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Publisher's Pen: Charges filed against Devore: Fact or Fiction?

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Tuesday, 30 June 2026

Written by Bill Bowman

Decided.

The editorial below was authored several days before the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ June 24 decision to dismiss the complaint filed against Cumberland County Board of Elections Chair Linda Devore by county employee Joshua Dovi. The Board found no probable cause to advance the complaint. We predicted this because the outcome illustrates a broader and troubling trend: the use of false and unfounded accusations as a means of weaponizing administrative processes to damage reputations and undermine public servants. Such actions erode trust, distract from legitimate governance, and harm the very communities these people, organizations, and institutions are meant to serve.

For decades, Linda Devore has demonstrated consistent, principled service to the residents of Cumberland County. Her record speaks for itself. The same cannot be said of her accuser. Once again, the principle of “doing the right thing for the right reason” proves reliable.

I encourage you to read the editorial below, followed by Devore’s statement after the dismissal. Up & Coming Weekly newspaper remains committed to reporting on issues that matter to Fayetteville and Cumberland County, guided by the voices and experiences of the people who live here. Thank you.

—Bill Bowman

Here in Fayetteville and Cumberland County, we have an unfortunate tendency to “eat our own.” By this I mean we have an overabundance of small minded individuals who seem determined to find fault with any person, policy, or procedure they remotely dislike — and then proceed to defame or destroy them. 

That’s how I view the situation involving Cumberland County Board of Elections employee Joshua Dovi, who has filed a formal complaint against Board of Elections Chair Linda Devore, accusing her of interfering with board operations, coercing staff and prying into his private family and health matters.

I do not know Mr. Dovi. However, I do know Linda Devore — personally, professionally, and through her long involvement in local business, the Republican Party, and her work as Board of Elections Chair. On the surface, in my opinion, this situation looks like a combination of sour grapes and afternoon soap opera drama. But I’ll let you decide.

Below are Dovi’s accusations against Devore, along with her responses, as reported by Paul Woolverton of CityView on June 22, 2026.

1. Allegation: “Professional Bribe” / Improper Job Offer

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi alleges that Devore encouraged him to apply for a yet to be created management position and that the offer was intended to dissuade him from reporting her conduct. He calls it an “improper inducement” and a “professional bribe,” arguing the position was created by Devore and offered privately to him, raising concerns about her integrity.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore denies the accusation. She states the position was developed by the full board in October — long before any conflict with Dovi — and is still under review by county commissioners as part of the personnel budget. She emphasizes the position was not created for Dovi and would be publicly advertised if funded.

2. Allegation: Distrust of Voting Machines

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi asserts that Devore had an “unfounded mistrust” of the county’s vote counting machines and repeatedly questioned their reliability and security. He says she ignored his assurances that the machines met all specifications and that her behavior amounted to interference with staff functions.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore flatly denies ever questioning the accuracy or reliability of the equipment. She says she frequently speaks about how reliable the tabulators are and considers them “unsurpassed.” She acknowledges discussing potential upgrades to newer DS300 models, but concluded the performance difference was minimal.

3. Allegation: Interfering With Daily Operations

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi claims Devore became deeply involved in daily office operations beyond her authority, including calling meetings with staff independently and overstepping her role as a board member.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore disputes this characterization and states she did not insert herself into daily operations in the way Dovi describes.

4. Allegation: Setting Office Policies Unilaterally

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi alleges that Devore attempted to set operational policies on her own rather than through formal board votes.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore denies acting outside the proper process, stating that the Elections Board sets policies collectively, not individually.

5. Allegation: Pressure Regarding Remote Work Policy

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi says Devore repeatedly questioned him about why he supported a remote work policy and persisted even after he told her the matter was private. He claims she pressured him during a public board meeting to disclose a sensitive personal and family health matter, effectively compelling him to reveal protected health information — potentially violating privacy rights and HIPAA.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore says the remote work issue arose because other employees complained about inconsistent telework practices. She notes that Dovi himself submitted a remote work proposal on April 29, which the board discussed on May 1. She says she has no knowledge of ever pressuring him to disclose personal health information. The board is still considering the policy.

6. Allegation: Pattern of Pressure, Coercion, and Interference

Dovi’s Claim: 

Dovi asserts a broader pattern of coercive behavior by Devore, claiming she pressured staff, interfered with operations, and created an environment of intimidation.

Devore’s Response: 

Devore denies all allegations of coercion or interference, calling the accusations false and frivolous. She also notes that two previous complaints filed against her were dismissed by the State Board of Elections.

