Pender County considers Charlie Kirk
On Sept. 4th, the Pender-Topsail Post and Voice ran a cartoon criticizing commissioners Jerry Groves, Brent Springer and Randy Burton. The Pender Post has often objected to the commissioners, but Groves did not take the jab lightly.
"I am offended. I'm very offended," he said during Monday's meeting. "I'm afraid for my life at this time."
The cartoon depicts Groves, Springer and Burton roasting hot dogs over a burning pile of money and newspapers. That cartoon also shows a commissioner smashing a sign reading "Pender EMS and Fire," with a tombstone and cross lying beneath the sign.
"That graveyard could have been meant for me in that paper, and those crosses could have been meant for me," said Groves. "I want a police escort out of this building tonight."
Groves didn't directly mention Kirk's assassination, but the killing has been top of mind for many conservative politicians, including on Pender County's board of commissioners. Chair Randy Burton said during the meeting that political violence and intimidation had no place in Pender County.
"A lot of folks think things that happened in Utah are a long ways away – which they are, but those things are right here," he said. "I won't get into the amount of threats that we receive, sometimes weekly, innuendos and things like that. This has got to stop. None of us up here ask to be threatened, to be bullied."
The Pender Post had no comment on the commissioners' remarks.
Besides the Kirk discussion, the Pender County commission also heard updates on three major county construction projects: the new Department of Health and Human Services building, the new Law Enforcement Center, and the new Hampstead Library. The new DHHS building and the new law enforcement center are projected to be completed in 2026, and the Hampstead Library is projected to be completed in 2027.
Brunswick County considers a school bond referendum
Over in Brunswick County, superintendent Dale Cole asked the commission to hold a school bond referendum in the spring of 2026. That vote would determine whether Brunswick County Schools could open a new elementary school in the fast-growing northern portion of the county. Currently, there are only three in that area: Belville, Lincoln and Town Creek.
"They are all well over what they were designed to be, as anyone that deals with the traffic in any of those three schools twice a day can tell you," Cole said.
The superintendent also proposed adding special modifications to the school to make it a severe weather shelter, which northern Brunswick County currently does not have.
"That's the most populated area of our county," Cole said. "So I think there's a point to be made that if we had another Florence that really hit the northern end of the county really hard… we would need well beyond [the current] space."
The proposal also included renovations to classrooms and playgrounds for PreK students, a second elementary school and a new high school. The project total would come to just shy of $410 million.
It's been ten years since the last school bond. Ultimately, the Brunswick commissioners elected to table the discussion indefinitely pending further research from Brunswick County Schools.
Columbus County considers error rates
Finally, the Columbus County board of commissioners heard a presentation about the impacts of proposed federal cuts to Medicaid and food stamps from county social services director Dwella Hall.
"As of today, there are no final decisions as to what an increase will look like for the county," she said.
Under the federal cuts, North Carolina stands to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid and SNAP. Come 2028, the state will also have to start paying an additional $420 million a year or risk losing SNAP entirely.
That $420 million comes from the state's error rates, or how much money for SNAP or Medicaid is misdirected. But counties also have individual error rates that impact their funding. Hall told the commission that currently, Columbus County has a 5% error rate for SNAP and a 97% error rate for Medicaid. She went on to say that the county should be able to keep its error rate for SNAP below 6% and its error rate for Medicaid over 90%, which would keep Columbus from having to put down extra money for those programs.
"Please note food nutrition and Medicaid error rates operate differently," she said. "However, I am pleased to say that we are in good standing in both of those programs."
