Boyle column: In Wanda Greene scandal, should we have uncovered more?

John Boyle | The Citizen-Times

Show Caption Hide Caption County sues Wanda, Michael Greene Buncombe County is seeking more than $950,000 from Wanda and Michael Greene through a civil lawsuit filed June 2018.

Another day, another county government scandal.

Or so it seems. The Wanda Greene saga seemingly produces a new scandal every week, and with that the Buncombe County commissioners have been catching their fair share of heck for a lack of oversight.

That includes a few brickbats from the Citizen Times editorial staff and columnists, including yours truly.

But as the city's daily newspaper that was on duty while all this corruption was unfolding for more than a decade, we've also gotten our fair share of criticism for not uncovering it, along with some other local media. While the commissioners hire and fire the manager and are elected to bird dog the taxpayers' dollars — which they clearly were not doing during Greene's 20-year tenure — the Citizen Times is rightly viewed by you good readers as another watch dog, as the Fourth Estate should be.

Take this Facebook comment aimed at me and the Citizen Times recently: "Both Asheville Citizen Times and Mountain Xpress actively refused to report on Wanda Greene’s embezzlement despite dozens of tips way back in 2009-2010, local press deserves no credit here."

Now, as someone who's been at the Citizen Times for 23 years, I can tell you that, certainly as far as the newspaper goes, that's a patently ridiculous statement. The Citizen Times has reported on a lot of malfeasance, shady behavior and controversial governmental shenanigans over the years, and to think we'd ignore a huge story like this if we had credible, actionable information is just silly.

I feel the same holds true for Mountain Xpress, which has covered the community well for two decades.

Some suggest the Citizen Times is "too liberal" to pick on a largely Democratic county machine. Horse hockey.

Personally, as a columnist, I've bashed Democrats and Republicans alike over the years, ranging from former Sheriff Bobby Medford, a Republican (now serving 15 years in federal prison for corruption) to former Buncombe County Chairman David Gantt and State Rep. Susan Fisher, both Democrats, for taking taxpayer-funded trips to Hawaii while serving on the airport board.

A newspaper that will dig out details on a questionable, tragic inmate death in the Buncombe County Jail (my story last fall, and one that did not make the Democratic sheriff happy), or work for months to acquire a copy of the Johnnie Rush police beating tape and break that story open, is not a publication that shies away from stories.

These stories represent vital, important journalism, and that's our lifeblood. It's why our country enshrined freedom of the press in the First Amendment.

And I'll be really honest here: From a purely self-serving standpoint, these kind of stories, the ones with legs and unbelievable, jaw-dropping details, keep us in business. Readers need to know this information, and they'll subscribe to a publication that delivers thoroughly researched, factually accurate reports on it.

“Journalists live for exposing the truth and righting wrongs," Citizen Times News Director Katie Wadington told me. "When we receive tips from credible sources on possible government misdeeds, we check into them as we have resources to do so.”

So, why didn't we know more, and know it sooner, about Wanda's alleged misdeeds?

First, I'll note that we did extensive reporting on one of the first big red flags that emerged in all this, the $30,000 bonuses that Greene, the former county manager now under several federal indictments, gave herself and former board clerk Kathy Hughes for "overtime" — mainly time spent dealing with Commissioner Mike Fryar, who asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about spending.

(On a side note, Fryar didn't come close to uncovering the most gratuitous of Greene's malfeasance alleged in the federal indictments, or that of former assistant managers Mandy Stone and Jon Creighton, also now under federal indictment).

From my perspective, we certainly should've uncovered more of Greene's alleged misdeeds and questionable behavior, especially the retirement incentives for high-level county employees and retention bonuses to keep some employees on the job. We should've analyzed that closely.

The same goes for the extravagant life insurance purchases the feds say she was making for top-level employees.

But Greene, who comes from an accounting background, apparently was not one for providing line item budgets or making sure commissioners knew exactly how all this worked. She liked to sneak items into consent agendas, the part of public meetings that are handled with one sweeping approval vote.

The latest federal indictment was perhaps the most eye-popping of all. It detailed an elaborate scheme in which the feds say Greene, Creighton and Stone went on lavish trips paid for by a county contractor, Joe Wiseman, who then billed the county back for the expenses under different categories.

