Democratic N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper has scheduled a Tuesday fundraiser for his gubernatorial campaign at the Manteo home of a former Easley Cabinet official who acquired the house under the cloud of conflict of interest allegations.
Libba Evans, who served as secretary of cultural resources from 2001-08, is hosting the event (read the invitation here) at the home she and her husband Jim Lambie own. A 2007 review of public records by Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington concluded that Evans and Lambie gained nearly $300,000 from the 2006 real-estate transaction in which they acquired the lot and a relocated historic house.
As Carrington reported in September 2008, “Evans and her husband, James T. Lambie, purchased the property in 2006 after a commission under Evans’ department eliminated stringent tree-cutting regulations on the land where the lot is situated. A CJ story in December 2007 described the sequence of events that led to her potential conflict of interest in that matter. Evans said [in 2007] that she was unaware that the Roanoke Island Commission had taken action on property she was negotiating to buy.”
The house where Cooper’s fundraiser will occur, the Hulcom House, is considered to be the oldest house in Manteo. Marshes Light LLC, the developer of the subdivision where Evans and Lambie live, moved the Hulcom House to that lot for renovation. Based on public records, Marshes Light LLC gave the house to Evans and Lambie. The house was in poor condition, but town officials insisted that it be preserved before they would allow the Marshes Light development to proceed.
The lot, part of Evans’ house, and five other lots are situated partially in a 50-foot-buffer strip where tree cutting had been prohibited prior to February 2007 by a commission under cultural resources. Evans and Lambie concluded their transaction with Marshes Light in September 2007.
Evans did not report the transaction on her Statement of Economic Interest and said she did not make the declaration of a potential conflict of interest because she was unaware one existed.
From Carrington’s earlier report:
John Wilson, Manteo’s mayor at the time, said he put Evans in touch with Marshes Light representatives. Evans and Marshes Light subsequently struck a deal. The developer moved the home to a new lot and set it up on a new foundation. Evans paid $300,000 for the lot and home Sept. 19, 2006. The same day the developer sold the adjoining vacant lot to another couple for $350,000. A new home now occupies that lot.
The actual value of the relocated historic home before renovation and the new foundation could not be determined through public records. The estimated cost of the contract for the subsequent renovation and expansion, as stated on the building permit application filed by Gibbs Building, Inc., was $150,000. So public records show that Evans and Lambie spent a total of $450,000 for the finished 2,800-square foot home and lot.
After the home was completed this year, the Dare County tax office valued the total property at $623,500. The current value is actually based on the year 2005 schedule of values, so new property added to the tax roles is effectively discounted to a value as if it had been added in 2005. The next countywide revaluation will be effective in 2010.
An analysis of several other purchases in the same development shows that the purchase price averaged 17.1 percent higher than the tax value. Adding an additional 17.1 percent to the tax value of the Evans home would put its value at $730,000, or $280,000 more than public records show the couple has spent on the home.
Deeds of trust signed by Evans and her husband show they borrowed, or can borrow, up to $600,000 on the property.
Former Gov. Mike Easley picked Evans to head cultural resources in 2001. She took an unpaid leave of absence from the department from May 2008 until the end of Easley’s term in January 2009. About the time she left the agency, Evans joined then-First Lady Mary Easley on a controversial trip to Russia and Estonia at taxpayer expense to “research” the arts.
Rick Henderson is managing editor of Carolina Journal.