CityView of Fayetteville

12/20/2024

Fort Liberty, the largest military post and home to the 82nd Airborne Division, knows just how to keep soldiers’ and families’ spirits bright. Santa’s elves are hard at work to ensure Fort Liberty families have a Christmas tree and a holiday meal, and that all of Fort Liberty’s children have gifts to wake up to on Christmas morning. That is, if they are on Santa’s nice list.

🔗 Read the full column at the link below.

✍️ By Jaylin Kremer

📸 Credit: Courtesy of Jaylin Kremer / CityView

Our second Christmas season at Fort Liberty has been nothing short of magical. Santa sightings, plenty of holiday cheer, and the season isn’t even over yet.

12/19/2024

Until this year, school resource officers were provided by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office for Cumberland County Schools. In May, Sheriff Ennis Wright announced that he was pulling deputies working as SROs in local public high schools in municipalities in Cumberland County.

What qualities are needed in a school resource officer and program?

That was a question posed to the Cumberland County Board of Education at Thursday’s budget workshop.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ Nancy McCleary

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

What qualities are needed in a school resource officer and program? That was a question posed to the Cumberland County Board of Education at Thursday’s budget workshop.

12/19/2024

Monique Jackson McMillan, who is halfway through her second term as an elected member of the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors, has missed seven meetings in a row since spring and could be removed from office.

She told CityView on Tuesday and Wednesday this week she wants to stay in office and resume her duties.

🔗 Read the full story a the link below.

✍️ By Paul Woolverton

📸 Credit: Cumberland County

Cumberland elected official has been absent since spring, could be removed from Soil and Water Conservation board

12/19/2024

The Cumberland County Department of Public Health warned residents about a text message scam circulating the county on Wednesday.

The text falsely claims to be from the health department and includes its main phone number, 910-433-3600. The message states the recipient must report to the department on Ramsey Street or face arrest, according to a county press release.

The health department will never send residents texts with medical information, the press release affirmed.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ CityView Staff Report

📸 Credit: Morgan Casey / CityView

A text message scam falsely claims to be from the Cumberland County Department of Public Health, includes the department's main phone number.

12/18/2024

In Hope Mills commissioners’ last meeting of 2024, the board moved to enter into a $500,000 five-year contract with telecommunications company Motorola to provide upgraded radios to the town’s fire department.

Before the vote, commissioners heard from the town’s fire chief, Matthew Cain.

“This is something we’ve needed for a while,” Cain told the board. “We’ve had issues with our radios for several years. The Kenwoods we have now don’t communicate with some of the Motorolas we still have in service.”

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Jason Canady

📸 Credit: Jason Canady / CityView

In a unanimous vote, Hope Mills commissioners authorized the town manager to execute a loan agreement with Motorola for upgraded fire department radios.

12/18/2024

The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to cancel plans to raise the rent on Jan. 1 by more than 500% for Cumberland County CommuniCare, a nonprofit agency that provides services for mental health problems, substance abuse, troubled youth and adults, and other issues.

The rent may still rise in the future, but for now it will remain at $42,808 annually, or $2.95 per square foot per year. The rent had been scheduled to increase to $217,410 per year, or $15 per square foot.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Paul Woolverton

📸 Credit: Morgan Casey / CityView

Cumberland County commissioners put brakes on 500% rent increase for Cumberland County CommuniCare mental health organization

12/18/2024

When she steps outside her office and onto the grounds of the Cape Fear Botanical Garden, Shannon Bell instinctively sees beyond the beauty surrounding her.

She sees possibility.

Of course, she notices the garden’s abundant flora. She revels when a school bus pulls up to deliver students for a field trip, or when first-time visitors marvel at the property when attending an event. But in her new role as CFBG’s director of philanthropy, and as someone who’s spent the last decade in development and fundraising, Shannon can’t help but point out what may not be evident to the casual observer.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Bill Horner III

📸 Credit: Sharilyn Wells / CityView

Fayetteville native Shannon Bell returns and will leverage UNC-Chapel Hill experience to help build and grow Cape Fear Botanical Garden

12/18/2024

North Carolina researchers have confirmed that GenX and other PFAS have contaminated not just the water, but also the fruits and vegetables grown near the Fayetteville Works Plant.

The goal of the study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, was to determine the extent to which homegrown produce near fluorochemical plants contributes to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure in those communities.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Evey Weisblat

📸 Credit: Evey Weisblat / CityView

Produce that researchers tested from gardens near Fayetteville Works Plant had unsafe levels of GenX and other PFAS.

12/17/2024

Few seats sat empty in a Department of Social Services’ conference room in mid-December. Rows of chairs were filled with community members interested in hearing about the county’s new workforce development program.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Heather Skeens, assistant county manager for community support, said to attendees in a Dec. 13 meeting. “Because what this says to me is we really need this program in our community.”

The program will train unhoused residents and at-risk youth 17 years and older in construction skills. Over three to four months, residents in the program will receive an OSHA 10 workplace safety certification and forklift and manlift training. The program will also provide residents with resume writing and interviewing skills, a professional headshot and financial literacy skills.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Cumberland County Public Information Department / Cumberland County Government

Unhoused residents will train in construction skills and use them to build the Unhoused Support Center thanks a workforce development program

12/17/2024

Earlier this month, outgoing North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper celebrated the state’s first anniversary of Medicaid expansion. As of Dec. 3, 25,457 Cumberland County residents now have health insurance thanks to the state’s expansion of the health insurance program.

However, national and North Carolinian health policy experts and activists worry those residents could lose coverage if the incoming federal legislature cuts its share of Medicaid funding.

