Diehl: Mayfield owes $372,000

Charlotte attorney Bill Diehl and his law firm filed suit today against former client and NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield to recover almost $372,000 in unpaid legal bills.

Diehl and his firm filed suit in Mecklenburg County Superior Court seeking to receive $371,973.66 for legal services already performed for Mayfield and his team, Mayfield Motorsports Inc., as they battled NASCAR over his indefinite suspension for violating the sport’s substance abuse policy.

In the suit, Diehl and his firm claim between May and August 2009 Mayfield was continually late in the payment of a promised monthly payment.

Click here to read the suit.

In addition, the firm claims it attempted several times to get Mayfield to agree to a written contract to pay monthly $20,000 payments and a lump sum final payment on Dec. 15 and Mayfield repeatedly refused.

The firm is seeking the court to award it the amount of unpaid legal fees plus attorney fees and late charges and interest dating from Oct. 22, 2009, until the amount is finally paid.

Last month, Mayfield replaced Diehl and his firm with celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos. At the time of the change, Diehl said in repeated interviews that Mayfield owed him “a lot” for defending him in his lawsuit against NASCAR.

Mayfield recently held an auction to sell an executive home, log cabin, ranch home, shop and various other personal property in Catawba County. The was no immediate response from Mayfield on Wednesday to the filing.

- Jim Utter

Jones replaces auditor over DSS report

Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones today said in a memo the county human resources department "has been instructed to initiate recruitment for a new Internal Audit Department director."

The memo does not indicate what happened to Director Cornita Spears, who announced Tuesday that an audit released this summer failed to account for roughly $33,000 that had been returned to the county.

Spears said the money helped the county account for more than $160,000 that had been spent by the Giving Tree charity program run by the county Department of Social Services. Here is the full story.

Former county finance director Harry Weatherly will serve as interim consulting director for the next 90 days.

The reorganization was included in a memo Jones sends weekly to county commissioners.

Here is the memo:

Changes in Internal Audit Management

As I mentioned at the Board meeting earlier this week, the error associated with the Giving Tree audit is unacceptable for this organization. It has damaged the credibility of the Internal Audit Department and Mecklenburg County as an organization. I have determined that the credibility of the Internal Audit Department cannot be restored with the current management of this department.
Therefore, I have taken the following steps regarding the leadership and management of the Internal Audit Department. Former County Finance Director Harry Weatherly has agreed to serve as Interim Consulting Director of the Internal Audit Department. We will expand our existing services agreement with Mr. Weatherly to serve in this capacity over the next 90 days. In this role, Mr. Weatherly will provide executive oversight of the Internal Audit Department in a consulting capacity. He will report directly to the county manager regarding all matters pertaining to the County’s Internal Audit Department.
Mr. Weatherly will be supported in this interim role by current Internal Audit Department staff member Chris Waddell. Mr. Waddell will serve as Interim Operations Manager for Internal Audit and will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Department.
In addition, the Human Resources Department has been instructed to initiate recruitment for a new Internal Audit Department director.
These changes are effective immediately.

--Harry L. Jones, Sr., County Manager

Jones: No thoughts of resigning

Mecklenburg County Manager Harry Jones has faced intense criticism from some residents on a variety of issues this year, including reported accounting problems in the Department of Social Services and a $38,400 performance bonus given to him earlier this month. Some have even called for his job.

Jones addressed the issues in an interview Thursday on "Charlotte's Morning News with Al Gardner & Stacey Simms" on WBT-AM.

Click here to hear the full exchange. Note: The link to Jones' interview is about midway down the page

Here are some snippets:

Q. Have you thought about resigning?

Jones: "No, I have not given any thought to that Al. This has been a good year. You know along the way you are going to make some mistakes. I did make a mistake in forwarding an email. Harry Lomax and I have subsequently talked and I'm taking his position that it was blown way out of proportion. He and I have had lunch together with each other. No, I have not given any thought to it. But I will say, Al, it's been a tough year. It's been a really tough year. But I think it's also been my best year and I told the board of county commissioners that and I'm going to continue to stay where I am unless they decide they don't want me any longer."

Q. As Al was mentioning, though, other county employees didn't get bonuses at all. And it seems to me that with the email as you said you’ve apologized, you've had lunch with the gentleman, but (it was) big blow to public trust there, and with the DSS situation being what it is, why not say, well, I'll accept the bonus if such and so bears out, an ethics investigation, something like that? Because I think a lot of people would question whether this was the best year for county government.

Jones: "I’m going to say this: I earned that bonus. I think the other issues my board of county commissioners factored all of those things in when they considered my compensation. And the position that I will take is that, yes, the email does raise some questions about people's confidence in government. But Al and Stacey, I will say to you that there was no malicious intent, as I have indicated publicly, on my forwarding that particular email. And in that there was no malicious intent, for those people who want to call for my scalp on that one particular action, (they) don’t know Harry Jones and don't know what Harry Jones has done through his career to try to open up government, to encourage more participation. If you want to judge me on this one action, then I would say you're judging me contrary to the real Harry Jones."

Read the health care bills and share your thoughts

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday evening unveiled the Senate version of a massive health care package that would overhaul insurance practices while adding an array of tax increases, including a rise in payroll taxes for high earners.

• Price tag: $849 billion over 10 years ($206 billion less than the House bill passed this month).
• Expansion of coverage: 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured (6 million fewer than the House bill).
• Deficit reduction: $127 billion over 10 years ($23 billion more than the House bill).

The measure now heads to the Senate floor for debate and a vote.

Read the 2,074-page Senate bill here (PDF).
You can read the bill passed this month by the House here.

• A Washington Post graphic compares the House and Senate bills here.

What do you think of the bills? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

County: Employee repaid $33,776.23

Here's the surprising twist in Mecklenburg County's investigation into alleged misspending at a Christmas charity for children: Officials said a county employee returned more than $33,000 months ago, but auditors didn't account for it.

The county's audit department released this memo Tuesday.

Here's what officials say happened:

In June, county auditors released an audit of the Christmas program. It said they'd collected about $138,978 in receipts of about $162,000 at issue. Here is the first audit memo.

On Tuesday, the auditors released a "follow-up and clarification" to that audit.

It said an employee had returned $33,776.23 in February and March.

On Tuesday, Internal Audit Director Cornita Spears said an employee had been advanced the money and was returning what was unspent or that had been used for personal items.

- Doug Miller

Petition: Sheriff Daugherty should be suspended

Lincoln County Attorney Jeff Taylor has asked a judge to remove embattled Sheriff Tim Daugherty from office, the Observer's Joe Depriest reports.

Taylor filed a petition in Lincoln County Superior Court on Monday, asking the court to order a hearing on the matter as soon as possible.

Click here to read the court papers.

Lincoln County commissioners voted unanimously in October to authorize Taylor to begin legal proceedings against Daugherty, who has been indicted on two counts of felony obstruction of justice. He is accused of covering up a fixed drunken-driving investigation.

Daugherty has pleaded not guilty to the charges and said through his attorney that he would not step down. Commissioners have asked him twice to resign. He could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

- Doug Miller

Bigger than boundaries?

A bitter boundary battle dominated Tuesday's CMS board meeting, but some members say their most important long-term decision sailed through with far less drama.

The board approved a new, streamlined version of the "theory of action" that sets the stage for all CMS decisions. Read it here.

To see how it compared with the old version, here's a marked-up version.

The board also tinkered with its student assignment policy, adding a requirement that the board hold a public hearing before voting on boundary changes. That usually happens, but some minor changes have been made without a hearing.