New Chapel Hill official comes under fire for work in Charlottesville

"When Nazis marched with swastikas and Confederate flags in Charlottesville, [the city] allowed that to happen," Lindsay Ayling, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Thursday. "Everyone who was involved in the city government in Charlottesville bears some responsibility."

"The security that surrounded the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally was so badly organized that people were killed," she said, adding that Chapel Hill officers were part of the police presence at a major protest against Silent Sam about 10 days after the Charlottesville riot.

"This is a town issue because it wasn’t just the university police department that was roughing up anti-racist protestors," she said.

Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger disagrees that Jones is at fault for what happened in Charlottesville.

"You can't predict everything that's going to happen, but learning from it and understanding what you could've done better and what could've happened differently, I think we all have learned from that across the nation, actually," Hemminger said.

Jones, whose contract wasn't renewed in Charlottesville after eight years there, rose to the top of the 60 applicants for the Chapel Hill job because of his extensive experience managing a college town.

"He brought this aspect that we were looking for with social justice, racial equity, understanding affordable housing, as Charlottesville dealt with the same kinds of issues," Hemminger said. "The word we heard most often referred back to from all the references was sincere, honest, collaborative and a passion to public service.

"We love our values here in Chapel Hill, and I know that Mr. Jones is going to do quite well and lead us in the direction we want to go," she added.