Last week, there was a figurative gunfight at the Graham County corral.
The actors weren’t Burt Lancaster playing Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas playing Doc Holiday. The location wasn’t a desolate town called Tombstone in the Arizona Territory.
That shootout lasted approximately 30 seconds while our local gunfight has been going on for two years.
That’s a lot of wasted ammo.
The Graham County corral is a courtroom in an ancient building that provides a stage for a more contemporary cast of actors. The tragedy that is still receiving top billing is entitled “File No. 20-CVS-93,” or Jerry Lee Crisp vs. Graham County.
The actors include a physical giant of a man representing Mr. Crisp – a smaller but well-spoken man representing Graham County – a mask-wearing, range-riding Judge – seeking to rule on the truth, a Republican warrior – trying to make his clan do the right thing – and a Sheriff designee career law enforcement officer with an interesting past.
Folks, you couldn’t ask for a better story line for the tragedy that is unfolding before our very eyes.
The prequel to the current gunfight is entitled “18-CVS-244,” or Jerry Lee Crisp vs. Graham County.
It is a different story – with the same title – and a very similar cast.
The 2020 version wants the Graham County Board of Commissioners to follow the law and confirm Mr. Crisp to the position of Sheriff. The 2018 prequel features Mr. Crisp seeking to increase his retirement calculation amount by approximately $180,000, based on his interpretation of North Carolina statutes. The merits of that contention are not for this columnist to conclude.
The stage for both versions is the only courtroom in Graham County. Its modern evolution requires COVID-restricted seating capacity, plexiglass screens to protect the actors and an unused stack of Bibles to swear in the jurors, due to COVID precautions.
To set the tone of the drama, there is an extraordinary, nearly 10-foot-tall painting of Lady Justice holding a scale of justice in one upraised arm, and a sword pointed at the ground in the other arm. She wears a blindfold. There are two smaller folks at her feet. One appears to have a glowing halo and the other is surrounded by snakes.
Clearly, good overcomes evil and justice is blind to the appearance of people seeking redress. The judges seated below make their decisions on the equities of the issue, as enumerated by the hired gunslingers who appear on behalf of their clients. There is a small hole in the lower corner of the imposing painting. Legend has it that it is a bullet hole from someone mad at the entire process.
Truth be told, the hole is the product of some mischievous prankster that could not reach Lady Justice’s face to give her a poke in her blind-folded eye.
The Judge has ruled. “The End” will soon flash up on the screen as we all file out of the theater and go on with our lives. The law will be upheld and the Sheriff designee must be confirmed by the Graham County Commissioners. Let’s thank the Republican Executive Committee for recommending a candidate who has a long law enforcement resume. Let’s thank the County’s gunslinger for his valiant, but unsuccessful effort to obfuscate the law by coming up with many innovative and desperate complaints about lack of process.
We should all hope the new Sheriff will stick to the rule of law –without wavering, despite his three-party evolutionary political history.
In closing, the prequel to this movie franchise needs to have some daylight shed on it. An explanation of the merits of Mr. Crisp’s contentions should be made to potentially eligible employees and the tax payers who fund their pensions.
Did Graham County underfund its pension obligations based on actuarial recommendations?
Is the Sheriff the only protagonist in that gunfight, or is there a much larger cast of current and former County employees eligible for similar and very costly tax payer funded pension contributions?
That gunfight needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star. He is a council member for the Town of Lake Santeetlah.