The impact of the 2018 tropical systems in North Carolina wasn’t confined to coastal areas. Near the state’s geographical center, the route of N.C. 42 through Carbonton runs under floodwaters from the Deep River on Sept. 18, in eastern Chatham County, near Lee and Moore counties. Courtesy of the N.C. Department of Transportation.
CAROLINA PUBLIC PRESS | Hurricanes Florence and Michael caused school districts in their paths to miss several days of school. The state is helping districts avoid official penalties, but educators across the state are divided about the long-term wisdom of losing so many days of instruction.
As school districts recovered from Florence, Gov. Roy Cooper signed legislation Oct. 3 to grant calendar flexibility to schools in districts with federal disaster declarations. This allows the districts to waive up to 20 days of absences if they choose to. That choice isn’t necessarily automatic.
According to the N.C. Department of Public Safety, 30 counties have been federally declared for both individual assistance and public assistance, and 11 counties have been declared for public assistance only. School districts located in counties with either of these types of declarations can take advantage of the waiver policy. Although the legislation originally applied to those affected by Florence, it also covers districts with declarations due to Michael.
Valita Quattlebaum, chief communications officer for New Hanover County Schools, said her district will be using this waiver in addition to creating a new calendar to recoup days. Hurricane Florence heavily affected the coastal district’s schools and means of transportation, she said.
“We were out 17 days,” Quattlebaum said. “We had to get our buildings cleaned up, we had to clear up debris and make our campus safe enough for students to go into. We had repairs to do, get rid of damaged furniture, things that had gotten wet.”
Gov. Roy Cooper directed $25 million from the North Carolina Education Lottery Fund on Tuesday to speed repairs to K-12 public schools damaged by Hurricane Florence.
“Students need to get back to learning and educators need to get back to teaching, but many school districts can’t afford the repairs schools need,” Cooper said. “The lives of thousands of students, teachers and families are on hold and they need our help to recover.”
While many schools have reopened since Hurricane Florence struck last month, seven North Carolina school systems remain closed, keeping more than 130 schools out of operation and nearly 90,000 students out of class.
Just four of Craven County’s 23 public schools were open for class on Monday. Three schools in Jones County will have to be entirely rebuilt.
Several affected school districts have depleted most of their contingency funds and need immediate financial assistance to repair roofs, flooring and electrical wiring, eradicate mold and mildew and replace furniture to get schools reopened.
The emergency funds will be administered by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Priority will be given to district and charter schools in Brunswick, Craven, Duplin, Jones, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender and Robeson counties that have immediate repair needs and are not currently in operation.
Some of the repairs should be reimbursable by federal disaster recovery funds. Transferring the money now gives schools quicker help and allows them to retain contractors to speed repairs.
George Alsberg, age 103, of Wilmington, was one of the oldest voluntary evacuees of Hurricane Florence. Photo credit: Taylor Knopf
NORTH CAROLINA HEALTH NEWS |
That’s the takeaway from a state-compiled list of the adults who died as a result of the catastrophic storm. It shows that two out of three North Carolinians who died during or as a result of Florence were 60 or older, and nearly half were 70 or older. The median age of adults who died during or as a result of the storm was 67, while the statewide median age is 38.3.
“Vulnerable adults are more likely to be impacted because of their social isolation, or not having the supports they needed in areas like transportation,” said Heather Burkhardt, program coordinator at Resources for Seniors in Raleigh.
The list of deaths tied to the catastrophic September storm grew to 39 on Oct. 1, when Gov. Roy Cooper announced two deaths, one of a Pender County man, 69, who fell off a roof Sept. 22 while repairing storm damage. A list supplied by the Department of Public Safety showed that people older than 65 represented:
Six of 11 people who drowned in motor vehicle accidents,
Five of six people who died of medical causes such as cardiopulmonary distress or COPD
A couple, 86, who died in a fire caused by the use of candles while power was out.
Three of the victims were infants and two others did not have listed ages. Of the 34 adult deaths with ages attached, 21 were older than 65.
Perhaps the most poignant death was that of a man, 82, who committed suicide in Carteret County after Florence devastated his home. “Shot self when house condemned,” read the terse DPS account of the death.
LONGLEAF POLITICS | Hurricane Matthew struck eastern North Carolina on Oct. 9, 2016.
