Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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Speaker 2: All righty, So, the story that.
Speaker 1: The local media is focusing on today is that Mecklinberg
County Sheriff Gary not my fault. McFadden refused to comment
about the court petition filed by five people in Mecklinberg
County for former employees and one sitting state lawmaker seeking
his removal from office. Last night, he had a pre
scheduled before the petition was filed and became public. Scheduled
a meeting to talk about the reopening of Jail North.
Jail North was the juvenile detention facility. This facility was
closed in twenty twenty two under McFadden's leadership. At the
time it was they claimed it was COVID related. They
had staffing shortages, and so we had to close Jail
North to transfer his employees out of the juvenile facility
to the Central Jail Okay. And then since twenty twenty two,
we have been bussing the Mecklenburg juvenile arrestees up to
Cabaris County to the state facility there, and we've been
paying the state three million dollars a year roughly to
house them there. However, if we were to house them here,
we would keep that three million dollars and the state
would pay us four to five million dollars. So that's
roughly an eight million dollar or so savings that Mecklimberg
County would realize to offset the cost of operating Jail North,
which McFadden at the forum last night said he put
the cost to reopen it and to staff it at
about fifteen and a half million dollars, So half of
that is already can already be taken care of. I
don't and by the way, I don't trust these numbers
from McFadden, because they do they're not all inclusive, and
they don't include the offsets. When he gave his slideshow presentation,
he did not include any of the state offsets. He
was just like, he's going to cost us fifteen and
a half million dollars. Well, then the state guy who
was there, his name Billy Lasseter or William Lassiter, the
Department of Public Safety deputy secretary. He then outlines, well,
you know the three million dollars that you keep, the
four to five million dollars that the state would pay you. Oh,
and also the costs which were not broken down in
McFadden's slide show the costs of feeding the inmates. The
state would pay for that, and the state would pay
for the Medicaid for medical services, so that wasn't included.
So I don't even trust these numbers that McFadden gave
last night. But McFadden keeps claiming that he wanted to
keep Jail North open, and I believe him that he
wanted to keep it open. But the caveat here is
that only if it's under his control. He doesn't ever
say that, but that's very obvious at this point after
watching that forum last night, it is quite obvious that
the only way McFadden allows that Jail North to open
is if he maintains control over all the hiring, over
all the employees and everybody at that forum wanted the
Juvenile Detention Facility to reopen. Media is not covering what
was said during the forum and the options that were
presented during the forum. Now, last hour, I played a
clip where McFadden makes a comment about how it's so
difficult for him to recruit staff because people will just
go to work at a gas station making sixty five
thousand dollars a year. And again, I'm not sure what
the starting salary of a gas station attendant is. I
would be shocked if it is sixty five k a year.
I'm in the wrong line of work. But that told
me that that's the starting salary that he's paying his
detention officers sixty five k. Okay, why is that important?
He says he cannot recruit enough people. He can't staff
up Jail North to re then because he can't hire
ninety six people, and he kept saying ninety six people,
ninety six staff, ninety six staff. He kept saying it
over and over and over again. We can't hire it,
we can't onboard that many people, we can't train that
many people. Nobody wants to work for that low of
a pay scale. But then William Lassiter from the State
he says, actually, the state would be happy to help
with restaffing where it can. The state would help them.
Speaker 3: Now, when the facility opened, we actually when it did
the training for them, the basic training for juvenile justice,
they also did the regular detention officer training, so they
were duly certified in both detention officer and as a
juvenile officer. And so we provide that training. We would
be glad to do that again. We also helped hell
It paid this year over Tom so that he could
have staff while good staff are engaged in training, he
could have his other original staff come in and back up.
There's other staff. So we did a lot of upfront
cost in the contract. We're willing to do that again. No,
but I agree with the year. Staffing is the office part.
That's the topice part for us at Caviers. I have
a forty percent vacancy rate right now at Cavier's. Is
a we pay a lot less than the year we
started thirty seven thousand. He starts around fifty five, right
or fifty somewhere in the higher okay, even higher than that.
Speaker 2: I can recruit right now if you need me too,
higher than that.
