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Tuesday, 22 October 2024
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Written by Bill Bowman
Kudos to Dogwood Festival board chair Andrew Porter, long-term senior volunteer Jackie Tuckey, and the many residents and volunteers trying to save and preserve the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival for future generations.
This has very little chance of happening if Dogwood leadership continuously ignores the apparent tenets of success. Their newly hired Executive Director, Jim Long, tendered his resignation on October 9th after only ten days on the job. This should have been a wake-up call to the DF board that "all that glitters is not gold. "
Long lasted longer than I predicted and should never have been hired. Obviously, minimal vetting was done on this candidate's talent, capabilities, and successes.
I'm not Mr. Obvious; on Oct. 1, the Dogwood Festival committee announced the hiring of Long as their new executive director and touted with exuberant enthusiasm his qualifications as a promotions and events manager with a wealth of knowledge of the entertainment industry and the Fayetteville community. He may have provided the Dogwood board with a resume complete with a long, impressive list of experiences, but it's doubtful that a long list of successes accompanied it.
And, if Long's tenure with the Fayetteville Motor Speedway, with its history and local reputation as an entertainment venue, is his primary connection to the Fayetteville/ Cumberland County community, a red flag, not a checkered flag, should have gone up immediately.
Moving forward, there is a path to success if the Dogwood Festival committee focuses on returning to the basics. I've been involved with, participated in, and have knowledge of the Dogwood Festival since it was Sunday on the Square in the '80s, and our major annual DF fundraiser was Cowchip Bingo. This was decades ago, and yes, Fayetteville has changed, but the people have not.
For the Dogwood Festival to succeed, it must return to the basics. It needs:
Leadership. They need to hire someone with enthusiasm, dedication, personality, knowledge of the industry, and integrity.
Someone who can navigate the community, exuberate excitement, and restore confidence in the community's longest-running, free, fun, family outdoor entertainment event.
The Board. The Festival needs a robust and dedicated working board emphasizing the word, working. This board should have representation from all municipalities in Cumberland County, including Fort Liberty, with volunteers who are motivated, willing, and able to support the Executive Director while ensuring all aspects of the Festival are inclusive and diverse.
Lastly, but no less important is that we, as a community, must make an exerted effort to dismantle those legendary and crippling self-centered silos that are maintained and fortified by the City of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, the Convention & Visitors Bureau (Distinctly Fayetteville), Chamber of Commerce, the Arts Council, Downtown Alliance, and Cool Spring District.
These organizations have to unite for the betterment of the community and start working together, communicating and collaborating. Otherwise, the Dogwood Festival, and any other major local initiative with the intent of creating a positive image of Fayetteville or contributing to a higher quality of life, will be challenging to achieve.
Last year's Festival was successful with a redefined definition of success. By any standard, it was Dogwood Festival lite. Hopefully, the Festival's management can return it to its former prestige as North Carolina's number 1 FREE Outdoor Festival.
However, it will be determined by the people, businesses, and organizations that care about this community more than they do about themselves. The Silos must go! Jus sayin.
Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.
(Photo: The 2022 Dogwood Festival saw people from all over Cumberland County and beyond visiting downtown Fayetteville. Photo courtesy of the Dogwood Festival's Facebook Page)
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Tuesday, 15 October 2024
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Written by John Hood
The devastation wreaked on North Carolina by Hurricane Helene will take weeks to assess, months to clear out, and years to repair or rebuild. Second only to the value of the lives lost will be the exorbitant fiscal and economic costs of our recovery.
Our state government is reasonably well-prepared to shoulder its share. Our federal government is not.
Last week, the General Assembly authorized an initial $273 million withdrawal from North Carolina’s rainy-day fund to cover initial recovery expenses and changes in elections administration. Gov. Roy Cooper signed the bill.
That’s only the first tranche of state expenditure. Lawmakers will return to the capital more than once before year’s end, then commence regular session in early 2025. They’ll appropriate much more money for various reconstruction efforts, from academic campuses and government offices to highways, bridges, water systems, and other infrastructure.
North Carolina has lots of money set aside. The rainy-day fund itself still contains about $4.5 billion. Other accounts and our unreserved credit balance contain billions more. I don’t mean to minimize the storm’s staggering costs. I’m just pointing out that the General Assembly won’t have to cut other programs, raise taxes, or borrow money to fulfill its responsibilities.
Congress is another story. Over the past couple of decades, presidents and lawmakers of both parties have run massive federal deficits and made exorbitant spending promises that far exceed any reasonable expectation of revenues at economically sustainable tax rates.
In a recent Reason magazine piece, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center pointed out that the federal debt now exceeds $28 trillion — $2 trillion more than last year and $6 trillion more than when the Biden-Harris team entered the White House.
“This debt stands at 100% of America’s gross domestic product, which, other than a one-year exception at the end of World War II, is the highest ratio we’ve ever had,” she wrote. “Unlike in 1946, today’s debt is only going to grow. Indeed, debt-to-GDP took a nearly 30-year dive to reach 23% in 1974. Today, federal debt is projected — under the rosiest scenarios — to rise to 166% in 30 years.”
In other words, every dollar Congress authorizes and the executive branch distributes for hurricane relief in North Carolina is, in effect, a borrowed dollar. It represents a debt to be paid in the future, not a gift.
Of course, North Carolinians aren’t the only ones who must pay each dollar back (with interest). Decades ago, our politicians essentially nationalized the provision of relief and reconstruction after natural disasters. I don’t think that was wise. States and localities ought to make their own preparations and save their own money to handle future emergencies.
But at this point, I’m not sure how to extricate ourselves from this process. If Congress passed a law next year to slash federal disaster relief and then Kansas gets clobbered by tornados, their taxpayers could reasonably complain that they helped clean up after North Carolina’s disaster and then didn’t get their “turn” at withdrawing funds for their own.
The next best thing, then, is for future Congresses and presidents to take their budgeting responsibilities more seriously. As I’ve pointed out many times, the opportunity to bring federal revenues and expenditures closer to alignment without painful adjustment has long since passed. The gap is too large.
It can’t be substantially closed by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Nor can it be substantially closed by “tax hikes on the wealthy.” Contrary to popular misconception, the United States already has one of the most steeply progressive tax codes in the developed world. According to the left-wing Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bottom quintile of American taxpayers pay an average of 17% of their income in federal, state, and local taxes. The middle quintile pays 26%. The wealthiest 1% pay 35%.
Washington’s fiscal recklessness should be one of the top voting issues this year. Alas, it isn’t. But ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).
(Photo: Republican lawmakers speak at a news conference introducing the first relief bill for Hurricane Helene. Gov. Roy Cooper signed the bill into law on Oct. 10. Photo courtesy of Chantal Brown, EducationNC)