Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1108657
4 UCW APRIL 24-30, 2019 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ EDITOR Stephanie Crider editor@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly. com ASSISTANT EDITOR Leslie Pyo leslie@upandcomingweekly.com SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR Earl Vaughan Jr. EarlUCWSports@gmail.com REPORTER Jeff Thompson news@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Elizabeth Long art@upandcomingweekly.com SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR Kimberly Herndon kim@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER/ SALES ADMINISTRATOR Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, Karl Merritt, John Hood, Jim Jones, Shanessa Fenner, Prudence Mainor ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan St. P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: (910) 484-6200 FAX: (910) 484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and information on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the pub- lisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. © 2019 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. Various ads with art graphics designed with elements from: vecteezy.com and freepik.com. Hope Mills Commissioners' red herring by ELIZABETH BLEVINS PUBLISHER'S PEN Publisher's Note: A special thanks to Ms. Blevins for finally explaining our side of the story about the $28,000 partnership Up & Coming Weekly had with Hope Mills. And, it had absolutely nothing to do with the money. Matter of fact, listed below are thir- teen main objectives Mayor Jackie Warner, commissioners and Hope Mills staff wanted to achieve for the residents of Hope Mills. e graphics below are from June 2017, when the Hope Mills Board of Commission- ers initially heard a proposal from Bill Bow- man, and from July 2017, when the Board voted unanimously to accept the proposal. But what exactly was the proposal? What was presented as the Hope Mills Initiative was a collaborative effort between the Hope Mills staff, the Hope Mills Cham- ber of Commerce and Up & Coming Weekly publisher Bill Bowman. It was the result of a tremendous amount of work and research by key players in Hope Mills: Town Manager Melissa Adams, Interim Town Clerk Debo- rah Holland, Mayor Jackie Warner, Hope Mills Area Chamber of Commerce President Jan Spell, and the late Commissioner Bob Gorman, over many months. Together they developed a program to "make sure local businesses have time tested, affordable and effective ways avail- able to market, promote and advertise their business, goods and services. We will have open dialog with HM residents, providing them space to promote their events with a weekly up-to-date event calendar hosting local Hope Mills events and other relevant Cumberland County happenings. U&CW will also be providing editorial space for residents to contribute their thoughts and insights," said Bowman in his proposal. It was heralded as a first tentative step toward developing a marketing strategy for the town with 13 distinct objectives. ree formal discussions were held at Sammio's, and the public was invited to hear an impressive list of community lead- ers discuss the initiative. e HMI was an opportunity for the citizens, businesses and organizations in Hope Mills to take control of the narra- tive and tell their story. And it was an opportunity to reach 300,000 readers in Cumberland County. Bowman also offered advertising to Hope Mills businesses and organizations at dras- tically discounted rates to help jump-start economic development in our community. Mayor Pro Tem Mike Mitchell and Com- missioner Meg Larson have been quick to reference the roughly $28,000 the town was spending on the project, but they've never mentioned the $14,000 Bowman spent to get the program started or that the agree- ment included him matching the town's investment and matching the costs for busi- nesses who advertised. And they certainly never mention the actual value of this program was conser- vatively more than a quarter of a million dollars' worth of marketing. Before the initiative had really begun, it was in trouble. is Board was sworn in a week prior to the event at Sammio's. ey balked at tasking the staff with writing articles, then balked at writing articles themselves. e ini- tiative relied on a steady flow of information, so Bowman tasked his new sports writer, Earl Vaughan Jr., with covering Hope Mills. Vaughan, who briefly lived in Hope Mills 30 years ago, immediately began building relationships with Hope Mills residents. He managed to plug into our community, familiarize himself with our history and stay two steps ahead of every story. During the budget retreat March 3, 2018, the Board discussed the expense of the initiative and their alternatives. Ultimately, they voted 3-2 not to renew the agreement when it concluded on Sept. 6. Commission- ers Mitchell and Pat Edwards voted against the motion. You can review the minutes from the meeting on their website, https:// townofhopemills.com/agendacenter. In the same feckless manner with which they dismiss staff recommendations, doing a feasibility study on the proposed walking trail and the expert opinion of the consul- 13 objectives — Here's why Hope Mills commissioners voted unanimously for the partnership with UCW: