Wayne Week — March 10, 2024

DOWNTOWN N E XT

As nearly 1,000 visitors converge on Goldsboro for the N.C. Main Street Conference, the woman who created the Downtown Master Plan talks about what is next for the city's core.

BY KEN F INE / p.14

MARCH 10, 202 4

Volume 1, Issue 30 NEWOLDNORTH.COM

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CONTENTS

4 Goldsboro hires new consultant to fight for Seymour Johnson

As local leaders continue to unwrap how they were blindsided by news the 4th Fighter Wing would be losing a squadron and its mission would be evolving, Goldsboro Mayor Charles Gaylor tells members of the City Council it has never been more important to have as many advocates in Washington as possible.

7 Primary turnout drops again

Back in March 2016, more than one third of Wayne County's eligible voters cast a ballot in contests with countywide and national implications. Eight years later, that percentage dropped by more than 10 points.

8 WCPS has spent $1 million on virtual teachers this year

Eight local public schools are utilizing teachers on a screen as the district continues to try to fill its ranks.

10 Our take

Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Marc Whichard delivered a great speech at the Maxwell Center Feb. 29, but not allowing the community to ask questions was, in our view, a missed opportunity to show parents, teachers, and students that he is serious about accountability.

14 Cover story

As nearly 1,000 visitors converge on Goldsboro for the N.C. Main Street Conference, the woman who created the Downtown Master Plan talks about the next steps for the city's core.

20 Spectator

With a last-second victory over Hertford County Tuesday evening, the Goldsboro High School varsity boys basketball team punched its ticket — for the second consecutive year — to the NCHSAA Elite 8.

COVER PHOTO BY SKY'S THE LIMIT NC, LLC

NEWS + VIEWS

Goldsboro hires new consultant to lobby for SJAFB

As leaders continue to unwrap how recently announced F-15E cuts caught them off guard, Mayor Charles Gaylor said the city needs as many people in Washington advocating for the Air Force base as possible.

BY KEN FINE / Goldsboro

In what Mayor Charles Gaylor characterized as a “first step,” the Goldsboro City Council voted Monday to partner with the county to hire a new consulting firm to lobby “on behalf of our federal objectives” — mainly, the future of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base — in the wake of local leaders being blindsided by a Feb. 11 Wayne Week report that uncovered upcoming changes to the 4th Fighter Wing’s mission.

Those changes, which were confirmed by 4th Fighter Wing Commander Col. Lucas Teel, include the deactivation of the 333rd Fighter Squadron and the reclassification of the 335th Fighter Squadron from an operational unit to one that simply trains future F-15E air crew members.

The move by the council comes nearly a month after the mayor and other local and state leaders expressed frustration with what were, at that time, the city’s paid boots on the ground in Washington — members of the Roosevelt Group which, according to the company’s website, provides “continual awareness of issues that matter most” to its clients’ “success” — because they had no knowledge that Seymour Johnson would be losing the 333rd as part of what military sources have since acknowledged is a future that will see one of the Air Force’s largest tactical fighter units shifting its mission to training.

“We’re going to have to reassess who some of those downstream relationships are with. There’s no doubt about it,” Gaylor told Wayne Week in February. “We can’t be caught off guard on something this big. We knew the overall math (as it relates to future F-15E divestments). That has been out there. But the timing of when the tails are actually going to be leaving our base … that is stuff that we should have known. And we’re spending a fair amount of money to make sure we do know. So yeah, those are things we have to be pretty blunt about.”

It appears that reassessment has happened, leading to the city cutting ties with the Roosevelt Group and contracting with another firm, Crossroads Strategies, LLC.

“When we learned that we were losing a squadron at Seymour Johnson, Friends of Seymour didn’t know. Our lobbyist that we had on retainer didn’t know. Our congressional delegation didn’t know. Our state delegation didn’t know. We all found out about that in a backwards way,” Gaylor said Monday. “(Crossroads’) efforts would be specifically around our agenda towards protecting the ground and the facility that is Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. We all know that the F-15 is an aging airframe, but it’s an

amazing airframe. So, we want to do what we can to protect that airframe for as long as it has strategic viability within the Air Force, but we also — and this is where we need help from our politicos, seasoned lobbyists, and consultants — we need to make sure that we’re in line for the next mission.”

