08-03-2020 Meeting Minutes BOC
August 3, 2020
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PERSON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS AUGUST 3, 2020
MEMBERS PRESENT OTHERS PRESENT
B. Ray Jeffers Heidi York, County Manager
Jimmy B. Clayton Brenda B. Reaves, Clerk to the Board
Kyle W. Puryear C. Ronald Aycock, County Attorney
Gordon Powell
C. Derrick Sims
The Board of Commissioners for the County of Person, North Carolina, met in
regular session on Monday, August 3, 2020 at 7:00pm in the Person County Office
Building Auditorium.
Chairman Jeffers called the meeting to order. Commissioner Clayton offered an
invocation and Commissioner Sims led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.
DISCUSSION/ADJUSTMENT/APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
A motion was made by Chairman Jeffers and carried 5-0 to add a Closed Session
for economic development to the agenda.
A motion was made by Vice Chairman Powell and carried 5-0 to approve the
agenda as adjusted.
INFORMAL COMMENTS:
The following individuals appeared before the Board to make informal comments:
Mr. John Seepe of 277 Barefoot Landing, Semora requested updates for the status
of restoration, the costs impact as well as any results of the investigation work by agencies
for the County’s cyber-incident. He also asked for economic development updates related
to Mega site, any interested phone calls, response, follow-up and the economic outlook
over the near future with outage losses of the power plants located in Person County.
Ms. Anita Banks of 24 Victoria Lane, Roxboro requested guidance and assistance
for environmental issues she is experiencing of her home’s well not yielding adequate
water. She noted she has neighbors experiencing the same issues.
Mr. James Hayward of 2844 Leasburg Road, Roxboro commended the Board of
Commissioners and attendees for wearing masks, and for the meeting being held in a larger
room which is safer; he asked what policies are in place for all employees to wear a mask.
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DISCUSSION/ADJUSTMENT/APPROVAL OF CONSENT AGENDA:
Commissioner Sims requested the July 13, 2020 minutes to be removed from the
Consent Agenda and reviewed for clarification for the informal comments of Mr. Charlie
Palmer. The approval of the Minutes of July 13, 2020 was removed from the Consent
Agenda and will be brought back at a future meeting for approval.
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to approve the
Consent Agenda with the following items:
A. Approval of Minutes of July 14, 2020,
B. Budget Amendment #2,
C. Person County’s Amended Utilization Plan for the State’s COVID-19 Relief
Fund Allocation and Reporting Requirements,
D. Person County Health Department Fee Requests,
E. FY 2020-2021 Salary Schedule, and
F. DSS Attorney Contracts
NEW BUSINESS:
PERSON COUNTY’S CYBERSECURITY INCIDENT UPDATE:
County Manager, Heidi York reminded the Board that on May 30, 2020, Person
County experienced a ransomware event that disabled most of the county’s technology
services. Since that time, a Declaration of Emergency was issued and staff has been
working diligently with other IT partners in recovery and restoration efforts. The Board
has been provided updates in closed session, but staff would like to provide an update
publicly as well, and bring everyone up-to-date on progress and efforts thus far. Person
County IT staff will be joined by Dr. Shannon Tufts from the UNC School of Government
and Mr. Greg Manson of Logically (Carolinas IT), who have been contracted to assist in
the county’s recovery.
Information Technology Director, Chris Puryear provided a brief overview of the
cybersecurity incident to date. To date, Person County has spent approximately $455,000
on recovery efforts. Person County IT staff and support staff have logged approximately
8,000 man-hours since the beginning of the event. This does not include staff time from
other departments such as the Finance Department working to restore its own services or
any of the Emergency Operations Center staff involved in the first weeks of the event. Mr.
Puryear said they have fully remediated or rebuilt 30 servers with 11 additional servers in
progress and eight more needed to be completed. At the same time, 330 documented help
requests have been completed, 632 desktops and laptops have been remediated or reloaded,
532 users were migrated to a hosted email solution with 218 of those currently have full
access to all historical emails with the remaining 314 users to receive their historical emails
within the next few weeks.
