Arroyo hopes for new direction when ‘foe’ Spence retires
Suspended Suffolk County Register of Probate Felix D. Arroyo is hoping to turn over a new leaf in his war with the state court system when administrator Harry Spence retires next month — but Spence’s replacement was noncommittal in how he’ll handle the situation.
The Supreme Judicial Court announced yesterday that Jonathan S. Williams, senior deputy director for the North Carolina state courts, will succeed Spence after he retires April 17.
Through his spokesman, Arroyo — who slammed Spence repeatedly in a campaign to fight charges he badly mismanaged the probate court since his election in 2014 — sounded a hopeful note.
“Register Arroyo looks forward to having a collaborative relationship with Jon Williams,” Arroyo campaign manager Patrick Keaney said.
Williams would only say he’ll take a close look at the matter, and has experience dealing with bureaucratic conflicts in a near 20-year government career.
“It really wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on where it might go,” Williams, 53, told the Herald yesterday, saying Arroyo’s situation “was not a factor at all to me” in taking the job.
“You encounter a lot of different situations in a government career, whether it’s legal, personal, personality-driven, dealing with financial crises,” Williams said. “If that’s an issue that needs to be dealt with, it’s among many issues that come up in government.”
Assessments of the probate court under Arroyo — assessments he’s dismissed as self-serving to Spence and his appointed fixer — showed widespread disarray in the office, including thousands of dollars in unprocessed checks for court fees and scores of cases scattered throughout the office that weren’t docketed or scanned.
“I’m not in a position to comment on that specific courthouse,” Williams said, “but in general operations need to be regular and they need to be reliable.”