CityView of Fayetteville

11/15/2024

A former custodian at Cumberland County Schools is suing the Cumberland County Board of Education for unlawful employment discrimination, claiming he was fired after not being able to obtain a commercial driver’s license because of his disability.

James Weathers filed a civil lawsuit against the school board on Oct. 31 seeking damages, attorney’s fees and “and further relief as the Court deems just and proper” for his termination, which he alleges was a result of his disability. Weathers is a disabled veteran whose medical conditions — including tinnitus, glaucoma and high blood pressure — prevented him from attaining a commercial driver’s license, or CDL, according to the lawsuit.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Evey Weisblat

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

Cumberland County Board of Education is being sued by a former custodian who claims he was discriminated against because of his disability.

11/15/2024

In Cumberland County, the arts are flourishing, thanks to the hard work and dedication of arts organizations and the community leaders who champion them.

Jeremy Fiebig is one such leader. As professor of theatre at Fayetteville State University and the founder of Sweet Tea Shakespeare, a local theater company, Jeremy has spent the last 15 years nurturing creativity and community at FSU and throughout Cumberland County, creating spaces where a feeling of belonging is central.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Trey Nemec

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

2024 Community Impact Award winner and FSU Associate Professor Jeremy Fiebig highlights the impact art has had in Fayetteville.

11/15/2024

October was a busy month for the Fayetteville Fire Department and Cumberland County Fire Marshal’s Office.

In total, the Fayetteville Fire Department responded to 16 structural fires in October. Despite the rumors circulating on community forums like Watch Out Cumberland County NC and What’s Happening, Fayetteville NC?!, none are believed to be caused by an arsonist, said Captain Donald Tschida, a fire investigator with the Fayetteville Fire Department.

“We have no reason to believe, with the fires we’ve had recently, that they all correlate into a serial arsonist,” Tschida said.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Photo illustration by Morgan Casey / CityView

Online rumors of an arsonist spread after a handful of fires in October. Fire and police officials say there is no evidence to back them up.

11/15/2024

A surprise item was discussed at Thursday’s Cumberland County Board of Commissioners’ agenda session: an unearthed casket in a Spring Lake cemetery.

Board Chair Glenn Adams passed out printed versions of an article from The Fayetteville Observer that yesterday reported the casket was exposed during Hurricane Florence.

The casket is in the Hillside Cemetery along Bragg Boulevard. The 2018 hurricane hit the cemetery and much of Spring Lake particularly hard.

Hillside Cemetery is maintained by the Bethel AME Zion Church. The church is worried further exposure to the elements will cause more damage to the coffin, according to reporting by The Fayetteville Observer. The paper also reported on the church’s concerns about the coffin falling and opening.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

Cumberland County commissioners moved discussion on funds for the casket move, wells in Cedar Creek and opioid funds to next week's agenda.

11/14/2024

As the leaves change color and fall slowly fades into holiday festivity, consider how you could live out what matters most to you during the holiday season. Military life can feel like it limits your choices sometimes, but you can infuse your values with a little intention.

How could you take traditions and nudge them to align with what you truly care about on behalf of the planet or people around you? How could you infuse the unique elements of your family’s culture or heritage into what you give?

🔗 Read the full column at the link below.

✍️ By Aria Spears

📸 Credit: Photo by Jess Bailey / Unsplash

As the holidays approach, here's some advice on setting gift expectations this holiday season from the perspective of the military community.

11/14/2024

Two days. That’s how long Carlton Beasley, a Fayetteville-based music producer and cinematographer, said he has lived pain-free in his 43 years of life.

Beasley was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at six months old. The disease is a genetic blood disorder that impacts blood cells’ oxygen-carrying proteins, making them hard and sickle-shaped. The shape often clogs blood flow, causing debilitating pain known as a sickle crisis.

North Carolina has five comprehensive sickle cell medical centers. Only two — Duke’s Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center and UNC-Chapel Hill’s Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program — are within 90 minutes of Fayetteville.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Morgan Casey / CityView

Cumberland County ranks fourth for rates of sickle cell disease in North Carolina, yet there are no sickle cell specialists in the region.