Community leaders, airmen, military spouses, and business owners have been on edge since Air Force brass first recommended, back in July 2023, that the USAF be authorized to cut its F-15E fleet by more than 100 aircraft

— leaving just 99 Strike Eagles in an inventory that currently boasts 218.

And Sen. Ted Budd, understanding the harm such cuts could inflict on Seymour Johnson and the county and state that houses it, tried to derail the move — inserting language into the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent divestment of “any F-15E aircraft.”

But his efforts would come up short, and the final version of the Department of Defense

Continued on page 7

PHOTO FROM UNITED STATES AIR FORCE VIDEO

Airmen from the 333rd, 334th, 335th and 336th Fighter Generation Squadrons compete in a weapons load competition at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

★ All Wayne County residents vote for the At-Large Candidate!

Continued from page 4

spending plan that was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden allowed for 68 of the Air Force’s dual-role fighters — more than 31 percent of its active fleet of Strike Eagles — to meet the chopping block by the end of 2029.

Still, local military advocates remained confident Seymour Johnson’s aircraft would be spared.

In a press release issued in early January after a Wayne Week report on the passage of the DOD plan that included F-15E cuts, Friends of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base President Henry Smith “expressed confidence that negotiations would continue.”

He said he believed “no rash decision” would be made regarding the 4th Fighter Wing’s fleet and that he “firmly” believed that “retaining upgraded F-15E strength bolsters our near-peer deterrence posture.”

But less than a month later, Friends of Seymour members were among those taken aback when Teel confirmed that “the recently approved divestment of some F-15E aircraft will result in the restructuring of our fighter assets.”

fighter squadrons, the 335th and 336th, for years and years and a “two years and you’re gone” scenario that would be the reality for those who would come here to learn to fly before leaving Seymour Johnson for good.

“I want to go through and find out what, when, how, and why. That way, I’ll know how to use the resources — the contacts I have in Washington — to see if we can stop this from happening,” he said. “And if we can’t stop this from happening, can we go on offense to pick up more missions to support Seymour Johnson?”

“I feel like right now is a pretty pivotal time to make sure we are putting the right assets downrange in D.C. to make sure we have a seat at the table.”

– Charles

Gaylor

Since the announcement, despite a request for comment, no public statement has been provided — nor has an interview request been granted — by Smith.

Others, though, didn’t hold back.

North Carolina House Majority Leader Rep. John Bell reacted to the news by saying he felt like somebody “fell asleep” on protecting the base — and then, vowed to do everything in his power to fight to change the tide because he understands that a shift to a training-only mission for the 4th Fighter Wing could have serious implications for the community.

There is, he noted, a big difference between having high-ranking officers plant roots in Wayne County because they know they could be bouncing back and forth between the base’s two tactical

Less than one quarter of Wayne voters cast ballot

Voter turnout was substantially lower than it was in comparable Primary elections in March 2020 and March 2016.

BY RENE E CAREY / Wayne County

PGaylor argued Monday that hiring Crossroads is a “critical” piece of that offensive.

“I feel like right now is a pretty pivotal time to make sure we are putting the right assets downrange in D.C. to make sure we have a seat at that table,” he said. “We would have, it would certainly be my expectation, that we would have a seat at the table in conversations with Crossroads — that the lobbying strategy would be something that this council would have direct input in.”

And despite concerns expressed by Councilman Roderick White about a lack of “deliverables” spelled out in the contract — and the idea of paying a lobbyist to do the work he has been told Sen. Thom Tillis and other elected officials are doing currently in an attempt to delay the changes the Air Force plans to make at Seymour Johnson — Gaylor argued that having as much of a presence in Washington as possible has never been more important.

