Meet EDA Board members Jeff Browne and Greg Harold – into the firestorm

In this July 18 video interview, Royal Examiner introduces two of the three newest Economic Development Authority Board of Directors members. Jeff Browne and Greg Harold were appointed by a unanimous vote of the Warren County Board of Supervisors on June 18. They were selected from an interview pool of 19, according to County staff.

They replaced two of the board’s longest-serving members, Greg Drescher and Ron Llewellyn, who jointly announced their resignations at the March 22 EDA board meeting, effective the following day.

Browne and Harold will join the EDA board’s newest member, Marjorie Martin, in their second, Martin’s first, EDA board meeting the morning of July 26.

Martin, whom Royal Examiner hopes to soon interview, was appointed Tuesday, July 16, following the unexpected resignation of EDA Board Vice-Chairman Bruce Drummond last week.

Drummond’s resignation continues turnover within the EDA board and staff as the investigation into financial fraud in EDA operations and consequent civil litigation and related criminal charges have proceeded.

Related or coincidental, that turnover includes the retirement or resignation of the entire three-person EDA staff: Marketing Director Marla Jones (retired) late 2017; Executive Director Jennifer McDonald and Administrative Assistant Michelle “Missy” Henry, resigned in December and March respectively; as well as three-decade Board Treasurer William “Billy” Biggs and long-time EDA bookkeeper Josie Rickard who both retired last October; as well as the above-mentioned Drescher, Llewellyn and now Drummond board resignations.

McDonald and Henry are the only two people thus far charged in criminal indictments related to the EDA fraud investigation. Both are currently jailed out of county, McDonald without bond on 12 felony embezzlement or fraud charges, Henry on two embezzlement counts. Henry is scheduled for a once-delayed (June 25) bond hearing tomorrow, Friday, July 19.

Why jump into the EDA firestorm now, we asked Browne and Harold to open our interview: