The Town of Cary held its first town council meeting since the resignation of its manager last month after questions grew about spending reports.

Thursday was the first opportunity residents had to listen to Interim Cary Town Manager Russ Overton, who took over last month after Sean Stegall resigned. At the meeting, residents demanded two things: Transparency and accountability.

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For Hanif Williams, it was an opportunity to demand change from Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht.

"The most honorable thing to do is to just simply step down," Williams said to the town council, which was met with applause from those in attendance.

The Dec. 14 resignation by Stegall exposed vulnerabilities in how the town of Cary operates. Stegall’s departure was marked by over-the-top spending and inadequate financial reporting, lack of transparency with the full council, staff and citizens and an unhealthy work environment, according to Weinbrecht.

Weinbrecht warned attendees about applauding during the meeting after Williams' statement, which some took as an invitation to get their point across about lack of transparency and what they believed were missteps by Weinbrecht.

"You seem to be more content with keeping control with us as citizens than controlling what's going on in your own chambers [and] in your own offices," one speaker said.

"He's the mayor, the buck stops with him," Mike McDonnell told WRAL. "How can you be a head of something and not be directly linked to what goes on, and then deny that it's your problem?"

The town is currently being audited by the state, while doing its own internal investigation and being inundated with open records requests, so they have launched a website to keep the public updated.

Some residents said they are waiting to see what comes from the audit before sharing how much they trust town leadership.

"I was at 100%, we'll see where I land after the investigation," one resident said.

"I think there's improvements that they need to make clear, and they need to make them pretty quickly," Williams said.

The Get the Facts Page shows a list of records that have been requested thus far, including communication between Stegall and other staff, his resignation letter and more.