Following the loss of an affordable housing contract with Dare County, the only Coastal Affordable Housing, LLC, principal who lives in Dare County has threatened to sue a county commissioner candidate.
James Jordan Hennessy, who goes by his middle name, through his Raleigh-based attorney sent a letter to Katie Morgan demanding she donate $5,000 to the Community Care Clinic of Dare in Nags Head and publicly apologize for her remarks on social media he claims were defamatory — including calling him “one bad egg” — or he would sue.
Hennessy did not respond to inquiries by press deadline.
In the letter Hennessy’s attorney sent Morgan, dated April 23, he blamed her for the loss of the contract with the county.
“Due to your public mischaracterizations of Coastal Affordable Housing and Mr. Hennessy, the Dare County Board of Commissioners have terminated negotiations with Coastal Affordable Housing and returned the $35 million loan from the State,” the letter from attorney Craig D. Schauer says. “The financial losses caused by your defamatory statements are enormous.”
The Dare County Board of Commissioners on April 9 ended the county’s contract with Coastal Affordable Housing, LLC, in a 7-0 vote.
In giving their reasons for voting during that meeting, none of the commissioners mentioned Morgan.
“I know there’s been a lot of angst about Coastal Affordable Housing and one particular individual, Mr. Hennessy,” Chairman Bob Woodard said during that meeting.
Woodard also said that any other developer would face what Coastal Affordable Housing and another developer, Woda Cooper Companies, Inc., “have been confronted with, and I’m not shy to say it; and that’s the NIMBY: not in my backyard.”
The housing issue “goes back 30 years” and will remain an issue for another 30 years if people don’t get away from the “NIMBY attitude,” Vice Chairman Wally Overman said during the April 9 meeting.
Morgan is running as a Democrat in November’s election for the District 2 commissioner seat representing Nags Head, Colington and Kill Devil Hills that is currently held by Woodard, a Republican.
“I feel extremely targeted; I feel like he’s trying to squash my candidacy,” Morgan said of Hennessy in a phone interview Thursday.
“I am nervous for my safety because I feel so uneasy about how quickly he threatened to sue me for such a large amount of money for something that, I obviously am not the reason,” Morgan said. “Dare County commissioners have said repeatedly that it’s NIMBY. It is definitely not Katie. I mean they’ve gone ad nauseam to make sure that everybody knows that it’s the citizens’ fault.”
Morgan said her campaign Facebook page has “400-some followers. I’m not an important person in the community.” She also noted that other people had publicly criticized the county for contracting with Coastal Affordable Housing.
Hennessy is involved in a public-private partnership with Dare County for the operation of the Miss Katie Dredge, owned by EJE Dredging Service, LLC. Hennessy is listed as that company’s agent on opencorporates.com.
Hennessy worked as a legislative aide for former Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, who was in office from 2012-2018. Hennessy became a member of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission last November, following his appointment by state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey.
Upon receiving the initial letter from Hennessy, she showed it to County Manager/Attorney Bobby Outten, who affirmed she did not cause the commissioners to get out of the contract, Morgan said.
Outten confirmed that conversation took place in a Thursday phone call with The Pilot.
“They gave their reasons when they did their vote,” Outten said of the commissioners. “I told her to go get an attorney.”
Morgan did, and her attorney, L. Phillip Hornthal, III, wrote a response letter to Schauer dated April 30. In that letter, Hornthal wrote that Morgan denied that any of her comments were defamatory and claimed they were largely directed at Dare County commissioners.
“Given his prior role in the General Assembly, Mr. Hennessy should appreciate such a need for public comment and debate regarding governmental affairs,” Hornthal wrote.
Morgan “believes your clients are attempting to chill her free speech and prevent her from asking tough questions about the business of Dare County, which of course is central to her campaign for Dare County Commissioner,” he continued. “Further, to suggest that Ms. Morgan’s posts on her campaign social media pages proximately resulted in multi-million (dollars) in actionable financial losses stretches the imagination.”
A response letter dated May 2 from Schauer said that Hennessy asked him to proceed with drafting the lawsuit but also included “a pathway for a resolution.”
In exchange for Morgan deleting her “defamatory statements” and posting a video of her reading the two-paragraph apology statement included in the letter, “Mr. Hennessy would agree to withdraw his request that she make a monetary donation and would also agree to enter into a settlement agreement and release of claims against Ms. Morgan regarding her past remarks,” Schauer wrote.
Morgan offered to clarify her previous remarks in a written post that also included a timeline of events with Coastal Affordable Housing and the county, according to a May 6 letter from Hornthal to Schauer.
As of Friday, Morgan said there has been no response to that letter. Schauer did not return phone calls to The Pilot by press deadline.
Morgan attended a public meeting earlier this year at which she met Hennessy in person and exchanged phone numbers with him. She said she wanted to build a professional relationship with him, given his business relationship with the county and his state commission position.
Morgan said she invited him to join her for coffee through a text message, Hennessy texted back that he was unavailable, and she hadn’t heard from him again before receiving the first letter.
“I do wish that he had just called me, and it would have been fine,” she said. “None of this would have to happen.”