11/14/2024

Ray, O’Connor, Coleman & Halverson, PLLC, based in Fayetteville, is a distinguished law firm practicing primarily in the areas of Estate Planning, Trust and Estate Administration, Commercial Real Estate, and Business Law. The firm’s Estate Planning practice encompasses the preparation of wills, powers of attorney, and advanced directives, as well as the implementation of various types of trusts. The attorneys at Ray, O’Connor, Coleman & Halverson, PLLC are also adept at handling the intricacies of probate, trust, and guardianship administration.

910-483-2101 | www.raylawnc.com345 Hay St., Fayetteville, NC 28301

11/13/2024

After more than three years of operation, local food trucks can no longer serve at Bethany Crossroads in Stedman, after the county on Sept. 3 found the operation to be in violation of local zoning code.

Residents say it’s a “devastating” blow for the Cumberland County communities east of the Cape Fear River who have been enjoying the diverse cuisine offered by the local truck gathering place since the pandemic. Meanwhile, county officials, responding to anonymous complaints, say the trucks were illegally operating on residentially zoned property.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Evey Weisblat

📸 Credit: Google Maps

Stedman residents were devastated when food trucks that had been serving community for years were banned following county zoning violation.

11/13/2024

Emily Ruth Perry, director of operations at Operation Inasmuch, sips her chai at a window table inside Winterbloom Tea. She greets Josh Choi, owner of the Hay Street tea shop, enthusiastically, making small talk, although she says they’re only acquainted. This is just who Emily Ruth is; kind, easy-going, with the ability to make friends with anyone, expressed her former colleagues at Veritas Church of Fayetteville.

“She’s one of those sticky people who brings folks together,” said Jacob Warren, lead pastor at the evangelical Veritas Church.

From a self-proclaimed happy-go-lucky girl growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the bubbly, personable woman she’s described as now, Emily Ruth would appear to have maneuvered through life quite easily. But with every journey of growth, there is a moment, or a “soul hole” as Emily Ruth described it, that shapes a person into who they are.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Allison Underwood

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

Emily Ruth Perry has grown to becoming a leading lady in neighborhood development and assisting the unhoused community

11/13/2024

It was a hot August morning when content creators Preston Griffin and his friend Sam Reid started their walk across Fayetteville. Griffin, the Fayetteville resident, was a guide in a video on Reid’s YouTube channel titled, “I Walked Across America’s Least Walkable City.”

Even after living in Fayetteville on and off for 16 years and trying to navigate it as a pedestrian as a teen, the almost nine-hour and over 16.5-mile journey for the YouTube video took Griffin by surprise.

The City of Fayetteville has been trying to improve its lacking pedestrian infrastructure for over two decades. Residents like Griffin and a local urbanism advocacy organization hope their voices will speed up the city’s efforts to lose its title as the least walkable city in America.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Morgan Casey / CityView

A Youtube video marked Fayetteville as the country's least walkable city. But the city government and locals are working to improve.

11/12/2024

“Today, we honor all veterans,” said Dave Dickerhoff, 68, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper and a member of the Spring Lake Community Appearance and Sustainability Committee that joined with the Military and Veterans Advisory Committee and the Town of Spring Lake for the mural project. “We need to have a guardian at the gate. And we honor those who step up to be our guardians at the gate” of freedom.

🔗 Read the full column at the link below.

✍️ By Bill Kirby Jr.

📸 Credit: Bill Kirby Jr. / CityView

Around 200 people attended the Nov. 8 unveiling of ‘Special Forces Soldier’ mural, which honors Spring Lake veterans ahead of Veterans Day

11/12/2024

The City of Fayetteville has completed its 2023-24 fiscal year audit early — the earliest in about 15 years, a feat that comes after the city submitted the audit late the previous two years.

PBMares, the city’s audit firm, presented the results at the Fayetteville City Council work session on Nov. 4. Auditors gave the city a clean bill of health, with the exception of a couple of minor issues relating to the accounts payable cutoff and recording of a grant loan program, PBMares partner Robbie Bittner said. However, these were not significant enough to detract from the overall high grade of the report.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Evey Weisblat

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

Audit, turned in on time this year, finds no significant problems with city's finances in 2023-24 fiscal year.

