County Loses Course in Canceling Ads in The News-Journal

Opinion: When the Hoke County Commission vengefully cast legally required advertising adrift from The News-Journal, it scuttled any belief in their leadership, financial skill and legal knowledge.

Hoke County is now needlessly spending an extra $4,000 to $10,000 annually to run legal ads in the more expensive Fayetteville Observer. The Hoke County Commission made that decision in an effort to keel haul The News-Journal after it had no choice but to sue to gain access to public records that are, well, public. It’s not a lot of money being steered into Cumberland County pockets, but it clearly demonstrates the commission’s fiscal irresponsibility and disdain for local business.

Any household would jump at the chance to trim those amounts from their annual budget. The sum is apparently inconsequential to the landlubbers at the helm. It’s tax revenue, after all, not their money.

Fiscal Exposure

Some of the county’s ads still leak into the Hoke County newspaper, but exclusively from the few departments closely monitored by the state and/or required to submit copies in reports and filings. All rezoning and related announcements—often the bulk of ad buys؅—currently head to the scarcely circulated-in-Hoke Observer.

That appears to be a violation of North Carolina law, which prescribes where local governments are required to place legal advertisements and the minimum qualifications of the selected periodical. When there are no newspapers that meet those specifications in the county, legal ads can set sail lawfully in a nearby outlet. But The News-Journal has been the flagship around here for decades. It qualifies. In fact, up until this year’s squall it had those announcements printed each week. They were widely available and read around Hoke County—the very point of the regulation.

Without a nearby outlet with that news—and the county’s Bermuda Triangle of a website—public input, if any, is minimized. That’s likely an asset on the commissioners’ navigational charts.

It could be a Titanic-sized mistake, though, one with far-reaching financial implications. If a resident is not content with a rezoning decision rendered when those announcements were not made lawfully in The News-Journal, there could be legal ramifications. Expensive ones, if the victim finds the right attorney. Guess who’ll pay that bill?

Not Fishers of Men

The Hoke County Commission has two preachers on board, which makes it likely this storm rose because neither are familiar with Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 19. “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” That message escaped their notice or, more likely, never appears in the Cliff Notes they refer to.

Turning the other cheek isn’t a familiar phrase either. It appears there are good reasons many theologians claim preachers abandon their duty to God when they enter politics.

The commission’s temper tantrums and revenge are already costing Hoke County thousands of dollars each year. Should their near-sighted anger run ashore in a court of law, it’ll be you and me manning the financial bilge pumps to keep this ship afloat.

Seen above is a public domain photo of one of the lifeboats on the Titanic, with a seasoned sailor at the helm, unlike the rudderless elected officials around here.