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: https://www.epageflip.net/i/430739
6 DECEMBER 10-16, 2014 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Fayetteville's city manager has invited controversy almost since his first day in office. He has taken issue with the relationship between the city and the PWC and thus antagonized the leadership of that utility provider far beyond what has been constructive or useful. This contentious relationship between the city and the PWC has now morphed into a lawsuit where there will be no winners, only losers, i.e. city taxpayers and PWC ratepayers. No doubt, this outcome is exactly that which Ted Voorhees has wanted all along. It is to be a showdown where the city manager will, he hopes, prevail and establish himself has the person in charge and a person not to be challenged. But he was challenged by Bill Bowman, publisher of Fayetteville's newspaper, Up & Coming Weekly. Bowman's editorial questioned Voorhees' judgement regarding the entire PWC issue. Voorhees, as a public official of some significant experience, should have seen Bowman's criticism as that which comes with the territory and passed it by. The situation was a rare opportunity for Voorhees to demonstrate maturity and class. He might even have invited Bowman for a sit down where they could exchange views, perhaps even to agree to disagree and then carry on, each respecting the other. But Voorhees reacted to Bowman's editorial in a childish manner. He ordered his staff to immediately cancel all business relationships with Up & Coming Weekly as his way of showing Bowman who was running the City of Fayetteville show, not unlike a child threatening to not invite a playmate to her birthday party because of some perceived petty slight. Voorhees has clearly lost regard and stature within his staff and will cause the city council, to which he serves at the council's pleasure, to question the correctness of their city manager choice. Dave Wilson I recently read the articles concerning Fayetteville's City Manager Ted Voorhees' failure to comply with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from Up & Coming Weekly. Interestingly enough, what I read concerning this lack of transparency seems to be a mirror image of what citizens are experiencing in Hope Mills. Several Hope Mills residents are having to resort to Freedom of Information requests from Hope Mills Town Manager John W. Ellis to get answers concerning many questionable practices and decisions in our town. These range from information concerning the $15 million failed dam with its on-going exorbitant legal fees, to private meetings held at town hall with town staff, property owners, developers, real estate brokers and corporate representatives with no invitation extended to the majority of our elected officials, including the mayor. It took me more than two months to receive the public records I requested through the FOI act and that was only after many follow-up emails concerning my request. What I finally received was incomplete and it came with a barrage of information I did not request. Several of the people listed in the request did not comply at all. The document dump that was finally given to me contained more than 800 pages of information, with only 98 pages that were not duplicates and that contained the information I requested. At the November 3, 2014, town meeting, the Hope Mills elected officials voted 3-2 to charge citizens a "special service charge" to obtain public records. This special fee would be above and beyond the current charge of 10 cents a page. Citizens were told it was due to the amount of time it was taking to fulfill requests for public records. When questioned by the elected officials, however, Ellis could not give the amount of FOI requests or the time it has taken to complete them because he said there was no record. Unbelievably, Town Manager Ellis also said he was unable to determine the amount that the special service fee would be for citizens to obtain records, only that it would be done on a case by case basis. That means one would not be told the amount of money it would cost to obtain the public records until they receive the bill when they picked up their request. Could this be yet another obstacle thrown in the path of citizens to keep them from making requests? Many Hope Mills citizens believed that the closed sessions at our board meetings would come to an end when the litigation concerning the dam was completed. This has not been the case in Hope Mills. It is time for some sun to shine in the board room at Hope Mills town hall. If there is true transparency in government, no doubt public information requests would diminish significantly. Megan Larson We Need More Sunshine Nutcracker Directed by Charlotte Blume The North Carolina State Ballet presents Sunday, December 7 Saturday, December 13 Sunday, December 14 All Curtain Times: 3:00 p.m. The www.ncstateballet.com Tickets on sale at the Crown Complex Box Oce and Ticketmaster.com • Military Discount with I.D. This project is supported by the Arts Council in part by contributions from businesses and individuals, and through grants from the City of Fayetteville, Cumberland County and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources. 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