My Statement To The Asheboro City Council On The Planned Annexation of Dave's Mountain

This afternoon I took a half-day off from work and drove home (from my current Locums assignment down East) in order to attend a public hearing held by the Asheboro City Council. I read a prepared statement regarding my feelings on the annexation of Dave's Mountain.

I read my statement immediately after my former lawyer stood up to say that he supported annexation (no big surprise . . . progress and growth equals alcohol and I seem to recall he likes his alcohol). I thought it was very appropriate to speak immediately after he did. He's lucky I did not say anything about his "representation". But tonight it wasn't about him.

It was about a town/community that has fundamentally lost its way.

Residents were not able to speak until well after 10 pm, as the Council, playing its usual games, inserted this matter late into the agenda of a regular meeting. A FOX 8 news reporter came and went long before the issue of Dave's Mountain ever came up.

I think it took about five minutes to read the statement. I dunno. My heart and head were quite literally pounding . . . my voice was trembling . . . and I was speaking loudly as the acoustics in the room were absolutely atrocious. I wanted my neighbors to hear every word.

Afterwards, I was worried I might have come off too forcefully . . . or as "too angry".

Of course, I am angry. "Rape" is a very good word, Gloria.

I got a round of applause when I was done. As I turned to face the assemblage I noted many were smiling, and I got several winks and thumbs up. That was nice. I left the meeting immediately after I spoke. My "ex" followed me out, and we talked for a while by my car - as I deeply inhaled the crisp night air.

The reporter for the Courier Tribune strolled out immediately after I spoke. We'll see what he does with his pen this time.

Here is the statement (I am getting it up tonight and will add links later):

I stand here as a not-so-young professional, a Dave’s Mountain resident for thirteen years and a lifelong resident of the Asheboro area. I completed college and medical school and residency within a one-hour’s radius of Asheboro. My parents lived here for forty years. My Mother taught in the Asheboro City Schools for over thirty – and she still lives in the city. This annexation affects her as much as it affects me.

Those assembled here will need to indulge me for just a minute or so as I provide some background that explains my strong opposition to the Asheboro City Council’s actions pertaining to Dave’s Mountain, as well as its close association with & reliance upon Randolph Hospital CEO Bob Morrison during the Asheboro 20/20 pre-annexation strategic planning process.

I came home in 1995, recruited back by state and federal programs that paid out nearly $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to cover my medical school student loans in return for service. The crux of the deal and a requirement of the federal program (from whence the bulk of the money came) was that I would be able to transition my practice from underneath “non-profit” Randolph Hospital’s umbrella if I so chose once my service obligation was complete. I completed that obligation in January 1998.

That same month, just a week before my obligation was complete, I faced down the threats of senior hospital executives, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin (who were more concerned with appearances than good Pediatric care) and intervened in a neonatal case being grossly mismanaged by another physician – a physician that Mr. Eblin’s marketing team had advertised as having Pediatric & Neonatal skills he did not possess. I had no choice when the nurses called. The baby was quite literally dying. I went in and I did my job, and by ALL accounts that child is alive today because of what I did that night in the middle of the night. In defiance of the threats I was working under, I reported the situation to hospital peer review. Two weeks later, I was out of a job – thrown out on the street by arrogant/greedy executives who violated every contract they ever signed in order to get me to shut up and “just go away”. I was popular and well-respected. Morrison & Eblin did not want me around to compete.

I sued the practice a year later – and for my trouble, was thrown off the hospital staff without so much as a hearing. The Board of Directors of Randolph Hospital – stocked with some of Asheboro’s most prominent businessmen, entertained no noble notions of due process or fair play and rubber-stamped everything Bob Morrison wanted. The same was true of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee. It speaks volumes to their credibility in any peer review action the hospital undertakes to this day. Unlike a Redding, or a McCrary, or a Bossong or a Shaffner (*all prominent Asheboro names that have served on the Randolph Hospital Board of Directors), I did not have the right last name. It did not matter that I was a homegrown doctor who had come back to Asheboro to make things better for children. The fact was that in Asheboro’s mill-town environment, without the right connections, I was a nobody. And these fine, upstanding “honorable” businessmen were going to do whatever they wanted to because they could. It is a theme that is playing out in this room right now . . . as Mr. Ogburn has told Dave Mountain residents that the Asheboro City Council will proceed with this annexation no matter what residents want, “Because we can”.

