RED SPRINGS – Jane O’Neal is the latest member of the Red Springs town government and law enforcement staff to part ways or be fired by the Robeson County town.

O’Neal, who is 68, had served as the town manager since March 2023.

She tendered her resignation on May 11.

As town manager, O’Neal managed the day-to-day operations of 15 town government departments and more than 85 full-time and part-time employees with a total Red Springs operating budget of more than $11 million.

“The corrupt and controlling political environment had become so hostile and toxic that no ethical person could stay in it any longer,” she said in a brief statement emailed to The Robesonian.

The Local Government Commission has had the town on its watch list for eight years due to its dire financial problems, a source has said. It has also been said this is due to a series of bad decisions and bad hiring decisions.

In a prepared statement issued Friday, Red Springs Mayor Edward Henderson stated, Even though there has never been an exact science for governing a town, some of us felt that our town needed to be moving toward the future. We want Red Springs to be a safe place to live, work and raise a family. The town needs to be financially stable and the leadership doing what’s best for the citizens and our town. We are appreciative of the time Ms. O’Neal has been a part of Red Springs, but we need to move on and take care of the business of Red Springs.”

Town Clerk Barbara McColl has been named as Red Springs’ interim town manager. She presently continues in her role as town clerk.

The much-criticized dysfunction of the town government – especially involving its police department and Red Springs Town Council – seemed to come to a head earlier this month during the regular monthly meeting of the board when Commissioner Caroline Sumpter unloaded on O’Neal.

That came during a discussion on cemetery cleanups in town, where Sumpter disagreed with something O’Neal said during the meeting that Sumpter claimed was not what O’Neal had told her during a previous conversation between the two involving a bid for the cleanup.

Things got heated in the Town Hall Council Board Room.

“As far as where we need to be as a town,” Sumpter said, “we are not there. Do I feel the manager bears the brunt of this? Yes, I do. I have heard, and I feel we need to part ways and do something different. That is my personal opinion.”

Sumpter said she had no personal agenda, before adding, “… I will say this, ‘Something has to give.’ It is not one issue that is wreaking havoc within this town. It’s multiple things. My approach may not be like others, but it is me. It’s honest.

“Many of you have asked, ‘What is the board doing? Are we getting along? Are we addressing the concerns? And I will say that we have talked. ‘We agree to disagree?’ The manager and I are not on the same page … I think she feels that I target her. That’s not the case. If I can take the heat from the citizens on the street, I feel that our manager can do a better job in communicating the information in stopping the confusion. There was lots of confusion with our electric department, in our sanitation department, as to who does what, when, how and where.”

Sensing the developing squabble in the public’s eye, Mayor Henderson said their discussion should continue at a later time.

“I want the public to know I have been under constant attack, okay,” O’Neal blurted out.

Former Police Chief Mark Caskey was relinquished of his duties on March 14 after seven months on the job, and former town police Lt. Sarah Purcell was promoted to interim police chief. Caskey, a Red Springs native and former longtime officer with the police department, came aboard as chief in August.

O’Neal would not specify the reasons behind his dismissal at the time, calling it was an in-house personnel matter.

Another longtime police officer in Red Springs, Lt. Chris McManus, also was let go in the wake of the Caskey firing.

Both men have blamed O’Neal as the underlying problem behind their dismissals.

In her May 11 letter of resignation addressed to the ‘Board of Commissioners and the Town of Red Springs,’ O’Neal writes:

“In March, 2023, I moved to Red Springs with the intention of working long-term in the dream job of my lifetime as your town manager. I worked tirelessly while trying to assist you in identifying ways to move the town forward, and to deal with the dire financial shortfalls that have plagued the town of Red Springs for nearly a decade. I established accounting procedures in an effort to eliminate waste and mismanagement of funds.

“Interference in day-to-day operations by some elected officials, blatant favoritism shown (to) certain employees over others, and not being allowed to discipline those favored employees, undermines my authority, and creates a situation rendering me unable to properly perform my job in order to accomplish long-term goals,” she wrote. “Therefore, effective immediately, I am resigning from my position as town manager, and can only hope and pray that the situation drastically improves. Otherwise, the town of Red Springs will continue to decline.”

From 2015 to 2021, O’Neal served as the city clerk in Poplarville, Mississippi, and from 1989 to 1991, as the Stone County administrator in Wiggins, Mississippi.

Her resume also includes management roles with Coca-Cola Bottling Company Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama, and systems engineer and chemist with NASA’s National Space Technology Laboratories in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

“I appreciate the opportunity to have served as your town manager,” O’Neal concluded in her letter of resignation. “Now that my husband and I are residents of Red Springs, I have a vested interest in the town’s success. I am dedicated to continuing to make a positive contribution to Red Springs for the good of its citizens.”