Final Thoughts

This complaint — like the two before it — arrives in a politically charged environment with high stakes: a director on leave, staff vacancies, and a major election cycle underway. Dovi’s allegations are serious, but many hinge on interpretation, motive, or private conversations that cannot be independently verified. Meanwhile, Devore is a known entity in local business and political circles, with a long standing reputation reflected in her categorical and confident responses.

Are Dovi’s claims Fact or Fiction? At this stage, it’s impossible to say. Most remain allegations, not established facts.

By the time you read this, the State Board of Elections may have already determined what is substantiated, what is exaggerated, and what is simply workplace drama elevated into a formal complaint. If so, this article may offer helpful context and insight. This is what community newspapers do. Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

Statement on dismissal of charges from Linda Devore

June 24, 2026

Earlier today, the North Carolina Board of Elections dismissed a complaint filed against me by an employee of our Board. The State Board found no probable cause to proceed with the complaint.

Our board functions as a body. Allegations that I made a statement at any time indicating authority to make decisions on behalf of the Board are untrue. In fact, at a staff meeting attended by our Assistant County Manager, Deputy Director, Mr. Dovi, and other staff, we discussed that only the Board has authority to make policy decisions.

I proceeded to call a meeting of our Board for later in the week to take up the issue of an office-wide hybrid remote work policy Mr. Dovi felt strongly about, that had not yet been considered or adopted by our Board. Mr. Dovi was invited and encouraged to offer input and joined our meeting remotely. He was in no way compelled.

North Carolina's election systems, including our paper ballots and tabulator system, are the best in the country. It is the responsibility of our Board to pair these tools with a team of elections professionals who embrace a superior level of integrity to ensure free, fair, and accurate results for our voters and candidates.

When State Auditor Dave Boliek appointed me to serve as Chair of the Cumberland County Board of Elections, a county where he lived and served in the DA’s office for many years, he charged me with raising standards and improving delivery of elections services in Cumberland County, while making it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

Integrity is not optional, nor is it a switch that can be turned on and off. It must guide every decision we make, and action we take.

Nothing is more important than protecting the sacred rights of voters, and the process by which we elect political leadership in this nation, this state, and in Cumberland County, by embracing high and exacting standards, with strong accountability

Our Board has been working for months, laying the groundwork for improving staffing, training, and communications, to provide greater accuracy and transparency in our elections process. We are grateful to the Board of Commissioners for funding our budget request for FY 2026-2027, including an increase in personnel positions that will help us reach these goals.

Our Board continues to move forward with making the Cumberland County Board of Elections the most accountable, professional, and productive office in the state.

Cumberland County deserves no less.

—Linda Devore, Chair Cumberland County Board of Elections

(Photo: Linda Devore-Courtesy photo)

Publisher's Pen: 911 Community Call Center: A decade of delay is more than dysfunction — It’s negligence

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Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Written by Bill Bowman

For nearly ten years, Cumberland County and the City of Fayetteville have been locked in a political standoff over where to build a consolidated 911 Communications Center — a facility that every resident, every business, and every first responder depend on in moments when seconds determine life or death.

In addition to us, the Fayetteville Observer and CityView have documented this saga of feuding City and Cumberland County officials in detail. The facts and need are not in dispute. What is in dispute, embarrassingly and inexcusably, is the location. And, because of that, nothing gets built, and the health, safety, and well-being of every Cumberland County resident continues to be ignored. This is no longer a disagreement. It’s a dereliction of duty and responsibility.

Our current emergency communications system is fragmented, outdated, and strained. The facilities are outdated, and new technology upgrades are long overdue. A combined communications center seems only logical. 

A unified 911 center would eliminate confusion and improve response times, strengthen coordination between police, fire, EMS, and emergency management, and provide better storm, disaster, and crisis response times. When you take into consideration that these duplicate services have tremendous long-term costs for both government entities, they pale in light of the public safety all 350,000 county residents deserve.

After talking with numerous members of the community, both city and county residents, and in addition to advocating for a combined operation, we have concluded a combined City-County 911 Communications Center would be best located centrally on county-owned property centrally located close to the County Government Complex. This would reduce land acquisition costs and locate it near other county emergency services making it easier (and faster) to integrate it with existing county emergency management operations. 

Mayor Mitch Colvin and the city are not in agreement, stating that the center should be strategically located within city limits for faster response times, which they believe better supports urban call volume. 