Speaker 1: Remember earlier he said they can go work at QT
for sixty five k. So either that's the same amount
of money or it's a little bit higher than what
the sheriff's offering starting salaries for detention officers Cabaris County
forty percent vacancy. You know what the vacancy is at
the Sheriff's office. It's about forty percent. So tell me
what am I to conclude when and the state is
offering starting pay at thirty seven thousand in Cabaris, Mecklenburg
is offering almost twice that amount, and we have the
same vacancy level.
Speaker 2: What does that do to.
Speaker 1: Why would people take the job working for the state
in Cabarras County but not try to almost double their
salary by just coming across the state line or the
county line into Mecklemburg. Why not go to work for
McFadden and make sixty five to start? Is there something
else that might be driving people's decisions not to want
to work for Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office even though it's
going to almost double your salary. Hmm, gosh, it's a
brain buster. It's the difference in employers. People don't want
to work for him I keep saying this, and I'm
not just I'm not making this up. I'm not just
saying that. I'm saying it because this is what people
who work for McFadden have worked for McFadden, what they
have said. Once again, I point out he had his
two chief deputies both quit after only nine months on
the job of peace and when they quit, they went
public with their massive letter of resignation outlining all of
the abuses of power, the manipulation, the narcissism, the micromanagement,
what they would constantly call his refusal to follow a
chain of command. And we went over these allegations that
were in this petition that was filed by four of
his former employees along with a sitting state representative, seeking
his ouster through the criminal courts, which is state law.
Speaker 2: You can do that. I've been advocating that for three years.
Speaker 1: After he won reelection, I was like, this guy needs
to be removed. I went looking up the state law
to what do you do with the sheriff. I went
looking it up and there it is in the state statute.
Here's how you remove somebody from the sheriff's office. And
they're following this process and the allegations now have been
referred over to the State Bureau of Investigations by the
Mecklenburg District Attorney. So that's the backdrop there, right. So
the allegations about how he runs the sheriff's office have
been out there.
Speaker 2: For almost eight years. People have known this.
Speaker 1: Now. It would also point out that at the state level,
and this is what Lasseter said last night, both the
House and the Senate in their budgets their proposals, they're
raising salaries by more than ten percent, but because they
haven't agreed on a budget yet, those raises haven't kicked
in for these state employees. You know, stories are powerful.
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dot com. All right, So to open the closed uh
Jail North juvenile detention facility, there are several proposals that
have been made. Some are ridiculous, they come from Sheriff
not my fault, McFadden, and some are rejected by Sheriff,
not my fault mcfatten, even though they are obvious solutions
to the problem. William Lassiter spoke at this public forum
last night and he was asked by the District Court
Judge Aretha Blake, what other options are there to reopen
Jail North or another juvenile jail facility in Mecklenburg County.
And here was his answer, Oh, that's not the right
sound bit. It hang on a second, I'm looking for
seven there we go, Well, we did.
Speaker 3: We did send a letter to the county banner, to
the county commissioners, win the facility close. We offered to
lease the facility so that the state could operate it ourselves.
We offered to buy the facility outright and we would
operate it as a state owned facility. At that point,
we offered to obviously continue the contract with this year
as an option. So those are the three big options
that are we're on the table. So right now, the
General Simby has provided for me forty eight million dollars
to build a new facility. They're not willing for me
to do that in Mecklinburg County because they say there's
a facility already here, And they say, why would we
spend ninety million dollars on building a facility Because mcliburg
County planned is expensive, it's hard to have enough space
for a juvenile facility. They say, why would we build
a new facility in the county if there's one there
that we wouldn't have to pay that type of money
for its building in the in the county. So we're
we're looking at other locations for that facility. But we've
also asked a general simply to would often say, if
there's an option here needs some capital money that helped
the shareff with this facility with jail nor we're willing
to pump some money into that facility, capital money to
improve that out of that forty eight million that general
simply has set aside for that purpose. But we just
need to know what what the needs are as far
as capital to do that with, and we need to
make sure it's a truly a viable option before we
do that. I don't want to spend money on a
facility we end up not using, so leasing buying. I
think the sheriff has said that, and I don't want
to put words in your mouth, but if this isn't correct,
correct me. He doesn't want to go with the facility
because he may need it. If you had a fire
central jail, then he may need jail NORF is a
backup or if there's a hurricane or whatever that's knocked
out services of that facility, he may need jail NORF
as a backup facility. So he doesn't want to sell
it to me. He doesn't really want to lease it
to me either, for that same purpose. And so really
the option that we have here is either the shriff
runs it out of that jail jail norp or the
county would would do it as a step deal where
we'd have a county department that would run that facility.
