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Nuanced neutrality: State officials say New Hanover County is short 225 hospital beds, and both Novant and UNC Health are submitting applications to the state’s Certificate of Need process (the deadline for applications is Monday, June 15). CON approval, overseen by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, is a requirement for any healthcare company looking to add more hospital beds, services, or major medical equipment.
As part of the CON, the public can weigh in and, in theory, so could local government. According to emails I reviewed this week, Novant has already reached out to ask for a letter of support from both the county and the board of commissioners. UNC Health may soon follow with similar requests. Residents may also turn to the county, asking them to throw their support behind one of the two healthcare companies.
In an email to county commissioners, County Manager Chris Coudriet advised against his office weighing in, noting that his administration would support whichever healthcare system got the green light from the state. Coudriet likewise advised commissioners against voicing support for either healthcare system as a board, though he was clear he had no opinion on commissioners weighing in as individuals — and noted that, if the board did choose to support one company or the other, his office would respect that.
“I would advise the board as a body avoid issuing letters for one healthcare provider over another,” he wrote. “I recognize as individuals you may have separate beliefs, and I’m offering no opinion in that space. Also, if the board chooses to take a position, we will effectuate that faithfully and well.”
Coudriet later added that the county shouldn’t say nothing, lest anyone get the impression the additional hospital beds aren’t needed.
“I had hoped to communicate the nuanced position of not taking a position on the winner(s) of the beds but instead the need of the beds,” he wrote, noting his office was preparing draft language to that effect.
Joe Blow the Ragman: In this week’s edition of The Newsroom, my colleague Rachel Keith helped break down what we learned from depositions in former Cape Fear Community College trustee Ray Funderburk’s lawsuit against the college.
The bulk of the depositions are the sworn testimony of CFCC leadership, and concern the details of the 2023 removal hearing that booted Funderburk from the board of trustees. But as we note during the show, they also provide broader insights into how leadership thinks about the college’s operations and management.
For example, trustee Bill Cherry — who was chair during Funderburk’s removal — was asked about whether he thought Funderburk’s educational background was an important asset for the board of trustees. Cherry said no.
“As I look at CFCC, it's a $100 … $150 million business. It just happens to teach, and business leaders and board members need, since we're involved with signing leases, since we're involved with budgets. I don't see that public education is of any benefit,” Cherry said.
We’ve heard anecdotally for the better part of the decade that this has been the ethos at CFCC, ever since college president Jim Morton was appointed; the requirements for the position were changed in order to hire Morton, who, unlike past presidents, lacked a doctorate or experience in higher education leadership at the time, instead relying on a background in finance. But Cherry’s quote crystallizes it — and puts it on the record.
Another quote from Cherry’s deposition that struck my ear came when discussing the salary of Michelle Lee, once Morton’s assistant and now chief of staff. Lee’s pay has increased dramatically over the last five or six years; at the time of Cherry’s deposition, it was $161,000, and is now around $186,000.
“As a board member, I am satisfied with her salary, but I can see how Joe Blow the rag man walking down the street, that has no salary, would consider that a lot of money,” Cherry said.
Certainly, “Joe Blow the ragman” was an evocative phrase, which I had not heard before.
Joe Blow, though, I’m familiar with. He’s not a bum, but definitely a working-class guy, existing largely at the whims of forces beyond his control and ken (if you’re a Pynchon fan, he’s a preterite type of character). He’s sometimes contrasted with John Q. Public, who is a bit savvier, more civically engaged.
Back in 2015, the talented culture writer Katy Waldman, now on staff at The New Yorker, did a piece on Joe and John for Slate. She tracked the origin of Joe Blow to 1941, and John Q. back further, to 1922, and profiled the two.
“Meet John Q. Public. He also goes by John Q. Citizen and John Q. Taxpayer. He’s an upstanding sort who shovels the ice off his stretch of sidewalk, writes a check to his local ASPCA, and tries to be a loving dad to his 2½ kids. He sits in traffic. He has a particular order in which he reads the newspaper,” she wrote.
“A few miles away lives Joe Blow. His friends sometimes call him Joe Schmoe, Joe the Plumber, Joe Doakes, and Joe Six-Pack. He likes to unwind with a High Life or three after work, especially if there’s a game on, and he’s kept in touch with a few high school buddies who root for the same teams," Waldman wrote.
Waldman explained the not-so-subtle distinction.
“Joe,” she wrote, “[is] more hapless clown than cardboard protagonist, he’s the go-to guy for eliciting low-level condescension, whether it takes the form of scorn, pity, affection, or amusement. His lack of pretense, and especially his galoot moments, entwine uncomfortably with his blue-collar status. If John Q. embodies ordinariness as the reassuring opposite of a scary Other (with the straightforward moral code to match), then Joe represents the ordinary as the not-extraordinary, the mediocre, the earthbound rule to someone else’s exception.”
It’s true that John and Joe are both types of allegorical everyman, and some might use the names interchangeably, despite their difference in tone and tenor — which is where “the ragman” comes in. A junk merchant, trying to resell refuse or cheaply bought wares, the ragman or rag-and-bone man is scraping the bottom of the barrel, sometimes literally, living hand to mouth and — as Cherry himself said — with no salary.
To that kind of pathetic figure, even the entry-level salary of a teacher or a nurse would be enviable. But, given that Lee makes over double the Area Median Income (and President Morton much more), I suspect there are plenty of people — Joes and Johns alike — who might wonder about the administrative compensation at CFCC.
What, to Cherry, does that make us?