A year after that, I found myself on the wrong end of a SLAPP suit – defending a humiliating, expensive and completely bogus “libel” claim for telling the government I served the truth. True to its biased form, our local newspaper – that had not reported on my lawsuit against the hospital at all – plastered all over its front-page headlines (for my parents to read), that I was a liar. Someone apparently thought it was funny.

In 2001, just before my case against the hospital-owned practice went to trial, both cases were settled in my favor. I received just under one year’s salary in punitive & compensatory damages after hospital executives and their lawyers represented the hospital to be “nearly bankrupt” during settlement negotiations. The Courier Tribune once again covered Mr. Morrison’s tracks by burying the story in a second-page short-take.

Despite the promise they made at settlement, hospital executives continued to treat me like a disease. I did some digging in legal filings and discovered that both Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin had put their hands on a Bible and lied under Oath about the “confidentiality” of financial information relevant to my damages claim – information which was, in fact, public record. In 2003, I took this information to the Randolph County District attorney and asked for an investigation/prosecution of this perjury, contempt and fraud. Many lawyers I spoke with opined that this was a case that, because of its complexity and relevance to the public health & welfare, merited a referral to the NC Attorney General. Yet to this day, Garland Yates has refused to meet with me or take my calls (that speaks to the law enforcement the city of Asheboro provides). And like Mike Nifong, he has refused to send the case up and out to Raleigh.

Par for the course for this valued young professional in Asheboro.

Almost four years ago to the day, I appeared before this Council and told you ALL of this. And I begged for your help in focusing public attention on my situation and pressuring the DA to take appropriate action. My Father, who died the following year, stood with me and pleaded that you exercise whatever influence you had as city leaders to help his daughter.

You sat and you squirmed. David Jarrell was there. John Ogburn was there. Talmadge Baker was there. Linda Carter and Keith Crisco were there. Archie Priest and David Smith were there. Afterwards, several of you made it a point to thank me for coming forward and to shake my hand. But some of you had a very hard time looking me in the eye.

In the end you did nothing. My statement was not placed in the minutes of the meeting that was published on-line. And the reporter for the Courier Tribune put down her pen. My appearance merited no mention in our local newspaper.

My Dave’s Mountain neighbors are just now finding out something I’ve known and had to cope with for ten years. This newspaper plays favorites. It does not play fair.

Not long after that it was announced that the Asheboro City Council had chosen Bob Morrison to lead its 20/20 strategic planning efforts. Asheboro’s leaders knowingly chose a liar to lead this city into its future. It was a slap in my face. And it spoke volumes about small town values.

*[This is what it said: In Asheboro, North Carolina, it is okay to threaten a Pediatrician for complaining about problems related to the quality care of children. It is okay to fire a Pediatrician for doing her duty. It is okay to defile the mission of the state and federal programs that brought the Pediatrician home in the first place. It is okay to sue a Pediatrician for telling the truth to the government she served. It is okay to treat the Court with contempt, and lie under Oath and defraud the Pediatrician of a fair and just resolution after she fights back. It’s okay for that Pediatrician to be ridiculed and ignored when she screams for help from the criminal justice system.]* Edited out for time.

I’ve got news for Bob Morrison, his hospital and this City Council. Perjury is FOREVER. And YOU/your town . . . which, since my high-school days, has treated me and so many of my less-well-named friends like dirt . . . are ALL on the Internet at www.drjshousecalls.blogspot.com. Those young professionals you say you value so much who are considering making Asheboro their home need to know what the leaders of this mill town are capable of . . . and what they refuse to own up to . . . or make amends for.

