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 bbowman@upandcomingweekly.com PUBLISHER Bill Bowman editor@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Janice Burton Joy Crowe MANAGING EDITOR Caroline Goins stephanie@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Stephanie Crider hal@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING/SALES Hal Nunn Linda McAlister Brown ltmcmd01@aol.com OFFICE MANAGER Laurel Handforth officemanager@ upandcomingweekly.com accounting@upandcomingweekly.com Mary Catherine White ACCOUNTING art@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alicia Miller Margaret Dickson, John Hood, Jhana Lewis, Erinn Crider, Karen Poppele, Heath- er Griffi ths, Beth Solzsmon-Carpenter, CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Mar tin, Pitt Dick ey, www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan Street P.O. Box 53461 Shannon Angry –––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly 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. INSIDE PUBLISHER'S PEN by JANICE BURTON Calendar ........................................... 14 Concert Connection ........................ 18 TV ..................................................... 20 Movie Review .................................. 21 Free Wheelin' Feelin' ....................... 22 Horoscopes/Advice Goddess ......... 23 Classifieds ........................................ 24 Games .............................................. 27 Iman Can Sleep at Night. Can the City Council? The other day I picked my son up from Gray's Creek Middle School. Since I was out and about, we decided to pick a couple of things up from the grocery store, so I headed down Sandhills Road, which is a road that links Chicken Foot Road (or Highway 59) to Highway 87. This mainly residential road gets a lot of traffi c, but not so much that traffi c ever comes to a standstill, which is what happened on this particular day. I craned my head to the side to try and see around the van in front of me to fi gure out what was causing the hold up. Much to my surprise, it was a check point set up by members of the North Carolina Highway Patrol. I'm used to encountering these on weekends and holidays, but on a Tuesday afternoon on a pretty quiet stretch of road, it seemed somewhat ludicrous to me. That was until I started looking around. As I opened my console to get out my colleagues in the North Carolina League of Municipalities. In the email, obtained by the Observer, Iman talked about his decision to step down as city manager; a decision made after the City Council failed to follow his advice not to suspend Fayetteville police offi cers' abilities to conduct consent searches at traffi c stops while an outside audit was performed and other changes were made. Iman backed retiring Chief Tom Bergamine who maintained that the city's police offi cers were not profi ling by race, but rather were stopping those who were breaking the law. Over the past several weeks, I've had registration, I noticed a line of cars on the side of the road. I also noticed that the people in the van in front of me were pretty frantic. It wasn't too surprising when they were motioned to the side to join the line of cars that dotted both sides of the two-lane road. I did a quick count. There were at least nine cars parked along the road. Why, I wondered were so many people getting fl agged. There had to be some reason all of these drivers were stopped. Maybe their registration had expired. Maybe their driver's license had expired or they had no insurance. Maybe, some of them had revoked licenses or were drinking. I don't know why they were stopped. I wasn't the offi cer who pulled them over, but I imagine he had a good reason. For them to be stopped, they had to be breaking some kind of law. At the time, I started thinking about the consent and search issue that has been ongoing in the City of Fayetteville. Fayetteville police offi cers were not stopping people willy nilly and asking to search their cars. They were stopping people who were violating laws, much like the people lining Sandhills Road on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon. That traffi c stop came to mind this morning while I was reading the Fayetteville Observer. The article in question had a comment sent in a private email from ousted City Manager Dale Iman to one of his Fayetteville's Weather Forecast Thursday April 5 Friday April 6 Saturday April 7 Fayetteville's Weather Forecast numerous conversations with people about this topic. And it always boils down to this: If you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to say no to a consent search. As we snaked up the line at the traffi c stop, my son said, "Momma, you worried about anything?" I laughed. What did I have to worry about? My registration was up-to- date. My license was up-to-date. My insurance was up-to-date. We were both wearing seat belts, and there were no alcohol, drugs or weapons in my vehicle. when you are stopped by law enforcement. And it goes a long way for men like Iman and Bergamine. In his email, Iman added, "There are certain actions that I can't support and throwing the police department under the bus without factual evidence is not a position I can support. Our police risk their lives every day protecting the citizens of Fayetteville, and they deserve much better than the slap in the face they've been given." Iman went on to say, "I have done what I felt was the right thing, and I can sleep well at night knowing that." I'm not sure the members of the Fayetteville City Council can say the same. A clear conscience goes a long way JANICE BURTON, Associate Publisher. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com CalCall 910.354.1679l 910.354.1679 Sunday April 8 Monday April 9 Tuesday April 10 High 65° Low 52° Showers 4 UCW APRIL 4-10, 2012 High 63° Low 47° Showers Partly Cloudy High 74° Low 51° Forecast available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. High 77° Low 56° Sunny Mostly Sunny High 77º Low 54º Partly Cloudy High 73º Low 54º WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 24 24 / 7