A full 18 months later, some of the first federally funded repairs are slated to begin this June.
Hurricane Matthew has re-emerged as a political issue in Raleigh as thousands of people in eastern North Carolina await public money to rebuild.
The storm was one of the most devastating in North Carolina’s history, killing 31 people and caused more than $4.8 billion in damage. Matthew set rainfall records in 17 counties, and 2,300 people were rescued from floodwaters.
Why is recovery taking so long?
It mostly has to do with the processes set up to distribute the roughly $1.7 billion in recovery aid expected from the federal and state government.
While the initial response from the N.C. National Guard and FEMA came quickly, North Carolina has been in no hurry to distribute money intended for longer-term recovery.
And as it turns out, there’s a huge difference between money that’s been approved — and money that’s actually been used.
The breakdown of funding sources is an alphabet soup of agencies, each with its own policies and mechanisms and hoops to jump through. State governments have incentives to get roads repaired quickly. Homes, not so much.
Here’s a quick explanation of how disaster recovery works. It’s ordered by how quickly money has been distributed.
Analysis by the Environmental Finance Center compares water and sewer revenues with operation and maintenance costs. Gray dots show municipal systems that have enough revenue to cover expenses. Peach-colored pentagons show show those with enough revenues to cover their combined expenses and debts. The bright red squares represent those without enough revenue to cover regular operating and maintenance expenses. Almost a quarter of systems across the state fall in those categories coming up short. Thanks, in part, to Florence and Matthew, many of those are clustered in the east.
CAROLINA PUBLIC PRESS
Taking stock of what it will take to rebuild after Hurricane Florence, it’s important to remember that even before this year’s hurricane season started, the finances of dozens of water and sewer systems throughout North Carolina were already underwater.
Some were damaged in prior storms. Many more across the state are caught in a long-term downward spiral of declining jobs and population.
As policymakers begin to shape the state’s rebuilding program in response to Hurricane Florence, they must deal with the already distressed systems and those damaged in the most recent storm. They must also come up with a long-term solution to a chronic statewide maintenance backlog.
These will be the key steps toward building resiliency, especially in the hard-hit eastern region of the state.
At a recent General Assembly committee meeting in Raleigh, Edgar Starnes, legislative liaison for the N.C. Department of State Treasurer, said 37 water and sewer systems in Florence disaster areas are going to need significant help dealing with the damage.
“The repairs they’re going to face are going to be very expensive,” he told members of a joint House and Senate committee studying water and sewer systems in a post-storm assessment held in late September. “They’re in a lot of trouble because of the flood right now.”
The damage to those systems and the floods that followed resulted in tens of millions of gallons of wastewater and sewage spills.
Some of the systems were the same as those damaged in 2016, when Hurricane Matthew roared through many of the same communities.
The Center for Environmental Health, The NC Conservation Network, Cape Fear River Watch, Working Films, and a coalition of environmental groups throughout North Carolina are holding a statewide screening tour of The DevilWe Know . A screening in New Bern is at 6:30 p.m. today.
In this new documentary film by Stephanie Soechtig, citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical — now found in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans — into the local drinking water supply.
New Bern screening is at 6:30 p.m. today (Wednesday) at The Harrison Center, 311 Middle St. It is hosted by The Carolina Nature Coalition.
Brian Powell, communications director for the NC Conservation Network, outlined how the issues in the film are all too familiar for NC audiences: “The Devil We Know serves as a compelling and ominous prequel to the water contamination crisis impacting North Carolina as a result of widespread chemical dumping — particularly as it relates to GenX contamination of the Cape Fear River from the DuPont spin-off corporation Chemours.”
Emily Sutton, Haw Riverkeeper, and host of the Greensboro screenings said, “While The Devil We Know is about West Virginia, perfluorinated compounds are contaminating drinking water supplies throughout the state of NC as well. These are compounds that do not break down in traditional drinking water treatment. Many are known to be toxic to human health. North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency have carelessly allowed industry to dump toxins into public water supplies for decades. It is time to take action to protect human health and the health of our waterways.”
Each event will feature post-screening discussions led by local organizations that will show audiences how to stand against these toxic waste practices including demanding that PFAS chemicals get listed in the US database for toxic releases, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) – ensuring that companies must disclose when they release these chemicals into the environment.