When the Asheboro 20/20 meetings were held, I took time off from work down East and drove home to attend – because I knew what you were scheming to do. People laughed and told me I was crazy and/or paranoid.

Who in this room is laughing now?

Not too long after the 20/20 meetings were over, and with city coffers hurting, the Asheboro City Council voted to give Randolph Hospital a half-million dollars to fund the building of a new cancer center Mr. Morrison is fronting for Moses Cone Hospital. The Council saw no problem in awarding this money to a private project not in ANY way affiliated with primary care without so much as a public vote. It demonstrated a tremendous conflict of interest . . . as well as the way business is done in Asheboro. Wink and nod: Bob Morrison can tote the water that the City of Asheboro hopes to turn into alcohol and the Council is obliged to reward his loyalty.

Now, come hell or high water, the Asheboro City Council is going to ram annexation down the throats of Dave’s Mountain residents. There are a whole lot of people here tonight a whole lot smarter than I am about facts and figures and land bridges and contractors and bidding practices – and they tell me that this project is going to be much more expensive than the City’s projections show, and, in fact, this project threatens to bankrupt the city. People and areas within the city that should be annexed first are being left to rot while this City Council goes for the pot of gold at the base of Dave’s Mountain.

My very smart neighbors tell me that one contractor . . . who, like Bob Morrison, happens to have been in on all of the 20/20 strategic planning . . . is behind all of the facts and figures behind this annexation . . . and that no independent bids were entertained (again, this speaks to a massive conflict of interest). They tell me that Dave’s Mountain is a giant rock, and that sewer lines will require dynamite that could silently disrupt the foundation of my house and destroy the natural habitat of the deer, owls, rabbits and other wildlife that now visit my back yard. (*There's a rumor going around that we have bears too).

On top of all that, I've have to stand in church and listen to Bob Morrison, who swore a false Oath on a Bible and laughed all the way to the bank, stand before the community where I was raised – the community he threw me out of for doing the right thing – the community he swindled out of at least two good Pediatricians – and ask for prayer to support his notion of how things should be. As I stood to pray him off the podium that night, part of me wanted to run from the church because I kept waiting for the lightening to strike.

I first favorably entertained the idea of annexation on the notion that it might just get my road fixed – my road which was built to “minimum standards” by some of the people who now sit at this table – my road which I was told (when I bought my house) would shortly be taken over by the state. 13 years and 4 houses on my cul-de-sac later, the road is a crumbling mess. And the state will not take it over until the road is brought up to specifications. It’s the homeowners’ problem. Meanwhile, as they scheme and plot, the developers and realtors have laughed all the way to the bank.

I know how to fix my road without the City of Asheboro having to annex one inch of Dave’s Mountain. It’s simple really: The Asheboro City Council & Randolph County Commissioners do not let Billie Wilson or any of the other realtors/contractors/developers involved in the building of these substandard roads to build or develop one more thing in Randolph County until they fix those roads.

Finally, if the God-fearing, anti-alcohol residents of Asheboro (who have been in the voting majority for my entire lifetime) knew the truth about the way January’s “Sacred Assembly” got off the ground, your seats would be very hot indeed. Local pastors were approached by city & business leaders and asked to consider supporting an alcohol referendum – for the “economic good” of the community. The forced annexation of Dave’s Mountain is ALL AND ONLY about quick money and alcohol – about David & Bonnie Renfro’s carpet-bagging notions of what our small town should be. It’s about ensnaring the 200-plus Dave’s Mountain homeowners and their families into something the vast majority of us do not want – taxing the crap out of us – and then expecting us to reward Asheboro with a “go” for alcohol on the next referendum (because the Council assumes that alcohol is what well-educated, successful professionals want).

I have a suggestion for all of the Dave’s Mountain residents in this room. If our neighborhood is annexed against our will – and with no consideration for our happiness or welfare – with no care for what our voices are telling these people that we never voted for – then I suggest that when that alcohol referendum finally rolls around, we all vote NO.