“It’s going to affect all of us in many ways,” Carrol Olinger, Fayetteville field director for advocacy organization Action NC, told CityView.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Photo Illustration by Morgan Casey / CityView

Over 25,000 Cumberland County residents would lose health insurance if the federal government cuts its share of Medicaid funding.

12/16/2024

‘Tis the season for gathering with friends and family to share a meal and exchange gifts.

But the holiday season also brings bittersweet memories for those who are reflecting on loved ones no longer collected around the table or opening presents under the Christmas tree.

Everyone will be touched at one point by the death of parents, siblings, and friends, and often the pain and sorrow can be softened with a loving funeral service delivered by kind funeral directors who ease death’s burdens and foster warm memories.

Fayetteville Technical Community College is the gold standard for funeral service education in North Carolina, offering the only American Board of Funeral Service Education accredited program in the state. The program, launched in 1974, is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. Over the years, about 1,400 students have graduated through the program, according to department chair James Bullard.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Teri Saylor

📸 Credit: Tony Wooten / CityView

FTCC’s Funeral Service Education program paves the way for people to fulfill their calling to serve others in times of grief

12/16/2024

Two months ago, the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival announced a new executive director. He resigned just days into his employment.

Now, the festival has hired another director who says she’s ready to usher it into a new era.

The organization announced on social media on Friday that Kaylynn Suarez will take the helm of the city’s major spring festival, which has drawn as many as 250,000 people downtown in recent years. The Fayetteville Dogwood Festival is an independent, nonprofit organization that has held the annual event since 1983.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Evey Weisblat

📸 Credit: Raymie Day Photography / Fayetteville Dogwood Festival

City's popular festival gets a new executive director, who is determined to generate new excitement about the downtown event.

12/16/2024

You cannot deny the long years of crime-fighting on his face as Kemberle Braden reflects on this rainy day from his second-floor office of the Fayetteville Police Department overlooking Hay Street.

“For 29 years, I have stood on that thin blue line in the face of danger with my brothers and sisters in blue,” Braden was saying Tuesday in announcing that he will retire as police chief on March 31, 2025. “I have served with some of the most professional individuals to have worked in the law enforcement profession. I have shed blood, sweat and tears on the streets of Fayetteville, and I don’t regret a single moment of my service.”

🔗 Read the full column at the link below.

✍️ Bill Kirby Jr.

📸 Credit: Bill Kirby Jr. / CityView

“This job is not a Monday through Friday 8 to 5 job,” says FPD Chief Kemberle Braden, who will retire in March.

12/13/2024

"Being home for the holidays means more than just being there in the physical sense. Typically, being surrounded by loved ones is the ultimate goal. But there are ways to continue having a meaningful holiday season even if you can’t go home in the traditional sense, giving a new meaning to 'home for the holidays.'"

🔗 Read the full column at the link below.

✍️ By Jaylin Kremer

📸 Credit: Contibuted by / Barbara Rothbeind

Jaylin Kremer shares her experience learning about Hanukkah in her HomeFront column in the December 'Home for the Holidays' magazine issue.

12/13/2024

Fayetteville State University held a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday for its new College of Education building.

With the new space, the university hopes to increase its enrollment of students in the College of Education and add new bachelor and graduate degree programs for them, officials said.

Fayetteville State has been a pipeline producing generations of teachers, principals, superintendents, administrators and professors for North Carolina, Chancellor Darrell T. Allison told dozens of campus officials, elected officials, students and others gathered for the ceremony.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Paul Woolverton

📸 Credit: Provided by Fayetteville State University

Fayetteville State breaks ground for $69.3 million, 72,027-square-foot College of Education building, to open in 2026.

12/13/2024

Starting this month, Cumberland County residents can access two programs that help pay their heating bills.

The Low Income Energy Assistance Program and the Crisis Intervention Program are a lifeline to the county’s low-income households. But there are often more eligible applicants than the programs can assist, said Vivian Tookes, Cumberland County Department of Social Services economic services assistant director.

“It’s considered a high-demand service, often resulting in situations where funds run out before all eligible applicants can be served,” she said.

With the county already facing temperatures below freezing and decreasing federal funding, the programs are struggling to match the community’s needs.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Morgan Casey

📸 Credit: Photo by Dan LeFebvre / Unsplash

Federal funds for energy assistance programs aren't meeting the demands of Cumberland County residents that need help paying heating bills.

12/12/2024

Calling All Vendors! 🌟

CityView’s Ladies' Night Out, presented by Cape Fear Valley Health, is returning in 2025 on April 10th at the Carolina Barn and we’re looking for fabulous vendors to join this exciting event! Showcase your products or services to hundreds of attendees celebrating a night dedicated to fun, fashion, and connections.

Indoor: $350
Outdoor: $150
Food Vendor Selling Food: $200
Food Vendor Offering Free Samples: Fee Waived

All questions and interest should be directed to Caitlin Malson at [email protected]

12/12/2024

A recent increase in rates by the Fayetteville Public Works Commission increased its sales revenues for electricity, water and sewer service in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, even though total electricity consumption declined, the PWC’s board learned on Wednesday.

In an unrelated matter at the PWC’s board meeting on Wednesday, longtime employee Mick Noland, was presented with The Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award. This is among the state’s highest honors. On Monday, the Fayetteville City Council presented him with a ceremonial Key to the City. Noland is preparing to retire at the end of the month.

🔗 Read more at the link below.

✍️ By Paul Woolverton

📸 Credit: Fayetteville Public Works Commission

Water, sewer and electricity rate increases boost revenue for Fayetteville Public Works Commission, but electricity consumption declined.