“The document presented is a lot thinner and less descriptive than most contracts you would expect at this price point, for sure,” the mayor said. “But I’m kind of viewing this as a mixture of an insurance policy and a test to see how we’re going to be able to make this thing work. I just want to make sure that other folks aren’t able to get into some of our representatives’ ears and turn them.” n

articipation in the democratic process continued its downward trend Tuesday, as fewer than a quarter of Wayne County’s eligible voters cast ballots in a Primary Election that all but decided who will represent two districts on the Board of Commissioners for the next four years.

The data reflects a nearly 10-percent drop from the March 2020 Primary — the last time voters’ decisions had both countywide and presidential implications — and a more dramatic decline from March 2016, when more than a third of the community’s eligible voters took to the polls.

This time around, only 16,769 of 74,555 potential voters — 22.49 percent — made picks in races that covered everything from which person would be their party’s presidential nominee to who might represent them on the Wayne County Board of Education. By comparison, 23,150 people cast ballots in March 2020 and 24,411 participated in March 2016.

And several of the local races were consequential, as primary challenges from within incumbents’ own parties determined who would run unopposed in November. In other words, many of Tuesday’s winners will, without unprecedented write-in campaigns, take the seats they filed to fight for.

Examples include:

• Incumbent Commissioner Joe Daughtery appears to have held off challenger Craig Uzzell 1,009 to 895, although the results will not be official until the county canvass March 15. Should the certified results affirm Daughtery’s win, he would run unopposed for the District 6 seat in November.

• Challenger Tim Harrell appears to have handily beaten incumbent Freeman Hardison 1,732 to 492, although the results will not be official until the county canvass March 15. Should the certified results affirm Harrell’s win, he would run unopposed for the District 4 seat in November.

Continued on page 8

VOTER TURNOUT TRENDING DOWN

Over the last three Primary Elections held during a year in which Presidential candidates were on the ballot, Wayne County voter turnout has declined each time.

16,769 of

voters cast a ballot

Continued from page 7

County residents had plenty of opportunities to ensure their voices were heard, as beyond the absentee process, 15 days of early voting were offered at four locations — the Wayne County Public Library, Maxwell Center, Mount Olive Train Depot, and Fremont Town Hall.

And while Voter ID regulations remain in place, local Board of Elections officials have consistently said that little to no problems have surfaced as a result — particularly given the fact that even without an ID, everyone would have an opportunity to cast a ballot, even if those who failed to present identification would be required to follow a few additional steps to do so.

Other Primary results of interest set up November races many are keeping their eyes on. They include:

• Incumbent Antonio Williams appears to have held off challenger Tondalayo Clark 752 to 408, although the results will not be official until the county canvass March 15. Should the certified results affirm Williams’ win, he would face former Mount Olive Town Councilman Steve Wiggins to determine who will hold the District 2 seat on the Wayne County Board of Commissioners for the next four years.

• Newcomers Bridgette Cowan and Richard Taylor appear to have received the top two vote counts in a threeperson race to appear on the November ballot for the Wayne County Board of Education’s District 3 seat being vacated by incumbent Patricia Burden, who decided not to seek reelection. Although the results will not be official until the county canvass March 15, Cowan received 1,378 votes and Taylor received 809 — both earning wide margins over Alex Asbun.n

WCPS has spent $1 million-plus on virtual teachers this year

Eight public schools are currently utilizing a program offered by Elevate K-12 that brings “live” teachers to classrooms amid staff shortage.

BY RENEE CAREY / Education

In several classrooms on several campuses, Wayne County Public Schools students are learning from a teacher on a screen — a program adopted as a partial solution to the district’s shortage of educators.

And, so far this year, putting virtual educators in classrooms has cost the district a little more than $1 million, as school leaders continue to try to figure out how to attract more teachers to Wayne County.

The virtual certified teachers are being provided, remotely, by Elevate K-12, an organization whose stated goal is to “enable high-quality, live teaching for every learner in the United States, so they receive the education they need to identify and pursue their unique passions in life.”

The service addresses a need that is occurring across the country — fewer candidates willing to take on a classroom.

