GAINSWave® Treatment in Marvin, NC

MARVIN, NC (WBTV) - A councilwoman in the Village of Marvin, a small town in western Union County, has filed an affidavit in court accusing the village’s mayor and a fellow council member of illegally using public funds to finance a lawsuit to remove her from office.

Mary Shkut filed the affidavit in Union County Superior Court in mid-January as part of a lawsuit brought against her by Marvin Mayor Joseph Pollino and Councilwoman Kimberly Vandenberg.

Pollino and Vandenberg initiated a type of lawsuit called a write of quo warranto, which is a legal proceeding used to remove someone from office who wrongfully assumed the seat in the first place.

In her affidavit, Shkut says the lawsuit started as a result of a vote taken by councilmembers at a meeting of the council on July 10, 2018.

Specifically, the affidavit said, the council approved a resolution directing the village’s attorney, Melanie Cox, to research legal action to force Shkut from her seat.

Previous: State official: Marvin Village shutdown ‘abdication of responsibilities’ by board

Invoices attached to Shkut’s affidavit - which was filed in court under oath - show village funds were used to pay Cox and a second attorney, TC Morphis, who practices at the Brough Law Firm in Chapel Hill.

Ultimately, documents attached to Shkut’s affidavit show, the lawsuit was brought in the name of Pollino and Vandenberg after a lawyer at the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office said the action could not be brought by the town itself.

The North Carolina General Statute governing quo warranto actions explicitly forbids the use of public funds to pay for such an action.

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Despite that, records show, public funds were used to pay both Cox and Morphis’ firm for research and action related to the legal action.

“To date, the Cox Law Firm, PLLC, has charged the Village of Marvin at least $5,872.50 for services in connection with this action;” the affidavit said.

“To date, the Brough Law Firm, PLLC, has charged the Village of Marvin at least $5,135 for services in connection with this action,” the affidavit said.

In an email, Morphis denied any wrongdoing. He issued the following statement in response to a request for comment:

“While there is little I can say publicly about the cases at this time, Ms. Cox and I believe that we have acted at all times appropriately and lawfully on behalf of the Village of Marvin in the lawsuit known as Shkut v. Village of Marvin.”

“Likewise, I believe that at all times I have acted appropriately and lawfully on behalf of the individual plaintiffs in the quo warranto lawsuit, Pollino v. Skhut. Ms. Vandenberg and Mr. Pollino hired me to represent them in that case in their capacities as individual citizens, not on behalf of the Village of Marvin, and at the appropriate time, I intend to file redacted versions of my engagement letters and billing statements to them.”

“We will be making additional filings with the Court prior to the hearing on February 4th, and these issues will be brought before a judge to rule on at that time.”

Cox, the other attorney to be paid with village funds in relation to this action, declined to comment when reached by a WBTV reporter and pointed to Morphis’ previous statement.

Pollino sent an email responding to a request from WBTV late Thursday afternoon.

“I believe Mr Morphis, our attorney, has responded to you at this time,” Pollino said. “I will say that I take these accusations very seriously and have acted appropriately at all times. I completely deny any and all of these allegations.”

Vandenberg responded to an email from a WBTV reporter seeking comment but declined to comment beyond what Morphis said in his statement.

“I am confident that I have acted appropriately at all times,” she said.

Copyright 2019 WBTV. All rights reserved.

MARVIN, N.C. (WBTV) - Wounded Heroes Day is a time to reflect and honor those who fought for the nation and suffered life-changing injuries.

On Sunday, an organization called The Independence Fund hosted an event recognizing some of the wounded veterans in North Carolina.

Veterans like Geoffrey Quevedo attended the ceremony hosted by The Independence Fund.

“I’m missing my left leg below the knee, my left arm above the elbow, facial fractures, broke my jaw and my nose. Retinal rupture, traumatic brain injury,” said Quevedo.

Quevedo said he and his partner were injured in Afghanistan while clearing a compound they knew was being used as an IED warehouse.

Wounded Heroes Day is fairly new. It became a day of recognition in N.C. back in April of 2021.

The Independence Fund shared that the state of N.C. passed House Bill 138/Senate Bill 132 designating every April 24 as Wounded Heroes Day honoring Union County’s Sgt. Michael Verado and other Wounded Heroes.

