WHQR's Sunday Edition is a free weekly newsletter delivered every Sunday morning. You can sign up for Sunday Edition here.
Limousine liberals?
Heading into the long July 4th weekend, WECT’s Connor Smith dropped a report on Wilmington officials’ $30,000 tripto Washington in March.
The trip was for the National League of Cities Conference, an annual chance for municipal leaders to compare notes and also get some face time with their Congressional reps and federal agencies. Last year’s trip, which cost about $10,000 less, included a bipartisan delegation. Councilmembers who attended were eager to talk to the press back home to share what they were working on (perhaps a little too eager, as initially I had four councilmembers on a call — a majority of council that was, unintentionally, a quorum, meaning one member had to leave).
This year, six members of council went, including Mayor Bill Saffo, as well as the city clerk and the city’s legislative and intergovernmental affairs director.
Speaking to WECT, Saffo defended the size of the delegation — and the cost of the trip — saying that, in essence, showing up in force added “more gravity” to their asks to Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd and Congressman David Rouzer.
Saffo also acknowledged that, given the city’s recent significant tax hike, the pricetag looks excessive.
“I don’t think the optics are ever going to be favorable to anybody going out of town,” he said, while still defending the need to bring home federal funding for local projects.
And here, I think two things can be true.
First, the trip does look bad. One particular detail that stood out was a car service hired for the day at a cost of over $900, which prompted a conservative friend of mine to call the delegation “limousine liberals” (which, okay, I did laugh at).
Certainly, you don’t have to be right-of-center to feel the populist critique of sending eight people to stay in some of DC’s nicer hotels on the taxpayers’ dime, especially when damn near every public official is talking about affordability.
And, there are examples of more economical approaches. In February, New Hanover County sent a delegation to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, a similar event that allows county officials to share best practices and get one-on-one time with federal representatives and agencies. The delegation included Commissioner Stephanie Walker, County Manager Chris Coudriet, and the county’s intergovernmental affairs manager. The total cost was $8,564.01.
But also, second, it’s worth looking past the optics and asking why the trip was necessary. As the city has noted, individual trips don’t directly result in more federal funding or beneficial policy changes. They ‘help us compete’ for federal resources. I want to think through that for a minute.
Are our senators, congressmen, and federal agencies so oblivious, indifferent, or hostile to the needs of people in Wilmington that nothing short of a full-court press can persuade them to help us?
Surely Tillis, who worked on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and specifically advocated to put funding towards replacing the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, knows that the clock is ticking on the $242-million grant he helped secure — and that constituents from across the political spectrum are furious at the prospect of a toll being used fund a new bridge. And certainly Rouzer, who has offices in Brunswick and New Hanover counties, knows that regulations putting the financial onus for PFAS clean-up on ratepayers are probably equally unpopular across party lines.
And if they didn’t know, would an extra few council members help get the message to them?
On Tuesday, I put these questions to both Tillis and Rouzer’s offices.
As I asked Tillis’ comms team, “Does [Senator Tillis] think these trips are worth the money? Does sending a larger contingent give a city — any city, not just Wilmington — more leverage or a louder voice? Are there issues that the Senator would not know about if it were not for these trips? As one listener put it, 'could this trip have been an email?'”
So far, neither Tillis, Rouzer, or their offices have responded. (And maybe, I concede, that says something about the need to go in person.)
From time to time, I’ve heard courtroom lawyers talk about ‘ugly babies’ and ‘broken legs.’ An ugly baby is, like the $900 car service, something that admittedly looks bad. It doesn’t matter that it’s a rounding error on a rounding error for the city budget, for a cash-strapped resident, who has to wait for Uber and Lyft’s surge pricing to cool off before getting a ride, that’s a lot.
The best way to deal with ugly babies, as the saying goes, is to kiss them. Just hit the issue head-on, and say, as Saffo did, ‘yup, we know this doesn’t feel great to folks who are struggling, but we did what we felt we had to do to get DC’s attention.’ You don’t hide the issue; you just hope enough people give you credit for acknowledging it that it doesn’t derail your case.
A broken leg, on the other hand, is devastating to your case, anyway you slice it. If you’re a defense attorney and your client has a broken leg, you just pray the plaintiff’s counsel or prosecutor doesn’t bring it up or moves over it quickly. Because if they put some weight on it, your client is gonna howl, and the jury’s gonna hear that.
So, should the city have sent so many people, stayed in such nice hotels, etc.? Personally, I don’t think so, but they did, and Saffo owned it. He kissed that baby right on its ugly little forehead.
But should the city have to do that, to get the attention of agencies and especially representatives, whose sworn duty is to look out for our interests, to craft policies that help us, and deliver funding that makes our lives better? To me, that sounds like a broken leg. And hoping no one brings it up isn’t gonna help that bone knit any faster.
Mass Affluenza?
