Facing the voters: Phil Dee, Kings Mountain City Council

By Chuck Thompson | The Shelby Independent

Phil Dee file photo

Editors note: Phil Dee is one of the several at-large candidates running for city council, along with Bruce W. King, Jason Nail, Scott Neisler, and Curtis Pressley. Candidates for K.M. Ward 2: Mike Butler, Tyler Fletcher, and Tim Sanders. The candidates for Ward 3: Heather Lemmond, Chris Pullen and Ke'Shawn A. Strong. The Shelby Independent wishes all these candidates the best of luck Tuesday.

Phil Dee has been on the Kings Mountain City Council for 9 months. He was appointed by the current council when David Allen resigned. Dee is just one of 11 candidates vying for three seats on council.

He’s served on the Y board and various other city boards, stating, “It’s not a bad thing when you have someone that wants to be involved. I have coached and that alone can make a big difference,” noting the importance of being a role model and making an impression on the future generations of Kings Mountain residents is as important as setting an example for adults to follow.

Dee says he wholeheartedly believes in community and communication, “Use your minds, open your eyes and your ears and say hi to your neighbor. We have to open our minds, our eyes, and communicate.”

Dee believes he has a skill set and leadership training for the community, if they choose to accept it. As a business owner, he feels it’s an obligation to help the community he resides in and care about.

“At the least, you have to offer yourself and your ability,” he said his wife told him when considering his run for city council.

Being part of something greater is no stranger to Dee. When he turned 18 the first he did was register to vote and for the draft.

“I like being a part of something bigger, something important.”

Dee chatted with The Shelby Independent on several issues facing the city of Kings Mountain, from the water to qualified personnel, budgeting and communication.

When Dee first sat down behind the council bench the water problem was already in full swing and was actually nothing new, according to Dee.

“They have been throwing short term solutions at the problem, but it’s time to fix it," Dee said, adding that it is easy to blame on algae blooms but that gets old after a while.

“It’s an excuse,” he said. “It’s real, sure – absolutely – but there are organisms in every water system. It’s how you manage it that matters.” Dee said there are tanks that have never been cleaned and lines that have never flushed.

He said better routine maintenance used to happen, but he thinks it stopped about a decade ago after some grants were given and then for some reason the maintenance stopped. Dee wasn’t on the board then, but said when the issue keeps happening over and over there needs to be a new plan and preparation in place to handle such issues.

He also feels there is a staffing issue – a reluctance to hire from the outside. Dee praised the new water director, who Dee said is a highly qualified individual. Adding, considerations like that need to be taken into account more often to find the best candidates for the job, even if a thorough nation-wide search must be done for the betterment of Kings Mountain.

“It’s the city council's job to manage the city manager, and let the city manager manage the employees,” to which Dee added the city has a qualified and dedicated city manager now.

But events of the past affect those in management and elected leadership positions today, not always reflecting well on current staff by something that happened by previously employed people.

“The organics were not properly handled.” Dee said the water coming out of your tap is 10 days old and by a 10 day period the organics have multiplied.

“But that’s the key on the water – let’s bring in outside qualified experts and measure and manage the data.” Dee said he can’t promise if it’ll be fixed by next year but the chances of it happening, or as bad, will be less likely. “That’s got to be corrected and fixed,” he stated.

He also said water pressure is an issue in Kings Mountain – something that needs to be addressed for better living.

Dee believes if Kings Mountain added aerial water tanks, what we know as a water tower, this would significantly help with the water pressure. Have you ever noticed a tall giant of a water tower in Kings Mountain?

The City of Kings Mountain's water supply comes from Moss Lake, which is located about seven miles west of the city. While there isn't a single, prominent water tower for the city's main supply, it does have water and sewer infrastructure, including a 500,000-gallon elevated tank that serves the area. The city maintains a network of 107 miles of water mains, 107 miles of sewer mains, and 32 pump stations.

And a water tower would help with the purpose for fire suppression, which Dee said is a concern. “That’s the forward thinking we need, not the cheap way out,” he added.

Speaking of cost, the topic moved to spending, which Dee said this year was the first time, recently, that they met the financial management guidelines for the state.

“Kings Mountain has always had a clean audit, but what an audit doesn’t focus on, is the appropriateness of the spending,” he explained. “It’s looking at your methodology but not your long-term planning.”

He said if money is moved to the general fund and there are not any reserves in your utilities, that’s a problem.

“Kings Mountain has exceeded the threshold for years, but this is the first year the reserves are below the threshold. Now the state has to sign off on long term debt because they haven’t been in compliance because of the utility transfers,” Dee noted.

Why? Dee said they transferred it to the general fund so they didn’t have to raise taxes in Kings Mountain – something residents and business owners appreciate.

“You have to have reserve funds; we don’t.”

Imagine a far distant war affecting Kings Mountain. It most definitely can.

Dee noted, “There's no long term financial planning.”  But he said his concern is the unexpected, the natural disaster – or war; yes war – such as natural gas prices climbing because when Russia invaded Ukraine it caused a world market increase due to the unstable situation in eastern Europe.

“We just never had the skill set to acknowledge, think about or what to do,” he said.

During Helene, the city had to cover immediate costs before being reimbursed by FEMA.

However, Kings Mountain lucked out a bit in that category.

“Power poles in Kings Mountain have never been maintained or logged in a replacement system, and in good management we would normally have to pay to replace a lot of these poles – but now FEMA will replace them, so that’s a silver line,” stated Dee. “But normally we would have to do that, and we absolutely need to plan for events such as another Helene. We have to be prepared. That’s just good management and that’s what we’re trying to do now.”

He noted Kings Mountain was going to spend seven or eight million to revamp some areas of downtown but here they can’t take on such an endeavor right now because they can’t borrow the funds since the state won’t sign off to do so.

“I stood on my head basically and said, ‘we can't afford this,’” he said. “We have to get our finances together and we did – but a lot of people were unhappy because we promised streetscape and we couldn’t do it.”  Dee feels when it comes to smart governance, long term is important and the beautification will come when it can.

“Let’s be prudent right now and wait a little bit, build up some reserve funds and see what happens.”

And not everyone is happy, depending on what transpired in one meeting to the next, depending on who you support and who you do not. It’s been a tough campaign for all candidates, even those that have been somewhat quieter than others, due to the amount of misleading information, gossip / lies, facts backed by paperwork, opinions and overall anger by the community due to the recent water debacle.

He said there’s a lot of misinformation floating online. “Go verify, go confirm,” he suggested.

He said there’s a difference between being a good candidate and a good campaigner. “We need the right people for the growth moving forward,” said Dee.

“This town is very divided amongst the people that have been here for generations and those that have moved here,” he said the friendliest neighborhoods are the newest, and that has been eye-opening to him as a 20 year resident of Kings Mountain. 

But it’s all of Kings Mountain that matters, divided or not.

“I like being a part of something bigger, something important, and I’ve watched poor leadership for a long time and I’m ready to help and offer my skills to the people of Kings Mountain, if they’ll allow me to serve.”

To see a list of the full candidates, refer back to the editor’s note at the beginning of this article, or visit the Board of elections website here: https://www.clevelandcounty.com/main/candidate%20filing%2007182025.pdf?t=202507181518580 .