“On April 24, 2010, Sgt. Michael Verardo suffered life-altering combat injuries in an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan. Since that fateful day, Sgt. Verardo has undergone 120 surgeries, along with years of speech, visual, physical, and occupational therapies. Verardo, like so many other catastrophically wounded, injured, and ill veterans, brings the scars of war back home. Wounded Veterans continue showing displays of courage and resilience as they overcome new challenges and obstacles,” according to The Independence Fund

Knowing the valor it takes to fight in defense of the U.S., Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer spoke to the crowd on Sunday addressing how each wounded hero reminds everyone of what hope is.

“You know when I look at these wounded heroes I see men and women who are the best that America has to offer and reminders of what the cost of freedom is. When these men and women walk amongst us they are reminders of what we all should strive to be,” said Meyer.

During the event, plans for a courtyard to honor the veterans outside the Village of Marvin were unveiled.

Copyright 2023 WBTV. All rights reserved.

During football season a few years back, Scott Chadwick, a high school coach in North Carolina, had a Sunday night ritual as practical as it was peculiar. Every week, he would scan the list of N.F.L. players injured that day, hoping that no quarterbacks were seriously hurt.

He knew that the repercussions of a broken wrist in Minneapolis or a torn ligament in Seattle could reverberate all the way to Waxhaw, N.C., outside Charlotte, where Chadwick’s staff at Marvin Ridge High School included the most overqualified quarterbacks coach in the Southern Carolina Conference.

That coach, Josh McCown, had turned an unplanned hiatus from the N.F.L. — he was still on standby for any team with a sudden, urgent opening — into two seasons volunteering with the Mavericks, in 2011 and 2012, that he considers a point of demarcation in his peripatetic career but also his life. All the time he spent there formulating game plans and holding tutorials in his backyard, running Bible study and asking players about their grades caused McCown, after spending eight years with four teams, to recalibrate his perspective.

“I got to hit the pause button,” he said in an interview at the Jets’ headquarters in Florham Park, N.J., the day after their 21-12, season-opening loss at Buffalo. “I didn’t really grasp how much the game meant to me. After coaching, I knew, and it needed to be reflected in how I prepared as a player and as a coach.”

McCown, 38, has not appeared in the playoffs in his previous 14 N.F.L. seasons, and he has lost 21 of his last 23 starts, for three teams, since 2014. But behind the numbers, teams have noticed an aptitude for teaching and a capacity to impart professionalism and wisdom on younger players. The Cleveland Browns asked him to consider a coaching position after last season, as other teams have over the years, but he wanted to continue playing.

He was less certain in 2010, after he had thrown all of six passes for the Carolina Panthers the previous two seasons. He struggled to get another N.F.L. job because teams had such little film of him, and he spent the next season with the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League.

Weary of waiting for a phone call, McCown reconnected with Chadwick, whom he had met in early 2010. McCown lived in Waxhaw, about two miles from the school.

Their philosophies aligned, and from the outset McCown was honest: If an N.F.L. team called, he was going. The Mavericks hoped he would never leave. They also hoped he would.

Approaching the unpaid position like a full-time gig, McCown immersed himself in the program. He hosted film review sessions, replete with homemade lasagna, at his house. After practices, he would text players to share ideas — or sometimes just to check in with them, to ask about their math test. He scouted opponents, attended junior varsity games, served as the scout-team quarterback.

“The last thing he needed to be doing was hang out on a high school field with a bunch of kids he’s never met before,” Mavericks running back Jacob Henderson, who now plays at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., said in an interview last month in Charlotte. “We all wondered: Is he going to be here? Is he not? Josh went above and beyond. He put his heart and soul into it.”

McCown said he never considered otherwise.

“I thought the impact would be lessened if they felt like you were half-in, half-out,” McCown said of his involvement with the Mavericks. “I didn’t want them to respect me because I played. I wanted them to respect me because I cared about them.”

By investing in their lives outside football, McCown built trust. He knew that receiver Carter Hill’s parents were divorced, so he made sure to be an active presence. For the 7 a.m. Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings, McCown would flip pancakes or bring doughnuts. From chatting with receiver Derek Smith, McCown learned that he rooted for South Carolina and loved the former Gamecocks receiver Alshon Jeffery. One day, he passed his cellphone to Smith, and on the other end was Jeffery, who played with McCown in Chicago, wishing him a happy birthday.

