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/1470728
4 UCW JUNE 15 - 21, 2022 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly.com EDITOR Emily Sussman editor@upandcomingweekly.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Hannah Lee assistanteditor@upandcomingweekly. com ART DIRECTOR Courtney Sapp-Scott art@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Isaiah Jones STAFF WRITER Alyson Hansen Ashley Shirley Cindy Whitt MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister linda@upandcomingweekly.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER/SALES ADMINISTRATOR Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ted Mohn, John Hood, Pitt Dickey, D.G. Martin COVER Design by Courtney Sapp-Scott and Isaiah Jones Top center photo by Anthony Wooten, CityView Today. All other cover photos courtesy Fayetteville Area Habitat for Humanity. 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 publisher. 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 Army Airfield, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. © 2020 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. PUBLISHER'S PEN 82 64 82 83 79 82 63 64 83 66 64 65 THU JUNE 16 FRI JUNE 17 SAT JUNE 18 SUN JUNE 19 MON JUNE 20 TUE JUNE 21 96 73 94 71 92 69 91 69 93 71 92 70 Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Scattered Thunderstorms Mostly Sunny Cloudy Association of Community Publishers Fayetteville's May 2022 City Council pri- mary election was historic in voter turnout compared to the past 20 plus years of city council primaries. Two obvious reasons drove this turnout. Fayetteville's primary was paired with Cumberland County and state-wide primary elections, and for the first time in recent memory, eight of the 10 city council seats actually had a primary election. Media personalities and reporters often regurgitate initial voter participation num- bers over several weeks after an election without actually analyzing the complexity of the City of Fayetteville electorate. Being polite, most media personali- ties and reporters don't know the nu- ances of Fayetteville's ever-changing voter rolls. Specifically, active voters within Fayetteville corporate limits. Not their fault, as most media personalities and reporters don't have time to interpret Fayetteville registered voter data before they report voter participation data. Fayetteville's City Council electorate is unique for a couple of reasons. I provide a different approach within this opinion piece, identifying which Fayetteville voters actually showed up and pulled a ballot for the City of Fayetteville primary election. anks to publicly available state online voter records and our Cumberland County Board of Elections Office, I have a by- name list of everyone that voted and active voters choosing not to vote during Fay- etteville's May 2022 primary. Two things to remember. 1. Council Districts 1, 3 and 8 include portions of Fort Bragg (Manchester voter precinct). Over the past ten years, less than 100 people on Fort Bragg have voted in Fayetteville City Council elections across the three districts. ey usually show up for the presidential elections. Not Fayetteville City Council elections. 2. "Active Voters & Inactive Voters" are contained within Cumberland County's voter database, just like the State of North Carolina voter database. Inactive voters across Cumberland County skew actual voter participation numbers and lower the perceived voter participation rate. Very few inactive voters are ever reacti- vated for municipal-level elections like in Fayetteville. Several are reactivated for presidential elections. I removed all inactive voters and elimi- nated the Manchester voting precinct from the equation in my analysis. I found there were just under 101,000 "active voters" on the Fayetteville City Council 2022 primary election rolls that resided within the non- Fort Bragg portion of Fayetteville's corpo- rate limits. Hopefully, this simple chart explains active voter participation numbers across all nine Fayetteville City Council districts during the May 2022 primary. In the upcoming July city council gener- al election, all 10 seats are contested, and voters will be able to vote for the mayoral position and their assigned city council district. Since there is no truly contested mayoral race I predict Fayetteville's final/general election in July will have much less voter turnout compared to the May 2022 pri- mary election. Just my personal prediction based on past voter turnout results. We will know in about seven weeks. Historic voter turnout in Fayetteville's May 2022 primary election by TED MOHN TED MOHN, Former Fayetteville City Councilman, COMMENTS? BILL@upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200.