The town pays Up & Coming weekly $28,000 a year for two pages of news per week.
HOPE MILLS — Several Hope Mills town commissioners expressed reservations at Monday night’s board meeting with the town’s arrangement to pay the Up & Coming Weekly newspaper $28,000 a year to publish news about the community.
In an unrelated matter, the town began to again pursue a plan to annex “donut hole” areas, a matter which drew much controversy last year before it was killed by the state legislature.
The board voted in July to pay Up & Coming Weekly to publish news about the town. The reports began in September, when the newspaper began printing two pages of articles and announcements about Hope Mills in every issue.
Some of the items are written by the newspaper’s writers, some are written by town officials, such as Mayor Jackie Warner and Melissa Adams, the town manager.
Publisher Bill Bowman spoke with the board for nearly 40 minutes on Monday to urge the town to keep the arrangement, which he calls the Hope Mills Initiative.
“It is not a contract," Bowman said. "It is a partnership. But more than that, it is an investment. It’s an investment and a partnership because you can’t do it by yourself and we can’t do it by ourself.”
Up & Coming reports news about Hope Mills throughout Cumberland County, Bowman said, and the $28,000 pays for the paper and ink.
Commissioner Meg Larson said she appreciates the coverage, but disliked that the town is paying for it and that town employees are producing the material when they have other job duties.
Others also questioned it.
“You’re using time of the taxpayers," Larson said, "and that’s a really hard, big pill for me to swallow.”
Commissioner Pat Edwards praised the coverage she has seen in Up & Coming.
“Unless we get a lot of negativity from the citizens where they definitely do not want us to do it, I think it’s fantastic,” Edwards said. “There’s so much positivity to it” in its reports, she said.
Commissioners took no action on the arrangement. It may be discussed at the commission's budget retreat.
Donut holes
The town has been told by state Reps. John Szoka and Billy Richardson that the lawmakers are willing to advance a bill to annex donut holes — land that is surrounded by the town but is not part of it.
The board voted unanimously to pursue the matter.
Similar legislation was filed at the General Assembly last year for Fayetteville, and Hope Mills wanted similar legislation. But the bill was blocked in a committee because Szoka did not support it and because some members of the Fayetteville City Council opposed it.
Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@fayobserver.com, 910-486-3512 and 910-261-4710.