NORTH CAROLINA HEALTH NEWS | Farmer markets around the state will have another month in the busy summer growing season to figure out how to keep accepting food assistance benefits electronically at their stands.
The National Association of Farmers Market Nutrition Programs (NAFMNP) announced Thursday it will send a month’s worth of operating funds to technology company Nova Dia Group to keep its MarketLink software running until the end of August, according to a news release sent out Thursday.
The move came just two weeks before 1,700 farmers markets around the county, including 45 in North Carolina, would have to stop accepting the Electronic Benefit Cards (EBT) that many depend on. No permanent solution has been announced.
At farmers markets around North Carolina, the tables are piled high with tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, peaches and more.
But even as the growing season is peaking, some folks who might want to buy will have a harder time bringing those fresh fruits and vegetables home.
That’s because the technology company that currently processes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) benefits at 40 percent of the country’s farmers markets will stop doing so at the end of July.
Left in the lurch in North Carolina are 45 farmers markets, farm stands and mobile markets and the low-income customers that use their SNAP Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to buy that produce through a purchasing program that runs off of Apple iPads and iPhones, according to Lisa Misch, a program coordinator who works on food access issues for the Pittsboro-based Rural Advancement Foundation International.
The Austin-based Nova Dia Group confirmed to the Washington Post early last week it planned to cease operating the technology it sells to farmer markets after July 31, setting off a panic among those who run farmers markets and public health officials working to boosting SNAP use at those markets.
A bill seeks to address the problem of people languishing in hospital EDs, waiting for a psychiatric bed, but mental health advocates decried the process.
In the waning days of this year’s legislative work session, lawmakers abruptly revived and passed a bill aimed at revising North Carolina’s laws to address the flood of people with mental health crises in hospital emergency departments.
Officials from the state’s hospital association had convened administrators, advocacy organizations, academics, mental health professionals and others over several years to examine some legislative fixes. Those leading that effort say they’ve come up with a bill that will improve processes for people who find themselves in crisis.
“We did this because we were tired of seeing these people, these humans trapped in a system that there really was no escape, this system of [involuntary commitment],” said Julia Wacker who leads mental health policy analysis for the North Carolina Healthcare Association. “This is far too often the way of treatment … stick these folks in handcuffs, put them in a squad car, and take them to the emergency department.”
But trust is hard to come by in North Carolina’s mental health system, and people who have been part of that system as consumers of services say they feel let down by a process that excluded their voices, as many of the state’s most prominent self-advocates were not invited to participate. They say any result will fail to account for the pain they’ve experienced as a result of the state’s fractured behavioral health system.
Long-time mental health advocate Martha Brock in 2016. She has long argued for more inclusion for people who have been served by the mental health system in decision-making at the state level. Photo credit: Karen Tam
“They did not tell us about this bill,” said longtime advocate Martha Brock, who has been hospitalized for mental illness in the past.
Brock, who serves on the state Consumer and Family Advisory Committee, which informs the Department of Health and Human Services on behavioral health issues, said that she was frustrated after being shut out of the negotiations around the bill. She also has problems with some of its provisions.
Another longtime advocate Laurie Coker complained that the bill was revived suddenly, moved quickly, and that they were given little time to respond to changes made in the final draft. Both women expressed concern about definitions of “incompetence,” about who gets to make decisions for a person once they’re engaged in the behavioral health system, and about the privacy rights of people in that system.
And their complaints hint at some of the long-standing divisions within the mental health advocacy community itself, as well as the problems that come when institutions communicate with a limited pool of advocates.
NC Civitas | The state budget for FY 2018-19 contains nearly 170 line items totaling $30 million that are highly inappropriate or outright pork.
Appropriations directing funding to local pet projects include items such as walking trails, playgrounds, county fairs and highway signs. Moreover, dozens of nonprofit organizations receive direct appropriations in the budget. Make no mistake, these nonprofits perform admirable work. However, it is highly inappropriate – and unfair favoritism – to single out nonprofits for specific appropriations of state tax dollars, instead of having them go through the appropriate grant process.
There is little doubt that a large percentage, if not all, of these earmarks represent legislators trying to “bring home the bacon” to their districts in an election year. State taxpayers should not be forced to finance explicitly local projects.