Last weekend, we got an email about a massive fight, known now by some as the “Brawl of Landfall,” which reportedly involved numerous teenagers and young adults. Videos sent to WHQR and circulating on social media show a chaotic situation, and though the Wilmington Police Department has not confirmed their authenticity, several Landfall residents have said they are from the incident.
While some details remain unclear, most accounts agree on a few things. On Friday, July 3, Landfall was celebrating Independence Day with a fireworks show. Residents and guests were spread out on a lawn area. A number of teens or young adults, (we’ve heard as many as 40 people), some of whom were visibly intoxicated, were becoming increasingly disruptive. As Landfall security approached them, a verbal confrontation escalated into a physical fight.
As is the case with most private communities, Landfall’s security members aren’t sworn officers. They can trespass people, but, as noted in emails sent to Landfall residents, they’re not armed and don’t have arrest powers. They’re trained as first responders, but don’t have the experience or the resources to handle violent situations, especially not a riot.
As captured on the videos, a ‘riot’ is a pretty good description of what happened next. One young adult, possibly a teenager, is heard shouting, “we run shit in Wilmington.” Several adults try to intervene, but appear overwhelmed. Reportedly, several security guards were injured, though we don’t know how severely. One video shows a security officer being punched in the face. He was allegedly kicked repeatedly while he was on the ground, although it’s not clear from the low-rez footage we saw.
The security guard, Russell James, was seriously hurt, suffering damage to his eye and a concussion, among other injuries. A Landfall employee for over 40 years, James is reportedly well known and well liked. He’s lucky to have community support; a GoFundMe campaign has raised over $75,000 to support his recovery.
The reaction online fell broadly into two categories. One was a kind of schadenfreude irony, jokes about Landfall being the most dangerous neighborhood in Wilmington, or making sure you were well armed and alert if you were on the golf course after dusk. The other was a sharper critique of how the story was being discussed and handled by the media, law enforcement, and the general public.
I saw quite a few commenters noted that what we had here, ostensibly, was a full-scale riot by affluent White teenagers, crowing about their entitlement while beating a security guard unconscious. Pointedly, many asked people to imagine what would happen if these were Black teenagers, rampaging drunk through the crowds at Live Oak Bank Pavilion, punching and kicking senior citizens.
Where was the hectoring about ‘bad parents’ and culture, the racial assumptions and stereotypes, and all that? Where was the five-alarm media frenzy that some imagined would unquestionably have ensued had things looked different? And where was law enforcement? Where were the mugshots and stern pronouncements from police officials?
The conclusion that many jumped to was that wealth — specifically, a rarified kind of coastal White affluence — and privilege were keeping a lid on things. This was bad PR for Landfall, and the teens and young adults involved, while apparently engaged in violent and likely criminal behavior against other Landfall residents, would likely be protected against public scrutiny.
In defense of the media, there were several stories from multiple outlets. While it's well within the realm of possibility that a wealthy community would try to throw its weight around to quash a story, that clearly didn’t happen. I’ll note that WHQR didn’t run anything, not because anyone leaned on us, but because we didn’t have anything to add to what WECT, WWAY, and others had already published, and also because we were headed into our pledge drive, which tends to narrow our bandwidth quite a bit.
As far as criticism of not publishing the videos (which, again, WPD would not confirm as authentic), I understand the frustration – but given the low quality of the footage, and the increased concerns about deceptively edited (or even AI-generated) material, at the very least I understand why editors would debate it. And, in any case, the videos were out there for everyone to see.
Law enforcement, meanwhile, did seem a little slow to respond, at least in terms of public communication. WPD reportedly responded and took up the case relatively quickly, but we didn’t get a press release until Tuesday, days after the media had reported on the fight.
Criticism was ramped up again on Thursday afternoon, when police announced the arrest of a 17-year-old juvenile, charged with felony assault, inflicting serious bodily injuries. That’s a Class F felony, somewhere in the middle of the scale from the most serious Class A crimes to the lowest level Class I crimes. As I understand it, juveniles can be charged as adults for this type of crime, but not automatically (and there’s a complicated court process to move them into adult proceedings). Because of all that, WPD chose not to name the suspect (which is department policy, I’ve been told).
Still, some recall that, after the 2021 shooting at New Hanover High School, Sheriff Ed McMahon named the suspect, 15-year-old Chance Deablo, even though he was a minor. Deablo was later transferred to adult court and took a plea deal to serve over four years in prison — but some compared the readiness to name him with the privacy allowed the young man charged in the Brawl at Landfall.
It’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. For one, Deablo was charged with attempted first-degree murder, a far more serious class B2 felony (meaning it was more likely he'd be tried as an adult). For another, WPD press officers work under a very different set of policies than McMahon (who did later ask the media to stop using Deablo’s name, even though he was the one who had made it public).
But for the lay person, I can understand the critique: a lower-income Black teenager gets publicly named (and by the elected Sheriff, repeatedly, during a live press conference, no less), while an affluent White teenager gets anonymity.