Well, from where I sit, urban call volume is county call volume. Without a doubt, Colvin’s obstinate attitude toward this project dictates it’s all about wanting the City to build, control and operate the combined 911 Center should it ever be constructed. Well, so I don’t run the risk of being redundant, I’ll refer you to my editorial: Mitch Colvin’s Downtown Convention Center push demands accountability before ambition in the June 10 edition of Up & Coming Weekly (https://www.upandcomingweekly.com/views/12342-publisher-s-pen-mitch-colvin-s-downtown-convention-center-push-demands-accountability-before-ambition). In summation, the City, under Colvin’s leadership, has no successful track record for building, operating, or maintaining such a vital and elaborate operation as a Cumberland County combined 911 center. If that’s not enough evidence, look at the dismal way Cumberland County Parks & Rec assets have been maintained over the years since the city took over that responsibility.

The real problem here is city leadership. Reasonable and honest people could reach a reasonable compromise. However, local residents can’t ignore the institutional distrust, pride, turf protection, and political grudges that override their sworn responsibilities to the public. For nearly a decade, Colvin has chosen conflict over cooperation, posturing over progress, and political gain over the county’s population for public safety. It’s a gross failure of leadership.

Both Cumberland County and Fayetteville City leaders must stop treating this as a political chess match and start treating it as the public safety emergency it is. The residents of Cumberland County have waited long enough, and it’s time their safety should not be collateral damage in this decade long political feud.

A consolidated 911 Center is not a city or a county project. It is a Cumberland County community project. And this community deserves leaders who can rise above petty politics and do “the right things, for the right reasons”. 

If city and county officials cannot come to an agreement soon, then the public should demand new leaders who can. Local lives depend on it. Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

Timeline:

• 911 Community Call Center: An Undistinguished History

• 2014–2015:  Early Start: with inaction on governance or location. 

• 2016: First Formal Proposal: County recommends the Government Complex as a logical site. City officials express concerns about control and operational authority. Talks stall.

• 2017–2018: Tension Grows Between City and County: Both acknowledge the need. But neither agrees on who should lead the project.

• 2019: More Studies, Committees, and Stalemates: Joint committees formed and dissolved without producing a unified plan. Cost increases.

• 2020–2021: Pandemic Exposes Current System Weaknesses: COVID 19 strains emergency communications and highlights the need for unified operations. Despite the evidence of system stress, city–county negotiations remain frozen.

• 2022: The Location Fight Becomes Public: Media begins documenting the feud in detail, with growing distrust between city and county leaders.

• 2023: A Decade of Delay Becomes Impossible to Ignore: Residents, dispatchers, and first responders speak out about the operational challenges caused by fragmentation. Public safety ignored.

• 2024: Renewed Talks, Same Stalemate: County officials prioritize safety, cost savings, and centrality. Mayor Colvin and city officials emphasize control.

• 2025: Public Pressure Intensifies: Community leaders, business owners, and public safety advocates call for action. Ignored. Dysfunction continues with no agreement reached.

• 2026: Still No Decision: Costs have risen, technology has aged further, and Cumberland County residents remain at risk. While Fayetteville has developed a firm track record for failed projects of this nature.

Pitt Dickey: Happy 50th unbirthday, 1976

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Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Written by Pitt Dickey

Have you been enjoying the hype about America’s 250th birthday coming up next week? Did your invitation to the UFC Freedom 250 Punch Out at the White House get lost in the mail?  Are you having a hard time getting psyched up for America’s Quarter of a Millennium birthday party?  Do not despair.  Today, we are going to stain world literature by looking back at America’s Bicentennial Year, the irrepressible 1976. Now that was a party on the 4th of July 1976.  The calendar was thoughtful enough to put the 4th of July on a Sunday in 1976.   The country went nuts on Sunday and hung over on Monday.     Happy days were here again.   If you are not in the 250th spirit for this year, perhaps looking back at 1976 will perk you up.    Get into the 1976 patriotic fervor that spread across the fruited plain like swarms of EF-5 tornadoes in Kansas. 

Climb aboard Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine or Stewie Griffin’s Time Machine (if you are too young to recall Mr. Peabody).  Come visit our old pal 1976, who just turned 50 ½ this week.   1976 started slow, but picked up speed as the clock ticked off the months.    The only event of note in January was that Pol Pot, dictator and all-around champion murderer, declared a new constitution for Cambodia.  February was a mercifully short blur with nothing to report.  Fortunately, in the fullness of time, things started to get more interesting. 

March 1 saw the birth of the world’s first supercomputer – the Cray-1.   Ever since the invention of the supercomputer, things have been great.  Sweetness and light abounded due to this great-grandfather of the cell phone and social media.  People are finally getting together, linking arms, and singing Kum Ba Yah.   March 20 brought the conviction of Patty Hearst for armed robbery.   Patty got kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, was brainwashed, and robbed a bank.  She was quite the superstar in her day.  On March 31, a court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, who was in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her ventilator after a legal fight between her husband and her parents. The USA took vigorous opposing sides in her case.   She remained comatose until she passed away in 1985.

