Haywood commissioner Ramey rebuked
Haywood County Commissioner Terry Ramey is facing at least one call for his resignation. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Editor’s note: this story contains strong language.
Since his election in 2022, Haywood County Commissioner Terry Ramey has been known for lying — about his delinquent taxes, about his votes, about being assaulted — but this time, his acquiescent appearance in a YouTube video that spread misinformation about the county’s powers to circumvent state law has Ramey’s fellow commissioners receiving death threats and Haywood’s state representative calling for Ramey’s resignation.
“Serve with them or step down,” Rep. Mark Pless told Ramey at during a Dec. 2 meeting of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners. “You can’t fight this fight, and you can’t be in the best interests of Haywood County doing what you’re doing.”
The statement by Pless came at the conclusion of more than two hours of public comment filled with outright lies about the county’s power to “waive” state building codes and Ramey struggling to defend himself.
In an unusual turn of events, Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood) showed up at the Dec. 2 meeting of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners to defend commissioners and express disapproval of Ramey. Haywood County government photo
MISINFORMATION STATION
On Nov. 26, an out-of-state YouTube “personality” named John Ward released a video filmed at the Smoky Mountain Events Center featuring Ramey and several others. In the video, Ward claims that nonprofits had brought tiny homes and campers to Haywood County for victims of Hurricane Helene and that they wanted to set them up in a covered area at SMEC, but red tape was getting in the way.
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That “red tape” is the state building code, which does not allow for such a setup. But at several points in the video, Ward egged on the compliant Ramey by urging him to force a commission vote to override state codes and urged viewers to contact the “other four” commissioners to encourage them to do the same.
“So right now, I think that the biggest thing is the county commissioners is going to have to vote to approve that,” Ward said.
“Well, it would have to be approved by the county commissioners, and I’m just one of five, so it would be up to everybody to see what they wanted to do,” Ramey replied.
The problem for Ramey is that there was no agenda item proposing such a vote on the Dec. 2 commission meeting agenda, nor could there ever be. County commissioners do not have the power to override state law.
Ramey then offered another baseless proposal for the accommodation of the dwellings.
“Well, we’ve got to go through all the hoops to get all the zoning ordinances covered,” he said.
Although municipalities have zoning ordinances, Haywood County does not.
Ward doubled down in a subsequent video. On Dec. 1, one day before the commission meeting, he posted the names, phone numbers and email addresses of the other four commissioners — Jennifer Best, Chairman Kevin Ensley, Tommy Long and Vice Chairman Brandon Rogers — and urged viewers to forward them a threat right out of the playbook of so-called sovereign citizens, who believe certain laws do not apply to them.
“Call your local FBI field office and have the county officials involved arrested under citizens arrest … for felony conspiracy against rights in violation of title 18 USC section 241, felony deprivation or rights under color of law … [and] section 242, insurrection and rebellion against the constitution of the United States, perjury and violating oath of office, crimes against humanity, and domestic terrorism for refusing to allow tiny homes …”
Commissioners, who had already been receiving threats related to the first video, began to receive more.
BAD BLOOD
The commission meeting began with a larger-than-normal crowd prepared to harangue commissioners for their supposed failure to act.
Sheriff Bill Wilke, the county’s chief law enforcement officer and of late its chief anti-misinformation officer spoke first, recapping an Oct. 4 press conference in which he decried the Helene lies being circulated on social media. Wilke said he was “alarmed” that new rumors were again circulating about people living in tents or otherwise out in the cold because of commissioners. He directed his deputies to double check and said there were “zero” people living in tents.
Wilke again issued pointed criticism of keyboard warriors like Ward.
“There are social media antagonists who are saying things about our county that are not true,” he said.
Ramey, meanwhile, has been an outcast on the all-Republican board since shortly after his election; he didn’t pay his property taxes for nearly 15 years before being elected, lied about it, lied about setting up a payment plan, still owes thousands and threatened The Smoky Mountain News for reporting on it all. Commissioners issued an initial rebuke of Ramey in January 2023, telling him to pay his taxes and stop threatening the media. Ramey responded by filing assault charges against this reporter, which were dropped due to the inability of Ramey, who represented himself, to provide any evidence.
