The legal war between the Town of Summerfield and two of its former top employees shows no signs of cooling off – and former Summerfield Finance Officer Dee Hall says the fight has now required her and former Town Manager Scott Whitaker to turn over more than 22,000 pages of emails, text messages, photos and other personal material.
Hall, who has repeatedly accused members of the Summerfield Town Council of pursuing a political vendetta against her and Whitaker, issued a new statement this week describing the latest round of discovery in the ongoing litigation.
“At the town’s demand, Scott and I were forced to turn over 22,000+ pages of personal emails, private text messages, and photos – with our children, family, friends, and supporters,” Hall stated in an email to the Rhino Times.
“To meet the town council’s insatiable demands, we gave our attorneys total access to our cellphones and personal email accounts so that hi-tech, sophisticated electronic discovery software could cull every piece of our personal and family lives and data within a five-day period.”
The production is the latest development in a bitter dispute that’s been going on for more than two years and has since spawned lawsuits going in both directions.
Whitaker served as Summerfield town manager for roughly 12 years before a divided Town Council decided in early 2024 not to renew his contract. The decision helped set off a period of turmoil at Town Hall, and the town’s remaining staff members, including Hall, subsequently resigned.
The dispute intensified in January of 2025 when former North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood appeared out of nowhere before the Summerfield Town Council and presented a report containing allegations concerning financial practices, employee leave payments, town records and other actions involving the former administration.
Whitaker and Hall strongly denied wrongdoing and complained that they hadn’t been given a chance to answer the allegations before they were presented publicly.
The Town Council ultimately pursued civil litigation against the two former employees.
The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office investigated the allegations but, after consulting with the Guilford County District Attorney’s Office, announced that it wouldn’t pursue criminal charges.
Whitaker and Hall later went on the offensive themselves, filing a lawsuit alleging defamation and civil conspiracy against Wood, current Summerfield Town Manager Twig Rollins, former Interim Town Manager Dana Luther and Town Councilmember Heath Clay.
That leaves the two sides locked in continuing civil litigation – and Hall said this week that the breadth of the town’s discovery demands demonstrates jusst how far the dispute has gone.
“In addition to the vengeful invasion of our privacy, the town council’s lust for our personal and private data were extremely broad,” Hall stated.
“The town council demanded every communication (including advertisements and junk mail) that contained words such as ‘town’ or ‘summer’ or ‘Summerfield’ in which to conduct its ‘fishing expedition’ into our personal lives.”
Hall said much of the material had nothing to do with the period when she and Whitaker were employed by the town.
“The vast majority of the electronic data were private and personal exchanges that took place long after we left our employment with the Town of Summerfield – some 804 days ago – to the current date,” she wrote.
One of the central issues in the town’s case has been the handling and possession of town records. In August 2025, a Guilford County Superior Court judge issued an order concerning public records in the possession of Whitaker and Hall as the litigation moved forward.
Hall continues to maintain that neither she nor Whitaker improperly took town records.
“In the aftermath of the town council’s draconian actions, it will be forced to see that at no time did we ever improperly take town records,” she stated.
Hall also said the litigation is taking a major financial toll.
“However, we also realize that the town council’s primary objective is to decimate our finances, ruin our reputations, and devastate our careers – all at taxpayer’s expense,” she wrote. “To date, we have incurred over $400 thousand in legal fees with no end in sight.”
Hall said that both she and Whitaker understand the town’s legal expenses related to the dispute to have exceeded $1 million. (That figure hasn’t been independently verified by the Rhino Times.)
“On the other hand, the town council, with its unlimited finances, has incurred what we understand exceeds one million dollars for its personal vendetta,” Hall stated.
The Town of Summerfield has taken a very different view of the litigation.
In a statement posted on the town’s website regarding the Whitaker-Hall legal proceedings, town officials said state personnel laws restrict what the town can say publicly about current or former employees and cautioned that the town’s silence shouldn’t be interpreted as agreement with statements made by others.
