Ben Schachtman: So, Nikolai, we're back with another update to the ongoing legal battle between the Pender-Topsail Post and Voice and several Pender County commissioners. Give us a quick snapshot of the story so far.
Nikolai Mather: Okay, so the Pender Post's owners Andy and Katie Pettigrew sued Pender County and three Pender County commissioners — Jerry Groves, Randy Burton and Brent Springer — in federal court, alleging that the commission had violated their first amendment rights — as well as some state statutes. The reasoning they gave for that was that the county commission voted to withhold legal advertisements from the Pender Post and start publishing them in the Wilmington Star-News instead. And they voted to do so after Andy Pettigrew published a series of op-eds and editorial cartoons criticizing those three commissioners. Now, that was back in July, and we haven't really heard from the county's side yet — until Friday.
BS: Right, they finally issued their answer to the original complaint. What did they say?
NM: So the three commissioners, unsurprisingly, denied the claims that the Pettigrews made. They rejected the First Amendment argument, saying that "false statements of fact" didn't qualify as protected speech. They also denied that they pulled funding from the Pender Post as retaliation for these op-eds — their attorneys wrote that their actions had "legitimate government purpose."
BS: Well, I guess that begs the question: what was their legitimate government purpose?
NM: They don't explicitly say in the complaint, but in an attached memorandum they say that a key factor in the decision was that Star-News had a broader reach than Pender Post. Still, as I recall, money was a pretty important part of that conversation too.
BS: Yeah, didn't they say it'd cost more to switch to Star-News?
NM: Yes. During county manager Meg Blue's presentation back in April, she said Pender County spent around $85,000 to publish 209 ads in the Pender Post in 2024 — that works out to around $400 per ad. That same year, the county spent over a thousand dollars to publish one ad in Star-News. If we're going off of those figures, I think it'd be hard to make the argument that their legitimate government purpose was to save money.
BS: So how is the county approaching the suit moving forward?
NM: The three commissioners filed a partial motion to dismiss, saying that as legislators, they have absolute immunity against being sued in a personal capacity – because the Pettigrews sued them both as county officials and on an individual level. They also say "alternatively" – as in, if absolute doesn't work out – they have qualified immunity, meaning protection from civil suits based on decisions they made as county executives that they say didn't violate any law. Basically, it seems like they're trying to re-route the lawsuit to be just against the county, and not also against them as individuals who voted to make this decision.
BS: We do know suing the government can be very difficult because of those various levels of immunity — usually a plaintiff has to show their state or federal constitutional rights have been violated. How successful do you think they'll be there?
NM: It's tough to tell. The commissioners have a pretty strong foundation in case law – they invoke cases where legislators retain immunity even when they make biased remarks or use intimidation tactics against plaintiffs. It's gonna depend on how the judge sees it.
BS: Speaking of which… do you know when the next update is coming down the pipe?
NM: Nope! But thankfully, PACER still works during the government shutdown, so I'm gonna keep an eye out.
BS: Awesome. Well, Nikolai, thanks for breaking it down.
NM: You bet!