“Amid crisis-level teacher shortages, we are expanding access to live education in classrooms across the country, so no student is without a teacher, no matter where they live or what their circumstance,” a statement on Elevate’s website reads.

And while the district was unable, by press time, to offer comment on whether or not the program has been a success this year, data from two of the schools using Elevate K-12 were among the numbers presented by Central Offices leaders to members of the Board of Education earlier this winter as a progress report of sorts requested by board member Bill Joyner.

At Eastern Wayne High School, virtual teachers were utilized in two Biology sections during the fall semester. According to data reported by the district earlier this year, of the 108 students who took the Biology End-ofCourse exam at EWHS, only 30 — or 19 percent — earned a “proficient” rating.

And at Wayne Middle/High Academy, Elevate K-12 staffed two English II sections in the fall. None of the Wayne Academy students who took the English II EOC were deemed proficient.

According to an itemized invoice provided to WCPS and reviewed by Wayne Week via BoardDocs,

Continued on page 10

Continued from page 8

eight campuses are currently utilizing remote teachers who have been providing instruction in everything from science and social students to math and English.

Of those schools, five earned either a “D” or “F” on their 2022-23 report cards, two received a “C,” and Wayne Middle/ High Academy was not given a grade.

Five campuses that utilize Elevate K-12 are middle schools, including two — Brogden Middle and Eastern Wayne Middle — at which math and English sections are taught by virtual teachers.

Last year, Brogden reported 23.1 percent and 20.5 percent grade-level proficiency in reading and math respectively, and at Eastern Wayne Middle, 31.3 percent of students were reading at grade level while only 26.9 percent were proficient in math.

The following is a breakdown of which campuses have utilized — or are currently utilizing — Elevate K-12 this academic year. Included are their 2022-23 report card grades:

• Brogden Middle School: 13 periods are being taught remotely in social studies, math, and English. The school received an “F” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Eastern Wayne Middle School: 12

periods are being taught remotely in math, science, and English. The school received an “F” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Greenwood Middle School: 4 periods are being taught in science. The school received a “C” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Mount Olive Middle School: 11 periods are being taught in science and social studies. The school received a “D” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Rosewood Middle School: 4 periods are being taught in social studies. The school received a “C” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Eastern Wayne High School: 6 periods are being taught in science. The school received a “D” on its 2022-23 report card.

• Southern Wayne High School: 12 periods are being taught in English and math. The school received a “D” on its 2022-23 report card.

After seeking and receiving approval for an additional teacher for Eastern Wayne Middle School during the Board of Education’s March 4 meeting, WCPS will, after paying for that adjustment, have spent $1,026,044 for the 2023-24 school year on the Elevate K-12 program.

A request for the current number of teaching vacancies in WCPS was not fulfilled by press time. n

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Recipient of 2019 and 2020 Readers’ Choice Award

Here’s a little inside baseball. There’s some sleight of hand going on. An ante has been upped. And Wayne County Public Schools has thrown down a gauntlet of sorts.

It’s a good play. And if the stakes were not so high, if a little deflection, a stacked deck, and some manufactured cheers could solve what this county faces, we might even entertain it to see where it goes.

But it doesn’t change the facts. And it won’t fix what’s ailing us. Only facing the truth can do that.

The big budget reveal last week led by Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Marc Whichard was a nice rallying cry.

Whichard is a good public speaker — a really good public speaker — and his speech was a rousing call that “things are getting better” and that slowly, but surely, the district is “moving the needle.”

And if pithy stories about East Carolina football and well-crafted lines were enough to quell the concerns about Wayne County schools, well, mission accomplished.

But like a good mystery, that was just the surface. And to get the real story, you have to look closer.

The reason for the big meeting, and, honestly, why it was so important that the room was stacked, is because the school district is under a little pressure now. The announcement about plans to shuffle around a few schools, well, that did not go over so well.

So, Whichard and the school district touted this meeting as a “conversation.”

But that was before the firestorm started — most, but not all, of which was centered on the district’s decision to close Edgewood Community Developmental School, and to move the students there to a wing at Eastern Wayne High School.