Note that the items identified in this article include only adjustments made to the second year of the biennial budget passed last year. There no doubt are many more such earmarks that will be doled out this year that were previously included in last year’s budget.
Legislative leaders have rightly been criticized for the closed-door, non-transparent process used in crafting the budget. It is plausible to believe that these 166 line items were the result of political horse-trading behind closed doors, which left virtually no time for objections from legislators before the House and Senate voted.
Such a significant number of earmarks, while not adding up to a major percentage of the budget in dollar terms, raises legitimate concerns about political patronage in which representatives direct state funds to local projects in exchange for political support.
Below is the list of these items Civitas has identified:
Republican’s school safety plan makes some temporary changes, while giving lawmakers time to assess what else might be needed.
Education NC | Republican lawmakers announced at a press conference last month $35 million in school safety grants that made their way into the revised 2018-19 budget.
The one-time money is meant to temporarily address school safety needs while the state gathers more information on what districts and schools require to protect students.
“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,” said Rep. David Lewis (R-Dunn). “I think this is an ongoing process.”
Image courtesy: NCGA Republicans
The school safety plan stems from work performed by a committee on school safety that came into existence following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida and met regularly prior to the short session.
Governor Roy Cooper has his own school safety plan in his budget proposal. It amounts to a total of $130 million, including $65 million for making buildings safer and $40 million for additional personnel. Legislative Democrats also floated a similar plan yesterday.
But Republican lawmakers say it is too soon to know exactly how much money is needed. Part of the ongoing process going forward will be getting reports from districts sent to the state Department of Public Instruction so that legislators can understand what schools require. Rep. Linda Johnson (R-Kannapolis) said additional recurring money needs to be added to the budget in the future.
“Because the issue came up at the time that it came up, and the amount of effort that had to go into it, this is not the end, this is just the beginning,” she said.
The Republicans’ plan also includes between $30 and $90 million in new federal funding for student health, but that will not come until the second year because North Carolina needs a Medicaid State Plan Amendment before it can start collecting the funds. Essentially, the money will come from reimbursements from Medicaid for services the state is already providing.
Longleaf Politics | The latest major court ruling stemming from the General Assembly’s infamous 2016 “power grab”1came on Friday, as the N.C. Supreme Court settled a battle between the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education over direct control of the public school system.
Both the state superintendent and the Board of Education declared victory after the decision. But the ruling is very clearly in favor of the General Assembly and the elected superintendent.
As it turns out, sometimes even a power grab results in clearer public policy.
What was the lawsuit about?
Let’s start all the way at the beginning: the state constitution. It sets up two distinct bodies tasked with public education.
The State Board of Education is directed to “supervise and administer the free public school system.” The Superintendent of Public Instruction, elected statewide every four years, is to “be the secretary and chief administrative officer of the State Board of Education.”
There’s not a whole lot of direction as to how this is to work in practice. That’s mostly been left to the General Assembly, and over the years the pendulum of duties has swung back and forth.
Once it became clear that Cooper would be the new governor, with the right to appoint State Board of Education members, the state legislature decided to tweak the responsibilities of the board and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 34-year-old Republican Mark Johnson.
Some of the changes are more technical. Instead of the State Board of Education being in charge of establishing “policy,” it became responsible for “all needed rules and regulations” for North Carolina’s public schools.
The more substantive changes come to the superintendent role. Previously, the job was to run the day-to-day operations of the public school infrastructure “subject to the direction, control, and approval of the State Board.” That phrasing was removed in several places.
While the board remains the policymaking body, the superintendent now has clear responsibility for running the department.
The new deal with state lawmakers that the memo discloses is a little in the weeds. The bill in question is House Bill 500, currently under consideration. It’s an omnibus ABC bill, meaning that it makes a lot of little adjustments to the state’s alcohol laws. It passed the House last April and is now in Senate committees.
The bill got a few new amendments in a Senate committee. One enables wholesale business owners to transfer control of the company to a family member. Previously, this could only be done upon the business owner’s death.
A second new provision ends a practice where big brewers were able to determine who a wholesaler could sell his business to.
Another new provision ends a mechanism where “suppliers” — meaning beer brewers — could own part of a wholesale business for eight years and make business loans to help other companies acquire wholesale businesses.
