Rachel Keith

Entering the latest fiscal year, the top administrators in local government got pay bumps and bonuses — though some got more than others, and one actually gave money back.

On today’s show, Rachel Keith sits down with me to unpack her latest reporting on over a dozen resignations from Cape Fear Community College's nursing program. Plus, Port City Daily’s Brenna Flanagan stops by to discuss New Hanover County Schools' town hall and the latest on North Carolina’s film incentive program

This spring, CFCC hired a consultant to review the efficiency of its nursing program, and subsequently updated its policy for how faculty meet their workload expectations. After that, over a dozen faculty members left the college, some of whom told WHQR the exodus was directly due to the policy change.

Near the start of Tuesday evening’s New Hanover County school board meeting, Libertarian member David Perry abruptly left the dais after his colleagues declined to take up his motion. Perry wanted formal adoption of raises for board members — but his colleagues felt it had already cleared the proper channels.

Last week, UNCW Swimming and Diving and the Wilmington Swim Academy finished their series of free swim lessons. The volunteer-driven program is designed to teach younger kids a crucial skill for living in a coastal community.

At Tuesday’s agenda review meeting, the New Hanover County school board debated the form they’ll use to excuse students for off-campus religious-based education. At their upcoming meeting, they’ll look at policy changes to public records requests — some of which, as currently proposed, appear contrary to open records law.

Back in February, the City of Wilmington’s Board of Adjustment voted unanimously to grant a variance so that the developers of the Wilmington Housing Authority’s Hillcrest community could cut down six live oaks, some of which are over a hundred years old; however, some in the community are still campaigning to save them since shovels haven’t hit the ground yet.

On this episode, WHQR's Benjamin Schachtman and Rachel Keith dig into the latest season of the Scene on Radio podcast. Co-hosts John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika took a long, hard look at why people are upset with the news, what’s really wrong with our media ecosystem, and how things might be different — and better.

WHQR dug into campaign finance reports for 20 candidates vying for spots on the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education, along with seats in the state House of Representatives and Senate. This report takes a look at the over $2.5 million raised among the dozen and a half candidates, where their money is coming from, and what they’re spending it on so far.

North Carolina Marine and Estuary Foundation has allocated about half a million dollars to researchers at UNC Chapel Hill to investigate why two prominent local watersheds — Bradley Creek and Hewletts Creek — continue to have high fecal coliform levels. WHQR brought in Chad Thomas, who leads the nonprofit. He worked as a fishery scientist for the North Carolina Resources Commission for 30 years.