The plan also included moving Wayne Academy students to Eastern Wayne’s “modular suites,” and Wayne School of Engineering to Wayne Academy’s then-vacant building.

Oh, and Goldsboro High School students are shifting to the WSE space. But don’t worry, the Cougar tradition will still be intact because, as Whichard put it, the WSE building is “closer to the (GHS) gym.”

Needless to say, other than the School of Engineering move, the decision — which unfolded after exactly zero debate and with no real notification to the public that it could be handed down — has been polarizing.

It’s also why there were no questions taken during Whichard’s Maxwell Center event. Not one.

Here’s something else you might not know.

Sure, there were a bunch of people at that

ILLLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF

THE NEEDLE — AND THE DAMAGE DONE

meeting — close to 1,000, one of the school board members estimated.

But if you looked closely, you might notice that more than half of them looked familiar.

That’s because the district’s teachers got the message from their principals — and by proxy, Central Office — that making sure they were in attendance would be very smart. So, they were.

There were some other familiar faces, too — a sprinkling of public officials, community leaders, andbusinessownersWhichardhasbeenmeeting withsincehetookoverasWCPS’superintendent.

But there was one very big omission.

County government officials and several members of the Board of Commissioners.

Had they been there, they would have heard the clarion call — the dig, not so disguised, about how the problems the school district faces, in part, and most specifically, the inability to get goodteachers,iscausedbythecounty’slackluster performance in the funding department.

And here’s who else wasn’t really there — students and parents.

In a district that serves some 17,000

students, the fact that only a few hundred non-teachers, elected officials, Central Office staffers, and community leaders showed up speaks volumes.

So does the fact that the few dozen who came to talk to the superintendent and the board about the future of their soon-to-bemoved schools did not get the chance.

All they got was a lecture about “not believing the sensationalism.”

Believe it or not, that dig was likely directed at us. The implication is, of course, that we are stirring up a hornet’s nest, and manipulating the emotion surrounding the school board’s facilities’ plan and the way it was promoted as a community discussion but was dropped on the parents, teachers, etc. without any conversation at all.

But here’s the problem.

No matter how hard you try to control the narrative — at the board’s most recent meeting, several people who came to speak about the facilities plan were denied because they didn’t know they had to sign up in order

to make remarks — this issue is not going away.

It is an emotional decision to make such changes — and one that has significant implications, especially given what the community has discovered recently about the future of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

So, just accepting the superintendent’s rosy speech was not really enough to believe, no matter how much we would like to, that the district is indeed headed in the right direction.

You see, we have been asking for months to speak to school officials, to be able to ask real questions.

Finally, a few weeks ago, we got the chance to speak to Whichard. He answered some of our queries and passed on others.

But the bottom line was, he said, that the district was moving forward, the recent round of test scores were “encouraging” and that the main impediment to having a “low-performing district” designation as a “one and done” was the amount of money the county was willing to spend on school improvement in general and teacher supplements in particular.

We had an interview with the school board chairman, Craig Foucht, scheduled too. But he “respectfully” pulled out at the last minute.

You can rest assured, we would have been fair and let him speak to the community he represents. We did, after all, editorially endorse him to be the BOE chairman.

But we would have also pressed him on a couple of issues.

You see, right now, there is no time for softballs.

So, we would have asked about those scores — which were not exactly front and center at that public budget meeting, by the way.

We would have asked about the implications of the district’s facilities’ plan on the future of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

And we would have asked how, in the face of more missteps and bad decisions by a prominent board member and with evidence that gross mismanagement of funds in the past led to the massive deficit that got WCPS to this point, anyone would be ready to fork over any more money without an assurance of oversight.

We would have asked Foucht those things because he is currently board chairman.

But those questions should really be directed at the board’s former chairman and longtime board member, Chris West.

And, we might have asked Foucht and Whichard about another elephant that was in the room at the Maxwell Center — the $400,000 attorney recently rehired by the board.

You know, the same one who has taken home massive paychecks from the district for years.