“If you needed to go to a private therapy session, you would go to Josh’s house,” Hill said in a telephone interview. “Not that that necessarily happened, but that was the type of relationship he had.”

McCown really started forging those relationships in summer 2011, his first full season as quarterbacks coach. He would stay for the junior high practice, too, roaming the fields from 6 a.m. to past lunchtime.

“I went home and I told my wife: ‘This is awesome. I feel so alive right now,’ ” McCown said.

About two weeks later, just as the Mavericks’ preparation was intensifying, the San Francisco 49ers signed him. Even while focusing on claiming a roster spot there, he monitored the Mavericks from afar on his tablet.

He would grade the performance of quarterback Tyler Chadwick, Scott’s son, and email him suggestions. Curious, McCown’s roommate at training camp, Joe Hastings, asked what he was doing.

“Just helping my quarterback,” McCown told him.

McCown lasted three weeks before San Francisco released him, and he went home to coach. Sharing his own tribulations — he didn’t even start until his senior year in high school — McCown helped empower a team fielding almost an entirely new lineup. He urged players to concentrate on what they could control: their study habits, their work ethic, their passion.

“I’ve coached with a lot of former N.F.L. guys, and a lot of times they have the attitude like, ‘It’s lucky for you that I’m here,’ ” Chadwick said last month in Charlotte. “Josh got just as much out of it as the kids did.”

McCown developed a special connection with Tyler Chadwick, who laughed as he recalled a favorite drill: It demanded he complete 20-yard passes over a net, roughly 6 feet tall, stationed about 10 yards away. It helped him improve his accuracy up the seam, tossing over linebackers and away from safeties. Another required him to fling balls from odd angles.

Yet despite setting a school record with 10 victories, the Mavericks lost in the second round of the playoffs, plunging McCown into reality. “Oh man, I don’t have a job job,” he said. His unemployment lasted only a week, until Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears broke his thumb.

Five weeks later, McCown was starting on Christmas night, at Lambeau Field, against Green Bay. It was his first start in four years. The NBC broadcast showed a photo of McCown, flanked by Scott Chadwick, along the Marvin Ridge High School sideline.

After the season, McCown re-signed with Chicago, but in training camp he still maintained regular contact with Scott Chadwick. When the Mavericks deliberated changing quarterbacks, elevating a freshman to starter, it was McCown who communicated with the incumbent and made sure he understood the reasons for the switch, encouraging him to be a good teammate.

When the Bears eventually released McCown, his wife, Natalie, took his coaching shirt to the airport. Fresh off his flight from Chicago, McCown walked into the Mavericks’ locker room at halftime of their game against Cuthbertson.

With Marvin Ridge leading by 4 in the fourth quarter, McCown suggested Chadwick call a play that had just missed earlier. This time, Smith caught a 25-yard touchdown in stride. Good to have you back, Chadwick told McCown.

Still, Marvin Ridge was 6-6 that season and lost its playoff opener. For more than an hour afterward, McCown consoled players.

“I’m getting emotional just thinking about it,” Smith said.

That was the last game McCown coached at Marvin Ridge. Less than two weeks later, Cutler sustained a concussion, and off McCown went to Chicago. He has not had a free autumn since: Bears, Buccaneers, Browns and, now, the Jets, his eighth team.

Whenever this all ends, McCown wants to coach again. He would regret it if he didn’t, he said. He loves receiving texts addressing him as Coach, and still gets a lot of them, even five years later.

“The fact that he still talks to me,” Hill said, “it’s like he never left.”

AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Oct. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH) is pleased to introduce Barcroft in Marvin, N.C., which joins its rapidly growing family of newly built single-family rental home communities. Barcroft is American Homes 4 Rent's ("AH4R") 60^th new rental home community and its fifth in the Charlotte market, building upon the success of its Enclave at Cramer Woods, Reserve at Ashlyn Creek and Wildwood communities.

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"American Homes 4 Rent is proud to open our new Barcroft community as we expand upon our already strong presence in the Charlotte area," said Zack Johnson, Executive Vice President of Acquisitions & Development for AH4R. "Local families will welcome the high-quality features and enhanced service they'll find at AH4R's latest innovative rental home community."

Barcroft adds 27 homes built and operated by AH4R to its existing portfolio of more than 3,700 units in the Charlotte market.

"American Homes 4 Rent is providing a superior new choice in American housing," said Brent Landry, Senior Vice President of Development for AH4R. "Our newly constructed Barcroft community offers all the benefits of single-family living with the financial flexibility and low-maintenance lifestyle of leasing."

