New Bern Board of Aldermen end up voting to let citizens speak.
When Jeffrey Odham became the presiding officer at New Bern Board of Aldermen meetings in 2022, he decided to announce the home address of speakers before they got the podium to petition their elected representatives and/or announced events. The political stunt appeared to have a chilling effect on some who decided not to speak out of fear of retribution. If you’re new to how local government meetings work, citizens don’t have to share their home address in order to speak in New Bern, NC.
One night in 2024, the mayor called out a speaker’s address that wasn’t listed on the sign-up sheet which led to the aldermen questioning the mayor’s behavior. They ultimately voted “to not allow the presiding officer to disclose the speakers home address” with aldermen Rick Prill (Ward 1), Hazel Royal (Ward 2), Bobby Aster (Ward 3), Johnnie Ray Kinsey (Ward 4), Barbara Best (Ward 5). The Ward 6 alderman seat was vacant. Mayor Odham also voted for the motion and that game ended.
A month later, the mayor spent over 30 minutes of staff’s time and city resources to hold an “unofficial meeting” despite not having a quorum where he spread a political narrative about the majority number of aldermen. The meeting aired on the city’s social media platforms.
In October 2025, the city manager asked the aldermen to consider approving the 2026 Board of Aldermen meeting schedule despite the newly elected board taking office in December. A voice vote was called on an unclear motion and the mayor said, “it passed.” We later asked the aldermen, city manager, and mayor to clarify the motion. The alderman who resigned a few minutes after the vote was the only one who responded. He said, “I thought what we were voting on was a schedule that had only one meeting scheduled during the summer months, as we did in 2025, as reported here.
After the November runoff election, the mayor took to the airwaves on the Housing Authority of the City of New Bern’s Board of Commissioners/New Bern Municipal Advisory Committee’s radio/social media show and said the number of monthly aldermen meetings were reduced to once a month because, “It forces our staff and others to tighten up whenever they are making submissions that need to be on the agenda…” Then the video was removed from the public office holder’s site.
The “flood the zone” strategy of cramming several complex items into one agenda is bound to overwhelm newly elected officials, staff, and citizens and is likely to cause a high-stress, low-productivity environment and lead to burnout.
During the new board’s first full meeting the mayor asked them for permission to let him prevent citizens from petitioning the board for non-agenda related items until the end of the meeting.
Some aldermen said it could allow more public input if the first comment period pertained to the agenda, and the one at the end of the meeting was for non-agenda items — like if a citizens could ask the that the citizen wanted the board to consider for the next agenda or “you talked about it during this meeting and I want to respond.” Some aldermen were concerned because citizens would have to wait a couple of hours to announce an event. After a lengthy discussion, City Attorney M. Scott Davis said they will draft something and put it on the February meeting agenda to be effective in April. That didn’t happen during a public meeting.
April rolled around and the agenda verbiage was changed to say, “Requests and Petition of Citizens (R&PoC) – Agenda Topics” with a second R&PoC for “General Topics” at the end of the meeting. Noone was limited to speaking on agenda topics only in April. That changed on May 12 when a citizen signed up to speak, but Odham refused. He said, “You do not have an agenda item that you’ve referenced to speak to… Uh, you’re free to speak under item number 42,” the mayor said. The aldermen were silent.
“Shame on you,” the citizen said and left.
Two residents petitioned the board to rename a street, as reported here.
The citizen who wanted to speak returned and spoke about an hour and a half later. He shared his thoughts about his experience with the process of rebuilding homes in North Carolina as a hurricane survivor. He also questioned whether the mayor had his best interest at heart when Jeffrey Odham posted a letter about the citizen’s personal situation on his official mayor’s social media page. He added the mayor didn’t allow comments on that post.
A River Bend resident/New Bern business owner talked about a recent event that he organized in the city and asked the board to reconsider a fee to rent city-owned property. He felt business owners who own property and operate the business should be given the same consideration as residents and shouldn’t have to pay double to rent city-owned property. He also said he was concerned with a legal easement being blocked during the event.
The mayor called for a motion to adjourn and the editor of NewBernNow.com said “I signed up to speak.” Jeffrey Odham said there was a motion and a second to adjourn and asked for any discussion.
Alderman Barbara Best said a citizen said they signed up to speak.
City Clerk Brenda Blanco said the rules of procedures and forms say you have to turn the forms in before the meeting starts.
Barbara Best said she could see that for the first Requests and Petition of Citizens and questioned whether the person had to sign up prior to the meeting if they couldn’t speak until the end of the meeting.
Alderman Trey Ferguson said he thought they could give the city attorney direction to do a draft of changes to the procedures to allow for sign-up forms to be received up until the start of the second public comment period. Then he made a motion to suspend the rules to allow the two citizens to speak.
Aldermen Sharon Bryant and Bobby Aster withdrew their motions to adjourn.
The board approved the motion.
One citizen asked about the process to report infrastructure issues so they could be addressed. She also asked what funding is available to help citizens who are need
revitalization or reconstruction to their homes.
The editor noted the city attorney said in January that the Board of Aldermen would receive a draft of the policy of changes to their Rules of Procedures and asked if that happened.
We have not received a response by press time.
Food for thought
A lot has happened over the last 6 months: Dozens of city-owned properties were sold; properties were annexed and rezoned; water and sewer agreements were approved; the number of regular meetings were reduced while the number of agenda items have increased; several memorandum of understandings and mutual aid agreements were approved; the city is working on a Real-Time Crime Center; without a public vote, the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments have been notified that New Bern is withdrawing membership; an ad hoc committee of three aldermen has been established to examine the Enterprise Utilities (electric, water, sewer and solid waste). To date, the committee and staff met with Duke Energy Progress last week and are talking with other entities. We’ve requested a copy of the meeting schedule and minutes; authorized license agreements; the New Bern Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has been expanded and the BOA agreed to relinquish control to Craven County; the city asked for $24 million in general obligation bonds to be issued to finance miscellaneous stormwater, streets and sidewalks, and parks and recreation projects; the aldermen agreed to let the mayor and city manager decide how $20 million in city funds/services is structured for a federal grant match; authorized a riparian waiver; changed the Waterways chapter of the ordinance; and last but not least, the aldermen and mayor voted to ask the North Carolina General Assembly to move the 2029 election to 2030 so they can have five years in office without holding a public hearing, as reported here. Senator Bob Brinson filed Senate Bill 1077.
We find no pleasure in listening to local government meetings for hours and trying to understand what’s being said as the hard wooden benches creak in the background at City Hall in New Bern, NC, but we do it because we believe democracy does die in the darkness. We attempt to follow-up with elected officials and city staff and summarize what’s happening for readers. If some politicians refuse to respond to basic questions, we attempt to ask follow-up questions during the Requests and Petition of Citizens at Board of Aldermen meetings.