Several Jamestown residents have launched a petition drive seeking the removal of Matthew Johnson from his position as town manager. The initiative, organized by longtime Town of Jamestown residents, was motivated by concerns about Johnson’s recently released 2025-2026 budget, the delivery of town services, and inattention to Jamestown’s water quality. The petition reads:
“We, the undersigned voters of Jamestown, hereby request that the Town Council remove Matthew Johnson as town manager and replace him with a manager that is not arrogant and is dedicated to reducing the budget. We are seeing our taxes increase while services decrease, the numbers of employees increase with no related increase in service, and we are drinking poison water.”
The town’s charter states that the town manager is appointed by, and shall hold office at the pleasure of, the town council. Jamestown’s town council appointed Johnson to the position of town manager in early 2022. (Johnson had worked for the Town of Jamestown in various capacities since 2006, except for a two-year period from 2015 to 2016 when he was employed as planning director for the Town of Abingdon, Va.)
As such, the petition is directed to the Jamestown Town Council, and eligible signers are limited to residents who can vote in Jamestown’s mayoral and town council elections (i.e., residents who live within the “Town of Jamestown” municipal boundaries).
The organizers spent many years in town leadership roles. Art Wise served on Jamestown’s planning board from 2010 to 2020 and was chairman for nine of those years. Mickey Wright served on Jamestown’s town council from 1981 to 1993 and was mayor pro tem for eight years. The men said the petition drive is something they’ve been talking about for awhile, and that they are simply “fed up.”
“I’m surprised someone hasn’t already done this,” said Wise, “But we’ve talked about it for a couple years and have a bunch of guys who said, ‘okay, we’ll help.’”
Both men expressed concerns about the salaries and workforce size Johnson proposed at the May 27th public budget hearing. In his address to the council, Johnson stated that $4,795,974 is allocated for salaries, FICA, insurance, 401K and benefits “for forty (40) full-time employees” (an average salary package of $119,899 per employee). The number doesn’t include part-time and seasonal employees.
Jamestown’s most recent Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, shows 30 full-time employees worked for the town in 2024. The number (40) proposed by Johnson equates to a 25% increase of ten (10) additional full-time employees:
“I realize it’s been 20 years or so since I was on the council, but we had very few employees and got an awful lot done,” said Wright.
Jamestown’s population has stayed around 3,700 since 2020, and is lower than its 2015 population of 3,800 ten years ago:
The May 27th version of the budget included an allocation of $2,783,050 for Golf Course, Golf Shop and Recreation.
The version presented in the budget ordinance on June 24th (continued from May 27th) reallocated the numbers – the new amount for Golf Course, Golf Shop and Recreation increased to $3,083,550, and the amount allocated to Streets grew by $312,000. No mention of the changes was made or discussed. Here’s the version the town manager presented at the Budget Hearing, Part 1 (May 27th) with our notes in red and blue:
Here’s the version the town manager presented at the Budget Hearing, Part 2 (June 24th):
The golf course had a budget shortfall of ($848,823) for the year just ended, yet entered into a four-year lease for seventy-two (72) new Yamaha golf carts with GPS devices at a total cost (over the four years) of $438,497.
During his tenure as councilman, Wright, an avid golfer, was the liaison between the town council and Jamestown’s public golf course and park. “In those days we had a pro, an assistant pro, a few guys that did maintenance stuff and, if I remember correctly, a $200,000 budget – and we didn’t lose money,” he said.
Johnson’s total proposed operating budget is $9,174,452. Of that amount, $555,100 is for debt service. An additional $10,810,545 is budgeted by the Town of Jamestown for capital outlays, water/sewer outlays (High Point Eastside Wastewater Treatment Plant and Randleman Lake/PTRWA water treatment plant), debt service and reserve, bringing the town’s total budget to just under $20 million.
In 2022, when developer D.R. Horton presented plans for a 1,500-unit residential development, residents of Jamestown and nearby communities protested the project and spoke out at public hearings. A concern that came up multiple times was the refusal of both Jamestown’s town manager and land attorney to update the town’s Land Development Ordinance – a key enforcement tool – with the more stringent regulations mandated by the N.C. State Assembly in 2020 for all areas in the Randleman Lake Drinking Water Supply Watershed.
