Town of Cary spent $1 million on land. Elected leaders left in the dark.
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- Town manager bought two Cary lots totaling 1.58 acres for just over $1M in 2024.
- Purchase closed July 31, 2024; town paid more than twice prior sale.
- Council members say acquisition lacked full disclosure; manager accepts responsibility.
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Cary under scrutiny
The town of Cary has been in the spotlight since late November, when Town Manager Sean Stegall was put on administrative leave without any explanation from the town. Stegall resigned Dec. 13, 2025, amid reports of questionable spending. Here is ongoing coverage from The News & Observer.
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Days before former Cary Town Manager Sean Stegall was placed on leave, Mayor Harold Weinbrecht contacted a town council member with some surprising news: The town had spent over $1 million on a land purchase a year earlier without the full council knowing.
“I was unaware that the town purchased these two lots until Harold shared with me that he had learned about it in November,” said Jennifer Robinson, who left her seat on the council last month. “I was surprised because significant land purchases are typically brought before the full council.”
The two vacant lots totaling 1.58 acres are next to each other — 600 and 604 Kildaire Farm Road just south of downtown — and were recorded as purchased on July 31, 2024, from a prominent landowning family in town that includes George Jordan III.
Jordan Real Estate Holdings of Cary had bought one of them a year earlier for $250,000, that at the time had an assessed tax value of $248,242, county records show. The company sold it to the town for $686,000, over twice the price the business had paid, real estate records show.
An email obtained by The News & Observer shows that in January 2024, Assistant Town Manager Shelley Curran shared a report with another town council member that recommended against buying the land.
Contacted by The N&O on Saturday, Stegall declined to be interviewed about the purchase, but he acknowledged that it may not have been fully communicated to the council.
“Those purchases were made during a period when the Town was seeking to acquire land for future affordable housing development,” he wrote. “Any lack of understanding or inadequate communication rests solely with me, as I incorrectly believed our intent to purchase was fully understood.”
He then forwarded additional questions to Curran, who declined to be interviewed.
Manager on leave
Stegall was placed on paid leave after a town council meeting Nov. 20. Town officials provided little explanation publicly for the leave, but said “certain key information had not been shared” and “decisions were made without council approval.”
At a special meeting Monday, the board accepted Stegall’s resignation and appointed Deputy Town Manager Russ Overton as interim town manager. Weinbrecht cited “over-the-top spending and inadequate financial reporting,” a “lack of transparency with the full council, staff and citizens,” and an “unhealthy work environment.”
“I was absolutely stunned about the revelations we’ve had,” Weinbrecht said.
After the meeting, he told reporters he did not know about the land sale and didn’t know how many others on the council knew. He also said he believed Stegall’s discretionary spending was limited to $1 million, which this land-sale exceeded.
“That’s definitely going to change,” the mayor said, of the discretionary spending limit.
The N&O has revealed that the town paid $37,000 toward Council Member Lori Bush’s college tuition at Northwestern University without the full council’s knowledge or vote. (She paid it back after it came under scrutiny). The N&O also revealed that Stegall spent $3,400 at an upscale hotel during a conference in Austin, Texas, that only he stayed in, but provided a document claiming the tab covered other town officials who attended.
Stegall and other town officials have some authority to make purchases without council approval, according to council agreements. Robinson is asking whether the land purchases were in accordance with that authority, she said.
The N&O has asked town officials over the past week for information regarding the town manager’s discretionary spending. It also needs to be determined whether the money came from an account intended for land purchases, Robinson said.
Issues with the property
Curran’s email on Jan. 23, 2024, recommending against the purchase was addressed to Bush and had the subject line “Potential Property to Acquire.”
In her email to Bush, town staff evaluated several properties and rejected them all in the report. Staff focused on whether the Kildaire Farm property could be used for watershed protection or housing.
The property was not in the Jordan Lake watershed, wouldn’t “make sense” to include in a conservation easement and would be under pressure for development, the report said. It also sits in a floodplain, making it risky for housing, the report said. Curran in an email Monday declined to answer a reporter’s questions about the purchases, saying that information had been given to a town spokeswoman, who did not return a phone or text message.
Robinson, who left the council after not winning re-election, said in an interview with the N&O on Friday the purchase was made at a bad time to be spending taxpayer money on land, she said.
“We had financial issues, and it was done one month after the council voted to raise taxes for citizens,” she said.
The budget approved this summer was the second year the town did not add staff positions, and potential merit-based raises for employees were lowered from 5% to 3%. The town also paused 68 capital projects this year.
Council member asked about land
The second lot the Jordan family members sold to Cary — in the purchase that Robinson said the council was not told about — had been in the family for decades, real estate records show, and was sold to the town for $379,000.
On Oct. 17, 2023, three months before Curran’s email to Bush, Jordan had given Bush a $500 donation, campaign finance reports show. It is the only donation he has made to her campaigns, which typically raised no more than several thousand dollars, records show. She was first elected to the council in 2011.
Jordan said in an interview Sunday that the campaign donation had nothing to do with the sale. He has given to several town council members over the years, campaign finance records show.
Bush asked about the properties and expressed an interest in them when she met with Jordan for coffee on March 6, 2024, Jordan said. That was six weeks after town officials had recommended against the purchase, something Jordan said he wasn’t aware of until a reporter told him Sunday.
In April, the town struck an agreement to purchase the properties, he said. The deeds were dated July 31, 2024.
Stegall mentioned the town had an interest in the properties at an event in the fall of 2023, Jordan said, but he did not recall any other interactions with the town manager. A potential sale of them to a day care for $1.2 million had fallen through, he said.
As for the jump in price for the larger of the two properties, Jordan said it had no road access until it was joined with the lot his family already owned. That made it more valuable.
The N&O reached out to several council members to ask questions about the land purchase but only heard back from one. Council member Carissa Kohn-Johnson responded with a text saying, “I am certain you can get all the accurate information from a public records request.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated Monday evening after Mayor Harold Weinbrecht said that neither he nor the full town council was informed about the land purchase.
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com.
This story was originally published December 15, 2025 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Town of Cary spent $1 million on land. Elected leaders left in the dark.."
