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With a payment of $55,000, the state of North Carolina has settled a lawsuit over why Wayne Hurder was fired last October as deputy commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Top officials at DMV and the state Department of Transportation originally said Hurder had exerted improper influence in several DMV hirings, Bruce Siceloff reports.

DOT released documents suggesting that Hurder had shaped some personnel decisions to favor job candidates backed by a Greene County political patronage boss, Eddie Carroll Thomas.

Hurder contended in his lawsuit that he was fired for refusing to make improper personnel moves favored by his boss, Bill Gore, who was then the DMV commissioner. The Office of State Personnel later found there was no basis for Hurder's allegations against Gore.

Now Hurder has dropped his lawsuit after DMV agreed in late April to pay him $55,000 and to change his personnel files to indicate that he had resigned. He says the state paid him because it feared he would prevail when the case came before a state hearing officer.

More after the jump.

The Office of State Personnel found that there is no basis to allegations that former Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Bill Gore used favoritism in hiring.

The claims were made by Gore's former second-in-command, Wayne Hurder. Hurder was fired in November after an internal DMV investigation found that he had allowed a Greene County patronage boss, Eddie Carroll Thomas, to have longstanding and widespread influence over personnel matters within the Driver and Vehicle Services section.

Hurder claimed in a suit filed shortly after his termination that Gore had violated personnel procedures in seeking to help two people get DMV positions, reports Dan Kane. One is the son of a former neighbor of Gore's who won a summer internship; the other was a temporary DMV employee who sought a fulltime job.

An investigation by the state personnel office found that Hurder came up with the idea of the summer internship and set it in motion, and did not raise objections about it at the time. Another person who had no connection to Gore was selected for a second internship.

As for the temporary employee, the investigation found that Gore expressed an interest in hiring him fulltime because he had fixed some equipment that others responsible for the repair had failed to fix. But the investigation found that Gore did not get involved in the hiring process as the temporary employee applied for two jobs, one of which he won.

Read more after the jump.

An internal investigation revealed Eddie Carroll Thomas had undue influence over one of the largest sections of the Division of Motor Vehicles.

The Greene County patronage boss could get people jobs, transfer troublesome colleagues and reassign workers and held considerable influence.

Carroll abruptly retired five years ago after state records showed dozens of calls from his work hpone made to top officials in state government. State and federal investigations looked into two state contracts connected to his business partners.

"I personally was shocked and offended by what was contained in the investigative report," DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said. "And I was offended not only as an administrator but as a citizen."

Thomas' influence comes from his role as a fundraiser for Govs. Jim Hunt and Mike Easley. (N&O)

Last year, state officials notified nearly 10,000 holders of license plates with the letter combination "WTF" that they could get a replacement at no charge after officials learned that the combination is a common acronym in text messaging for a vulgar phrase, "What the ..."

But while tracking down the errant plates, no one at the Division of Motor Vehicles checked their own Web site. "WTF-5505" is shown as a sample of a personalized plate, Dan Kane reports.

"I can't believe it," DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said Monday when alerted to the situation. "Obviously, I didn't know it was there."

Other DMV officials indicated they noticed the plate last week, several days after The News & Observer first reported on the problems with the WTF plates. The DMV is trying to remove the plate from the Web site and hopes to have it replaced in a day or so.

WTF was the first random letter combination available when DMV switched from blue- to red-lettered plates. DMV spokeswoman Marge Howell received a sample plate WTF-5506 to use as a prop for news stories about the switch.

No one made the connection.

"If you are not looking for something you usually don't see it," Howell said.

The DMV was alerted to the vulgar message last July when a 60-year-old technology teacher from Fayetteville complained about the plate. Her teenage grandchildren clued her in.

The man hired for a state emissions specialist job that prompted an SBI investigation into the Division of Motor Vehicles has put in his two-week notice.

James Burgess, a former purchasing clerk for Progress Energy, won the DMV job last year over a State Highway Patrol mechanic who has been training mechanics to do emissions inspections for roughly a decade, reports Dan Kane. Burgess is a childhood friend of the director who oversees the emissions program, John Robinson.

DMV spokeswoman Marge Howell said Burgess resigned today. She did not know why, and said if she did, she couldn't provide it because the state's personnel law prohibits the release of that information.

DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said earlier this morning that Burgess is an employee in good standing. Gore said he was unaware of any improper conduct on Burgess's part regarding his winning the emissions job.

A top state Division of Motor Vehicles official announced today that he is retiring.

The announcement by John Robinson comes two weeks after two members of his staff were placed on investigatory leave as part of a probe into the hiring of his longtime friend, reports Dan Kane.

Robinson, 59, will retire June 14 after working for the state for 21 years. He is paid nearly $108,000 annually.

As director of the DMV's License and Theft Bureau, Robinson oversees roughly 200 employees. The bureau investigates theft and fraud involving vehicles and drivers, and it also runs the emissions inspections program.

DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said Robinson's retirement had nothing to do with an incident in which Robinson's childhood friend won a job as an emissions specialist last year. The friend, a former purchasing clerk for Progress Energy, won the job over a longtime State Highway Patrol mechanic who has been teaching mechanics to do emissions inspections for roughly a decade.

Read more after the jump.

Nearly 4,500 licensed drivers in North Carolina have three months to prove that they are who they say they are or they will lose their licenses, the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles said today.

DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said a first round of letters started going out to those motorists this month, giving them 60 days to respond. If they do not, they will get an additional 30 days to respond to a second letter. They'll lose their licenses if they do not respond by then, Dan Kane reports.

The verification effort follows a state audit that found roughly 27,000 licensed drivers' Social Security numbers did not match. Many of those licenses had been issued prior to 2004, when the DMV linked to a federal Social Security data base to verify a driver's identification.

Many of the licenses for the 27,000 have been expired or revoked since the audit began, auditors said. The remaining 4,454 drivers with licenses are a tiny percentage of the state's 6.3 million licensed drivers.

The Magic Eight Ball wins again.

Continuing a lucky streak, the plastic toy prognosticator correctly agreed with The Whiteville News Reporter that longtime Superior Court Judge Bill Gore Jr. would be the new head of the state's Division of Motor Vehicles.

Gov. Mike Easley announced he had appointed his college friend today.

The current standings: Eight Ball 5-for7; N.C. Spin 1-for-2; TechJournal South, N.C. Policy Watch, Speaker Joe Hackney and The Whiteville News Reporter 1-for-1; Kieran Shanahan 0-for-1.

Former Chief Superior Court Judge William "Bill" Gore Jr. of Whiteville will take over as the new commissioner of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.

Gov. Mike Easley announced the appointment this morning. Gore replaces George Tatum, who resigned July 18, a week after The News & Observer reported that Tatum helped a friend get a replica of a 1937 Ford truck titled as the real thing. The report prompted an inquiry by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Gore, 55, was the senior resident Superior Court judge for a district that included Bladen and Columbus counties. He retired July 31.

"I am confident that he will continue to serve North Carolinians with the same standard of excellence in his new role as DMV Commissioner," Easley said.

Today, the Eight Ball takes on The Whiteville News Reporter.

The Columbus County newspaper reported today that longtime Superior Court Judge Bill Gore Jr. abruptly resigned his seat Tuesday.

He said he has not been offered another position in state government, but that didn't stop the newspaper from reporting this rumor:

There was much speculation Wednesday that Gore would be tapped by Gov. Easley to held the state's Division of Motor Vehicles, a post vacated two weeks ago by George Tatum's resignation.

Gore, who went to N.C. Central University's law school with Easley, used to play basketball with the governor back in the day.

The Eight Ball's verdict: "As I see it, yes."