April 1- A couple of obscure nerds, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, formed some computer company called Apple in their garage.  April 5- The Chinese government crushed a large pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square.  One brave soul, armed only with a shopping bag, stopped a convoy of tanks coming into Red Square. April 13- The US Treasury re-issued $2 bills to celebrate the Bicentennial. June 1- The United Kingdom and Iceland settled the 3rd Cod War over fishing rights. The results of the first two Cod Wars are lost to history.

July 4th- America became party central as the whole country celebrated the Bicentennial. Can you imagine America in 2026 jointly celebrating anything?   'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, but it ain’t happening.   Meanwhile, on the same day, Israeli commandos successfully rescued 103 hostages held in a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda.  July 15 – Little known peanut farmer Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for President.   His brother, Billy Carter, went on to invent Billy Beer, one of the worst beers in history.  July 29 – Postal Employee David Berkowitz, AKA Son of Sam, at the command of Sam, his neighbor’s dog, started a series of murders in New York.  Berkowitz was the inspiration for Seinfeld’s neighbor Postal Employee Newman. 

August 19- President Gerald Ford squeaked out the Republican nomination for President over a retired movie actor named Ronald Reagan.  August 26- the second known outbreak of the Ebola Virus popped up in Zaire.   Ebola is currently enjoying a revival, proving you can’t keep a good virus down. September 6- Frank Sinatra brought Dean Martin as a surprise guest to Jerry Lewis at his MDA Telethon. It did not go well.   September 9- Chinese dictator and River Swimmer Mao Zedong died after being responsible for an estimated 30 to 45 million deaths. 

November 2- Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford for President, starting a flood of peanut farmer jokes on late-night TV.  November 3 – The movie Carrie, a touching story of the troubles of a teenage girl growing up with a difficult mom, was released to an unsuspecting public. 

Considering all the colorful events of 1976, 2026 doesn’t seem so bad, does it?  Just remember which side your butter is breaded on.   As Mr. Natural says: “Be like two fried eggs.  Keep your sunny side up.” 

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)

Wait: An invitation to be slow enough to see

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Tuesday, 16 June 2026

Written by Dan DeBruler

Three o’clock in the morning has a way of stripping life down to what’s unresolved.

The noise of the day is gone. The distractions are quiet. The conversations are over. The phone is finally still. What remains is whatever followed us into the dark.

At that hour, solutions don’t usually present themselves. There are no quick fixes, no clean answers, no easy next steps. Just questions. Questions about relationships, decisions, regrets, fears, responsibilities. Questions we managed to outrun in the daylight.

But 3 a.m. isn’t always cruel. Sometimes it’s honest.

It reveals what we’ve been carrying longer than we care to admit. It exposes the gap between what we’ve been managing and what we’ve been understanding. And it gently confronts us with a truth we often avoid: most of what troubles us didn’t arrive suddenly. It arrived slowly.

A marriage doesn’t drift in a day. Burnout doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Anxiety has roots deeper than the moment we finally feel it. We may experience the pain suddenly, but the path that brought us there was usually walked one step at a time.

That’s why hurry is such a poor guide.

When life speeds up, reflection is often the first casualty. We learn to function without noticing, cope without considering, and react without remembering. Eventually, we find ourselves awake in the quiet, facing the weight of something we never slowed down long enough to name.

Scripture teaches us a better way.

God rarely begins by handing us instructions. He begins with context. Genesis tells us creation was very good before explaining how brokenness entered. The Gospels show us the Savior before we fully understand the cost of following Him. The Epistles often remind believers who they are in Christ before telling them how to live. Revelation shows us the end of the story so we can endure the middle with hope.

God often reveals the outcome before He explains the origin because purpose clarifies patience.

We tend to live in the opposite direction. We want to fix what we see before understanding what is growing underneath. We want to solve the argument before tracing the drift. We want to quiet the fear before naming it. We want relief before reflection.

Stories explain symptoms better than strategies. Every meaningful story eventually pauses the climax long enough to ask, “How did we get here?” Scripture does the same. That’s our cue. Maybe the better questions begin here: Where are we? How did we get here? What was God doing along the way? And what does that change now?

Those questions don’t ignore the problem. They help us see it truthfully. They move us from reaction to discernment, from managing symptoms to understanding the story. The problem may not be that we woke up at 3 a.m. The problem may be how long we’ve been moving too fast to see what led us there.

And maybe that hour—unwelcome as it feels—is not an interruption at all, but an invitation. An invitation to become slow enough to see.

Clarity rarely shouts. It waits.