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/56704
STAFF bbowman@upandcomingweekly.com editor@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Janice Burton Joy Crowe MANAGING EDITOR Caroline Goins stephanie@upandcomingweekly.com hal@upandcomingweekly.com Linda McAlister Brown ltmcmd01@aol.com OFFICE MANAGER Laurel Handforth officemanager@ upandcomingweekly.com Mary Catherine White ACCOUNTING accounting@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alicia Miller art@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Mar tin, Pitt Dick ey, Margaret Dickson, John Hood, Jhana Lewis, Erinn Crider, Karen Poppele, Heath- er Griffi ths, Beth Solzsmon-Carpenter, Shannon Angry –––––––––––– 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 infor- mation 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 per- son. 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. MARKETING/SALES Hal Nunn ASSOCIATE EDITOR Stephanie Crider PUBLISHER Bill Bowman INSIDE PUBLISHER'S PEN by BILL BOWMAN Wish Fayetteville and Cumberland County could get more publicity? Well, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. Barbara Marshall's transition home for homeless women veterans, the Jubilee House, which was transformed last year into a lavish $480,000 home and featured on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, has all the earmarks of propelling our community into the national spotlight again. Only this time, maybe not in such a favorable light. It seems an investigation is underway as to why Marshall does not open the home to homeless women veterans as its mission states. She has also been Does it make sense to tear down a $24,000 house and replace it with a $480,000 home equipped with a veggie vac? accused of actually, putting them out on the streets — and doing so with little or no compassion. Many more concerns and questions are also out there: Where are the tens of thousands of dollars in cash, food and resources that were donated to her and her cause? This situation saddens me greatly and I get no satisfaction from knowing that our initial skepticism and suspicions toward the entire Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project have now been realized. Up & Coming Weekly was approached to support and sponsor the project by the daughter of Chip Smith, the owner of Spartanburg, S.C.-based Blue Ridge Log Cabins, the main show sponsor. After careful refl ection, we decided to distance our newspaper from the project because it didn't make sense. At the time, we questioned the charity that almost no one in the county had ever heard of. We questioned its ability to sustain the insurance, light bill and taxes on the property. Collectively, our staff weighed the factors and could not see it in a positive light. We were not wrong. Think about it: Does it make sense to tear down a $24,000 house and replace it with a $480,000 home equipped with a veggie vac? Does it make sense to then gift that house and its associated bills and upkeep to a charity that has no visible means of support, and that is not regulated through an agency like the United Way? Almost overnight, the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew swarms into our community like a plague of locusts, begging, pleading and extracting everything they could from local businesses, Fayetteville's Weather Forecast Thursday March 1 Friday March 2 Saturday March 3 Fayetteville's Weather Forecast non-profi t organizations, schools, government and residents. They are very good at what they do, and they preyed on our southern sensitivities and Fayetteville/Cumberland County's generous spirit. The community did not disappoint, giving generously in time, talent and money. Probably, hundreds of thousands of dollars to our detriment. Yet, Extreme Makeover: Home edition, the ABC network, Ty Pennington and affi liates profi ted by making millions! We will never know how much this misdirected project cost the taxpayers of our community. Whatever it was, it was too high of a price for having Michelle Obama deliver a few vegetable seeds from the White House. However, it was an extremely clever way for President Obama and the Democratic Party to thank the ABC network and the liberal media for their ongoing support. Everyone was taken for a ride: the city, the county, the Chamber of Commerce, Fort Bragg and the Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. Everyone was used and starstruck by either the hope of receiving positive national publicity for our community, a chance to be on national TV, to gaze upon celebrity host Ty Pennington or anticipating their own momentous 15 minutes of fame, all of which the network promised. And, if that were not enough, the anticipated appearance of First Lady Michelle Obama sealed the deal on getting the community's false assurance that this project was practical, logical and ethical. Oh well, stay tuned. The full story will soon be told, although I doubt it will be pretty. However, be confi dent that we have enough good people and agencies in this community to correct the situation and get the resources that have been invested to where they can do the most good. Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly. BILL BOWMAN, Publisher. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com CalCall 910.354.1679l 910.354.1679 Sunday March 4 Monday March 5 Tuesday March 6 Calendar ........................................... 14 Concert Connection ........................ 18 TV ..................................................... 20 Movie Review .................................. 21 Free Wheelin' Feelin' ....................... 22 Horoscopes/Advice Goddess ......... 23 Classifieds ........................................ 24 Games .............................................. 26 Jubilee House: Not so Jubilant High 69° Low 40° Sunny High 64° Low 46° Partly Cloudy 4 UCW FEB. 29 - MARCH 6, 2012 High 73° Low 42° Showers Forecast available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. High 67° Low 39° Showers High 66º Low 38º Partly Cloudy High 65º Low 39º Partly Cloudy WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 24/ 7