Onslow County: Former State Senator Tommy Pollard Pushing to Get Wife a Raise
Even before Ms. Becky Pollard was sworn in as Onslow County’s Register of Deeds, her husband, former State Senator and former member of the NC Department of Transportation Board, Tommy Pollard was lobbying the Onslow County Board of Commissioners to give his wife a raise.
Lindell Kay reports in the Jacksonville Daily News:
Tommy Pollard passed out information to county officials last week comparing the salaries of several registers of deeds across the state to what former Onslow register May Kay Washington was earning. The paperwork shows a list of the pay for the register of deeds in 10 North Carolina counties with a population of 168,000. The average pay is around $70,000. Washington earned a salary in the mid-$50,000 range.
Let’s ignore that Ms. Washington, the previous Register of Deeds, had worked in the Onslow County Register of Deed’s office for decades longer than Ms. Pollard. Let’s ignore that Ms. Pollard hadn’t even been sworn in when Mr. Pollard provided his unofficial and unrequested study to the Onslow County Commissioners. Let’s even ignore that three of the members of the Onslow County Board of Commissioners hadn’t been sworn in when they received this unrequested study.
We’ll toss all that aside and look at the most significant factor:
Tommy Pollard has been accused of using his political clout for personal benefit before and he’s clearly interested in using his wife’s clout now.
My friends, that’s not change I can believe in…And if Becky Pollard wants to have a significant political career in Onslow County, it may not be change she can live with.
Added to Update: Lindell Kay blogged about Mr. Pollard’s actions, as well. He even pointed out an oddity with a photograph taken during Ms. Pollard’s swearing in…Can you spot it?
Added to Update: The commenters at the Jacksonville Daily News article are clearly not happy with Pollard’s efforts. I’ll go into more detail later, but I wanted to point them out now.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
It’s the most appalling thing I have ever seen. You would think she would have at least worked a while in the position before her husband started asking for her an INCREASE IN PAY!! What can one say? Where do these people come from? Definitely not my corner of the world. The citizens of this county voted all these good Republicans in office. I hope they are happy and will rejoice in all the good things they do. From the Get Go it appears to be self serving lot!!! If they even contemplate approving this, they need to give Mary Washington back pay. All I can say is we are in for a good ride with this bunch unless, of course, you live in Southwest or Sneads Ferry, things will be merry!