Would the Edgewood and class size decisions have been different had the district not had millions of dollars in legal expenses since 2017?

And there was another piece of information that was not discussed at that meeting.

You will notice that we have included a story in this week’s edition about another expense — nearly a million dollars so far this year on virtual teachers — including some rather surprising costs, like $6,000 planning periods.

That’s right. There are a number of classes at schools with significant test score issues that are being taught remotely, by a teacher on a screen.

Want to place a bet on how that turns out?

Whichard would have you believe it all goes back to those supplements. We think the truth includes just a bit more.

There are significant problems in our schools. Teachers are quitting in droves — and it is not just about the paycheck they are taking home.

It is about having to work for administrators who don’t back them up when students come to class under the influence of drugs or verbally abuse staff.

It is about being forced to “teach” using the district’s latest expensive quick-fix computer program without proper direction or training.

It is about having to give up planning

periods to cover other teachers’ classes because substitute teachers are getting harder to come by these days.

It is about hearing your school board is at the beach eating crab legs and filet while you are crowdsourcing school supplies.

It is about the decision to move students who are discipline problems — removed from traditional classrooms, in many cases, because of the worst kind of offenses — and dropping them into trailers on a campus where there are already concerns about fights, discipline, and learning quality.

And it is about a small school that is home to a group of young people who face significant delays and challenges, who are being uprooted to a hallway in that same school with the admonishment that “they will adjust.”

All the while, we have a $25,000 payment to a board member’s son here, a planning retreat to Ocracoke there, and a $400,000 attorney.

That is why teachers have had it.

But perhaps we have overlooked something. Maybe there are answers to the questions we would ask if we did not have to repeatedly ask for someone to allow us to ask them.

We are not holding our breath.

But there is one bright spot. Maybe we can count on the commissioners asking some budget and performance questions when they meet — allegedly — with school officials in the near future.

We hope so.

And, in turn, we hope that the school district comes with some questions for the county, too, and some statistics about what level of investment is really needed to fix what ails our county schools.

In the meantime, we can point out one very important lesson, one that should be front and center for anyone in this community who is charged with setting a course for our future.

Hiring consultants too quickly to address problems like how in the world the city, and everybody else, was blindsided by the Air Force’s decision to reduce the number of fighter squadrons at SJAFB without boundaries for those consultants and measurable outcome expectations is not the answer. (You were absolutely right about that, Goldsboro City Councilman Roderick White. Bravo for having the guts to ask the city to think before it “panic signs” itself into another potentially expensive and ineffectual contract.)

And, most importantly, understand that dog and pony shows without substance — without allowing exchanges between the public and leadership that gloss over the bad stuff, well, they simply don’t accomplish anything.

Openness matters. And so, too, does the ability to explain and to defend the decisions that are made in the name of the people you serve.

Because, in the end, you did pledge to do just that.n

As nearly 1,000 visitors converge on Goldsboro for the N.C. Main Street Conference, the woman who created the Downtown Master Plan talks about what is next for the city's core.

BY KEN F INE

DOWNTOWN N E XT

COLLECTED PROPERTY TAX DATA — 2014 to 2023

It’s a late February evening in 2007 and an urban designer is addressing the Goldsboro City Council as a crowd of more than 100 local residents listens in.

And as she shows off a series of drawings — sketches of what the city’s core could look like should the board adopt her Downtown Goldsboro Master Plan — “oohs” and “aahs” fill the second-floor conference room inside City Hall. There was the park that used to run down the middle of Center Street — an expanse of green lined with bushes, flowers, and towering trees.

There were water features.

And, perhaps most importantly, there were people — lots of people — utilizing the city’s core in a throwback to a bygone era when seemingly everything happened downtown.

“It’s easy to say, ‘This could never happen here,’” she says. “But it can.”

Fast forward nearly two decades.

Allison Platt, now a longtime Goldsboro resident, no longer has to officially pitch anything to members of the City Council.

Her Master Plan was adopted and, over time, realized in ways she always imagined it could.

