After Stegall stepped down in exchange for a nearly $200,000 severance package, interim town manager Russ Overton was sworn in.
On Thursday night, one by one, dozens of Cary residents voiced their concerns during the public comment period.
"It seems like this corruption was visible to anyone who was paying attention," one resident said.
One even called on the mayor and council to step down. "So the most honorable thing to do would be step down, say a mistake was made," a resident said.
ABC11 also heard for the first time about the steps forward. Overton said the Town is committing to cooperating with both the state auditor's investigation and Cary's own independent firm investigating finances.
"We don't have information on when they might finish or we'll see their reports. We're doing everything we know to do to help them help us at this time," Overton said. "They are looking at and receiving copies of really conservatively hundreds of thousands of financial transactions, emails and other records. So I would suggest we all be patient."
But amid what the mayor called a culture of over-the-top spending and a lack of transparency, some councilmembers also released plans for reforms that need to take place.
Those include specifically requiring all land deals to get council approval and lowering the discretionary authority for the town manager from $1 million to a lower figure, such as $100,000.
That's an issue that came up after a million-dollar land deal was approved without the council signing off on it.
Former Councilmember Jennifer Robinson, who said she tried to raise some of these issues in office, said she's glad to see some progress being made.
"I'm just heartbroken that this happened to our organization. We are an organization of great employees, and I know many of them are just as upset as the citizens are," Robinson said.
But she's also worried the financial depths may be even deeper than what's come out in open records requests.
"I really don't know what it would be. But a lot of times when you have indicators of misuse of funds, you will see that that's just the tip of the iceberg and that there's probably other liberties that were taken," Robinson said. "I hope it's not extensive, but it will not surprise me that it, that it has occurred."
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