No Action Taken Following Emergency Town Council Meeting

UPDATE: The town council and mayor met in closed session Friday night. Elected officials made no public comment after the meeting ended. Another council meeting will likely be scheduled next week.

KENLY – Members of the Kenly Town Council will hold an Emergency Meeting tonight (Friday) to discuss the sudden resignations of seven full-time town employees.

Police Chief Josh Gibson and his four full-time officers simultaneously submitted their letters of resignation to the new town manager, Justine Jones, around 4:50pm Wednesday. Town Clerk / Assistant Town Manager Sharon Evans and Utilities Clerk Christy Jones also resigned Wednesday afternoon. All seven employees will reportedly work two week notices.

Justine Jones began work with the Town of Kenly on June 2, 2022. In a Facebook post, Chief Gibson said “The new manager has created an environment I do not feel we can perform our duties and services to the community.”

The Emergency Meeting begins tonight (Friday) at 7:00pm at the Kenly Town Hall. The council will meet in closed session. It is unknown if the mayor or anyone on the town council will make a statement at the conclusion of the closed session.

Johnson County Sheriff Steve Bizzell has promised this his deputies will patrol and respond to calls in Kenly if the town finds itself without a police force.

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31 COMMENTS

  1. Great job Kenly on doing your background checks!!! Maybe the town should do background checks on the council and the gamblers who are always seen playing internet games!!! Last person had a history of conduct with women and look how that turned out and now another “nation wide” candidate with a history. If I’m not mistaken they had a local candidate from what I heard who already turned the park around in a year and wanted to help Kenly and they let him leave to go to another local town as manager. Way to go Council. Support the KPD and staff.

  2. Looks like the new town manager was able to check all the right box’s, except intelligent, competent, and qualified. No real surprise here.

  4. Why was Triangle J Council of Government in Durham involved in the hiring process? They should assume some responsibility for the vetting of this candidate. Did she include her previous job termination on her application or disclose it during interview process? If so who thought that this hiring was a great idea? Just looking at the job changes and the last one being a CEO of her own consulting company this should have been a red flag. Kenly leadership and Triangle J share equality in this mess. People with longevity don’t just resign from their jobs without good reason. What town manager goes to a traffic stop and tears up a ticket? Good managers lead without creating a disruptive and hostile environment. Someone knew where this was headed and turned a blind eye. These employees may have a lawsuit themselves if they kept good notes. I support our police, they have enough to worry about without unnecessary distractions.

    • JudyC they didn’t just resign, but they all turn there backs on the town, this is kind of like the Trump administration resigning because they didn’t like the way he did his job. Now I’ve lived in Kenly under that prior leadership, they aren’t that innocent, everyone has hidden issues, but to abandon the town, the people you so call loved bc of one person, come on. If One person has that kind of influence on my future it shows me how weak I would be. They fortified a lot of benefits because of their emotions. I’m pretty sure there are law enforcement officers around the county, state, and country who don’t agree with the vision of their supervisor, but they don’t take all the other employees with them, unless the are union. The sad thing is they may have a problem getting hired into any local government position because this stunt looks bad on a resume, if they have one. I’m just saying. The people of Kenly is what makes Kenly, like the people, Stormin Normans, the Local Churches, the local hardware store, etc. I lived there for 6 years and I loved it especially my neighbors. I could talk about the unprofessional encounters I had with those in that office but it is pointless, no need to beat them down anymore. There are many of the people that have complaints against and they are tax payers and law hidden citizens, no Criminal background, however this is an internal issue. Trust me they knew about her past, it’s called BACKGROUND CHECK. If the Town Council, and Mayor voter her out, it won’t look good for that local government, and thank God, Johnston County took over the EMS of Kenly a while back. How do you lose your passion for something you love doing over feelings, every job in America has work related stress because no one wants to work, the law of business is out the window. In my words, on a job if one quits, that one monkey don’t stop the show, but now the whole circus has to shut down for replacements. Celebrity rappers talking about a town of 2000, way to go putting Kenly on the map is the worst way

      • Have YOU ever worked in a hostile environment??? Maybe you need to know the circumstances before making such comments! And “Trump”??? What has Trump got to do with this situation? Wow!

        • I actually have. More than once. And at this point, there is no way to know. That said, it sounds conspiratorial. Something is up and its probably not the manager. But the bottom line is this. Its 1 vs many so unless she somehow cloned herself 7 times and stood over them every second of the day, this is a farce. They need to define what “hostile” means. Did she not allow them to pray in the building and that constituted hosility? Did she force them to bow to a statue of satan?