Sure, there are still vacant buildings, and the revitalized residential district has not yet been realized, but many of Wayne County’s youngest citizens — and the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base personnel who have been stationed at the Goldsboro installation in recent years — have no memory of a time before Center and its surround streets were bustling.

From coffee shops, an antique store, boutiques, and restaurants to apartment buildings, salons and a brewery, downtown’s offerings draw nearly every demographic.

And that’s not including those who converge on the fountain, veterans memorial, or art alley to start Graduation Day, Prom Night, Sweet 16s, or wedding celebrations with the perfect photoshoot.

But Platt is quick to remind those enjoying the fruits of more than 17 years of labor that it almost didn’t happen.

“What I remember is there were those six to eight people who were just discontent with everything and they’re, by the way, in every city where I’ve worked,” she said. “But they were so vocal, they went to see the council people and the council started to think, ‘Well, maybe people really don’t want this.’”

And were it not for former Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. Executive

GOLDSBORO

WAYNE COUNTY

SPECIAL SERVICE DISTRICT (MSD)

GOLDSBORO TAXES (MSD)

Continued from "Downtown Next," page 15

Director Julie Metz rallying supporters of the plan, what county residents and tourists alike have come to enjoy over these last few years likely would not have existed.

“She rounded up every person who mattered in Goldsboro and brought them to that meeting and the council people all went, ‘Yes,’” Platt said. “It might not have happened otherwise.”

This week, nearly 1,000 visitors from across North Carolina will converge on downtown for the annual N.C. Main Street Conference — to both see how far Goldsboro has come since the plan was adopted back in 2007 and to learn from successes and failures experienced along the way.

But for Platt and Erin Fonseca, the DGDC’s current leader, their presence means more than a chance to receive pats on the back.

It’s an opportunity for local leaders and downtown stakeholders and advocates to realize they need to finish what they started.

“I think it’s a kick in the ass for us. It’s like, OK. We were celebrating the last time they were here and saying, ‘Look what we just did.’ And now, they’ll see the growth, but for us, it’s a time to refocus and remember what we’re capable of,” Platt said.

We need to look at Goldsboro Union Station as the hub for future development. There's a lot of work being done to drive activity to the station and it's all based around Union Station being an anchor.

Fonseca agreed. “I think it’s a way to kind of re-energize the downtown development effort, and it also acts as a visual reminder of why downtown development matters,” she said. “For the community to see all of these visitors from across the state coming in to learn what we’ve done in downtown Goldsboro and the growth we’ve seen from it, I just think that’s a shot in the arm for the rest of the community to get behind downtown development.”

Because in reality, there is still more work to be done.

For Platt, the two pieces of the puzzle that have yet to be placed are residential development and the restoration of Union Station.

“I would love to check those off and those are some really big checkmarks to make,” she said.

And while she acknowledged that there are “a lot of dynamics we don’t control with (Union Station),” recent developments — from the city and county agreeing to match privately raised funds to stabilize the building to federal and state governments opening the door, once again, for potential passenger rail service returning to Goldsboro — have brought the dream of a bustling train station back to the fore.

“Goldsboro is sort of in a middle place. It’s not on the coast and it’s not really within driving distance of Raleigh. But if we get the

railroad back and reborn a little bit, I think it would change the dynamics in a huge way,” Platt said. “I think it would be the lynchpin for Goldsboro being able to support itself.”

Fonseca took it a step further.

“We need to look at Goldsboro Union Station as the hub for our future development,” she said, adding the Arts Council of Wayne County and View at Wayne National’s proximity to the station, combined with a restored depot, could encourage people to fill in the gaps between them. “There’s a lot of work being done to drive activity to the station, and it’s all based around Union Station being an anchor.”

Residential development would be in the mix in that area, too, as Virginia Street has become a focal point since the DGDC shifted its philosophy on how best to realize the goal of more people living is the historic district.

