Guilford County Commissioner Frankie Jones Jr. had some interesting comments when he addressed the adoption of the 2022-2023 Guilford County budget at the Board of Commissioners meeting on Thursday, June 16.
After speaking passionately about how the new budget would address the needs of county residents, Jones turned his attention to a Republican county commissioner and chastised him for not taking part in the budget process.
Jones didn’t refer to Republican Commissioner James Upchurch by name, but it was obvious that Jones was calling out Upchurch, which Jones later confirmed.
Guilford County held five budget workshops before adopting the budget and Upchurch didn’t attend any of them, either in-person or virtually.
Jones voted for the budget, while Upchurch voted against it – and Upchurch blasted the budget saying it was too expensive and lacked direction. Upchurch participated in the June 16 county commissioners meeting by phone, while the other eight commissioners were at the meeting.
Jones took issue with the fact that Upchurch was criticizing the budget but Upchurch had missed all of the budget work sessions.
“I salute everyone here who is in attendance at this meeting for putting in the work,” Jones said. “They came. They did the work. We have a duty to actually show up and do the work.”
He added, “But I find it disrespectful to every member of the staff and everybody on the Board of Commissioners to voice opposition but not even represent your citizens.”
Jones said Republican Commissioners Justin Conrad and Alan Perdue hadn’t voted for the budget, but they had come to the work sessions, fought to represent their constituents, and had gotten items included in the budget because of that.
He said Upchurch, on the other hand, hadn’t participated at all.
Jones said the day after the meeting when the budget was adopted, when asked about the comments, that his remarks weren’t personal. He said he gets along with Upchurch and the two have a pleasant relationship – but he added that he took offense at the fact that Upchurch criticized the budget without putting an ounce of effort into it.
Upchurch on Friday, June 17, said he was surprised by Jones’ comments because he has served for months with Jones and has had no issues with him. Upchurch has, however, had major battles with Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston.
“I figured Skip put him up to it,” Upchurch said. “He [Jones] was reading from a piece of paper so I figured it was planned.”
Upchurch said he saw early on in the budget process that the Democrats were going to railroad through an absurdly large budget that placed way too much burden on county taxpayers, and the proposal was so far out there it really wasn’t even in a realm where negotiations would do any good. He also said he saw that writing on the wall from early on in the process.
“If they’ve already made a decision and I complain, then I’m just throwing gas on the fire,” Upchurch said.
When asked about the situation, Alston said that he wasn’t surprised at all that Jones spoke about Upchurch, and Alston said, “I think he should have named him at the meeting.”
Alston said Upchurch took a county commissioner’s job paying $30,000 a year and he needs to do something to earn that money. He said Upchurch is being completely unfair to the people in his district by not representing them.
Alston also said that Upchurch, in addition to not taking part in the budget process, didn’t participate in any of the interviews to choose a new county attorney.
Upchurch said, in that hiring process too, he felt as though at the start that the decision had already pretty much been made.
Upchurch pointed out that he did vote to hire the new attorney.
“I don’t think she’s incompetent – I think she’ll be fine,” he said. “I voted for her.”
Jones, who is an attorney, said that he felt the county attorney hiring process was very open and fair, and that the commissioners took the job seriously and selected the best candidate after a good deal of deliberation. He said the new attorney’s extensive work in local government law was a big factor in her selection.
respect is earned
Why waste his time? They aren’t going to listen anyway.
I’m not really a fan of Upchurch since he flip flopped, but at least hes not a disgraceful Democrat.
Here’s what is disrespectful:
Voters who aren’t taxpayers that consistently vote for bonds and services that cost the taxpayers money. The same goes for politicians who gobble up every dime rather than adjust to a revenue neutral rate.
Who do you think doesn’t pay taxes but votes? Even those that don’t own property, pay rent that funds property taxes (and goes up as property taxes go up). They also pay sales taxes.
Get outta here with the idea that people live tax free vote enough to sway a bond approval.
Hey numbnuts chris do you not know that all the college students in our city that vote, go to schools that don’t pay taxes and they vote for bonds or elected officials that has No effect on them. Get your head out of your behind. Liberal dumb a$$. Get busy get off here and go adopt a dozen of the illegal children you think should be here
When that welfare queen’s rent is subsidized by John Q. Taxpayer that means we’re paying it all. Keep using that common core math. It’s works great in those blue states.
“Get outta here with the idea that people live tax free vote enough to sway a bond approval.” A valid point–knowing Commissioner Alston’s spotless character, his high moral standards & long record of self-serving, er, selfless service–one couldn’t possibly consider him capable of leveraging the many votes of those residing in, uh, shall we say, ‘free’ housing? And for brevity, we’ll omit the myriad other ‘free’ perks & just put to rest any ridiculous notion that our fine, upstanding Chairman would ever resort to such chicanery. Why, the very idea–perish the thought!
Jr. skip in training. Who did not see this black loud mouth coming
My sentiments exactly.
And YOU are UGLY too!!!!
the gov’t told me i must continue wearing the MASK because i’m ugly. that is DELIBERATE meanness !
I can now sleep well knowing Frankie is on the job.
Every Democrat loves to tax and spend. As far as the newly hired county attorney, resumes can be enhanced. After all, don’t Linkedin members write their own resumes? Read the resumes, all members walk on water.
Mr. Jones, neither you nor the council have my respect. If you don’t respect the opinions of others, how can anyone respect you?
It appears that some commenters don’t know the difference between County Commissioners and City Council Members.
Whom do you refer to sir.
A Democrat is a Democrat, they all suck.
-50 Points for being a Democrat
-20 Points Member of the blue lodge
-20 Points Member of the greensboro men’s club
-5 Points for being skip’s bitch
That leaves a total score of 5. So anything this one does carries 5% of the weight of a non-democrat that hasn’t sold their soul.