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Mr. Puryear stated daily priorities would change affecting the original timeline; for
example multiple lightning strikes that damaged tower equipment bringing multiple
departments down, two fiber cuts to the primary ISP, restrictions and delays from vendors
due to COVID-19 and other departmental urgent needs. These demands put a tremendous
strain on the IT Team; Mr. Puryear publicly commended his Team and all County
departments for their perseverance throughout this event.
Mr. Puryear introduced Dr. Shannon Tufts, Associate Professor of Public Law and
Government as well as the Director for the Center for Public Technology at the UNC
School of Government to share a presentation focusing on NC Government Statistics, a
few specific cyber events from other government jurisdictions, a brief review of Person
County’s ransomware event, and breach recovery statistics.
Following Dr. Tufts presentation, Mr. Puryear stated Mr. Greg Manson, Vice
President of Security, Auditing and Compliance from Logically (Carolinas IT) will provide
a more detailed look into Person County cyber-incident with national ransomware
statistics, security measures in-place prior to the event as well as an overview of the
improvements made to Person County’s systems post-event.
Mr. Puryear reminded the group that they will provide as much information as
possible but due to the nature of the event and to protect the security of our infrastructure,
certain specifics cannot be shared in a public meeting.
Ms. Tufts shared the following presentation with the group:
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Mr. Greg Manson shared the following presentation with the group:
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County Manager, Heidi York and the Board of Commissioners thanked Dr.
Shannon Tufts and Mr. Greg Manson for their assistance and expertise guiding Person
County’s IT through the cyber-incident recovery and restoration of services.
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ADDITIONAL COVID-19 MEASURES FOR COUNTY BUSINESS:
Chairman Jeffers stated this item was placed on the agenda for further discussion
due to questions from commissioners and citizens about requirements at public meetings.
He asked the County Manager, Heidi York to lead the discussion by describing what
departments have in place as they conduct business.
Ms. York stated Person County implemented a policy for its employees with the
directive to wear a mask if unable to maintain the safe distance of six-feet from clients or
coworkers during day-to-day business. Ms. York said the Health Department would be
opening its clinics in the coming weeks and the staff and clients will be wearing masks.
Ms. York said the Board of Commissioners could put into effect more restrictive
measures than the Governor’s Executive Order, however, the Board could not lessen the
restrictions in place by the state. Ms. York noted the Board of Commissioners has in effect
its Declaration of a State of Emergency for COVID-19 and could consider an amendment
with additional requirements county-wide or to certain groups, i.e., county employees,
visitors in county buildings, attendees at public meetings, related to wearing a mask, etc.
Commissioner Sims stated his experience as the Environmental Health and Safety
Manager at US Flue Cure Tobacco that he checks employees and visitors’ temperatures,
tells them to maintain six-feet apart to social distance and to wear a mask unless a medical
condition prevents an individual from wearing a mask. Chairman Jeffers added that a
requirement to wear a mask protects employees noting that some of the county offices and
conference rooms make it hard to maintain social distancing. Chairman Jeffers advocated
for the requirement to wear masks at the board meetings.
Regarding the question to Zoom the board meeting and why staff are not live
streaming the board meetings, Ms. York reminded the Board of County IT staff’s priorities
were to restore services. She said to set up equipment and manage Zoom meetings for the
Board of Commissioners took them away from that priority. She noted the Auditorium
was not conducive to the Zoom meetings format noting the Board’s usual boardroom would
be easier to provide the Zoom format. Ms. York noted that tonight’s meeting was audio
streamed and would be posted, a first time for this service since the cyber incident took
place.
Commissioner Puryear requested to hear feedback from departmental directors
before considering a county-wide policy. Chairman Jeffers asked if the Board would like
to consider mandating anyone attending a board meeting to wear masks and to allow the
County Manager to solicit feedback from department directors to bring back to the Board
at the next board meeting. Commissioner Sims added that there could not be a mandate
for individuals with medical conditions to wear a mask and that the Board could not ask
them questions about the medical condition. It was agreed that there would be an honor
system whereby attendees did not have to wear a mask should they feel a medical condition
precluded them to do so. No one would be turned away from the Board’s public meetings.
