Indian Trail Trader
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 /
5A
2,000 turn out at health care meeting Speakers’ line reached 40 deep
BY JASON deBRUYN
jdebruyn@theej.com WEDDINGTON More than 2,000 people packed Weddington High School to voice their opposition to a governmentrun health care system. Rep. Sue Myrick, RN.C., hosted a town hall at Weddington High School Tuesday night and fielded questions almost exclusively on the proposed overhaul of the U.S. health insurance business. “We all agree that we need to solve a problem,” Myrick told the crowd. “Something needs to be done.” The point of contention, she said, is how. Myrick spoke briefly about her ideas for health care before turning over the floor to the crowd, which at times had as many as 40 people standing in line to speak. There was a smattering of opposition to Myrick’s conservative record and health care proposals. One man posed as an insurance representative and presented Myrick with a large, fake check, sarcastically thanking her for opposing health care reform because it kept big companies in the private sector rich. Last week, a group of Democrats from Union and Mecklenburg counties said they would challenge Myrick at the meeting. “We’ve decided we are going to have some signs, but will not engage in angry rhetoric,” Lynn Slivka, who was helping to organize the Union County Democrats, said before the meeting. “That’s not our M.O.” Slivka said local Dem-
Fugitive Continued from 1A cause the first injury was just beginning to heal.” “It was like the inside of a barn,” Young said in 2006. “This woman was working these girls basically 20 hours a day and wouldn’t give them proper nourishment or any kind of schooling.” In order to keep the girls under her control, Farquharson told the girls she was Christ, citing Bible verses to justify their living conditions. The girls said Farquharson made them take care of 300 chickens, seven sheep, nine goats and more than a dozen dogs. She would tell the girls that the animals were sacred. Without provocation, the girls said, Farquharson would beat them with a wooden spatula or belt, choke them, shave their eyelids and pull their hair. She also trained the girls about how to behave when anyone, including DSS, visited in order to not be found out. Farquharson’s former son-in-law said the girls were “brainwashed.” Farquharson, now 63, had left Monroe, and possibly the country, by the time deputies got there in 2005. Since then, she has been to Spain and was found and arrested in Bulgaria. She could face up to 65 years in prison if convicted on all seven counts against her. “We just got there too late the first time,” Cathey said. “But we kept looking, kept digging and finally found her.” District Attorney John
Staff photos by Ed Cottingham
Protesters appeared to be in the miniority at a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Sue Myrick last week at Weddington High Schoo. At right, Bill Wallace stood in line to express his frustration with President Barack Obama’s administration. ocrats intended to ask Myrick tough questions about health care reform. “We just want to show them that the Democrats are serious about health care reform,” she said. Carol McKee runs a small business and said she pays 100 percent of the health insurance premiums for 18 full-time employees. “I just see it as a moral obligation,” she said adding that she was taught to love her neighbors. “I fail to understand why we are so violently opposed to making sure everyone has health insurance. ... Is greed an American value?” Mostly, though, comments were in support of Myrick and thanked her for representing conservative values of the 9th District. “It’s not about covering the uninsured in America,” Wesley Chapel resident Tony Mangum said. “It’s all about control.” Others echoed Mangum and said they wanted the government to stay out of their lives. Shirley Kohut said she had three close famSnyder said this was a good example of “the long arm of the law” in action. Local authorities worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Division to find Farquharson. Farquharson was ordered held in federal custody pending a detention hearing, which is set for 10:25 a.m. Thursday. She is being held at the Mecklenburg County Jail. The indictment against Farquharson alleges that from about 1995 until December 2005, Farquharson and others conspired to commit the offenses of forced labor, document servitude (withholding or destroying documents as part of a trafficking scheme), and harboring illegal aliens for commercial or private gain. In addition to the conspiracy count, Farquharson is charged with forced labor, document servitude, and harboring illegal aliens, totaling seven counts in all. The charges were initially filed May 24, 2006.
ily members who were in dire need of serious medical treatment at one point in their lives and credited the current system as the only way they would have received that treatment. “Under this plan (pro-
posed in Congress), nowhere can I find that they would get the same care,” she said. Some said that health insurance was not for everyone and Mangum said he did not view health cov-
erage as a human right. Myrick listened to everyone who wished to speak and the town hall was not over by presstime. The Sheriff ’s Office estimated that more than 2,000 people were in
attendance with standing room only in both the auditorium and the cafeteria, which was used as overflow. — Jason deBruyn can be reached at 704-261-2243 or jdebruyn@theej.com.