11/12/2024

We are excited to announce that CityView News Fund is participating in the CCF's 2024 Campaign! As one of the participating nonprofit organizations in the Cumberland Community Foundation's Campaign, CityView New Fund is committed to delivering trustworthy, local news that empowers our community. During the campaign, your gifts have the power to make an even greater impact on the organizations you choose to support. By donating to CityView News Fund this giving season, you ensure that everyone in our community has free access to quality local news and that diverse voices are heard. Together, let's make a difference by informing & empowering our local community!

Learn more about CityView News Fund and the other incredible local nonprofits participating in the 2024 CCF campaign, and get ready to make a difference.This comprehensive guide gives you valuable insights and tips on how to maximize the impact of your donation dollars.

Check out the Guide to Giving today: https://issuu.com/cvnc/docs/gtg2024issuu

11/12/2024

When Ralph Huff first pitched moving to Fayetteville to his wife Linda, Linda had some choice words about the suggestion.

But both Ralph and Linda followed through and have invested time and the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears into Fayetteville and Cumberland County, and have been named as one of the winners of winners of CityView’s 2024 Power of Giving Community Impact Awards presented by the Public Works Commission. These individuals are honored for their work in helping others and who give selflessly, working behind the scenes to improve the lives of those around them.

🔗 Read more and find our November issue at the link below.

✍️ By Zach Horner

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

2024 Community Impact Award winners Ralph and Linda Huff and their mark on Fayetteville, NC, is more than just the homes they built.

11/12/2024

It was a rainy, late-summer day as Johnathon White took the controls of a backhoe tractor at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. With the eyes of many on him, the longtime N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT) worker carefully maneuvered through the course and obstacles in front of him in 36.83 seconds, landing him a perfect score and the fastest time out of 24 competitors.

It’s been 13 years since the regional Equipment Operator Safety Training Conference was held in North Carolina. During the conference, employees from across the Southeast test their skills in a specific category as they train to follow the correct safety precautions for each piece of machinery. Each competition features an assortment of equipment, including low boys, dump trucks, motor graders, backhoe tractors and skid steers.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Allison Underwood

📸 Credit: Courtesy N.C. Department of Transportation

NCDOT Fayetteville maintenance worker Johnathon White’s first-place prize at regional safety competition underscores talents and work ethic.

11/12/2024

This year’s Guide to Giving is more than a directory—it’s your roadmap to community impact!

From supporting education and arts to addressing urgent local needs, explore how each participating nonprofit is making a difference. This guide, part of the Cumberland Community Foundation’s Giving Tuesday Campaign, highlights the work of this years' participating organizations that are dedicated to improving lives right here in Cumberland County. The Guide to Giving is the ultimate resource for community impact this . Get inspired, get involved, and be part of the change!

🌐 https://issuu.com/cvnc/docs/gtg2024issuu

11/11/2024

The Cumberland Community Foundation's campaign will kick off in exactly TWO WEEKS! 🥳

The campaign celebrates - a global day of giving and allows donors to support CityView News Fund and have their match amplified! Every dollar donated to CityView News Fund helps us continue to serve our community by providing the LOCAL NEWS YOU NEED! 📰

All gifts donated between November 25th (9 a.m.) and December 4th (5 p.m.) will be amplified by the $525,000 match.

‼️Learn more about CityVIew News Fund and why it matters to Cumberland County: https://www.cityviewnewsfund.org/

11/11/2024

The countdown is on! In just two weeks, Cumberland Community Foundation’s GivingTuesday campaign begins, offering 82 ways to give back locally.

Starting November 25th at 9am, your donation can go even further thanks to a $525,000 matching fund from incredible donors, including the Fayetteville New Car Dealers Association, Elizabeth “Beth” Keeney, Daphne & Ray Manning, Carol & Sammy Short, Will Gillis, CCF’s Board of Directors, and more!

Get ready to make an impact! 🌍 Learn more about the CCF Campaign: https://www.cumberlandcf.org/giving-tuesday/giving-tuesday.html