In all three cases, the changes make North Carolina’s alcohol laws just a little bit more wholesaler friendly. In the third part, that comes at the expense of beer brewers.
The bill passed committee as amended, but must first go to the full Senate and then back to the House now.
All that’s not the interesting part, though. The bill as a whole makes sense. Why should a big beer brewer be able to dictate how a wholesaler sells his business?
The interesting part is how the changes came about.
Longleaf Politics | Hurricane Matthew struck eastern North Carolina on October 9, 2016.
A full 18 months later, some of the first federally funded repairs are slated to begin this June.
Hurricane Matthew has re-emerged as a political issue in Raleigh as thousands of people in eastern North Carolina await public money to rebuild.
The storm was one of the most devastating in North Carolina’s history, killing 31 people and caused more than $4.8 billion in damage. Matthew set rainfall records in 17 counties, and 2,300 people were rescued from floodwaters.
Why is recovery taking so long?
It mostly has to do with the processes set up to distribute the roughly $1.7 billion in recovery aid expected from the federal and state government.
While the initial response from the N.C. National Guard and FEMA came quickly, North Carolina has been in no hurry to distribute money intended for longer-term recovery.
And as it turns out, there’s a huge difference between money that’s been approved — and money that’s actually been used.
The breakdown of funding sources is an alphabet soup of agencies, each with its own policies and mechanisms and hoops to jump through. State governments have incentives to get roads repaired quickly. Homes, not so much.
Here’s a quick explanation of how disaster recovery works. It’s ordered by how quickly money has been distributed.
Now that neighbors to one hog farm have one court victory against the world’s largest pork producer, state legislators are moving to shield hog farms from nuisance lawsuits.
This is not the first time the General Assembly has tightened protections for both livestock growers and the corporations that own the animals they raise. They’ve done it multiple times in recent years, sometimes in direct response to court cases.
The 2018 farm bill, on a fast track for approval in Raleigh this week, would create a statute that says a farm cannot be considered a nuisance in a courtroom if that farm complies with relevant regulations and operates like others in its “region.”
Legislators must take steps to defend an agricultural sector that is so important to North Carolina’s economy, said bill sponsor Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Autryville, who represents Duplin and Sampson counties, the two top hog-selling counties in the United States.
“Our goal is to ensure that all farming operations are protected from frivolous lawsuits,” Jackson said in an email Wednesday. “Due to recent judicial rulings, it has become blatantly obvious that the legislature must take action to clarify our intentions and correct these misguided rulings.”
But one of a team of in-state and out-of-state lawyers representing 500 citizens who are suing Smithfield Foods and alleging nuisances at 26 farms sees it differently.
The General Assembly is taking a highly unusual route toward accomplishing its even-year requirement, a budget adjustment bill.
It’s a little complicated and hard to understand. But the way that House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger are choosing do to things has already drawn strong condemnation from Democrats, who are calling it a “sham” process.
And while the state’s minority party is often hyperbolic and hypocritical in calling out political gamesmanship — this time, they might have a point.
It’s all about November.
Let’s get beyond the finger-pointing. Here is what’s actually happening.
Craven County Republican Scott Dacey’s gamble didn’t pay off.
Dacey gave up his seat on the Craven County Board of Commissioners in a quest to unseat U.S. House of Representative District 3’s longtime, wacky Walter Jones.
Instead, Dacey came in a distant third in a three-man race. Dacey wasn’t even able to win his home county, losing to Jones by nine votes.
Dacey describes himself as a Trump Republican, so much so that his campaign website is DaceyTrump.com.
Dacey attempted to connect Jones, one of the higher-rated congressional conservatives from a variety of conservative rating systems, with Democrat congresswoman and conservative pariah Nancy Pelosi.
(See Dacey’s somewhat creepy campaign video here and watch him speak without moving his lips at the end.)
“Our President needs a congressman he can count on,” Dacey proclaims on his website, which between it and his campaign was heavily funded by donations from outside the district (list here)
Dacey’s “donate” button is labeled “Donate to Scott’s MAGA fund.” He received numerous donations from the Indian tribes that he serves in his day job as a Washington D.C. lobbyist.
In all, Dacey raised $357,497 for his campaign, compared to $2.77 million raised by Jones and $209,082 raised by Phil Law.