And what I mean by that is maybe the Department
of Social Services or some other group within the county
could operate the facility as an option. And the reason
why I just throw that one out there is that
that ninety six staff that the sheriff is talking about,
it may be easier to recruit if they're not being
recruited as sheriffs deputy would as a social worker or
as a youth counselor tech is what we call them,
youth counsel in our facilities. So that is another option.
I don't know if it's a viable option or not,
but it's one that we do in other counties.
Speaker 1: Interesting, we have several options available to us. Just have
the county run it and hire ute councilor techs as
they are called in other counties, rather than just turning
it over to the sheriff or sure, he won't lease it,
he won't sell it, he won't continue the contract he
can't keep staff. The state won't give the forty eight
million dollars to the state agency to build another facility
because we have a facility that is not being used,
and McFadden says he can't possibly give it up because
he needs the spare jail. He needs a spare jail
just in case, which is absolutely absurd. I am not
aware again, I'm not aware of another county mecklem in
North Carolina that has a spare jail on backup in
case of a hurricane, not even the ones that are
in the paths of hurricanes. This seems like petty grievance
politics by the sheriff. That's what this seems like. Oh,
you're going to send your inspectors down and cite me
and my jail. Okay, then you know what, I'm gonna
shut down Jail North. I'm gonna move all of those
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So talking about the proposals to reopen the Juvenile jail
Facility aka Jail North. This was the subject of the
public forum that was held last night. Mecklemberg County Sheriff
Gary not my fault McFadden appeared along with the Department
of Public Safety Deputy Secretary Billy Lassiter, and they took
questions from the audience and about an hour of it
was just filled with people, you know, ranting about their
personal experiences and stuff, but not really talking about Jail North.
They were talking about sort of criminal justice and crime
and different issues. But what became very clear last night
is that there are options available to reopen the facility.
And it also became very clear to me at least
that the obstacle to virtually all of these options is
our sheriff. It's McFadden. As I mentioned, the state has
offered to lease Jail North and run it themselves. They've
offered to buy the facility and run it themselves. They've
offered to continue the contract that was not renewed back
in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: There is.
Speaker 1: Almost fifty million dollars the state has set aside for
a new juvenile jail facility. But the state is like,
why we would we build a new facility in meckliberg County.
With the land prices being what they are, we're going
to build a facility when you've got one sitting right
there that's empty, why don't we just use that one?
Because again, juvenile detention is a state responsibility, but there's
a cost sharing mechanism in the state law. So if
the county is running it, the county would get money
from the state to house the inmates. But if the
county is sending those juvenile inmates out of county to
a state facility, then the county has to pay the
state for half of the cost. There was another option
that the county could run it, not the sheriff, the county.
Now I had not heard this option ever pitched before,
but that to me seems like the way that the
county commissioners can do something. This is on the county
commissioners now completely controlled by Democrats, so I don't know
if they will do it. But the community has been
demanding the reopening of Jail North, and if the impediment
to doing so is the sheriff, then County commissioners, you
have the ability to do this. Now you are going
to have to reprioritize some of your funding. As I've
gone over in the past, they spend more on parks
and rec than they do on the justice system. So
you might need to reprioritize your spending to promote public safety,
to raise the funding level for public safety.
Speaker 2: And that's going to take.
Speaker 1: Away from some of your other priorities that you prefer,
that you that make you feel warm and fuzzy. You're
going to have to maybe dial back some of that
spending and do the thing that actually is the primary
function of any government, which is to provide security and
a justice system. So last clip here from last night, McFadden,
who has he has he had pitched another idea which
was a ridiculous idea, which was to close down the
state facility in Gibers County where we are currently sending
our juveniles while they await trial and hearings. So he says,
close down Cabara's County and give me all of your employees,
which by the way, would still be understaffed at Jail North.
