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.
“The Top of the Arc,” the book promoting former Cary Town Manager Sean Stegall’s vision for municipal governance, came at the suggestion of a council member, he says in the preface.
What happened next, though, was far different from a local government leader penning a book on his own time and expense.
Newly released records show the town spent at least $151,000 on “Top of the Arc: Cocreating a More Innovative, Adaptive, and Effective Local Government.” The records come as Cary deals with the fallout of Stegall’s recent resignation amid claims of questionable spending and employee dissatisfaction.
At least one other council member on the board at the time of its launch says she was out of the loop on the project. The money was spent without council approval, she said.
Town expense records The News & Observer obtained through a public records request include hiring a ghostwriter to help Stegall author the book, and a publishing deal that required the town to pay for thousands of copies — before the book went to press.
Expense reports also show town staffers visited two conferences last year, in part, to promote the book. One staffer and a town contractor were paid over $11,000 each through separate LLCs registered under their names. That included payment for travel and lodging expenses for one of the conferences.
A total of 143 copies of the book were sold for $21.99 each between August and December 2025, according to book sale spreadsheets reviewed by The N&O.
Books written by managers
“The Top of the Arc” was published in August, just months before town leaders forced Stegall to resign for “over-the-top spending,” a lack of transparency and creating an unhealthy work environment, Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht has said.
It’s unusual for local governments to pay for their managers’ books about governing. Peter Crichton, a former city and county manager in Maine who wrote a book about government management, had never heard of such an arrangement.
He had been retired for nearly five years before his book “Leading With My Glass Half Full” was published in February.
“There aren’t a lot of books that are written by managers, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this kind of situation,” he said in a phone interview.
Stegall had the authority to spend up to $1 million without seeking council approval first, according to Weinbrecht, a fact that became more scrutinized as allegations of questionable spending surfaced. Weinbrecht did not respond to The N&O’s request for comment about town money being spent on Stegall’s book.
Jennifer Robinson, a former Cary Town Council member, told The N&O the council was aware Stegall was writing a book and that it was common for line items — like marketing expenses — to be approved without detailed expenditures.
“But I was not aware that marketing funds were being used for it until late in the process,” Robinson said in a text to the paper. “While we have a threshold, we hope that our manager has the discretion to bring us projects that may be considered controversial or extraneous.”
While Stegall is the author, the town owns the copyright to the book, a fact reiterated in his termination agreement.
Stegall could not be reached for comment.
Council Member Lori Bush, who Stegall said had suggested he write the book, said she did not foresee what it turned into.
“About four or five years ago, I suggested that the town’s adaptive leadership work might someday make a good book or case study,” Bush said in a text message to The N&O Thursday. “That is very different from asking the town to fund or publish a book.
“I only recently learned in conversation that town funds were used to produce and promote the book,” she added. “I was not briefed on those decisions, and to my knowledge, Council did not approve that spending. I cannot speak to what others may or may not know.”
‘It’s not just a Cary book’
Records reviewed by The N&O show the project started out as a “good-governance 2.0 book based on Sean’s aphorisms,” according to emails between Cary staffers and Seth Kaufman, the ghostwriter hired by the town.
But it turned into something else altogether.
“It now seems like a more complex project,” Kaufman said in the email. The book was morphing into something that entwined Stegall’s vision for Cary, all while “delivering a civics object lesson in disruptive leadership,” Kaufman wrote in an email to Cary Chief Strategy Officer Susan Moran in June 2023.
“It’s not just a Cary book; it’s a leadership book,” Kaufman’s email said. “Obviously, I need to define this take with Sean and you. But my point is it will entail more work than I first thought.”
Kaufman and the town entered into a $72,500 contract for helping with the book project in September 2023.
The town signed a deal with Radius Book Group to publish the book in October 2024. The agreement included publishing consulting, book design and stipulated that Simon & Schuster would distribute it, according to the contract reviewed by The N&O.
Cary officials agreed to pay $36,943.20 for at least 2,800 print copies of the book, before the publisher delivered the files to the printers. That fee was paid out over four installments, town records show.
Over $10K for magazine article
Part of the money Cary paid to Radius was to market and promote the book. The publisher’s suggested strategy included placing Stegall and the book on platforms like “Amazon Author Central” and “Goodreads” and making sure there was media attention prior to publishing.
That could mean buying reviews in publications like “San Francisco Book Review” and the “Washington Independent Review of Books,” according to the publishing company’s marketing plan.
Stegall’s book showed up in “Public Management Magazine,” a trade publication run by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).
“This landed on my desk today,” Stegall wrote in a Linkedin post. Attached was a photo of the magazine open to the article.
What Stegall’s post didn’t disclose was the $10,350 Cary paid to The YSG Group to have the “case study” included in the magazine.
Promoting ‘The Top of the Arc’ at conferences
Staff members promoted the book at the ICMA Conference in October 2025.
“Hello from #ICMA2025 in Tampa, Florida! We’re here to share Cary’s story of innovation and community excellence,” a post on the town’s Linkedin page reads.
“We’re also highlighting ‘The Top of the Arc,’ Town Manager Sean R. Stegall’s book on Cary’s journey toward a purpose-driven local government.”
That trip cost $19,521.14, according to expense records. Three copies of the book were sold, according to records released by the town.
Documents released to The N&O show another $14,680.48 was expensed to rent a booth at the 2025 National League of Cities Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. That included equipment, setting up and travel expenses for at least one staff member.
Madelyn Hornsby, a town employee who went to the conference, joined Cary in July 2022, state pension data shows.
She describes herself on her LinkedIn page as a “business relationship partner,” and some of the bills for conference booth rentals list her town email address. But records show Hornsby invoiced the town for $11,351.19 under Tomade Group LLC, a business she founded in 2023, according to NC Secretary of State records.
That invoice included six line items for traveling to the National League of Cities conference. Hornsby did not respond to emailed interview requests at her town of Cary and business addresses.
Marina Pahountis, who is listed as a marketing contractor on the town’s website, was also paid through an LLC registered in her name. Pahountis billed the town $11,638.13 from a company called Cerebral Serenade Art. She also did not return The N&O’s request for comment at her town of Cary and business email addresses.
But both Pahountis and Hornsby’s LLCs were dissolved, according to state records. Hornsby’s in November 2024 and Pahountis’ in May 2025.
The town sold 17 copies of the book at the conference, according to book sales data.
Other bills related to the book that the town released include $106 for a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mariah Carey. Sean Maroney, a marketing strategist and former local TV news anchor, billed the expense. He attended the ICMA conference, billing the town $2,094 for expenses, including two nights at a hotel for $1,064. He acknowledged a reporter’s request for an interview, but did not comment.
More questionable spending
The town’s spending on “The Top of the Arc” is the most recent of several expenditures under Stegall’s watch now being scrutinized.
The N&O has also reported on town money spent on council member Bush’s graduate degree, which she later repaid, and a $1 million land purchase made without the full council’s knowledge.
Robinson told The N&O that given all that happened leading up to Stegall’s resignation, the book highlighting his leadership is “a moot point.”
The town council held a work session and its regular meeting Thursday evening at Cary Town Hall.
News & Observer data editor David Raynor contributed to this reporting.
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 [email protected].
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