Legal Or Not? ABC Laws Say Nepotism Is A No-No

By Emily Weaver
Dunn Daily Record

ANGIER – Can the father of a son chair a local governing board that oversees the son’s employment? It’s happening in Angier.

And although the parent-child relationship was enough to get one of Angier’s ABC board members to resign, its Chairman Brian Hawley says his situation is different. His son, Josh, got a job at Angier’s ABC store a year after Hawley joined the board and became its chairman. Hawley claims he knew nothing of his son’s application or interview until after he was hired.

Josh Hawley and all of the store’s other staff members were recently greenlighted for a raise his father’s board just approved. Brian Hawley was recused from the vote, but he urged fellow board members to take action in an email a week before the board’s meeting Feb. 16.

“One of my goals when I was appointed in 2020 was to modernize the Angier ABC system. Our board has done a remarkable job in that regard,” Brian Hawley wrote to fellow board members on Feb. 7. “We continue to strive and improve areas for efficiency which has led to a reduction in expenditures and an increase in town revenue distributions. This past calendar year our team made over $500,000 in contributions to the Town of Angier to better serve our community. This amount exceeds what we currently budget for our annual payroll.

“My second goal is to improve wages for all of our employees for the recruitment and retention of quality associates,” he wrote. “What I would ask each of you is to be prepared to discuss this on Thursday. It has been my opinion that this board has the ability to increase hourly wages. Our team provided an 8% increase this past year but inflation has been harmful. As you know, I cannot be involved in these discussions due to my son Josh but my goal has been to move wages up. I have made comments in the past of the dollar amount but I cannot do that considering the issue. Therefore, I ask you all to take this under consideration and let us take action. See you all Thursday night.”

Salaries went up to a base range of $18-21 per hour for employees in a board vote that Thursday night.

Legal or not?

Questions of legality surfaced concerning Hawley’s role after he was accused of threatening a Facebook commenter in attendance at a recent Angier Town Board of Commissioners meeting.

Bob Jusnes claims Hawley tried to goad him outside for a fight at the meeting after he questioned the board’s decision to spend $500,000 more to make a water tower across from Hawley’s neighborhood more attractive. He asked town commissioners to reconsider Hawley’s appointment to the ABC board.

Hawley said he suspects the Jusnes family is behind a recent wave of attacks against him and his family on social media.

Jusnes’ wife, Courtney Jusnes, served on the ABC board for a little over a month before her departure in February.

Other ABC employees and board members left in the weeks before and after her exit.

Keith Black, a former general manager of the ABC store, claims Brian Hawley tried to get him to “hire a friend of his” to serve as a fellow general manager at the store. Black said that “friend” eventually took his place when the board fired him in 2021.

ABC boards and employees are not supposed to coerce any appointing authority or board member to employ any particular applicant, according to state laws governing local ABC boards.

In a November message to Angier’s former Planning Director Sean Johnson, Courtney Jusnes asked if it was normal for two ABC Board members to interview board applicants before town leaders decided whether or not to appoint them. The meeting reportedly took place at Thanks a Latte on Nov. 29.

The town’s attorney, Dan Hartzog, clarified in the Angier Board of Commissioner’s meeting Dec. 6 that Brian Hawley and board member Howard Babbitt gave no recommendations to the board. Applicants Ray Levert and Courtney Jusnes were appointed that night on nominations from Commissioner Jim Kazakavage and Brian Hawley’s wife, Commissioner Loru Boyer Hawley, respectively.

“After my appointment to the Angier ABC Board, I was instructed to take the requisite ethics course. Immediately after taking this course, I was very vocal to my fellow Board members about my concerns regarding conflicts of interest that I felt might exist on the Board,” Courtney Jusnes said. “It didn’t make sense to me that the Board could operate with a majority of its members having some form of conflict.”

Board member George “Jr” Price is also a town commissioner. Angier Commissioner Jim Kazakavage’s wife, Christina, was the general manager of the Angier ABC store at the time. New board member Ray Levert had a daughter employed at the Angier ABC store.

And board member Howard Babbitt was the landlord of a longtime employee of the ABC store, according to Black.

“I was hopeful that we could get it sorted out and actually reform the Board to be in compliance,” Courtney Jusnes said. “In fact, I stated my concerns at the very first meeting I attended. I also asked the Town Attorney to obtain written guidance from the ABC Commission on how to address these issues. I was never shown this, nor do I know if it exists.”

Family ties

Nepotism is a no-no in state ABC laws.

“Members of an immediate family shall not be employed within the local board if such employment will result in one member of the immediate family supervising another member of the immediate family, or if one member of the immediate family will occupy a position which has influence over another member’s employment, promotion, salary administration, or other related management or personnel considerations. This subsection applies to local board members and employees,” states the law book’s Chapter 18B, Article 7.

New Angier ABC Board member Ray Levert served one meeting before he resigned after other board members learned his daughter was employed at the Angier ABC store.

“… It had been thrown in my face that this was no different than the chairman’s son being there, which is not true because I was already there when my son was hired without my knowledge,” Hawley said in a phone call March 10. “This former board member knew that his daughter was in place at that store prior to him even applying so the issue became that that was not disclosed.”

Hawley said he immediately disclosed the fact that his son was employed at the store with the town’s Board of Commissioners, the state’s ABC Commission and members of Angier’s ABC Board, in the days after he said he learned his son was hired.

“After consulting with the ABC Commission about that, the ABC Commission told me that (the) ‘unfortunate reality is that (with) one-store boards sometimes these things happen. We try to avoid it. It’s not ideal’ and the practice that we have where we do not hire or fire employees, we only hire and fire the general manager, that provides a level of protection between you and your family member,” Hawley said.

The Angier ABC Board approved Hawley’s request to change its policy for the hiring and firing of employees in a meeting Jan. 12.

“Chairman Hawley requested approval from the Board to modify the policy so that the General Manager is responsible for hiring and firing the staff,” stated minutes of that meeting.

The approval of that change came Jan. 12, 2023. Hawley’s son was hired in February 2022.

Who decides?

Comments from the state’s ABC Commission Chairman Hank Bauer and Deputy Commissioner Mike DeSilva were not available as of press time. But determining whether or not a law was violated may fall to their board.

The state’s ABC Commission and the Angier Board of Commissioners are the two legislative bodies that have authority to remove a member for cause.

A member can be removed from the board if they are disqualified under the law, violate ABC laws, fail to complete required training or engage “in any conduct constituting moral turpitude or which brings the local board of the ABC system into disrepute,” according to Article 7. “The employment or retention of any employee who is known to be disqualified under the law to hold a position with a local board is cause for the Commission to remove the board members involved.”