The refusal of the town to acknowledge and abide by the new Randleman Watershed Regulations, and the negotiating process for the D.R. Horton development, gave rise to several citizens’ watch initiatives including Jamestown United, The Jamestowner/Jamestowner Inc., and the Environmental and Sustainability Coalition of Jamestown which is now DeepRiver Riverkeeper Inc.
As a result, water testing paid for and conducted by these groups has found 15 different PFAS analytes, along with 1,4-Dioxane and numerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs), in local tap and well water samples.
Groundwater and streams tested by engineers and hydrologists at Jamestown pollution sources and Brownfields have detected 30 different PFAS compounds, GenX, 1,4-Dioxane, and dozens of VOCs and metals.
A round of testing conducted this spring by Deep River Riverkeeper Inc. found high levels of PFAS in Bull Run stream north of Main Street, and also in samples drawn from Deep River and Richland Creek.
Groundwater testing done in June 2024 and June 2025 in a neighborhood off Guilford College Road showed increases in concentration levels for ten PFAS compounds, and an overall average increase of 24% in PFAS levels at the same location a year ago.
The importance of addressing the entire town’s stormwater problems is a priority to the many residents whose backyards are transversed by these streams and tributaries, and whose foundations, driveways, play areas and gardens are flooded with Bull Run water during heavy storm events.
In June of 2023, the NC DEQ wrote up Jamestown’s stormwater program as being “deficient in meeting all permit requirements,” but renewed it anyway as what it said would be “the first step” in bringing Jamestown’s stormwater program into compliance, with a focus “on future implementation of the program.”
In the summer of 2023, Johnson submitted an application for renewal Jamestown’s stormwater management permit (an “NPDES MS4” permit). The application required the inclusion of a current Stormwater Map. The map on the left, below, is the map Johnson submitted. The image on the right is the map after we colored in the most important part of a stormwater map – the streams into which the stormwater flows:
In November 2024, Johnson’s permit application for construction of a half mile of sidewalk in front of Ragsdale High School was denied by the NC DEQ due to missing and wrong information: the landowner (Guilford County Board of Education) was left out, for example, and High Point City Lake was named as the “nearest waterbody” to the proposed sidewalk instead of Bull Run. A second submission attempt in January 2025 was also deemed inadequate.
In October 2024 an NCDEQ inspection of Jamestown’s wastewater collection system found numerous violations and deficiencies including an expired permit, insufficient education and enforcement, incomplete documentation and maps, no spill response plan, no public posting of compliance reports, and more.
This deep divide between the town manager’s priorities and Jamestown residents’ priorities came into full focus when his budget proposal made zero mention of PFAS, flooding, Deep River or water contamination – and allocated only $310,000 to “stormwater.”
None of the $20 million budget is allocated for tap water testing, contaminant cleanup, public education and information, alternate drinking water supplies for residents, spill notifications, public alerts, stream testing and 303(d) assessment, industrial discharge monitoring, permit enforcement or stream cleanup.
Approved by the town council at its June 24th meeting, the new budget increases residents’ water and sewer rates by 20.2% and raises Jamestown’s property tax rate for the third year in a row.
“Jamestown has lost some good employees; we need a manager that truly enjoys working with people,” added Wright. “I was on the council for 12 years, I live in Jamestown, go to Music in the Park, do a lot of things around town … but I’ve never seen him. I don’t know how long he has been here, but I wouldn’t know Matt Johnson if he walked through that door right now.”
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About The Author
Jamestown residents can message or email me to get together to sign the petition.
Art,
This is Carol Brooks with the Jamestown News. I saw the Jamestown United post about the petition to oust Matthew Johnson. I would like to have an article in next week’s Jamestown News about this but I can’t meet up with you because my car is in the shop!
Would you and Mickey Wright be willing to email me some comments that are in addition to what was in the Jamestown United post?
My deadline is actually Sunday for next week’s paper but I have company this weekend and hope I could finish writing by Friday.
Would you be willing to do this?
Carol