Note: You can sign up for The Wilmington Dive, a free weekly newsletter from The Assembly and WHQR, here. And, you can find this week's edition here.
Ben Schachtman: All right, Johanna Still, thank you for being here.
Johanna Still: Thanks, Ben.
BS: So this week, you had a piece about State Treasurer Dale Falwell.
JS: Yep. He is becoming more of a household name around here.
BS: And up at the top of your piece. You mentioned a couple of quotes that have been ascribed to the way he has sort of taken a special interest in financial dealings of local government here, words like “vendetta” and “retaliation.” Give me a little background. Where did these come from?
JS: Right. So the context of this is that New Hanover County is trying to get through this museum-library overhaul called Project Grace. First time that went through, the Treasurer, Folwell, was opposed to the financing scheme. And so the county officials expressed, you know, disappointment. But this time around, you know, they're done being diplomatic – is basically what happened. And so the quote you referenced, I think it was last week or two weeks ago, County Chair Bill Rivenbark said, this man has a personal vendetta against us. Treasurer Folwell is expressing his disapproval of certain aspects of the deal. And so I think that at this point, the county’s tired, and they're now – as we've reported – they're ready for next week, the Local Government Commission, which is in charge of basically approving the financing of the deal, they're going to meet next Tuesday. Right now, the county's project isn't on the agenda. But they're going to show up in Raleigh anyway. And that's some of the you know, stuff that's happening behind the scenes where the county officials are attempting to lobby Treasurer Folwell’s board to try to make sure that they can be considered at that meeting.
BS: Yeah, I'm told that Project Grace is on the agenda, but only as a discussion item. So it's not an item that's up for a vote. And county commissioners and staff are hoping to convince the rest of the Local Government Commission Board to basically do an override vote and override treasurer Dale Folwell, although Folwell noted that hasn't happened in like the 70-year history of the commission. And a lot of this, for some of the county officials I've spoken to and you have spoken to, feels like this goes back to the hospital sale process, which started in 2019. Dale Folwell was extremely opposed to this, he actually ran ads, commercial advertisements against the sale. And so for some of the county commissioners, we've talked to this seems like he's been just punishing the county,
JS: Right, I guess. Now it's this sort of opposing ideals — from the county side, this man just doesn't like us. He doesn't like the way we do things. And then from his side, Treasurer Folwell, he doesn't like the way they've gone about business. So it really has come down to a personality issue.
BS: And to be fair to the county, you know, watching this process, the first time, Project Grace was kind of shot down or kind of failed to launch under then-Chairman Julia Olson-Boseman, Treasurer Folwell laid out how he sort of wanted this to look. And it did look like the county, working with Brian Eckel, who's the developer, were kind of hewing to that plan. And it does feel from the county's point of view, like he's moved that goalpost.
JS: Right, so the county did change the financing structure of Project Grace. And so when they came back, the second time around with the new financing structure, I think that's where some of this really started to fall apart. So in their point of view, ‘we did what you said, and now you still don't like it. So what more is there for us to do?’
BS: Yeah, overall, there's sort of a difference of philosophy here where Dale Falwell sees this as an opportunity for the county to use the money that it already has in the bank to build a very nice library and museum. And the county sees it as this broader economic development initiative that would pretty much reshape Downtown Wilmington, from their point of view. And I guess we just have to wait and see sort of whose vision emerges triumphant here.
JS: It'll be very interesting to pay attention next week to what's going to happen, especially with whether or not the other commission members will override Falwell's decision to not have this on the agenda. So next week could be a showdown. We'll see.
BS: All right, Johanna Still, thanks so much for being here.
JS: Thank you.
