The Town of Nashville has a new finance director.
Mayor Brenda Brown introduced the new finance director at last week’s meeting of the Nashville Town Council.
“As you know Sam, our financial officer, left and we were very fortunate to get John O’Keefe,” Brown said Wednesday during the council meeting.
Samantha Sanchez, the town’s last finance director, resigned effective Sept. 17. She had served in the position full-time for nearly two years but is moving on to a new position in the finance department for the Town of Wake Forest, Nashville Town Manager Randy Lansing said in a recent interview.
O’Keefe introduced himself to town council members Wednesday, saying that he started in his new role the previous week.
“I am still learning the ropes, but hopefully, I will exceed your expectations,” O’Keefe told council members.
O’Keefe said he is a certified public accountant who used to serve as an auditor with CPA firm Thompson, Price, Scott and Adams.
“We audited about 40 municipalities, so I am well versed in local governments of all sizes,” O’Keefe said. “One of the clients we did an audit for was Nash County, so I remembered that I liked this area, and I am glad to be back.”
O’Keefe most recently worked with the finance department of Orange County.
The Town of Nashville has had some upheavals in the finance department over the past few years since former Finance Director Linda Modlin was fired at roughly the same time that former Town Manager Hank Raper was dismissed in June 2018. Modlin served as the town’s finance director from Aug. 19, 2014, to June 29, 2018, but was on administrative leave for the last few weeks of her tenure.
Lynne Hobbs, who is now a town councilwoman, served briefly as interim deputy finance director for the town from June 4, 2018, until Melonie Bryan was hired to serve as interim finance director on July 30, 2018.
Bryan served as the town’s interim finance director for the next year. During this time, Russell Langley was hired as the assistant finance director on Feb. 26, 2019 and was trained with the intention of having him take on the position of finance director following a probation period. However, he resigned on Aug. 26, 2019, before assuming the role of finance director.
Sanchez was hired on Sept. 30, 2019 and has served as the town’s finance director ever since. During that time, she was largely responsible for the town’s recent removal from the Local Government Commission’s watch list, Lansing said. The town had been on that watchlist because of late audit reports and concerns over certain financial practices going as far back as 2018.
Lansing said he feels O’Keefe will bring experience and professionalism to the job.
“I think he is going to fit right in here,” Lansing said. “We are not going to miss a beat. Anytime you have someone who has audited towns and municipalities, you know they have a great knowledge of town finances.”
The town council also held two public hearings on Wednesday, one about the adoption of a new town charter and the other about a temporary street closure.
No one appeared at the meeting to speak about changes to the town charter that will greatly streamline the document.
However, Town Councilwoman Louise Hinton said that she feels the town needs to tap the brakes before moving ahead with adopting the charter, which was modified from one currently used by the Town of Creedmoor.
Hinton said she feels the town needs to have a work session to look at the charter in more detail.
“This is just a very bare bones and generic charter,” Hinton said.
The town plans to schedule a public work session to compare the current charter to the new charter and explain why each provision that was removed was eliminated. According to the explanation of the charter given at the last town council meeting, many of the original provisions in the charter are now outdated because they currently fall under state general statutes.
The date for that work session has not yet been announced.
Another public hearing was held concerning Nash County’s request to temporarily close a 175-foot portion of Drake Street for 18 months to allow for construction of the new Nash County Detention Center. Traffic to the neighborhood behind Drake Street will be rerouted through the parking lot behind the detention center, Jonathan Boone, Nash County utilities and facility director, said at the meeting.
One woman who is a resident of the community that will be affected by the closure expressed her concerns about the inconvenience the closure will cause to her neighborhood and her concern about whether emergency vehicles could get through to her and her neighbors.
After some discussion, council members voted unanimously to approve the measure.
“Because of safety measures, we don’t really have a choice,” Councilman Larry Taylor said. “I am in favor of the temporary Drake Street closure because it has to be done. But we need to pay close attention to the way these people are being inconvenienced and have discussions with Nash County if there is a problem.”