And we vote NO FOREVER.

Because we CAN.

Thank you.

Mary H. Johnson, M.D.

I am very tired and I am going to bed. My own bed. Must get up early in the morning and drive back down East.

Update: The Courier didn't do much. Young professionals should note that (once again) I am "Mary Johnson" as opposed to "Dr. Mary Johnson". It's Asheboro, after all.

Update (PM): Several people have commented on Chip Womick's signature Randolph County "good-ole-boy-sexist-pig" insult (i.e. not addressing me as "Dr." - as I introduced myself at the podium) . . . it reminds me of my days in their courtrooms as an expert witness. I attempted to comment on the Courier's sorry excuse for a story (by submitting my entire statement), but as is par for the course for the paper's sorrier excuse for "blogging", the comment was rejected. It's in the public record, but the paper can't print it. My "Blogfather", Mr. P., also attempted a comment. It was not put up either - so I post it here:

That would be Doctor Mary Johnson who spoke, or does showing respect seem to escape the media these days? She is absolutely correct in her statements. It was a made up deal from the "git-go" by the "good ole boy's" club that runs Asheboro as well as "ruins" Asheboro. Hopefully the folks on Davis Mtn. will not just brush off the dirt, mend the wounds and "get over it". Hopefully they will fight to the bitter end and then let those who have forced this issue down their throats know that they can forget about "just getting along and getting over it".

Update 4/13: From the http://www.truthinasheboro.com/ website: a link to a News 2 video story (where I've commented). The Mayor was quoted as saying Dave's Mountain residents have "not paid their fair share". Huh!?!?!? We pay MORE for our water. Our roads are a mess because they were built to "minimum standards" (which now equals substandard) in development schemes that the city/county approved. Those of us who were not run out of town on a rail by lying, lazy, overpaid, "public servants" (while every well-named someone who was supposed to be providing "oversight" looked the other way) own businesses in town - and employ workers who live in town - and pay taxes on those businesses. So tell me, Mr. Mayor, HOW have we not paid our way?

For my own part, I gave at the hospital.

Update 4/13: I've been advised this morning that someone who was not even at the meeting - but who "heard about it from a friend" - might be a bit put out because I be-smirched their "family name".

It was also suggested that I was disturbed/crazy/"wacky" enough (whatever) to physically harm Bob Morrison. Even if it was said playfully, that is just not funny.

One thing at a time. The prominent "family names" mentioned in my statement all served (or still serve) on this "non-profit" hospital's Board of Directors. Those prominent "family names" all rubber-stamped every "UGLY" thing Bob Morrison ever did to me (very similar now to what the Asheboro City Council is doing to Dave's Mountain residents on Bob's recommendation). Since 2003, those prominent "family names" have ignored the evidence I've presented (both to the hospital and local law enforcement authorities) for perjury, contempt and fraud. Bob still works for their hospital - he was not fired for this serious breach of business ethics. He's never been held accountable for his actions - for his lies.

So, if "conspiracy theory" fits, wear it.

For all of the high-minded talk about "small-town-values" and "open/transparent" government, ethics doesn't apparently mean much to those prominent "family names".

Besides, it was a public hearing, and anyone possessive of a prominent "family name" were all free to stand up and counter what I said. No one did. By the way, unliked the Courier Tribune's "Letters To The Editors" & "Post A Comment On Our Story" features (where Bob Morrison's opinions get published, but mine do not), this blog's comments are open and my e-mail address is posted.

As for the "whack-job" theme, it's old. And tired. Not to mention totally absurd given the fact that I've never fired a gun (apart from a BB gun) in my life and have turned down all opportunities to learn (in fact, several friends & family members have offered to teach me because they are worried about my safety as I speak "truth to power" in Asheboro).

It's also about deflection (much like that bogus "libel" lawsuit Bob ran away from) . . . about getting people to focus on something factitious rather than the facts right festering under their noses . . . facts screaming for their attention.