He says, just transfer them over to my employment. And
the state last night told him the state eyelassiters like, yeah,
we can't do that. They would have to reapply for
those positions. It's not a simple transfer. You can't legally
do that. But McFadden kept harping on this idea that
we can't possibly hire ninety six staff. It's just too
much of a burden. We can't possibly find enough people.
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 1: This pressure exists in law enforcement offices all over the place.
Thank you the defund the police crowd aka Democrats, thank
you for that. Right when you villainize an entire profession,
then shockingly, people don't want to go into that profession.
So this is you know, your own fault, and we
are all now living under the with the circumstances that
you guys created.
Speaker 2: I get that, but the state dismissed this idea. Can't
do that.
Speaker 1: Gary can't just transfer state employees over to county sheriff's
office employees.
Speaker 2: We can't do that.
Speaker 1: They would have to reapply, and there are different standards
that the state uses versus the county.
Speaker 2: So there's that too.
Speaker 1: Although McFadden does have a bit of a history of
letting people slide on some of the requirements to get jobs.
That was in the petition that was filed for his removal.
So then McFadden proposed yet another ridiculous idea here it is.
Speaker 4: I would love to say that My idea is Okay,
if you've got forty two million, and this what I'm
saying we put up there on the table.
Speaker 3: If you willn't spend forty two million, can we renovate
that building.
Speaker 4: To fight that That will be both of what they
need if you have this kind of money.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you this, and God forgive me for said.
Speaker 4: It's politics here, No matter what to think, it's politics.
They play nice in your face, but when we behind
that doors, his politics. If I have a building and
I'm willing to open it, why can't you fund it?
Speaker 3: If I have a building and willing.
Speaker 4: To open it, why can't you create a mechanism, which
is an HR group of people to hire.
Speaker 3: Ninety six people.
Speaker 4: If you want to fund it, you can give me
the money and I'll take the money and I'll create
my I'll create an own HR unit just for the
tension center, not my HR unit, not my HR or
recruiting unit. You're gonna have to have people to recruit
hire ninety six people. If they want to say, well, sure,
if here's an X amount of money to open up
an HR to fund another unit to hire particularly for
that unit.
Speaker 3: Why can't. It's a lot of things that we can do,
but who's willing to do it?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the forty two million is capital money for
the construction of a new facility, but the state says,
you already have a facility. So he's saying, okay, well,
give me the money and I will build a new
HR unit that will go out and try to hire
people just for the juvenile detention facility. The problem is
you're still hiring into the Mecklimberg County Sheriff's office, and
people don't want to work there, even with the higher
pay than other state run facilities. The state is paying
the Cabaris County jailers starting at thirty seven K, and
it's hard to hire at that price point. Mecklinberg County
is starting salaries around sixty K, and they still can't
compete with the state. All Right, if you're listening to
this show, you know I try to keep up with
all sorts of current events, and I know you do too,
And you've probably heard me say get your news from
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Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. Okay, yes, there is say risk in talking
about all of this stuff revolving around Sheriff Gary not
my fault McFadden, which Becky highlights in an email to
Pete at the Petekalnarshow dot Com that not my fault
McFadden could scream that his feelings were hurt and the
county could pay him off, just like the city did
for former police chief Johnny Jennings.
Speaker 2: Like that that is a risk.
Speaker 1: Yes, from the WBT text line. Let me see if
I can get through a bunch of these texts here
from Lloyd. Maybe in the Mecklelberg County Sheriff's Office should
use some of the money they're planning to remodel the
Sheriff's office downtown. With that money would be better suited
to bring back the juvenile detention center and maybe go
to vy Lyles to see if she can find some
extra money with the city council to throw at him
under the table. Maybe this is from Bubba who says
maybe if Gary wasn't such a tyrant, he wouldn't have
a staffing issue.
Speaker 2: Just a thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David says staffing is an issue at the state
and local government levels. I've been in law enforcement for
over thirty three years. It's hard to find people who
meet the standards for the amount of money the agency pays. Yes,
no doubt about that, No doubt. However, when I do
a comparison between Cabaris County and Mecliburg County and McFadden
is at forty percent vacancy or higher, and Cabarris County's
state facility for juveniles is at a similar staffing vacancy problem.