Ramey’s contrarian behavior continues; early in the meeting, he voted no on nominating Ensley for his second consecutive term as chair and also voted no on nominating Rogers to serve his second consecutive term as vice chair. Both were reelected in November with overwhelming majorities, had taken their oaths of office earlier in the meeting and are perceived as stable, capable, experienced elected officials who have in the past four years guided the county through COVID-19, Tropical Storm Fred, the loss of a major employer and now Hurricane Helene.
But it didn’t end there. Commissioners then stripped Ramey of his position on the SMEC board, to which Ramey objected. Ensley, who’d served on the SMEC board for 14 years previously, took on the task and said it was because the SMEC board had requested another commissioner besides Ramey to serve.
The SMEC board has seen substantial turnover during Ramey’s time there. Ensley hinted that SMEC staff and board members had also been receiving misguided calls or threats related to Ward’s video.
“That board is an all-volunteer board,” Ensley explained to Ramey. “They’ve been inundated in the last week with things they shouldn’t have been inundated with.”
UNINTENTIONAL INTENTIONS
As the meeting progressed into the public comment portion of the agenda, more than a dozen speakers from as far as Boone and Bessemer City presented even more lies to commissioners, who were in no mood to entertain them.
Several people directly contradicted Wilke’s assertion about the tent population, but chief among the claims were that an existing “primitive camp” state statute would allow for tiny homes and campers to be utilized at SMEC and elsewhere. Pless later told commissioners that he’d learned the statute couldn’t be interpreted that way.
Amanda Fowler, a pastor at Canton Wesleyan Church who also appeared in Ward’s first video alongside Ramey, said she believed they would be in full compliance with the law to utilize the dwellings but also acknowledged the commotion Ward’s first video had created.
“Obviously this has caused a stir within the county that was unintentional,” Fowler said.
Fowler expressed her desire to help people move out of the cold, but with no one unwillingly residing in tents, she didn’t elaborate on why living in a camper was living “out in the cold” or how the open-sided structure at SMEC would make them any warmer.
When Ward got his chance to speak, he repeated lies about FEMA’s presence in Western North Carolina, saying FEMA is now looking for property to accommodate temporary housing but that FEMA “should have been here two days into this, not two months into this.”
“They were,” Ensley shot back.
Tommy Miller, of Canton, said he owns a nonprofit and had interacted with people living in tents as recently as Nov. 30.
Beverly Banks, the respected and tireless longtime operator of a local food bank, said she’d seen infants and toddlers in dire straits.
“I deliver food in this county. I delivered body warmers this morning to babies, three-year-olds that are outside. It’s 20 degrees when I saw them this morning,” Banks said. “I understand that there are ordinances that are standing [in the way of getting] those babies into campers. I understand there are community members sitting in this room who have land for those campers. So my question to you is, as I continue to feed them, how do we get them into warm shelters that are temporary until we can figure out how to make that happen?”
As the next speaker began her comments, Long interrupted her and asked Wilke to chase down Banks and ask her for more information.
“Sheriff, could you get the address and the names of those places where there’s babies sleeping on the ground?” he asked.
Wilke later returned to the podium and said that names and addresses were not provided “for fear of the government.”
INTENSE TENSION
Commissioners then moved on to the constituent concerns portion of the meeting, where they were uncharacteristically frank in rebutting falsehoods and highly critical of Ramey’s role in fomenting — or at the very least, failing to quash — the lies spread on Ward’s videos that resulted in more lies from the speaker’s podium earlier.
“For people who are not from around here who come in, you’re a little late to the party,” Long began, adding that volunteers had worked exceptionally hard in the immediate aftermath of Helene to provide basic needs to victims. “Some of the misinformation is just based on the fact that you’re not from around here. The accusations against the commissioners sitting here are unfounded.”
Long reminded the room that the county doesn’t have any zoning ordinances, reiterated his calls for Miller and Banks to provide more information on purportedly unsheltered people and finally opined that there may be fewer unsheltered individuals in the county now than there ever were prior to Helene due to the efforts of FEMA and local churches.
Best, usually reserved, singled out Fowler’s comment about “the stir in the community that was unintentional.”