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Ms. York noted there were hand sanitizer stations at both entrances of the
auditorium for the Board meetings.
A motion was made by Chairman Jeffers and carried 4-1 to require attendees of
the Board of Commissioners’ meetings to wear a mask unless a medical condition
precluded individuals from wearing a mask. Commissioner Puryear was the lone
dissenting vote.
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT:
Chairman Jeffers recognized the Boy Scout in the audience. Casen Partridge of
Boy Scout Troop 239 said he was working on his communications merit badge.
Chairman Jeffers thanked the Health Director, Janet Clayton for the COVID-19
update at the last meeting; he added the Health Department has launched its new graphic
providing more COVID-19 demographic information to the public.
Chairman Jeffers acknowledged a letter sent to the Board by Ms. Anita Banks
which included information from the City of Roxboro related to extending a waterline to
her residence. He asked County Manager, Heidi York to explain the waterline extension
agreement with the City of Roxboro. Ms. York stated the County has an Interlocal
Agreement with the City of Roxboro whereby should the County invest in waterline
extension in the county, a portion of the earned revenues are reimbursed to the County. She
provided examples of County invested waterline extensions for Theresa Baptist Church
and Roxboro Christian Academy. She noted the engineer price quote was approximately
$110,000 for the infrastructure noting a line would have to be laid under Highway 49 to
get to Ms. Banks’ residence. Chairman Jeffers requested to put this item on the September
8, 2020 board meeting agenda for consideration.
Chairman Jeffers announced the Person County Roxboro (PCR) Joint
Comprehensive Plan web site at planpcr.com and encouraged citizens to take the survey.
MANAGER’S REPORT:
County Manager, Heidi York introduced the County’s Fire Marshal, Keith Duncan
who joined Person County on June 22, 2020. Mr. Duncan stated he has had an easy
transition noting fire safety is his passion. Although, Mr. Duncan did not grow up in Person
County, he said he spent a lot of his childhood in Person County. Chairman Jeffers stated
he would see him on Thursday at the Fire Chief’s meeting.
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COMMISSIONER REPORT/COMMENTS:
Commissioner Sims thanked local law enforcement for keeping things under
control. He was hopeful for safety and little damage from the upcoming storm.
Commissioner Clayton recognized the magnitude of the cyber-incident and thanked
Dr. Tufts and Logically for helping Person County.
Commissioner Puryear had no report.
Commissioner Powell bid kudos to IT Director, Chris Puryear and his staff for
everything they have done for Person County.
Chairman Jeffers requested a motion for a brief recess at 8:18pm to allow the Board
to transition to its usual boardroom 215 to convene the Closed Sessions.
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to recess at 8:18pm
to transition to the Board’s usual boardroom to conduct the Closed Sessions on the agenda.
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CLOSED SESSION #1
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to enter into Closed
Session at 8:25pm per General Statute 143-318.11(a)(6) to consider the qualifications,
competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or conditions of
initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer
or employee for the purpose to discuss personnel with the following individuals permitted
to attend: County Manager, Heidi York and Clerk to the Board, Brenda Reaves.
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to return to open
session at 8:56pm.
A motion was made by Chairman Jeffers and carried 5-0 to increase the County
Manager’s salary for her annual evaluation merit by 3%.
CLOSED SESSION #2:
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to enter Closed Session
per General Statute 143-318.11(a)(4) at 8:57pm for the purpose of discussion of matters
relating to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the county
(economic development) and to permit the following individuals to attend: County
Manager, Heidi York, Clerk to the Board, Brenda Reaves, County Attorney, Ron Aycock
via telephone conference, and Economic Development Director, Sherry Wilborn.
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to return to open
session at 9:13pm.
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ADJOURNMENT:
A motion was made by Commissioner Sims and carried 5-0 to adjourn the
meeting at 9:13pm.
_____________________________ ______________________________
Brenda B. Reaves B. Ray Jeffers
Clerk to the Board Chairman