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The Dive: Stein Draws Criticism for Handling of Endowment

Harper Peterson stands in Battleship Park on a rainy day.
Johanna F. Still
/
The Assembly
Harper Peterson stands in Battleship Park on a rainy day.

Every week, WHQR News Director Ben Schachtman sits down with The Assembly’s Johanna Still to talk about our joint newsletter — The Dive. This week, it’s a look at criticisms Attorney General Josh Stein is facing from people who would like him to take a more engaged oversight role over the New Hanover Community Endowment.

The Dive is a free weekly newsletter jointly published by WHQR and The Assembly. You can find more information and subscribe here.


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As Harper Peterson gazed across the river toward the city he once led, he saw inequities in the Wilmington skyline.

Standing in Battleship Park under a drizzle of rain, Peterson pointed out publicly funded, glitzy development projects that city officials prioritized over ensuring the poorest neighborhoods had functioning parks—a blindness he says continues to plague decision-making. He says he’s not a pessimist, but rather an optimist for what could be.

“There’s no political will,” he said, swatting at dime-size mosquitoes. “It’s a free-market, entrepreneur-driven, private-sector community, and they call the shots.”

Peterson isn’t a stranger to lobbing sharp critiques. A one-time mayor and former state senator, the Democratic organizer earlier this year corralled a new coalition together to stand up to some of the most powerful entities in the state: Attorney General Josh Stein and the New Hanover Community Endowment, the state’s largest philanthropic fund per capita. As attorney general, Stein is seen as the only stopgap—other than the Internal Revenue Service—to keep the endowment in check.

Peterson’s group, Heal Our People’s Endowment, has collected nearly 1,240 signatures on a petition urging Stein to intervene in the endowment, which the group believes has suffered from a political takeover.

But Stein has been largely absent on the issue. He’s been busy running in one of the most expensive and—before the latest scandal erupted around his opponent—competitive gubernatorial races in the country.

While Stein has frequented the Wilmington region this year for private fundraisers, local critics, many from within his own party, say he has ignored issues voters in the area care most about, like the state of the hospital and what’s become of the endowment that controls the sale proceeds.

Experts say Stein’s legal authority is limited. Still, Peterson and his group argue the attorney general does have more avenues at his disposal than he is using. They say Stein has failed to fulfill his legal obligations in New Hanover County and now are studying taking legal action against the endowment on their own. Stein has said he imposed conditions in the hospital sale using the fullest extent of the law.

This is the second time in recent years that Peterson finds himself publicly pressing Stein to step it up. As a state senator, Peterson filed a complaint with Stein over the initial sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in 2020, alleging the deal was corrupt and prebaked. Stein never responded.

This time, Peterson received an acknowledgment letter in August from the attorney general’s office’s “constituent services,” but has yet to hear from the man himself.

For The Assembly, Johanna F. Still reports: Stein Draws Heat for Hands-Off Approach To Region’s Largest Endowment