We always hope local leaders will rise above the expected to do the surprisingly and truly right thing. Yet once again our hopes were dashed as the newly formed Sampson County Board of Commissioners followed a long line of traditional partisan politics in selecting its chairman and vice chairman.

Monday night, in swift fashion, Republican commissioner Allen McLamb was named chairman by a 3-2 vote, with Democratic commissioners Lethia Lee and Thaddeus Godwin casting the dissenting votes. That was followed quickly by a second vote, this one for Eric Pope, also a Republican, to serve as vice chairman. Again the vote was 3-2, with the Democrats opposing.

While we have no issues with McLamb or Pope, and congratulate them on their respective roles, we are curious as to why it is so important to follow a partisan mantra in a county government setting, particularly when, at one time or another, all those on the board have said they want a bi-partisan approach.

Monday night’s vote was as far as one gets from bi-partisan and, really, a good stretch from logical in terms of seniority on a board with extremely limited experience, a board, we might add, that is also getting direction from now fledgling county administrative leadership.

Given that there is limited, if any, real power in the roles of chairman and vice chairman, it makes the selections even more confounding.

That’s particularly true of the vice chairman’s position. Pope, who had been a commissioner for less than 24 hours when he got the nod, has no real-life experience in county government, particularly when you weigh his appointment over that of Godwin, who has been on the board since 2018 and has actually waded through the murky budgeting process for seven years and understands a lot more about each department that makes up Sampson government. Even Lee, who was just re-elected to her second term, has more experience, four years more, to be exact.

But because they were of the opposite party, the majority-ruling Republican entourage turned a deaf ear to their nominations, seemingly scoffing at the notion that more experience should ever trump party rule.

That’s ridiculous. Selecting a chairman and vice chairman of any local board should be far removed from politics for the sake of politics. We have thought so when Democrats held the majority on the Board of Commissioners and, likewise, when the Republicans had the sway.

Although McLamb, elected in 2022, has more experience than Pope or the newly appointed Dist. 3 commissioner, Houston “Chip” Crumpler, he still has less than Godwin or Lee, elected in 2020. And we reiterate, once again, that everyone has more experience than Pope or Crumpler. But experience, it appears, matters less than holding the party line.

If McLamb, Pope and Crumpler really wanted a bi-partisan start to this new season of county government, they would have considered a nod to Godwin or Lee for the vice chairman’s position, with McLamb as chairman.

That one move would have shown bold leadership from McLamb and could have put this new board — and thus the county — on a far different path, one that had shown this group of individuals had every intention of leaving politics at the door to the county office complex, where it should rest, when making decisions that impact every person in Sampson.

It would have been a welcome and positive precedent and the surprising and right thing to do.