Greene, Stone and Creighton are facing charges including conspiracy to defraud the federal government and receipt of bribes and kickbacks.

Honestly, on that one, it would've taken a major deep-throat source — probably one of the people involved — to ferret that scheme out.

Even if we had requested detailed travel records and county contracts, the scheme the feds allege probably would not have been detectable without some forensic accounting.

Then there's the matter of asking for records and what we get. We're not a law enforcement agency, and we cannot subpoena records or threaten to lock officials up if they don't cooperate.

We operate under the state's media sunshine laws, which are sometimes open to interpretation and often ignored by governmental officials, mainly because the penalties for not complying are essentially non-existent. In late July, our Buncombe County reporter, Jennifer Bowman, who has done fantastic work on this whole saga, including breaking news time and time again on information not in the indictments, wrote an entire story about all the documents the county has refused to give us. Cleverly titled, "Here's what Buncombe County won't reveal about Wanda Greene investigation," it'll make your blood boil.

See also: Here's what Buncombe County won't reveal about Wanda Greene investigation

"Buncombe County has fought public records requests and release of information since the beginning of the investigation into Wanda Greene, its former manager who now faces federal money laundering, embezzlement and fraud charges," Bowman wrote. "Some requests have taken months to fulfill, while others have been initially denied until challenged by news media."

Even before the investigation, Buncombe County has never been forthcoming or transparent in sharing documents.

In some cases, including one that involved me, Greene apparently doctored documents. Back in August 2016, I had an Answer Man question from a reader about Asheville Regional Airport sponsoring a fancy horse event in Florida. The reader sent along a picture of a prop check made out to the winner for $22,000 that cited the airport as the sponsor.

The airport said Buncombe footed the bill, so I asked Greene about it. After taking a month to respond to my repeated emails, she said it was an economic development expenditure designed to promote the airport's Florida flights and bring people to the Tryon International Equestrian Center.

"Greene sent me three invoices that show the county paid Tryon International Equestrian Center a total of $26,426.70," I wrote back then. "One invoice, dated June 5, 2015, was for $25,000, another from June 30, 2015 for $896.70 and another from July 9, 2015 for $530."

The problem is, as the county later acknowledged, the $25,000 sum was misrepresented on the invoice — by $100,000. Someone apparently used White Out to erase a "1," leaving a space after the dollar sign that honestly I didn't notice. In the emailed photo of the invoice, I couldn't see the White Out.

SEE ALSO: Answer Man: Buncombe County funding Florida horse races?

SEE ALSO: Update: Greene's equestrian payments bought sponsorships, ads

To be honest, it did not cross my mind that a high-ranking county official might doctor such a document. In hindsight, I obviously should've dug deeper, but I also didn't hear from any commissioners or anyone else after my column ran suggesting the expenditures ran deeper or that any documents had been falsified.

It turns out, she'd spent nearly $600,000 on the equestrian center, and the county later acknowledged the doctoring.

It looks like Greene, who had a reputation for being a bit of a bully, was a master of misinformation, subterfuge and intimidation. More importantly. it looks like she had no qualms about misleading commissioners, county officials and the media, or intimidating underlings into not asking a lot of questions, all while the commissioners adored her.

For years, mostly what I heard from commissioners was what a wonderful fiscal manager Greene was, how she worked miracles on getting buildings constructed, keeping taxes low and staying on budget.

I wouldn't say I trusted her, as I really had almost no relationship with her. I found her standoffish and terse in the dealings I had with her.

But I also just did not suspect she was the kind of person who would falsify documents, take lavish trips on the county dime or use county credit cards to buy kitschy items at discount stores. I wrote about her hiring her son, Michael Greene (also under federal indictment), and her sister to work for the county, but again, I did not suspect that her son would use county credit cards for personal purchases, as the feds allege.

Naive? Maybe so, especially in hindsight. Clearly, Wanda Greene fooled a lot of us.

I will acknowledge that we, like the commissioners and other county officials, gave Greene way too much leeway, too much respect — and not enough scrutiny. We should've pushed harder for line item budgets and details on spending, worked sources harder and dug into some of the few tips we did get, like the equestrian overspending.

We're paid to be skeptical. An old journalism saw goes, "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

We, like everyone else, gave Greene and other top officials too much leeway and not enough skepticism. Lesson learned — the hard way.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com