          I will bet anyone $100 right now that they left because of an ultimatum. They simply didnt want to shape up or she has them on some corruption. Quit or be fired. They quit.

          If im wrong then we will see lawsuits soon enough. If not, it will likely be that they did something wrong.

    • I agree Judy, plenty of red flags. I live at the opposite end of the county near Benson so I’m not in the know as to what all has gone on since the hiring. What is this about the town manager tearing up a ticket at a traffic stop? Has she been trying to tell the police dept how to enforce the law?

      • Hello golfincarpenter. I doubt she tore up a ticket at a traffic stop because it was just a sarcastic joke I made in the comments sections of the original jocoreport article (comment on 7/21). I tried to come up with 3 ridiculous examples of micromanaging that would affect the police officers, the clerks, and the chief. I used 1) tearing up tickets at a traffic stop as a micromanaging joke affecting officers, 2) re-coding the software for the monthly water bills to micromanage the clerks, and 3) changing the employee work schedules to micromanage the chief. If one of the above crazy examples actually happened then it would be an amazing coincidence, and reflect quite poorly on the new town manager.

        • I suggest you watch the interview of the Sheriff – lists specific examples of incidents where was written up by new town manager, there should be personnel records – hopefully an independent outside entity can get to the truth – but it doesn’t look when the town managers last employment was terminated March 2015

  5. I guess a police force and town with a history of corruption, mismanagement, and good-ole-boyism, decided to “ship out” rather than “shape up” under new leadership. I think its for the best. Explain to me again, why a town of 1,500 needs 8 full-time officers?

    • I agree. Also, if there is supposed to be 8 officers why are there only 4 to leave? Seems like some may have left before this town manager so what is really going on?

      • All the full timers resigned, but the 4 part time officers have not turned in resignations that we know of.

          • Again, why in the world does a town with 1500 people need 8 full time police officers? Smells fishy to me

    • While the town has 1500 people in it, it has 5 major truck stops that adds about 1000 temporary citizens daily and overnight. Smells like diesel to me.

    • Her skin color nor her gender affect the town of Kenly. Her ideologies, world view, and thus her policies most certainly do, and that’s evident here. The race cards are pretty worn, the edges are ear marked and we see them coming before they hit the table. For folks like me, who voted for people like Mark Robinson, and who cheer on the voices of leaders like Candace Owens, Dr. Carson, Colonel Allen West, Jason Whitlock, and a host of other black conservatives, we don’t cheer them on because they happen to be black and conservative, we cheer them on because they are fighting for the same principles and ideals we stand for.

      Ms. Jones’ long history pointing toward the contrary is the concern, not her skin color or gender.

  7. I think the people that support the decision of the ones resigning should boycott all of the businesses in the city limits of kenly until the new town manager is fired. She has already played the race card at a previous job. The people of kenly do not want their town to turn into places like Chicago, NY and California we love our quite little town just the way it is. This town can not continue to succeed under the leadership of the new town manager or anyone that supports her. Hopefully the elected officials in the town will remember how they got in office because they can be taken out the same way they were put in.

  8. Blah blah blah straight cut and dry people it’s bc she’s black and they DONT want to follow a black leader. Cut all the long post and other mess out!

  9. I think the people that support the decision of the ones that have given their resignation should boycott all businesses in the city limits until the town fires the new town manager. If she is so good at her job why does she keep moving from town to town she has already played the race card before. We love our quite little town and we do not want it to be turned into Chicago, NY, California. The elected officials that the people of voted in need to remember they can also be voted out. I guess will have to wait and see if they support our town or someone else. It has nothing to do with race it is about respect and people need to understand that.

  10. She has been fired from every job. Why would you bring an outside agency to hire someone especially considering you don’t have the budget to spend on it ? You wanted a left leaning anti police, pro criminal manager and u went and got one. The idiots who hired her should be fired to

  11. Sounds like she isn’t going to put up with the typical joco good ole boy network and some people aren’t happy. Good for her. Kenly hasn’t changed since my Dad left after WWII and it is all because of the people who run the town, whether they are actually in an official position or not. Money talks and we all know it. Kenly should have grown when I95 came through – not one mile down at the truck stops. My uncle tried but he got nowhere. However the town did have to reimburse him a substantial sum of money. He would have preferred the growth actually.

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