The town also stated that it continues to pursue its civil claims and defend itself against claims after careful consideration.
Hall, however, said that she and Whitaker have no intention of backing down.
“We are innocent and we will fight the town council’s ‘bullying’ lawsuit against us with all our heart and resources with full hope that the truth will prevail.”
And this is an example of why you shouldn’t put any personal information (photos and more) on a government computer. It doesn’t matter whether you work for a small municipality or a large one; once you upload/download, it becomes the municipality’s property. Blaming everyone else will get you sympathy and high legal costs, and that’s a lose-lose situation.
This is stuff coming off their personal devices. Not just government electronics.
Just conjecturing, but What happens when the public finds out the Council hired Twig Rollins knowing he had a connection to Beth Wood when they hired him?
There’s a reason they are meeting “in the dark” and trying to keep their faux pas with Twig covered. . . They lost control of him, and they didn’t like that. That’s what it looks like to people.
Everyone knows he wasn’t competent or experienced enough for that role. It makes no sense you would fire someone with experience and then flippantly hire a man with such shallow stints on his resume. I am convinced the only explanation they thought it clever to hire Twig was because they knew about his connections to Wood. Who he immediately turned around and hired at the request of Dana Luther.
But you keep telling yourself these clowns are on the up and up while they burn demonically through taxpayer money. They could easily hush me up by showing us this resume/references. . . The longer they go ignoring my questions about this, the more malicious it’s going to look in a court of law if they saw Beth Wood associated with him on his hiring materials.
They sure are silent on this.
That wouldn’t be on their computers…
That’s right. Someone is going to have to force the evidence/documents in Court since citizens can’t get a copy of that info through PRR as it’s “PERSONNEL”. Unless someone has a copy already?
I don’t. But there have been rumors. And when asked, former Councilmember Robinson claims she didn’t really see Rollins’s background or look closely at his application materials. Who did? And why didn’t she?
It kind of sounds like some of the Clowns intentionally did not look because they were making sure there was no opportunity of incriminating themselves later. “Selective amnesia” or civil conspiracy? Hmmm. Definitely dereliction and negligence that’s running through the Taxpayers Dimes because someone thought this all would be satisfying for them.
Important to note not on government property and should be only specific to town emails — not all emails–personal etc. Judge should not have approved any scope of “discovery” that large including all personal emails.
Huge waste of taxpayer money and Town of Summerfield, despite public record requests, has not released town attorney bills and records — and all attorney bills have been requested since March 2023. Some months $80,000.
Summerfield mayor and council members spend huge time with lots of attorneys–and that should be public record.and spend hours in closed session. Taxpayers were allowed 3 minutes in June and 3 minutes in August for public comments–talk to the wall — and council doesn’t listen or care. Town closed secret sessions for August about 20-25 hours. Should have numbers when we receive minutes of town meeting–but “minutes” can be six months later and looks like Attencdance Roster– not “real” minutes.
I’m not well-versed on legal aspects of closed meetings. Gail, does it appear our town has violated open meeting laws? Are these issues related to the competence of the out-going management?
Follow-up: Last week, in court, the judge ordered Hall and Whitaker to turn over the documents. The judge must have a good reason to order them to submit them to the town.
August 31st, 4 pm, the Council held some kind of closed meeting. They have not announced anything concerning the meeting. No one knows why they met.
Strange how they are publicly and privately scrutinizing Whitaker and Hall, but they couldn’t be bothered to examine the background and application materials of Twig Rollins closely at all. Former Councilmember Janelle Robinson “admitted” her own negligence in how Rollins was hired, but she claims he did a good job. . . Despite the incessant mismanagements, big and small.
I think she is covering her tail and has selective amnesia. The rest will try to claim the same.
When you ask them if they were aware if Twig Rollins and Beth Wood knew each other before he hired her to come here and investigate the two former employees, you get this “selective amnesia” or crickets.
Did Dana Luther, a known antagonist of the two former employees for years, know?
I smell deceit and corruption. But no skin off these officials backs because they are just getting the taxpayers to shield them.
