Tackling the Problems

One of the biggest problems in our county is overdevelopment. It is the commissioners, over the last 30 years, who approved those developments despite the lack of needed infrastructure and services. Flooding from over paving, long term environmental damage, overcrowded schools and nightmare traffic are some of the results that severely damage our quality of life.

For the last 15 years, our state legislature has refused to let counties collect impact fees from developers, which pay for services like schools and roads that are a result of the growth in population. The legislature says local taxes can pay for infrastructure, but our commissioners refuse to support taxes to do so.

The solution is simple. They need to increase restrictions and stop approving out of control development. Meanwhile they can work through legal means, while partnering with other counties, to increase the pressure on the legislature to re-instate impact fees.

Our county's schools are struggling. I have been an education leader for decades and on our school board for 5 years. We literally beg our commissioners each year for needed resources. We depend on the county to fund 1/3 of our schools' costs.

But over the last decade the County Commission has repeatedly said they pay too much for our schools, even though NC ranks 50th in school funding in the US.^[1] We are below the national average in per pupil expenditure by $6,000.^[2] Considering we are a wealthy state (12th in nation) and the 8th wealthiest county, our elected leaders' actions are just irresponsible.

Our future depends on a well-educated populace. NHC schools are overcrowded and under-resourced while buildings are literally crumbling. This results in too many of our students failing.

As a Commissioner I will fight to increase support for our schools along with putting pressure on our local legislators to do the same.

Even with all the development in our county there still is a lack of affordable housing. Many public servants, such as those in law enforcement and teaching, must live out of county to afford to work here. The lack of affordable housing also contributes to homelessness, poverty, poor health and other problems, often forcing families to choose between rent and necessities like food and medicine.

This past summer our county commissioners cut all funding for our local affordable housing initiative and major funding for social services, which also addresses the housing shortage.

Obviously, this funding needs to be restored along with investment in initiatives to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people in our community. The commissioners also need to work with the city and the private sector in partnership to develop programs that address this glaring problem.

In 2021 the county commissioners sold our publicly owned hospital, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, to Novant Health, despite the massive public outcry against the sale. Since that time our hospital's Medicare rating has fallen from five stars to two.^[3] It has also dropped to a “C” grade from the Leapfrog hospital safety rating organization.^[4]

Meanwhile stories of unnecessary patient deaths and reports of patients waiting days in the emergency room for treatment are constantly being reported.

It is up to the commissioners to step in and address these problems with Novant. So far, they have done nothing to address these life and death issues. Once elected I will initiate an inquiry into the problems and their solutions.

The New Hanover County Endowment is a large, private foundation created by our County Commission from the 2020 sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center. The $1.3 billion profit is overseen by a board of directors appointed by both the commissioners and Novant Health. Its purpose is to award grants from the millions in interest earned to invest in initiatives like education, social equity, community development, and safety.

Unfortunately, the Commissioners created it to operate in secret. Six members, out of its 15-member board, are appointed by the commission. Over the last five years they have become obvious political appointments. Another criticism of the Endowment is that it is not adequately funding public education, mental health services, affordable housing, etc. as promised.

As a Commissioner I will work to make the Endowment transparent and responsive to our county's needs. I will also work to ensure that the board and leadership of the Endowment consist of real representatives of all the people of the county, not just a select few. But the most important role the Commission should play is to make sure that the grants truly are going to the “four pillars” listed in the asset sale agreement: education, health, public safety and our economy.

Our county is also experiencing increases in crime and violence which is often a result of troubled neighborhoods plagued with generational poverty. What makes it worse is that some of the commissioners do not appear to want solutions but instead want talking points for their political positions.

For example, last year, while earning political attention, they destroyed a lot of needed services that were helping our struggling neighborhoods when they totally shut down Port City United. They could have addressed the program's problematic aspects—its lack of accountability and its practice of employing active gang members.^[5] Instead, they shut down the entire program.

If we want a decrease in crime and violence we need to address the reasons for the negative parts of our county's culture. But this is a complex, decade-old problem that is not unique to Wilmington.

Luckily, we are a small enough and wealthy enough county that has the resources, such as the Endowment, needed to address the problems that have led to the increase in crime and violence in NHC.