The incumbent: Jack Shea

Jack Shea’s decades-long route to the Outer Banks took him across the country and back, with four years in Canada, as he pursued a career before finally settling in Southern Shores.

His resume, he says, includes developing a device that removes cholesterol from the blood and what he jokingly describes as his “James Bond” period working on secure government projects.

Though his major discipline is chemistry, he has been involved in microbiology, radio isotopes and medical devices, to name a few.

“I was kind of a one-man band,” he says during an interview in his Southern Shores home.

For most of his career, the New Jersey native specialized in making sure that things were working correctly, or in corporate language, quality assurance and quality control.

That experience, Shea will tell you, is what he will continue to bring to the county as he seeks a second term for an at-large seat on the Dare County Board of Commissioners. A Republican, Shea is running against Democrat Robin Mann. It is the only contested race for county commissioner.

The matchup offers an interesting contrast: A worldly veteran of the corporate world with extensive management credentials versus the chief financial officer of a boat building company who describes herself as someone who has fully experienced the economic ups and downs of working on the Outer Banks.

Shea narrowly defeated Democrat Rex Tillett, the nephew of state Senate President Marc Basnight, by 274 votes in the 2006 election for the at-large seat.

Shea said the party approached him at the suggestion of a fellow member of the county airport authority. He was interviewed, he said, by Commissioner Richard Johnson and then-Commissioner Cheryl Byrd.

“I just wanted to do what I could do to help make this community better,” he said, noting that he had not previously been involved in party politics.

Shea says that if Mann is elected, representation of the county would be thrown out of balance because the board would include three commissioners from Roanoke Island. But he was not ready to endorse a ward-type system in which commissioners would be elected by voters in a specific district.

Shea focuses on county budgeting and creating jobs in discussing why he would be a good choice for a second term. He frequently says that county government needs to be run like a business.

“I’ve learned that the bottom line is, you know, you have to do the best you can for your stakeholders,” he said. “In business, it’s your stockholders, and in communities such as here, the residents are the stakeholders.”

Shea says he want to see zero-based budgeting put to use in the county, which might mean abolishing or combining departments to eliminate duplication. Used by many corporations, zero-based budgeting requires each department to construct an annual budget at zero and then justify each expense as the budget builds. In traditional budget processes, each department starts with the prior year’s allocation and works up or down from there.

“Zero-based budgeting says, ‘Do we need to do this?’ ” he said.

The idea did not gain traction this year as the county staff and commissioners worked through trimming existing departments and programs before eventually settling on a 2-cent property tax increase.

One of three Republicans on the seven-member board, Shea was the only Republican commissioner to vote against the increase. Tax increases, he said, “are the easy way out.” He said he was “unpleasantly surprised” that his two GOP colleagues on the board supported the tax increase in the 5-2 vote.

During this year’s budget debate, Shea did not break down how he would have made up a budget gap of roughly $4 million without a tax increase. Asked if he had identified line items to bridge the budget gap, he replied “No, I did not.”

But with the possibility of the county facing more state mandates without state funding in the next budget cycle, he said, “We’re going to have to look at all non-vital services.” Being forced to maintain secondary roads, which is not yet a mandate but has been discussed, “could be a major hit,” he said, as would further cuts in state funding for schools.

Parks and recreation, he said, might be one area to examine for non-vital services. Some operations, he said, could be combined, suggesting, for example, that there might not be a need for a full-time tax department.

Shea said he would be interested in looking for efficiencies and savings in the possibility of privatizing some county services. Salaries also need to be examined, he said.

“To me, you can take all the services and put them into three categories: Must have, need to have, nice to have. And I’d like to start first looking at the nice to have and see: Are there potential savings that we can make there that offset any future unfunded mandates so we don’t have to unnecessarily raise taxes?”

Recently, Shea tried to start a discussion on jobs at a Board of Commissioners meeting. His colleagues politely acknowledged the issue but it has not yet been taken any farther.

Shea’s ideas are drawn from the Create the Future Initiative, which is an adjunct of The Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce.

“I want to see 12-month-a-year jobs, not just temporary, low-paying jobs,” Shea said.

Create the Future sees the advance in technology and communication as an opportunity to draw people who can work remotely, from homes or satellite offices. The area could also host businesses such as credit centers and data processing centers, Shea said. Dare County, he said, is a good draw with its coastal environment, reputable school system and most of the amenities for a comfortable lifestyle.

Identifying opportunities is a first step, he said. Hiring an industrial recruiter, he said, is one possibility for moving forward.

When asked how Dare can avoid the pitfall of falling back on the old model of excessive growth fueled by resort construction, Shea had a one-word response: “zoning.” He said he does not want to see Dare County become another Ocean City, Md.

Asked to list some of the highlights of his first term, he included budget accountability for non-profits that receive county funding. The county budget incorporated a 10 percent reduction in total outlays for non-profits, which were $615,875 in the previous spending package. He also used his chemistry background, he said, to urge that water lines to schools be flushed after summer vacation to ensure against any health risks.

Without mentioning Shea by name, Mann pointed to an initiative that drew some criticism — a 2008 county resolution endorsing English as the official language. Shea said he did not want to see language create “two separate societies, or multiple societies in the U.S.” He said he saw that separation between French- and English-speaking communities during his years in Canada.

He went on to say that he believed in the rule of law and that the law was being selectively enforced or not enforced at all. “And that’s wrong,” he said.

While the resolution carried no legal weight, it was criticized by Board Chairman Warren Judge and Commissioner Allen Burrus on its way to a favorable 4-3 vote in April of 2008.

Shea, who flies his own plane, says he has stayed involved in communities where he has lived. He was president of a community blood bank and commander of a Coast Guard auxiliary flotilla in the New York area. He also has served with the Coast Guard auxiliary here and is on the Chicahauk Property Owners Board of Directors.

He is chairman of the county’s Audit Committee and is a member of the Dare County Tourist Board. He also is liaison to the Dare County Board of Education and is a member of the Dare County Airport Authority.

Shea is president of a firm that consults companies in the pharmaceutical, biologic and medical devices industries. He is also on the board of an international biotech company.

This story was written and reported by Rob Morris and Russ Lay.

link to Jack Shea’s website »

link here for more on Shea’s opponent, Democrat Robin Mann »

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