THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
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DANVILLE — The Danville Area Board of Trustees heard from two supporters of DACC President Stephen Nacco, who is on administrative leave, at a special meeting Thursday, with one also saying board members with ties to the city should recuse themselves from votes on this issue.
The meeting, largely in closed session, was to talk more about the dispute between Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. and Nacco that stemmed from an undocumented immigrants’ issue.
Board vice chairman Greg Wolfe said the meeting was regarding “more information and discussion on the incident,” involving Nacco and Williams.
The board also is working toward setting a hearing date regarding the dispute and any possible disciplinary action to be taken against Nacco.
During public comments, prior to the board going into closed session, it heard from retired DACC rhetoric professor Jamie Berthel and again from resident Deonte Brooks.
Berthel spoke in support of Nacco, stating that she’s known him and his wife, Cindy, since the start of their residency here in 2016, both as acquaintances, so
cially, and professionally with her employment.
“Dr. Nacco and Cindy have contributed to the welfare of our community on many fronts. They are civic-minded citizens who have done a great deal, I think, to contribute to the welfare of our community,” Berthel said.
As a professor of rhetoric, she said she’s familiar with “encounters, squabbles and battles” that have taken place in public forum for centuries.
“It’s not uncommon for people to scrap with each other publicly in the public forum, in the town hall, and where others can hear them professionally and as pedestrians,” Berthel said.
She said she sort of sees this as a “sticks and stones” kind of rhetorical situation where people have “yanked each other’s chains.” When that happens, people say things that they would often take back or didn’t really mean the way their comments were taken.
“I feel this is one of those situations and was never really worthy of an investigation by this body,” Berthel said. “It seems dismissible in my view.”
Berthel believes any comments Nacco made toward Williams were not delivered with malice.
Brooks also spoke in support of Nacco and said he’s disappointed with this situation where a man of “integrity and service” is being treated this way. Brooks said he’s seen the positive impacts Nacco has had in the community.
Brooks also said with this being a city and college issue, board members who do business with the city or work for the city should be willing to recuse themselves from any decisions made involving city and college issues.
“It would be deeply disturbing for me if a decision was made by people who reported to the mayor…,” he said.
Board members include Sandra Finch, who works for the city as human relations administrator, and Dylan Haun, who is a firefighter and whose mother, Rachel Haun, is deputy city clerk.
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