The new reality Drowned out by all the noise at the county Board of Commissioners on Monday was a bit of good news — that the county might be on the verge of landing an industry that would bring almost 80 decent-paying jobs.
It is disappointing that the conversation has continued about the commissioners’ discretionary funds, pay and benefits, but it’s their inaction almost four months after County Manager Ricky Harris turned over the findings of his study ...
Missing the point Color us unimpressed that the beneficiaries of the county commissioners’ discretionary fund dutifully paraded before that board on Monday to extol its virtues.
Why were they so compelled? Were they there at the invitation of county commissioners scrambling to cling to the fund, with the implication being, show up and shower me with praise, or risk not getting a check; or were they there because they thought their public support might make f...
Waiting game Commissioner Raymond Cummings said during a recent retreat of the county board that he had not fielded a single complaint about his and fellow commissioners’ pay, benefits and discretionary fund.
If Cummings is to be believed, his luck runs out Monday night, as a citizens group is urging residents to attend the meeting of the county Board of Commissioners to express their objections. We will caution Cummings and fellow commissioners who are...
Food for thought The news was not good for us Southerns, who prefer our food cooked with animal fat.
But there it was, a week ago today, on the front page of this newspaper, a story that showed that people who have diets heavy with deep-fried foods and sugary drinks were more likely to suffer a stroke. Elsewhere on the page was news of Dewey defeating Truman, the Kennedy assassination, that man had landed on the moon and Elvis had died.
OK, so we made som...
RCC gets its woman The trustees for Robeson Community College didn’t have to look far to find a replacement for outgoing President Charles Chrestman — but they did anyway.
No one without an agenda would have argued had the board selected Mark Kinlaw, the vice president for instruction and support services and chief academic officer at the college. By every measure, Kinlaw was qualified, and that the trustees didn’t go with the homegrown talent testified in fa...
Hiring under fire A funny thing happened when a reporter for this newspaper began calling commissioners with questions about county hiring practices.
They answered the phone — and our questions, appearing anxious to defend the system against charges by Commissioner Hubert Sealey that nepotism and racism guide hiring decisions. The lone exception was Jerry Stephens, who joins Sealey as the only black commissioner.
Since he didn’t speak for himself, we will ...
One down, one to go Are you curious how long it’s been since residents in and near Pembroke enjoyed the convenience of driving just a few blocks to purchase a bottle of liquor?
Well, this nation had not yet elected Barack Obama as its president.
Yes, it was October 2008, 52 months ago, when the Pembroke ABC Store was closed by the state after an audit determined that inventory was walking out the back door and cash was disappearing — about $50,000 worth comb...
Mourning again We don’t understand Robeson County’s fascination with motorcycles, but there is no denying it. We love our big bikes — the wind-in-the-hair freedom they offer, and all the dangers that are accessories.
Motorcycles introduce an interesting dichotomy about the laws that govern our highways. While it is against the law for a person to get inside a reinforced cage — a vehicle — without buckling up a seat belt, riding a motorcycle without any pr...
On offense at a retreat The director of Parks and Recreation for Robeson County stood before the county commissioners during their retreat on Friday and said her department couldn’t manage without the occasional crumb tossed its way from their discretionary funds.
While the commissioners interpreted this as a defense of their discretionary funds, it was a condemnation: What the director was actually saying is that her department is underfunded. If you want some nu...
Government at work The prevailing sentiment during the last several months — one that we have also offered — has been that the Lumbee Tribal Government, clawing for credibility with a largely disinterested nation, was doing itself no favors in that pursuit with a very public feud between the chairman and the Tribal Council.
At issue, not surprisingly, is control of the government’s housing program — or, as housing director Bosco Locklear so succinctly put it ...
Stam’s bad gamble State Rep. Paul Stam would do well to simply abandon his push for legislation that would render people who are on public assistance ineligible to play the N.C. Education Lottery.
We wonder about the constitutionality of such legislation, but we don’t wonder about this: Short of assigning a scarlet letter, perhaps a “W”, to welfare recipients, the legislation would be at least nightmarish to enforce and probably impossible, and the best resu...
Lifetime achievement Luther Harbert Moore would have liked the company that he was keeping on the front page of the Tuesday edition of The Robesonian — even if he didn’t like the circumstances.
The story on Moore, prompted by the 86-year-old’s death last week, shared the page with a story on the inauguration of this nation’s first black president to a second term, and a story celebrating the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the man who more than any o...
King for today Aug. 28, 2013, will mark 50 years to the day that Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a sweltering day in the nation’s Capitol and redirected this nation’s path forward.
On the eve of the holiday that honors the slain civil rights champion, we thought it would be appropriate to recall some of the 1,660 words that he delivered during his 17-minute “I Have a Dream” speech that was attended by 200,000 people.
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No longer clean, green Wilton Wilkerson, famously known as Robeson County’s Mr. Clean and Green, is probably saddened by the sight from above — his beloved county covered with trash, particularly our roadsides that too many people continue to consider trashcans.
Wilkerson for years was the loudest voice in an effort to keep this county clean and green, but since his death on March 18, 2007, no one has carried that banner. It looks to us that trash has been piling...
Failed drug test When Florida last year became the first state to require welfare recipients to be drug tested in order to receive benefits, the program was hailed as a possible money saver for taxpayers who would be spared the cost of supporting a stranger’s bad habit.
The potential, advocates claimed, could be revolutionary, both in terms of saving taxpayer dollars but also by forcing poor people off of drugs and into the warm embrace of sobriety. It soun...
