners and in interviews in the days after the meeting, the three board members accused of misconduct vehemently denied the allegations.
“It is all false,” Mullins said Wednesday.
Mullins said she didn’t find out about the accusations against her, Jenkins and Smelcer until someone messaged her about the City Council meeting.
“We knew nothing,” she said.
In three years of serving on the board, she said she has never cursed or deliberately upset someone.
“Have some proof when you make an accusation like that, especially in a public meeting like they did us three," Mullins said. You better have some proof behind you.”
Smelcer and Jenkins echoed Mullins’ sentiment in separate interviews.
“These guys accused us of cussing and stuff, which did not happen. All we were doing was asking about the Massey Hill pickleball or something we’ve heard about one of the parks bonds — just asking questions,” Jenkins said Tuesday. “And that evolved into that we were being confrontational and troublemakers and cussing people out. The three people that they’ve accused of this are the three most seasoned people on the board.”
Jenkins has served on the board on and off since the late 1990s and was chairman of the Fayetteville Parks Commission in 1998 before beginning a career as a parks developer, he said.
Smelcer, the board’s current chair, said Wednesday that he has served for at least 15 years and was shocked by the claims leveled against him.
“Everybody that knows me knows that I don’t do that,” he said.
Smelcer said he has an appointment with a lawyer and is considering his options, while Jenkins and Mullins said they aren’t sure what they will do — but all three agreed they plan to remain on the board.
“It’s a tough board to be on because we have a lot of stuff coming in front of us every 30 days,” Smelcer said. “You got to be dedicated.”
'I couldn't help myself'
Councilman Deno Hondros said Wednesday that while he had not witnessed any cursing at the Parks and Recreation board’s meetings, he had attended multiple meetings that quickly turned negative.
“It got to the point where at one meeting, I couldn’t help myself — I raised my hand, I was recognized by the chair, and I said, ‘Guys, I go to a lot of board and commission meetings,’” Hondros recounted. “I sit in a lot of these, and I said, ‘I’ve never been to one that’s so negative and toxic all the time.’”
Hondros said he warned the board that such an environment could not be productive.
“I said, ‘Honestly, I don’t know what y’all hope to accomplish, and I don’t know how y’all expect to accomplish it, because in this environment, I just don’t know how that’ll be,’” he said. “It was kind of rude and disrespectful behavior towards staff, specifically Director Michael Gibson, but as well as each other.”
Hondros said that some of the arguments included complaints about the city not funding an aquatics center and disagreements over renovations at certain pickleball courts.
“I think there’s a lot of factors. I don’t think the folks are bad people; I think they’re passionate, which is good,” he said. “But we need to try to individually and collectively harness that passion in a positive light moving forward.”
Hondros said he agrees the board has a problem.
“I think there’s certainly grounds for removal,” he said. “At some point, you have to protect other board members.”
Councilman Thompson and Councilwoman Ingram could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Government watchdog reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville-Cumberland County parks board members accused of misconduct
