THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605190052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The Northeast Economic Development Commission may be headed for ``Bunnygate'' as the result of a legal move to prevent commission members from destroying or tampering with tape recordings of their meetings.
Estelle ``Bunny'' Sanders, fired last year as the tourism director for the pump-priming panel, told Perquimans County Superior Court Wednesday that part of the taped record of an April 24 commission meeting ``appeared to be . . . missing'' when it was received by Sanders' lawyer.
``I hope the commission members have some recollection of Watergate and its consequences,'' Sanders said in an interview Friday.
In her Perquimans Court motion, Sanders said that Max Busby, an Edenton attorney representing the Economic Commission, had left a message with Katherine White, Sanders' Raleigh lawyer, saying that ``the tape had been erased in part to delete an expletive.''
The phrase ``expletives deleted'' was a recurring explanation offered by the 1974 White House for apparent erasures made in the Watergate recordings that helped to force President Richard M. Nixon to resign.
``I am, to say the least, concerned that the commission would tamper with a tape of a public meeting,'' Sanders' attorney said in a May 10 letter to Busby.
``As I am sure you are aware, it is a misdemeanor in North Carolina, and the law provides no exception for deleting `expletives,' '' White wrote.
Busby referred questions to Michael Lord, of the Raleigh law firm of Maupin Taylor Ellis & Adams. Busby said Lord was representing the Economic Development Commission in the lastest litigation with Sanders.
Lord was not available for comment.
Sanders and James Lancaster Jr., a former salaried executive director of the economic panel, were both dismissed from their $58,000 a year jobs during a shakeup last year.
Sanders sued the commission for wrongful discharge, claiming commission members illegally met in secret sessions to plan her discharge in violation of the state's open meetings law.
Sanders has continued to attend commission meetings as a spectator and last Wednesday was seated in a front row at its Winfall meeting. Sanders had a tape recorder propped on a chair beside her but no recorders were in view near the commission's secretarial employees.
Her motion to prevent alterations to the taped meeting records named 17 members of the economic panel as defendants. One of the panel members is Watts Carr, a close friend of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. Carr is the representative of the Department of Commerce on the commission.
Sanders said that when there ``appeared to be a portion of the tape missing'' in the record of the April 24 commission meeting, her attorney wrote to Busby and asked for another copy of the tape.
``When the duplicate tape was not forthcoming, plaintiff's counsel wrote Mr. Busby a second time on May 10.''
It was then that ``Mr. Busby called counsel's office and left a message representing that the tapes had been erased in part to delete an expletive,'' the motion filed last week by Sanders said.
Sanders' motion said Busby stated he would have a copy of the tape made and mailed by May 14.
``The copy of the tape recording has not been received,'' Sanders said in the motion filed in Perquimans County Superior Court on May 15.
Sanders said Friday that she expected that the original tapes - and members of the economic commission - would be subpoenaed if necessary.
No date has been set to hear Sanders' original wrongful discharge suit against the economic development commission. by CNB