Let's be clear: Bob Morrison, who did not have the courage to be at either of the public hearings on annexation (so he could face the neighbors he screwed into mountain rock with his 20/20 vision), is so NOT worth a bullet.

I have a pen and a blog and the truth.

Occasionally, there's a public hearing. And that is enough.

Update (PM) 4/13: The someone from the previous update was apparently actually sympathetic to my cause and "joking", but I am thankful for the opportunity to have doused some fires (particularly the "whack-job" theory) before they raged.

But another notion was floated that needs to be nipped in the bud: This someone said that the Board of Directors of Randolph Hospital could not do anything about what Morrison has done to physicians (not just me) because "they're a coroporate board" and these are medical matters.

That notion is just cowpoopoo . . . and has probably been put out by this see-no-evil-hear-no-evil-speak-no-evil-good-ole-boy BOD to cover their tails. My issues were NEVER medical - I was fired "without cause" . . . and (in retaliation for filing my lawsuit against the hospital's "controlled affiliate") Morrison & his lawyers snow-jobbed the Medical Executive Committee into throwing me off the medical staff by accepting a staff resignation I had withdrawn before its effective date (without even notifying me that it was on MEC's agenda for a vote).

Medical staff privileges are a protected property right. There's a lot this mess has in common with the Dave's Mountain forced annexation war now. Due process and fair representation are non-existant.

While the underlying reasons for what Morrison & Eblin did to me were about faciliating a medical cover-up, my legal issues were corporate.

And in 2003, I brought to this "coroporate board's" attention evidence of gross administrative misconduct and criminal behavior.

This "honorable" Board of Directors hired Morrison. They can fire him.

"For cause" in this case. End of story.

Update (4/21): I was home briefly this weekend. Still getting lots of positive feedback from "the Mountaineers" on my "speech". Several folks have commented on how I "put it all together" - or "should run for something if we do get annexed in".

A friend was supposed to watch the Courier for articles and editorials for me - but he forgot to ask his own neighbors to hold their papers (he doesn't subscribe either) - and, as they use the papers in their garden ("the best use for it"), he could only come up with Ray Criscoe's 4/13 editorial. In it, the Editor of the Courier Tribune excused his reporter (Chip Womick) for cutting out on the Council meeting early - the poor guy had a deadline to meet.

Do you think the City Council knew that as they planned their agenda?

I wish Criscoe, as Editor of our local newspaper, would trouble himself to learn some community history before he puts pen to paper. The article read like the musings of an uninformed carpetbagger. I have it on good authroity that "the Mountain" was "watered up" BEFORE the place was developed - or the (now) substandard roads were paved - or the houses were even built . . . therefore there were no roads/yards to tear up or foundations to damage.

Crisoce also alluded to "other related topcis" and "conspiracy theories", but it was 2 AM and he did not want to be up all night.

My particular "conspiracy theory" has not merited ANY coverage since I appeared at the Council meeting. I wonder what Criscoe's excuse has been in the week since he wrote the editorial?

I just got a call on my cell - an earnest pre-recorded young woman inviting me to attend an event featuring Bill Clinton in Asheboro on Wednesday.

Ah the Clinton years. He got screwed and so did I.

Update (4/22): It's been a horrendous day. Very busy with very sick babies. Exhausted and drained. Got a phone call late tonight from a friend back home - who is upset over Randolph Hospital's obviously stepped up ad campaign since my appearance at the City Council meeting. The campaign is milking the cancer center thing for all it's worth (Relay-For-Life has proven the good ordinary folk of Asheboro to be a generous lot when it comes to cancer research) . . . and it's all being spoonfed to an under-informed local populace by the Courier Tribune.

But it's par for this course. And it's not the first time. Any time I make a bit of a splash - or get any kind of "traction", the powers-that-be who think they own this town crank up the damage control.

Wouldn't it be nice if this hospital could learn something from Bill Clinton (visiting Asheboro tomorrow) and admit it screwed up?