(Fun fact: You can tell a lot about a candidate by who puts skin into the game to get him elected. Here is N.C. Rep. Mike Speciale’s contribution report. Speciale raised $332,481 — almost as much as Dacey but for a much smaller district, and at the state level. Speciale won his primary race against Eric Queen, whose contribution report got lost in the mail or something because it reports he raised zero dollars, which is unlikely.)
Dacey claims on his website that Congress and the Washington establishment are the problem, and that Walter Jones is part of the problem.
Anyone who would think of Representative Walter Jones as part of the Washington establishment is deluded. Jones transcends party politics and remains one of the few members of Congress on either side of the aisle who will vote his conscience and his district’s needs over party politics.
Dacey? Not so much.
Anyway, Jones finished with 20,862 votes, 43 percent of the total. Law and Dacey split the rest, with Law pulling in 14,266 votes and Dacey collecting 13,380.
Dacey’s strongest showings were in Jones and Lenoir counties, where he came in first. Law won his former home county of Onslow (he lives in Raleigh now). Jones took the remaining 14 counties, most significantly Carteret, Pitt and Craven counties, which pulled in the highest numbers.
No Democrat filed to run for the office, so absent a strong write-in campaign, Walter Jones keeps his seat. He has vowed that this will be his last term.
Meanwhile, E.T. Mitchell, a former appointee to the New Bern Board of Aldermen, has won the Republican primary for Dacey’s old seat on the Craven County Board of Commissioners. There is no Democrat in the race, so again, absent a write-in campaign, she will take over for Dacey after the November elections.
Eric Queen, a retired Marine seeking to unseat N.C. House District 3 Rep. Mike Speciale, is a Bronze Star recipient. I asked Queen for details.
Here is the narrative on the Bronze Star award:
For exceptionally meritorious service while deployed in support of Operations Enduring Freedom as a member of the Recruiting Assistance Team, NATO Training Mission and Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan. As the primary convoy commander, Staff Sergeant Queen planned and executed over 100 convoy missions accumulating 8,000 miles on some of the most dangerous routes of Afghanistan, placing him at significant risk to hostile action multiple times weekly in the execution of his mission. This was accomplished with no loss of life or injury to himself, his crew or his passengers. As the advisor of the Afghanistan National Army Recruiting Command Security Company he trained 100 soldiers in the proper techniques in manning entry control points. His performance in a combat zone reflects great credit upon himself, NATO Training Mission and Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan and the United States Marines.
From 29 June 2009 to 5 January 2010.
Speciale was also a career Marine, serving from 1973 to 1995.
The Republican primary for N.C. House District 3 has two former Marines squaring off against each other. The seat, occupied by Tea Party firebrand Mike Speciale, has been under Republican control since Norm Sanderson unseated Alice Underhill during the GOP sweep of Raleigh in 2011.
Speciale, a former Marine who has been unpopular among Democrats and traditional Republicans but loved by everyone else, has been noted for being outspoken and divisive, quite a change from the affable Sanderson, who went on to become a state senator, and the even more affable Underhill.
Eric Queen
Seizing on Speciale’s precarious position, New Bern resident and retired U.S. Marine Bronze Star recipient Eric Queen announced he will challenge Speciale in the Republican Primary for the N.C. House District #3 position.
The primary election will be May 8.
“I believe the voters in Eastern North Carolina are ready for a change and want to put a Common-Sense Conservative in the General Assembly. It is time to elect a Representative that has beliefs and priorities that are actually in line with the voters he or she will represent. I am confident the voters will see that I am that candidate”
Queen’s website goes further, describing other candidates as having “extreme right or left wing views that do not match the beliefs of the very people they claim to represent.”
Queen retired in New Bern after serving 21 years in the Marine Corps 14 years as a military police officer and seven years as an infantryman. Queen spent seven of those years at Cherry Point, including his final duty station serving as the Military Police Services Chief.
Queen and his wife Carrie married in 2000 and have three children Alexis (17), Alyssa (16), and Eric (14). More about Queen on his website, here, and Facebook, here.
More about Speciale, who also lives in New Bern, on his website, here, and Facebook, here.
A lagoon for hog waste. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture
Craven County Republican Scott Dacey’s gamble didn’t pay off.