Jennifer Best, a Haywood County commissioner since 2020, issued pointed criticism during a Dec. 2 meeting. Haywood County government photo
“Ma’am, I can assure you that when I received 160 calls in one day, that’s not unintentional,” Best said. “When one of my fellow commissioners stands and says, ‘It’s not me, it’s the other four,’ that’s not unintentional.”
Best’s subdued outrage is understandable; in 2022, she was one of several targets of a sovereign citizen plot to pay bounties for the kidnapping of public officials who refused to surrender to a “tribunal.” Two perpetrators were convicted on federal charges of making interstate threats in 2023.
Again, Best said, she’d been threatened over lies in the video.
“I’m too much of a lady to read the text message I got last night,” she said. “I’ve shown it to my fellow commissioners. It is the most distasteful thing I have ever seen and accomplishes nothing.”
Later in the meeting, Ensley addressed Ward directly.
“Mr. Ward, these are some of the things that we got, that your people sent us,” he said, noting that he would indeed read the threat to Best out loud.
“’Hey Jenny, you stupid c-u-n-t’ — I’m not gonna say it — ‘why people who lost every f-u-c-k-i-n thing has been abandoned by their government, FEMA, not to be able to live in the tiny houses the Amish built — not you, not FEMA. There is a special place in hell for you, Kevin, Brandon and the last twat Tommy. All of you are,’ — he’s got little piles of poop [emoji] across [the screen] — those are the type emails and texts we were getting from your people,” Ensley said. “I don’t get it.”
The normally staid Ensley, his anger on full display, went on to dox the person who sent the text, which is a public record.
As Best continued her remarks, she directed her frustration squarely at Ramey.
“Saturday night, I sent out a text message and I said, ‘I want to go look for these people.’ I have a text message that says, ’Because of really kind people there’s nobody out there,’” she said, alluding that the message had come from Ramey.
“So you can’t have it both ways, Terry — either we’ve got people cold and on the ground, or we don’t. What you’ve done [has] accomplished — let me finish — absolutely nothing,” Best said over Ramey’s interruption.
“What I done?” Ramey asked.
The terse exchange continued with Best laying out the situation in stunning clarity.
“We have people who need housing,” she said. “But a storage building per the North Carolina Building Inspector, with no toilet and no place to cook a basic meal, which would require refrigeration and a microwave, is not adequate.”
She told Ramey to quit dividing the board and work toward a resolution and lambasted him for calling in a “YouTube person.” Ramey accused Best of lying and said he had “no idea about that video.”
Best cited a relevant regional example of what happens when county government oversteps its authority. In 2022, Cherokee County government agreed to a $48.5 million settlement over multiple DSS lawsuits alleging constitutional violations. The county’s insurer would only pay half, leaving the county responsible for $24.25 million and leaving taxpayers with a massive tax hike of 11 cents per $100 in assessed property value to cover the cost.
“When we do that,” she said, “when we step out and we say, ‘We’re going to be rogue commissioners, we’re going to do what we want to do, when we want to do’ and we end up in a lawsuit, ain’t nobody saving us, Terry.”
Ramey tried to deflect the blame and said he’d never met Ward until Ward somehow showed up at his house one day and asked to be taken to the fairgrounds to shoot a video. Best asked Ramey why he didn’t stop the misinformation in that moment.
“I’ve not spread no misinformation,” Ramey said.
“Wait a minute. [Ward] did say, ‘You’ve got people that can vote, you need to get them to vote,’ Terry,” Best responded. “Tell it all — you never stopped his misinformation.”
People began shouting from the gallery. Ensley threatened to have them removed.
Rogers began his remarks by acknowledging that he was about as small-government as they come but would adhere to his oath.
“I had to put my hand on a Bible just a few minutes ago to uphold the Constitution and follow the law,” he said. Ensley had done the same thing just before Rogers, using his deceased daughter’s Bible.
In response to rumors he’d heard, Rogers took it upon himself to seek out unsheltered people and said he’d met two families living in tents who wanted to stay in tents.
“Being a Constitutional guy,” Rogers said, “I am not going to tell them they can’t do that.”
