Chatham County Commissioner David Delaney officially stepped down from the board late last month, ending his time as a commissioner a few months before his term was set to end. Delaney left early because he is moving to Wake County this summer — but his final board meetings turned out to be extremely contentious.
Long-simmering tensions between Delaney and the rest of the board erupted in public at the outset of the board’s May 18 meeting, leading to several heated exchanges over 15 tense minutes before commissioners even got to the first item on their agenda.
“Can we physically have him removed,” Board Chair Amanda Robertson asked county attorney Emily Meeker near the end of the exchange, in which Delaney refused to allow the board to proceed with its normal agenda until the other members addressed a concern about following North Carolina’s open meetings law.
“I can’t accept that this is the outcome,” Delaney said at one point after making repeated motions that died for lack of a second.
Chatham County Commissioners at their May 18, 2026 meeting. (Screencap of Chatham County’s meeting video.)
County leaders say there had also been past tension between Delaney and other board members, including a previous history of criticizing the conduct of board chairs. The issue behind this particular conflict revolved around the process of choosing a replacement to serve out the final five months of Delaney’s term: Delaney said he thought board members had violated open-meetings law by discussing the issue in a recent meeting of Chatham County Democrats. Both Delaney and Mark Barroso’s Chatham Dispatch newsletter wrote that more than a quorum of members attended the party’s executive committee meeting in April to hear the discussion of potential replacement options for the commissioner’s seat. Although the board members themselves took no votes or held a formal discussion, Delaney told Chapelboro his concern of violating state laws came from Robertson stating to the Democratic Party that the majority of the board had a preferred option for his seat’s replacement.
During the May 18 meeting, Robertson said county attorney Emily Meeker had already confirmed no laws were violated; Meeker herself was present in the courthouse and did not disagree. But Delaney persisted, with no support from any other board member – only agreeing to drop the issue after Meeker affirmed that Robertson did in fact have the authority to remove him.
The county board meeting proceeded without additional incident, although Delaney used his comments at the end of the meeting to once again express his displeasure with how the start was handled. He officially left the board after attending just one more meeting, a budget hearing the following day in Siler City.
“My perspectives on these topics are shaped by a past discussion with our former county attorney, Bob Hagemann,” Delaney said in an emailed statement with Chapelboro. “I had asked him if I could listen passively to an agenda-planning meeting among county staff and two commissioners. He stated that his opinion was that even passive listening to the discussion by a third commissioner would violate the open meetings law. The rationale was that a majority of the Board was simultaneously hearing and considering Board topics, even if all were not speaking and formally deliberating or deciding an issue. I followed his advice and did not join the agenda-planning meeting. I do not know whether similar advice was ever shared with any other commissioner, but that advice was not followed in April.”
Delaney was first elected county commissioner in 2022, representing District 3, which covers northern Chatham County including part of Pittsboro. The rest of the board may choose someone to serve out the remainder of his term — but Delaney’s long-term successor will be current sheriff Mike Roberson, who won the Democratic primary for that seat and will be unopposed on the ballot in November.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners could bring up and take action on Delaney’s vacant District 3 seat during its next meeting, which is set for Monday, June 15.
Featured photo of Chatham County Commissioners Katie Kenlan and David Delaney is via the video of the board’s May 18, 2026 meeting.
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