Hall pass A good bet is that the Lumberton City Council will put on pause an effort to raze the old City Hall today when it holds its monthly Policy meeting.
Let’s hope so.
The council acted without due deliberation recently when it asked City Manager Wayne Horne to get information on how much it would cost to demolish the 96-year-old building, which is at 104 N. Elm St., and then remove the debris. When news of the city’s plans became public, an e...
Winning strategy Sheep, being essentially mindless, are easily herded, but not so with cats, who have their own ideas.
That is why get-out-the-vote efforts in Robeson County are so fruitful. There are too many of us accepting of being driven to the polls with implicit — if not explicit — instructions on how to mark that ballot.
During the last election cycle, local Democrats had more than $60,000 to spend on get-out-the-vote efforts that now include a 17-...
Brain dead A bill that won approval last week from a state House panel that would allow people age 21 and older to ride a motorcycle without a helmet screams for this question: Have its supporters suffered a head injury?
It’s not a laughing matter.
The House Transportation Committee approved the bill at the urging of motorcyclists who apparently prefer their hair in the wind. The bill allows adults the choice to ride without a helmet if they have ha...
Unhealthy behaviors If you think there is anything more coveted than good health, then sit down for a chat with someone who doesn’t enjoy it. All that is good pivots off of good health — and all that is bad is made better by it.
Still, there are too many Robesonians who are tossing their health away.
A study recently released by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that Robeson County ranked dead last in North Carolina — a...
Dancing in the dark Infrequently, a defender of the county commissioners will raise his hand, tell this newspaper to end our rant and then read from a list of talking points.
The list, short because it has to be, usually unfurls something like this:
— The Robesonian is racist. It’s a confusing allegation, because the county Board of Commissioners isn’t a single shade, but includes three American Indians, three whites and two blacks. But racism is the go-to c...
COMtech gets oxygen COMtech, the would-be industrial park near Pembroke that has gasped for oxygen ever since the Robeson County Board of Commissioners decided last year that economic development would be a good place to save the county a handful of dollars, has finally had a refreshing wind blow in its direction.
Last week, it was announced that Ryan Nance would be COMtech’s next executive director, a job he begins on Monday. The COMtech board has given Nance...
Judge says no to bullying A Superior Court judge this week thought so little of an effort by the county government to require a bond in order for a citizens group to proceed with a court challenge to stop a sand-mining operation in the Philadelphus community that he swatted the request away without a hearing.
The judge, Robert “Frank” Floyd Jr., issued his ruling without comment, but we are sure he concluded that the bond — the county wanted $1.24 million to suppose...
Nuclear breakdown It’s too easy to become numb to all the violence that is visited upon Robeson County by no-good Neanderthals, but the details of a murder last week caused us to look again.
The victim, a Maxton man, was shot multiple times after answering a knock on the door, being asked for help, and then trying to provide it. A second man was critically injured.
The accused, a 20-year-old from Lumberton, is no stranger to lawmen. We looked at his crimin...
Time for a tax decrease? We agree with county Commissioner Raymond Cummings. There has been some “pretty good financial leadership” —
to use his words — from the county government that resulted in an audit that didn’t uncover any problems.
So congratulations to County Manager Ricky Harris and his staff, particularly Finance Officer Kellie Blue, whose collective job is to make sure that revenue is aggressively collected, bills are properly paid, and no money is mi...
Power plays “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton
Because Robeson County’s eye is black enough , we hope that the old adage that bad news arrives as triplets isn’t always true.
There are similarities in alleged wrongdoings that have followed audits at the Lumberton Housing Authority, which provides housing to poor people in the city and county, and Four-County Community Services, an agency based in Lauri...
Tough call for county A Rowland resident stood before the Robeson County Planning Board on Monday and urged it to reject a conditional-use permit that is needed to place a solar farm just outside of the town.
He argued that the land was some of the most fertile in Robeson County, and it should be producing crops, not catching sun rays to convert into electricity. His is a sentiment that is shared by town officials, who dispatched the mayor to express the opposit...
Serving somebody This newspaper has convincingly made the case that our county commissioners have voted themselves salary, benefits and discretionary funds that are obnoxiously bloated; have done so in the most cowardly manner, without a public discussion or vote; and when asked to defend their money grab have run and ducked, or in the case of their discretionary funds, dispatched proxies to offer defense.
We provided context by comparing their pay and bene...
Pay now or pay later As Republicans in the General Assembly look at tax reform to make North Carolina more competitive with neighboring states when recruiting businesses and industry, they should also work to improve our public education system with more competitive salaries for teachers.
A report released this week by the National Education Association showed that North Carolina’s teachers rank an embarrassing 46th among the country’s 50 states in pay. The rep...
Raising eyebrows We are happy to let the smoke clear at the Lumberton Housing Authority before making any judgments on what may or may not have gone wrong there that has authorities clamping down on the spending of federal dollars.
What we know, we reported in an article on Tuesday on the front page of The Robesonian. Most of the information came from a strongly worded letter from Michael A. Williams, director of Public Housing for HUD’s Greensboro field of...
Leadership isn’t following We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office — Aesop.
This newspaper on Saturday published a story on our county commissioners’ post-meeting meals — not with eagerness and glee, but with reluctance and only after careful consideration.
We knew that doing so would feed the perception that some commissioners are trying to paint that The Robesonian is being purposely divisive — an offering that implodes easily enou...