The homes at Barcroft feature upscale finishes that residents appreciate, along with the benefits of lawn care and pet-friendly yards. All homes are designed with open concept floorplans, granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, luxury vinyl plank flooring, elegant bathrooms, quality fixtures, central heating and air conditioning, and three-car garages.

Barcroft features four- and five-bedroom homes ranging in size from approximately 2,100 to 3,100 square feet. Pricing starts from the $2,200s per month.

Not only does this well-located neighborhood provide residents with quick access to local job centers, dining, shopping and entertainment, it will also offer high-end amenities such as hiking trails.

Prospective residents are encouraged to use AH4R's innovative Let Yourself In technology to tour available homes at their convenience and then manage their rental experience online at ah4r.com.

Visit us at ah4rc.com/barcroft or call (980) 337-2876 to learn more about floorplans, pricing and availability.

About American Homes 4 RentAmerican Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH) is a leader in the single-family home rental industry and "American Homes 4 Rent" is a nationally recognized brand for rental homes, known for high-quality, good value and tenant satisfaction. We are an internally managed Maryland real estate investment trust, or REIT, focused on acquiring, developing, renovating, leasing and operating attractive, single-family homes as rental properties. As of June 30, 2020, we owned 53,000 single-family properties in selected submarkets in 22 states. In addition to Barcroft, American Homes 4 Rent owns more than 3,700 homes in the Charlotte area, including the communities of Enclave at Cramer Woods, Reserve at Ashlyn Creek and Wildwood.

Additional information about American Homes 4 Rent is available on our website at http://www.ah4r.com.

Contact:American Homes 4 RentMedia Relations Megan GrabosPhone: (805) 413-5088Email: media@ah4r.com

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MARVIN, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) — A $75,000 settlement has been reached surrounding multiple lawsuits involving the Village of Marvin and one of its own council members — Mary Shkut.

Marvin Mayor Joe Pollino believes the settlement was rushed.

“Did we miss anything?” Pollino asked. “Did we pay too much? Should we pay anything?”

The settlement goes to council member Shkut for her legal fees. She sued the town, mayor and some council members last year when they tried to block her appointment because it was done when some were absent from a meeting.

The mayor and council member Kim Vandenberg, fighting against her appointment, sued back as private citizens since they were not allowed to sue Shkut as a governing body. That’s when Shkut dropped a bombshell, alleging they used taxpayer dollars to fund their private lawsuit.

LINK: Mayor, council member of Marvin accused of illegally spending tax dollars

“There was no misappropriation of funds and that’s what the judge found,” Pollino said.

Union County Superior Court Judge Christopher W. Bragg ruled, “There is no other evidence submitted that demonstrates that attorney T.C. Morphis, Jr. billed or attempted to bill the Village of Marvin for work performed on this case.”

Then, another twist — following the judge’s ruling, the remaining council members (Nick Dispenziere and Robert Epps) voted to settle her case for $75,000 during a meeting on Monday. It was a settlement that blindsided the Mayor and Vandenburg.

“Number one: Did we pay too much money?” Pollino asked.

The mayor does not get a vote in Marvin and with Shkut not voting due to a conflict of interest, Vandenberg was outvoted 2-1.

“I did feel like it was rushed,” Vandenberg said. “We skipped some steps. We went straight to the settlement. We didn’t have all of the information.”

They don’t feel the taxpayers need to pay for Shkut’s legal fees. Skhut says, at one point, they didn’t either.

“I tried to offer to settle this case in October and at that time I offered to absorb all of the legal fees I expended at that point and it wouldn’t have cost the Village or the taxpayers anything at all,” Shkut said.

Now, taxpayers are on the hook.

Pollino and Vandenberg each provided depositions during the respective legal battles but said they were disappointed that a settlement was reached before Shkut and Dispenziere conducted their depositions.

Shkut said there was “no particular planning of that.”

What’s listed in those depositions is restricted due to a gag order. Per the settlement, “Neither party will seek enforcement of the gag order” and they will “mutually petition [the] court to have [the] gag order removed.”

Shkut told FOX 46 her legal fees eclipsed the $75,000 that she was awarded throughout this process and she’s paid roughly $25,000 out of pocket.

Shkut will maintain her seat on village council.

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