One ECU trustee resigns, another censured for meddling in student election

One East Carolina University leader resigned from the school's Board of Trustees to avoid forced removal Friday, and another was censured by the University of North Carolina system's Board of Governors.

Both men tried to recruit an ECU student to run for student body president, which comes with a vote on the university's divided Board of Trustees, in a clandestine effort to swing majority control. The student recorded that conversation, and in the transcript, Phil Lewis and Robbie Moore offered financial support for her campaign, asked her to keep the effort quiet and said they voted for a million-dollar-plus increase in student fees to spite the current student body president.

Lewis was more vocal in the conversation and first reached out via Facebook to the student, Shelby Hudson, to gauge her interest in joining their effort. He resigned after it became clear the votes were there to remove him during a Friday morning meeting of the UNC Board of Governors, which took a recess to give him the chance.

Lewis was less than apologetic in his remarks, and he targeted some of his comments at Board of Governors member Marty Kotis.

Kotis pushed the hardest for removal, saying during Friday's meeting that he was "about to throw up" over the transcript and pressing for the board to vote even after Lewis resigned.

"If you ever get taped, and you get set up, I hope it works out for you," Lewis told Kotis.

After the meeting, Kotis said Lewis "is a sleazebag, from what I can tell."

Lewis left before the meeting ended. Moore declined comment after things wrapped up.

It was easier for the board to push Lewis out because he's their appointee on the ECU Board of Trustees, which approves various policy and budget matters for the university. The Board of Governors could only recommend Moore's removal because he was appointed by leadership in the state House. Instead, the Board of Governors did a formal reprimand and forbade Moore from voting on the Board of Trustees through the end of September.

Moore is a significant campaign donor, giving nearly $33,000 over the years to North Carolina political campaigns, including those of House Speaker of the House Tim Moore and House Majority Leader John Bell.

After Friday's meeting, Board of Trustees Chairman Vern Davenport approached Moore, and the two shook hands. They posed for pictures for the media, and Davenport said he thinks things will improve now on the board.

One of the things Moore and Lewis had hoped for, based on the transcript, was Hudson's help replacing Davenport with Trustee Angela Moss as the new chair. Davenport won the chair over Moss in a 7-6 vote last year, and the board has been divided on a number of issues, including the ouster of one chancellor last year and the eventual resignation of his interim replacement, as well as the investigation that led to that resignation.

Board of Governors Chairman Randy Ramsey said during Friday's meeting that the ECU trustees have been dysfunctional for years and that "if I could remove the entire board today, I probably would." After the meeting the Board of Governors announced plans to review discipline procedures and "review student election procedures and ensure adequate anti-tampering procedures are in place.”

More than a dozen ECU students attended the meeting, which followed a Wednesday committee meeting where members recommended no action against Lewis and Moore. Hudson, who said she withdrew from ECU for personal reasons shortly after her meeting with Lewis and Moore, was at the Friday meeting as well.

She spoke to the board, though she was cut off after hitting a two-minute time limit. After the meeting, she expressed satisfaction in the board's decisions and said things were "moving in the right direction."

Current ECU Student Body President Colin Johnson spoke at the Friday meeting as well, telling the board that "students feel attacked" and were looking to them to rebuild trust.

"We cannot do that unless there are consequences for actions that directly violate that trust," he said.

In the transcript, Lewis calls Johnson "that little jerk." He and Moore both indicate they voted for a student fee increase, in Lewis' words, "just to punish him" for failing to vote their way, including in the chairman's race.

Board of Governors member Tom Fetzer argued Friday for sparing Moore and Lewis from removal, asking instead that they both be censured and that the entire Board of Trustees – with Davenport singled out by name – be given a written reprimand.

Fetzer ticked through ECU's problems – a downturn in enrollment, an increase in debt, an athletics department in the red – and said "the entire board shares in this debacle that we're discussing now." Fetzer also criticized Davenport because he didn't reach out to nearly half of the Board of Trustees before filing a complaint for Lewis and Moore's removal, which Fetzer called "a lack of leadership."

Fellow Board of Governors member Thom Goolsby seconded Fetzer's motion, but it died. Board member Doyle Parrish, who called into the meeting from the Bahamas, said Fetzer's speech "sounded more like an ad" to be the next chancellor at ECU.

Fetzer has said he's not angling for the position, but his actions in the recent past led other members to believe he was.

Ramsey told Fetzer, who also called into the meeting, not to respond to Parrish's remarks.