It remains to be seen where else this investigation goes. WPD has promised more charges, although they haven’t specified if that will mean additional suspects. While some have pointed to the sheer number of teenagers apparently involved as being difficult to reconcile with a single arrest, I think it’s fair to give WPD a little more time (although, obviously, not everyone will agree with me).
There is one final wrinkle here.
Most of the teens present were, no doubt, from affluent families. If some of them are ultimately charged, they will — unless their parents are trying to teach them a very dramatic lesson — have significant legal resources. They’ll have access and options that kids like Chance Deablo usually don’t. They’re not going to prison. Many suspect they’ll be diagnosed with an acute case of affluenza and sentenced to bed rest and maybe some light community service (perhaps some landscaping around Landfall in the fall, when it cools off). I get the frustration, and I think the criticism that underlies it is fair.
But the one teenager who has actually been arrested might not be the poster boy for wanton entitlement that some suspect. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard from several sources familiar with the situation that the young man does not come from a wealthy family, though he’s befriended kids who do. I’ve heard he’s actually dealt with a number of difficult issues because of his background.
Obviously, this isn’t rock-solid reporting. But it’s worth thinking about what it might mean, hypothetically. If this is true, it doesn’t excuse what he allegedly did. But it does complicate what we make of the whole thing, at least a little bit.
This story has obviously evolved into a metaphor over the past week. The simplicity of the narrative makes it a convenient Rorschach, onto which we can project the thing we want to see. I wonder if that will leave any room for nuance, if the details end up being messier and muddier.
We’re Number Two!
This week, CNBC released its rankings of the top states for business, with North Carolina coming in at number two. Ohio took the top spot.
As I’ve written elsewhere, there are a lot of silly ‘best of lists’ that don’t deserve much serious attention from officials or the press, but CNBC’s rankings are built on a sturdy, data-driven methodology (which they update annually, with clear and transparent explanations on how they arrive at their conclusions). In other words, it’s worth paying attention to, in my editorial opinion.
Last year, when the state took the top spot, Democratic Governor Josh Stein came to Wilmington to celebrate the rankings live from the battleship U.S.S. North Carolina. He followed that up with a brief press huddle, where I needled him about the downside of that year’s ranking, the middling grades for cost of living, cost of doing business, and – most of all – the quality of life. As CNBC put it, “while North Carolina is almost unfailingly friendly to business, it is not terribly friendly to workers.”
I won’t rehash our whole back and forth, but suffice it to say, Stein argle-bargled his way out of commenting meaningfully on these criticisms. He wasn’t alone in selectively celebrating; across the aisle, Republicans like Tim Moore and Phil Berger cheered the top ranking without mentioning CNBC’s less flattering analyses.
This year, Stein didn’t make the drive to Wilmington, but his office did send a press release touting CNCB’s rankings for business, economy, and workforce development.
“North Carolina’s got a good thing going. This is the fifth straight year that North Carolina has ranked in the Top 2 states for business. This year, we’re the #1 state for the economy, the #2 state for business, and the #3 state for workforce. I’m proud that we announced a record-breaking number of jobs in 2025, expanding opportunity to every corner of the state,” Stein was quoted in the release.
Stein again avoided the C- grade for quality of life, where North Carolina fell in the rankings from 29th to 34th. In fact, CNBC cited that as one of the reasons North Carolina lost the top slot overall.
CNBC’s rankings are based on a range of factors, including per capita crime rate, environmental quality, healthcare, and the availability and affordability of childcare facilities, all fairly bipartisan concerns. It also includes some issues that would play to Stein’s Democratic base, like worker protections — where North Carolina is particularly weak — and pro-worker policies on wages, leave, and rights to organize (state employees in North Carolina are forbidden from collective bargaining). CNBC has also started including reproductive rights, based on “surveys showing a sizeable percentage of younger workers would not live in a state that bans abortion,” according to the network’s explanation for its rankings.
To be fair, Stein did address the cost of living – where the state has fallen from 23rd to 35th – although not with specifics. (His press release included in the header, "Governor Stein Celebrates North Carolina’s #1 Economy, Calls on General Assembly to Lower the Cost of Living.")
“North Carolina is growing and thriving, and remaining in the top two is just another reminder of all our state has to offer. Let’s keep building our success story by investing in people and lowering the cost of living so that we can build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous North Carolina,” Stein said in the release.
I didn’t see much about CNBC’s rankings from top Raleigh Republicans this year (though I might have missed it). The right-leaning NC Chamber did celebrate the state’s six-year run in the top first or second spot, noting, of course, “let’s be honest. We want the top spot.”
But while the Chamber included “quality of life” among its priorities, it didn’t mention the state’s declining ranking in that category.
All of this to say two things. One, it’s always annoying when leaders cherry-pick the good parts of a report or study and downplay or ignore the bad parts. Two, there’s much to celebrate about North Carolina’s economic success – but it would be encouraging to hear more direct suggestions about how that can translate into better lives for the more than 4 million private sector workers in the state
