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.
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STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman bbowman@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Janice Burton editor@upandcomingweekly.com EDITOR Stephanie Crider stephanie@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING/SALES Cynthia Deere cynthia@upandcomingweekly.com Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com Kristy Sykes kristy@upandcomingweekly.com Beverly Pone beverly@upandcomingweekly.com OFFICE & DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Laurel Handforth officemanager@ upandcomingweekly.com ACCOUNTING Paulette Reinhardt accounting@upandcomingweekly.com ART DIRECTOR Alicia Miller art@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, John Hood, Erinn Crider, Karen Poppele, Heather Griffiths ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan Street 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 Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. Subscriptions can be purchased for $30 for six months or $60 for 12 months, delivered weekly by first class mail. ©2007 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. INSIDE Calendar ........................................... 12 Concert Connection ........................ 15 TV ..................................................... 17 Movie Review .................................. 17 PUBLISHER'S PEN Fayetteville's Still Moving Forward by MAYOR TONY CHAVONNE In this edition I was going to recap Fayetteville's 2012 accomplishments and the challenges that still face our growing community. However, I don't think I could have done it any better than Mayor Tone Chavonne. So this week, I am going to yield my space to him so he can share with our readers his perspective and vision as it pertains to the City of Fayetteville. Enjoy, and thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly — Fayetteville's community newspaper. — Bill Bowman, Publisher A new year gives us the opportunity to reflect on where we've been and where we are headed over the upcoming year. While we face challenges, the signs of positive change are all around us. The growth in our economy has continued to receive national attention with Cumberland County seeing a 5.5 percent increase in per capita personal income last year. It has skyrocketed 75 percent since 2001, among the highest paces in urban counties in the U.S. Fayetteville leaped to 52nd in the U.S. out of 366 metros in the annual ranking of economic strength, up from 92nd in 2011, and ranks 58th in the country among the best cities for jobs out of all cities in the nation. United Airlines announced plans for flights from Fayetteville to Washington, D.C., joining U.S. Airways' daily flights to Reagan National and helping address a major community need. The 295 Outer Loop received funding that will connect I-95 to Cliffdale Road. The section between Bragg Boulevard and Murchison Road opens in two years; from Ramsey to All American in 2017; and from Yadkin Road to Cliffdale Road in 2019. The Fayetteville City Council approved a funding plan for an additional 22 sworn officers to the police department over the next several years. We made a significant investment in equipment and staffing to provide the department the tools it needs to be successful. We extended sewer to an additional 500 homes in western Fayetteville, opened the new downtown parking deck and increased our investment in our transit system including obtaining federal funding to support the construction of a new downtown multimodal center. We celebrated announcements of $18 million economic investment at Nitta Gelatin, 150 jobs at Sykes Enterprises, a residential unit overlooking the N.C. Veterans Park and the construction of 900 apartments around the All American Freeway. Perhaps most exciting we saw our young people, in increasing numbers, find jobs to allow them to stay in the area and help them to Fayetteville's Weather Forecast Thursday January 10 Friday January 11 4 High 61° Low 44° Partly Cloudy Sunday January 13 Saturday January 12 UCW JANUARY 9-15, 2013 High 60° Low 433° Mostly Cloudy invest in our collective future. 2013 looks just as exciting as we await an updated Renaissance Plan for the downtown, explore an economically vibrant life for the Prince Charles Hotel and anxiously await new retail higher-end stores at the mall. We have a professional team in place to help lead us forward. Like every community, we continue to have our challenges and must continue to work together to address them. Crime continues to challenge even our best efforts. It remains the number one goal in the council's strategic plan. We will seek legislative support for a Citizen Review Board to further build the department's creditability. We'll continue to expand our community policing efforts. A new police chief selected with significant public input will soon take over leadership of our nationally-accredited police department. We will continue to focus our attention and resources on this critical area. After eight years of planning and heated discussion, the city council was unable to agree on an investment plan for our inadequate parks and recreation facilities. We will continue to explore every option to find the right combination of facilities and funding sources that can result in improvements in this important quality-of-life area. It will take years to retrofit the sewer and water infrastructure in western Fayetteville brought on by poor planning and unmanaged growth. Too many neighborhoods lack the basic infrastructure of sidewalks, lighting and adequate stormwater drainage. We still too often see the plight of poverty and the homeless. We still wrestle with the challenges of rapid growth and the impact of a tightening of state and local budgets. And there is never enough money to do all that needs to be done. Our "bucket list" also includes a solution to the donut-hole Shaw Heights, improvements in our major gateways, higher-end retail like Fresh Market and more better-paying jobs for our citizens. But we have been so richly blessed as we no longer talk of low wealth status, economic stagnation or the frequent departure of our children to better jobs outside of the area. We are in the midst of a cultural and economic transformation unmatched in our proud history. It will require our best efforts to make sure we take full advantage of the many opportunities coming our way. May God bless you during as we begin this new year and may God MAYOR TONY CHAVONNE, Up & continue to bless our Coming Weekly, COMMENTS? editor@ great city. upandcomingweekly.com. 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