News-Journal Sues Hoke County for Withholding Public Documents

If you don’t subscribe to the News-Journal and haven’t purchased this week’s issue yet (April 24 issue), you’d better hurry because they’re about to be disappeared.

They’re selling fast and, rumor has it, commissioners are buying bulk and have already scheduled a ceremonial secret bonfire tonight. Front page, above the fold, in bold print the headline reads, “News-Journal Sues Hoke County.”

The local-news weekly filed the lawsuit Monday in Hoke County Superior Court to force the county into providing government records that—by federal and state law—must be made available to any member of the public to access, read, copy, share or use as toilet paper during the next pandemic shortage. We’re deliberately omitting key details because the publisher, editor and staff deserve at least $1 (cost per copy) of your support as they fight to regain your rights that have been suspended for too long by secretive officials.

There is one statement in the story, however, that needs sharing. “We aren’t asking for answers for our own benefit,” News-Journal Publisher Jessica Hendrix Brown said, “we’re asking because the people that work, live and spend their money here in Hoke County want to know how their tax dollars are being spent.” The newspaper isn’t alone in the frustration. Only one of our multiple Freedom of Information Act requests has yielded results. The super-secret, pinkie-swear, no-response policy is so strict, in fact, they haven’t even been acknowledged.

Vanishing tax money isn’t anything new in Hoke County, either. In 2003 its county manager was convicted of embezzling roughly a quarter million dollars. She served a six-year sentence. Then there was the great “Timecard Fraud” of 2017. In the meantime, according to the linked Fayetteville-Observer article, “…state treasury officials had continually warned the county about serious accounting deficiencies.”

Who were the commissioners at the helm of the leaky ship back in 2017? James A. Leach, of watery-recreation fame, Tony Hunt, Harry Southerland, Allen Thomas Jr. and Bobby Wright. It’s the same deaf-eared motley crew still on the bridge today, steering clear of any rocky shorelines that might surface in public documents and buying copies of the News-Journal for tonight’s smokey ritual.