UNC board chair points to policies after questions about Gerlach investigation

When the University of North Carolina Board of Governors met Thursday, the chairman suggested the board needs to "consider consequences" for members who fail to follow board policies.

Posted 10:20 p.m. Nov 14, 2019 — Updated 11:28 p.m. Nov 14, 2019

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — When the University of North Carolina Board of Governors met Thursday, the chairman suggested the board needs to "consider consequences" for members who fail to follow board policies.

While Chairman Randy Ramsey did not mention any board members by name, Tom Fetzer has been under scrutiny for having a lawyer investigate then-East Carolina University Interim Chancellor Dan Gerlach.

Fetzer engaged attorney Peter Romary, who pressed for the release of a traffic and security camera video that appears to show Gerlach stumbling and eventually driving after a night of drinking in Greenville in September.

After the video was made public, Gerlach resigned.

Other records reveal Fetzer's push to get legislative leverage behind the video. Fetzer acknowledged in an email to fellow UNC Board of Governors members his role in pushing for the video, adding he is not ashamed because he questions whether it would have ever seen the light of day.

Romary has been involved before with intrigue at the UNC system and the Board of Governors. Last year, Fetzer said he contacted Romary to do an extra background check on a candidate for Western Carolina University's open chancellorship. That ended up derailing the search, and some members questioned Fetzer for running a check outside the system's regular protocol.

Romary also has ties to former Board of Governors chairman Harry Smith.

At Thursday's meeting, Ramsey said, "We all have governance policies in place, and we should follow those policies."

Smith said recently that he'll resign his seat soon, and the Senate was expected to move Friday to replace him with Dwight Stone, the head of D. Stone Builders in Greensboro and a current member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees. Stone is also a former chairman of the Board of Trustees, and his nomination moved through a Senate committee late Thursday.

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