“It’s really challenging to look at the historic neighborhood as a whole. It’s much easier to focus in on certain areas and try to make progress in one and then move to another,” Fonseca said. “We found that, perhaps, scale and scope is more significant as far as moving the needle than focusing on one house at a time. So, if we can help stand up an organization that has the capacity to acquire multiple properties and

Continued on page 18

Continued from "Downtown Next," page 16

rehab them in a way that is consistent with what our historic neighborhoods require, we should identify those entities and get behind them.”

But it will take a vision — and a city willing to incentivize potential investors — to begin to turn streets like Virginia into thriving neighborhoods.

“Who are the end users? Are we looking at owner-occupancy? Are we looking at someone who is going to come in and buy houses for rental inventory? Who are those people and how do we make it worth their while?” Fonseca said. “There’s a way to do it. We just have to find the right people. And I think we as a city have to be prepared to help them find a way to make it work. If we’re putting up barriers for redevelopment then we’re going to lose some of these developers.”

And Platt mentioned another place where residential development still makes sense — a location, the last two blocks of Center Street, she said back in 2007, and again last week, would be “perfect for townhouses.”

“I think people from the base or young couples would absolutely adore that,” she said. “They would have that streetscape right in front of them. They could walk downtown to restaurants.”

The good news for Goldsboro leaders is that the plans are already completed.

“It’s really important to be proactive, so planning is a huge piece of preparing for growth. It’s a roadmap, essentially. Without that, it’s hard to maintain priorities with changes in leadership,” Fonseca said. “It takes some really difficult decision-making at times to bring about progress and the best way to weather changes in leadership is to have a solid plan. So, that’s what we had in 2007 and we’ve gotten through a lot of changes in leadership because we’ve had that roadmap.”

And Platt believes that after a few years with leaders who had other priorities, now is the time — with a downtown-friendly City Council — to get back to the task of fully realizing a vision that has transformed the county seat’s core into a place that serves as a seemingly constant draw for people from all walks of life.

“There are a lot of really talented, really dedicated people here. But they haven’t been pulling together because that vision has kind of disintegrated over time,” she said. “When we did the first part of the work, we had a lot of really good leaders. And not to knock the last couple of years, but I think we were lacking vision and drive. I feel very optimistic now. I think the right people are in place on

We have to keep going. We have to move forward.

the council and the mayor and hopefully we’ll find a great city manager. That’s what it takes.”

They will be the ones who can set policy on, for example, vacant properties.

“There are other Main Street communities that have adopted vacant building ordinances and that is my No. 1 goal in the next year. If we can adopt a vacant building policy, we can start to turn over some of these properties and put them back into productive use. That benefits everyone,” Fonseca said. “Essentially, you have to demonstrate to the city that you are working on preparing your property for occupancy. You can’t use your property for storing junk.

You can’t put brown paper in your windows. Broken windows, boarded up windows, they are not a sign of progress. They don’t do any favors to your downtown. The end goal is to reduce vacancy and reduce blight. We have countless people coming in who are looking for a move-in-ready space and we just don’t have those readily available. So, the less vacancy we have, the better it is for business.”

And they can ensure downtown’s multimillion-dollar streetscape is being properly maintained — and that developers are incentivized to do business along Center and the streets the surround it.

Platt has faith that the Main Street Conference will give those who pull the levers a renewed sense of pride in all that has been accomplished — and a much-needed jolt.

After all, people like those currently serving on the City Council, men and women who remind her of former Mayor Al King and the late Chuck Allen, are why she took a chance on Goldsboro in the first place — and why she decided to make the city her home.

“That’s why I moved here. You had people like that in place,” Platt said. “The (downtown Goldsboro) project, in my whole life, it’s probably the project I’m the most proud of. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. So, we have to keep going. We have to move forward.”n

Monday

Hours:

Friday

the SPECTATOR

Cougars "elite" once again

With a last-second victory over Hertford County Tuesday evening, the Goldsboro High School varsity boys basketball team punched its ticket — for the second consecutive year — to the NCHSAA Elite 8. For complete coverage of the game, a home tilt against Fairmont scheduled for March 8, follow New Old North on Facebook and Instagram.

Photos by

Ken Fine

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