“No one tells me what to do”: Meeting notes reveal favored contractors, animosity toward others in Hurricane Matthew recovery

The Zerbys’ home in Craven County, damaged during Hurricane Matthew. It was scheduled to be finished April 29. This photo was taken on April 28. (Photo: Lisa Sorg)

In response to a Policy Watch investigation published last week, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) denied that Rescue Construction Solutions (Rescue) received favorable treatment over other general contractors in bidding and scoring related to Hurricane Matthew disaster recovery work.

Hundreds of households — equivalent to thousands of people — remain displaced from Hurricane Matthew, which occurred in October 2016. These North Carolinians are still living in motels, travel trailers, with relatives, or even in their original damaged homes.

However, notes taken by someone who attended weekly meetings about NCORR’s RebuildNC program show that Ivan Duncan, NCORR chief program delivery officer, did give Rescue leeway not afforded to other contractors. The person provided the notes to Policy Watch on the condition they would not be named, because they were afraid of retaliation by the state. Excerpts appear below; Policy Watch deleted some entries because they were very technical and weren’t relevant to the issue.

Among the revelations:

• Duncan reportedly told inspectors in May 2021, not to visit homes Rescue had built. This allowed Rescue to sidestep oversight.
• Duncan also allegedly allowed Rescue to delay starting some of its construction projects, according to notes taken in May 2020. That’s important because contractors’ performance and eligibility to bid on future contracts is based in part on their completion rate.
• Other examples of alleged preferential treatment include Duncan’s edict to pay Rescue to move a household for the second time; other general contractors were not given the same consideration, the notes say.
• Last year, the notes indicate Duncan also looked favorably upon RHD, another contractor. However, the notes show that RHD hesitated to accept Duncan’s offers.

The meetings were not recorded because Duncan required attendees to turn off their phones and place them in a bucket. In a previous Policy Watch story, NCORR Director and Chief Operating Officer Laura Hogshead said that practice no longer occurs. The notes indicate that Duncan reportedly said he “works in gray areas,” and asked contractors not to put anything in writing or emails. Such correspondence would be public under state open records law.

Rescue has not responded to written questions about its performance. Instead, the company hired a crisis communications firm, which issued a statement last week saying the company had bid properly, but it did not address the questions.

Policy Watch shared these notes with NCORR. A spokesperson for the agency released the following statement Tuesday morning:

NCORR remains committed to helping hurricane survivors rebuild their homes and communities as evidenced by the more than 700 houses already repaired or replaced in eastern North Carolina. We take the Policy Watch allegations very seriously and will thoroughly investigate to determine their validity and whether corrective action is needed. Many of the allegations thus far have been based on unconfirmed or inaccurate documentation, misinterpretation of program policy, or hearsay from unknown sources. For example, it is misleading to say that only certain general contractors had projects inspected. In fact, all projects had recurring inspections by county inspectors, while the lead contractor in charge of construction oversight, AECOM, was also tracking every project. Whether or not every contractors’ projects had an unannounced visit by state officials, they were all were inspected multiple times by qualified experts. This is just one example of how NCORR has been misrepresented in recent coverage. We look forward to sharing factual information to demonstrate that NCORR is not only committed to helping storm survivors recover, but also to full compliance with the law.

Names of individual contractors have been redacted and replaced with company names. Policy Watch added the annotations and highlighting to explain the significance of those passages.

Abbreviations and definitions
GC: General contractor

CRCS, Persons, Rescue, Duckey, RHD, Excel: Company names of general contractors

AECOM: Construction management company that is the liaison between NCORR and the contractors

Sprayberry: Former Director of Emergency Management Mike Sprayberry

Trace: Trace Allard, NCORR director of program delivery

Open procurement: Competitive bidding process

Ryan: Ryan Flynn, former NCORR chief of staff

O&P: Overhead and profit

ECR: Estimated cost of repairs

MHUs: Mobile home units

Jonathan Doerr: NCORR attorney

NTP: Notice to Proceed; when an NTP is issued, the clock starts on construction, which is required to be finished within a certain amount of time, depending on the complexity of the project, usually 90-135 days. Contractors can request time extensions.

CO: Change orders, adjustments to the construction costs when unforeseen issues arise, such as mold, termites, asbestos