Speaker 2: Yet the state is only.
Speaker 1: Starting their salaries at thirty seven thousand and McFadden is
starting his at somewhere around sixty k. Then that's obviously
indicative of because the market would say that you would
get more people coming to Meclimber County to take these jobs.
But the market is also saying that even when you
have that inflated salary, that there's another reason people don't
want to take this job. Mike says, when Jail North
was closed, there had to have been substantial savings, right, personnel, utilities, insurance.
Was the sheriff's budget decreased? Where do the savings go? Well,
it was closed. They cited the cost savings as a
time when they were trying to balance the budget and
the county commissioners wanted to use the savings for other priorities.
Speaker 2: Alfred plea, Oh, this is from QT now hiring. What
does that say? Fifteen ninety an hour? So not sixty five.
Speaker 1: Thousand, seven oh four numbers, says qts that have armed
guards get paid more than thirty dollars an hour. Oh
so maybe McFadden's talking about I could just go to
work for QT as an armed guard. Mike says, I'm
not against Sheriff McFadden being removed, but if he's removed,
who would succeed him? I'm assuming his chief deputy and
the last two have not enjoyed working for him. So
h seven oh four number says great news on the sheriff. However,
I doubt his constituents will care. Besides, why do we
need more jail capacity? I thought the county was using
mental health interventions to prevent crime. Well, and look, I've
made this point before. You know, we constantly hear about
the population growth in Charlotte, in Mecklenburg in North Carolina,
right the local boosters talk about how we've got, you know,
two hundred people a day moving into Mecklinberg County or
whatever it is, and yet we have not expanded jail
capacity in like twenty years.
Speaker 2: Make that make sense? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: Obviously, if you're not expanding the capacity of the jail
while you have a population boom, then you're not going
to have enough room for all of the people that
go to the jail. It's it's a simple proportional argument.
You know, it's logic. You got to have more beds.
Rodney says, according to the Internet, starting salary for a
detention officer in Mecklelberg County is fifty six to fifty
eight thousand annually. Okay, maybe there are dances. Maybe there
are no qts in Cabaris County. That's so they can't
take the jobs there. Laurie says, I cannot believe he
still has a job. Adam says the reason McFadden must
maintain control of the juvenile center is because if he
does not control it, ninety four of his current jail
staff will leave to go to work there. That's well,
that's a problem for him, then, wouldn't it be. Yeah,
if you've got people that are qualified that are working
right now at Jail Central and the county were to
open up, reopen Jail North and open it as a
county facility, then you would have a bunch of people
transferring out of Jail Central going to work at Jail
North because they don't want to work for m anymore.
Nine eight zero number says, I live in a neighboring county.
One of those chief deputies quit McFadden and came here
to work as a low level patrol deputy. It was
not for the money. Assistant manager at QT sixty five
thousand a year and probably more hours. That's from a
seven oh four number. Another number says, why does the
sheriff have the authority to make real estate decisions? I
would think that's the county manager and council's decision. Oh,
that's from Diane. I get all of the issues with
not my fault McFadden, but how is he any different
than other Marxist leftist public office holders in this country
other than the method used to sell the con Or scam.
He's dropping a few not my faults in there. I
thought he was about to say it.
Speaker 2: So again.
Speaker 1: The state offered to buy it, he said, no, The
problem is McFadden. State offered to lease Jail North. He said, no.
Problem is McFadden can reopen it. But McFadden can't hire
the staff. He says, can't onboard that many people. Again,
people don't want to work for him. That's his fault.
McFadden says, give me the money and I'll open up
a special HR unit to hire people. Away, But again
people don't want to work for him, so that won't
be successful either. So again he's the problem. And his
idea to transfer everybody from Cabaris to Jail North that's
not legal, and also people don't want to work for him,
so again his fault. So we are not getting Jail
North reopened with McFadden as the sheriff, that is clear.
He keeps saying it's politics, and I guess in some
sense he's right, it's about his politics.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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