By Gordon Anderson | gordon@rantnc.com

Sanford City Councilman Charles Taylor told the Sanford Herald in a story published Thursday (subscription required) that he opposed expansion of the local Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s membership because the membership itself was opposed.

Now, that statement is getting pushback from two of the board’s three current members, who said it’s “not accurate.”

Outgoing ABC member Jim Foster, whose term expires June 30, largely declined to comment, but did say “there was a statement that the ABC Board was opposed to expansion. That statement was not accurate.”

ABC member Bobby Powell said at a recent meeting, Taylor – who was the council’s ABC liaison until his recent removal from the position – asked the Board to adopt a resolution opposing expansion.

“I said that as far as I was concerned, we don’t have anything to do with telling the council what to do,” Powell said. “At this point either we work with who they appoint or we resign. It’s all their prerogative as elected officials.”

Powell said the board didn’t even entertain a motion on the resolution – Taylor as liaison didn’t have voting privileges – so the matter died.

“We expressed our feelings about whether to get involved in the city council’s business, and decided to drop the matter,” Powell said. “We expressed no position.”

Buddy Keller, chairman of the ABC Board, couldn’t be reached for comment.

As Foster’s term expires the board’s three new members will be seated. They are radio personality Margaret Murchison, attorney and former City Councilman Chas Post, and Southern Lee faculty member Jan Tart. The new five member board will work with City Councilman Mark Akinosho as ABC liaison.

Taylor criticized Post in the same story over Post’s former service as the council’s ABC liaison, noting according to the Herald that “Post missed 81 percent of the ABC Board’s meetings … from 2013 to 2022.”

Powell took umbrage with that claim, pointing out that the liaison shouldn’t be expected to attend every meeting of such a board.

“Every time we called Chas Post to tell him we had a particular problem, Chas Post was there,” he said.

Post said he felt attending every meeting would have amounted to “meddling” in the ABC Board’s business.

“It wasn’t my job to do that,” he said. “I wasn’t on the ABC Board, I was on the City Council. It was my job as liaison to help them if they had any specific problems, or if there was any information that needed to be relayed back to the council.”