By Jenny Callison, posted Mar 5, 2021
Wearing a mask, Jacquelin Meade listens to presentations from fellow students in her organic chemistry senior seminar class taught by Wendy Strangman, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UNCW. (Photo by Michael Cline Spencer) In addition to anything else that it has wrought, a year of COVID-19 has forced officials, business owners and just about everyone else to use their greatest creative powers and to remain flexible.
In some cases, pandemic restrictions have spurred innovation. In other cases, entities are simply hoping that, as the virus becomes less of a threat, they can return to pre-COVID operations. But no one knows when that will be.
Kevin Mauer, the Director of Community Engagement for the
Cape Fear Collective, on Wilmington s Creekwood neighborhood, and a joint project with WHQR to help bring the voices of residents forward to tell the story of a complicated and misunderstood community.
Links for this episode:
You can find details of North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein s new requirements for the $1.25 billion New Hanover Community Endowment
Find the latest, as of broadcast, on the the school reopening process from WHQR reporter Rachel Keith
A young life cut short. A parent s worst nightmare. Families torn apart.
It s a scenario that played out again and again in the Wilmington area in 2020. With 22 homicides last year, the most in recent memory, violent deaths in New Hanover County have been trending in the wrong direction. Half of those killed last year were 35 or younger, and 18 of the 22 victims died after being shot. These statistics, of course, don t count those who were shot and survived.
Now, a locally made short film designed to get area youth to think before they act is trying to reverse that trend. Stop the Killing from Wilmington filmmakers Nakia Hamilton and Jay James produced in association with the Wilmington Police Department, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, New Hanover County Schools and other area groups was posted to YouTube on New Year s Eve.
The original legal case surrounds whether or not millions that arose out of a July 2000 agreement between then-Attorney General Michael Easley and Smithfield Foods and its subsidiaries actually belonged to the public school system.
Under the N.C. Constitution, penalties must be remanded to public schools in the region being impacted by the violation. But under the legal agreement, Easley directed funds to be held in an escrow account, controlled and administered by his office to approved environmental causes.
A root issue in the case was whether the millions constituted a penalty. The state’s defense centered around the claim the money was offered “voluntarily.” NHCS argued the payments were punitive.