Zebulon Vance, the North Carolina legislator, governor, and Confederate officer for whom Wake County’s easternmost town is named, was not, according to U.S. Civil War historian John G. Barrett, a details guy.
Though Vance practiced law for a few years in antebellum North Carolina, his “success in the courtroom was usually the result of wit, humor, boisterous eloquence, and clever retorts, not knowledge of the law,” Barrett wrote.
Something of that style-over-substance characterization feels applicable to modern elected leaders in Vance’s namesake town. But unlike Vance, who was reportedly “beloved” by his constituents, the Zebulon Board of Commissioners has faced accusations of incompetence and untrustworthiness for the last two years. Since 2024, board members have been dogged by sudden resignations among their top staff, questionable hires, a lawsuit, calls for their resignation en masse, and now an unflattering report from the State Auditor’s Office pointing to inadequate financial controls…