I have known Dee my entire life and I cannot believe she has done anything they are accusing her of. She is a good Christian woman and she genuinely loves and cares about other people. She has recently finished her cancer treatment. It beat her down but she kept going. My heart and my prayers go out to her. Unfortunately the left do what they do best and they demonize the Republicans. They are always making their accusations and lying about everything just to make themselves look good or to get people run out of office so they can take control. We see all the false accusations they’ve brought against Trump. This is what they do best. They lie and they manipulate and they destroy people’s reputations and families. My prayers go out to Dee. And Scott even though I don’t know him.
These are REPUBLICANS, some of them serving in Guilford Republican Party leadership roles.
I am leaving the Republican Party because as a Conservative, CHARACTER matters to me. These people are going to end up exposed. Signs keep pointing to it. Plus, they are totally irresponsible with citizens’ hard earned money.
If character really mattered, you would have left long before now
I had already left in my heart. Now it’s about to be official.
take me
I am astounded the Summerfield town council has continued to push this thing. Let’s review: the new guard essentially fired the town manager, causing all the other staff to resign in protest. They hired a yes man from a town so small (about 800) you wonder why it is a town. The new guard would never work with David Couch to have anything other than houses on large lots with well and septic. Then Couch managed to get the property de-annexed. Now Summerfield lost about 1,000 acres that could have had a nice variety of homes with GSO water/sewer, and the new property taxes to boot! They then hired the former state auditor to do a quick hit job and released the findings on live stream. After all this nonsense, the city manager announced his retirement. What a mess the new council has made. They are clearly making one rookie mistake after another. There is ZERO to gain from suing the former manager and finance director. This is a personal vendetta paid by Summerfield residents. But, I have been enjoying the show. Keep it up Summerfield. This is like a free realty TV show!
Summerfield Government in the Closet, Spendaholics, and lack of compliance with NCGS General Statutes. Unanimous NO Respect for taxpayers and our money. Lynne Devaney does not even live in town or county of Guilford, Lynne Devaney living at Summerfield–163 Cleek, owns property on Strawberry Rd–but not living there. Ashley Anderson main town attorney knows this and we are paying Ashleyand her buddies a fortune — but refuses to comply with basic NCGS. Mayor and council continue to cover up that Lynne Devaney is NOT living/sleeping in town of summerfield.
I guess the Council and their attorneys want someone else to waste money on another lawsuit to prove DeVaney’s primary residence is not in Summerfield. Summerfield field is no longer a real town deserving a charter: It’s simply An Attorney’s Piggybank.
We should petition to have the name changed to Attorney-Piggybank, NC.
The madness of the political process at its finest. Leave these two people alone before they wind up owning your little town!
They need to annex themselves to the City of Greensboro. They know how to run things….
If memory serves me the state auditor was forced to resign when caught using state vehicle for personal business and she wrecked that vehicle most likely while driving under the influence. If the two ex-employees have paid attorney fees of $400m then Summerfield has paid 2 or 3 times that amount and could wind up having to reimburse the ex-employees for their legal costs. Huge waste of taxpayer money.
Summerfield is no Utopia.
The “town” is no more than a glorified HOA.
Why waste taxpayer money to read someone’s private emails–many agree that Lynne Williams Devaney, mayor pro tem and council member does NOT LIVE IN THE TOWN OF SUMMERFIELD–HOME FOR QUITE A LONG TIME
IS 163 CLEEK, Summerfield address in another county. One or more of the battalion of town attorneys wasting taxpayer money can check her address and appears vacant house on Strawberry Rd–utility bills and use or non-use can tell the truth–that info is available to an attorney. Also no trash service. Why pay her $500 a month. Lynne Devaney was also remote during town meetings as she did not want to receive “legal service” during a council meeting — so YOU — TAX PAYERS paid a town attorney to accept legal service for Devaney. Council knows and they should also be gone for cover up of this lie and living outside the town of summerfield. If it is another address on Cleek please let us know.