Rogers called out more ridiculous rumors he’d heard, including that campers were banned in the county, that the county and FEMA were seizing property and taking children from their parents and that 24 infants in the area had already frozen to death.
“It’s sad that I try to sit in church on a Sunday morning, trying to worship my Lord and pray and spend time with my family, and your phone is buzzing so hard that you can’t even concentrate on the service because of misinformation is being spread,” he said.
Speaking directly to Ward, Rogers went on to say that he wished Ward had called him to get the facts. Instead, Ward had called on Ramey.
“To put out a video tells me you just want to be an internet sensation or internet hero instead of really wanting to help,” Rogers said. “Next time, maybe reach out to the local folks. Maybe bring a shovel or a hammer and try to help, like we’ve done. I’ve personally done that myself. I’d like to ask you if you’ve done that.”
Long then digressed into the monetization of sensationalism, specifically on Ward’s YouTube channel, and accused Ward and an unidentified woman accompanying him at the meeting of grinning and laughing when Rogers mentioned being unable to worship.
‘EVERYBODY KNOWS IT’S A LIE’
After more than two hours of discussion — civil, but not without spurts of venom — the meeting became even more unusual after a stunning rebuke of Ramey delivered by Pless, who was a Haywood County commissioner for two years before his election to the General Assembly, having served with Ensley, Long and Rogers but neither Ramey nor Best, who replaced him. Pless was just reelected to his third term in the state house.
Known as a blunt speaker and quickly gaining a reputation as an influential maverick, Pless acknowledged that he’d disagreed with commissioners many times and cast dissenting votes more than anyone else. But once he drew near to the podium, Pless wasted no time in defending commissioners from the lies spread about them and their authority.
“The problem is, these people are casting on you something that’s not yours,” he told commissioners. “Because of state law, you don’t have the authority to bypass [building codes],” he said. “We are the ones who can bypass it … There’s people in this room that have been told that and yet they still came today to try to demoralize you and talk bad about you and try to force you into a corner, and they’ve been told that’s not your decision — that’s my decision.”
Pless went on to explain that controversial Senate Bill 382, purportedly a flood relief bill that actually contained no immediate flood relief, would give commissioners the authority to bypass the code requirements that some had been calling for. The bill, however, is in what Pless called “a precarious position.”
One of three western house Republicans to vote ‘no’ on the bill, Pless told The Smoky Mountain News last week that he wasn’t sure if he’d side with fellow Republicans in attempting to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, citing unspecified disagreements with various portions of the bill.
“If it stays in the current situation, there’s a good possibility that that relief will not come,” Pless said, foreshadowing a critical override vote next week but keeping his cards close to his chest. Republicans can’t afford to lose more than a vote or two if they’re to override Cooper’s veto.
Pless continued, voicing his disappointment with a host of performers in what he called “a show.”
“The day that the floods were happening I was in Canton, in a rescue boat, risking my life to get to people, while they’re sitting in Boone, Bessemer City, who knows where, but now they come in here riding a white horse, because they need recognition,” he said, subsequently targeting Fowler. “How can you be a pastor of a church and talk down to people, just in your tone? I’m really good at talkin’. A lot of you have known me for a long time. Sometimes I step across the line, sometimes I do it intentionally, sometimes I don’t. But nonetheless, they knew what they were saying.”
Pless again reminded commissioners that in the past he had disagreed with them more than perhaps anyone else but never made a production out of his dissent like Ramey had by appearing in the video. Ramey, he said, had turned on the people who were there to support him.
“And Terry, this is to you. You can sit there all day long, and you could say you ain’t stirred up nothing. Everybody knows it’s a lie. The bad part is, these people are going to turn on you the second that you don’t do something they want to do. I had high hopes for you. I had really high hopes for you,” Pless said.
“You’re a scrapper. It’s all you do. You just fight. You don’t know when to stop, you don’t know when to quit. The signal of being a man, or a woman,” Pless said, with a nod to Best, “when you assume this role here is you put aside your personal opinion and you do what’s in the best interest for the people of this county, not what’s going to make you a name, and not what’s going to make you important and not what’s going to make other people think that you know more than you do.”
