Local Politics Unfiltered: Jonathan Strange for District Court Judge

Peter Pappas: Well everybody, welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappins, in studio with the lovely Laura Mussler. Hello, hello. Hello and welcome. And we hear the cabinet know that we are the voice for the conservatives of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, and beyond, and we know this is the smartest hour of radio. So joining us this evening will be Mr. Jonathan Strange running for district court seat. And we'll talk to him after the live broadcast. And you can get that episode when you log on to the Carolina Cabinet dot com and you hit like, follow, share. Please do. So you know the routine, so what have we been up to the last week? Have we made anybody's day? I don't think so. No. Not into making people like that. No, no. Well how's work going? It's just second week, drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, not as overwhelming this is actually my this my second or third I don't I think it's the fourth week. Time flies. Yeah I think it's the the third fifty week second week every down today I felt like I kinda doubt it but I'm still doubting myself. So I should never get case because I'm doing this. Do you have a bad case of imposter syndrome? Not that it's impossible. It's I just don't want to let it even do I don't want to do the wrong thing. Right. So yeah. Well, I'm sure you can only screw up so bad. I mean so far you can go off of center mark. Yeah, well, I have a really good fiction that's telling you something. Okay. Well that's James. I just want to check. I do this, that, and you have you just say yes, I'll have my side. Well, are you writing notes? my I have so many notes that I can't even tell what my notes Say. So I've would been rewriting my notes to make my notes more legible. Yes. Okay. Well, let's see. Last week I attended a it's called the RPAC Realtors Political Action Committee. we discussed some funding for some local candidates running for office. some people most people got some little bit of funding and some people are big enemies of Realtors and we just decided not to give our money to these people. Did you donate to the following motor people? that race doesn't register on our on the pack. Well, it doesn't, right now. So maybe that's something we'll have to talk about in the future. but that was kind of the big thing. There was a Republican women's club meeting I attended last week. Mm-hmm. what was that young lady's name that spoke? She was excellent. Cassandra Moyer. She is with the Hispanic coalition of Republican Gethaga defending that. Something something, yes. Yeah. Well I have her information. I'm gonna be inviting her to the show. I just programming note, we did have both Jonathan Strange and Janine Ackle scheduled for tonight, but Janine had to cancel and she's gonna come back on the twenty fourth, I believe. So so yeah, busy week of just work. I had cousin birthday, old fr and friend's birthday, and brother's birthday. So yeah, busy, I guess. I had grandfathered. You had grandson I'm watching my grandson on Sunday so that is exciting. Yeah. Now you only get Saturday and Sunday to goof off, so you've given up one of your days for the grandson. But I'll be at the house I'll still be able to do my laundry 'cause the Sunday evening is when I do the laundry and all the things that I have to do to get ready. So I'll be at the house and he's most of the time a really good kid so Okay. Most of the well, you know, it's up to you to train him. Yeah. I if he's it'd be better just hanging someone in the closet. Okay. Well, so we're here on the air tonight and we have stated city council is thirty minutes from the ability hearing to decide in one vote whether this city has become a data center town. That's right. And as Laura said, you know, right now, about thirty minutes from now, I think actually, city council chambers are gonna fill up. By the time most of you are watching this, they may have already voted on the rules that decide. where the next data center in the city can go and whether it can go up next to your house. look, I don't think this is an anti technology segment. I think it's a property rights and taxpayer risk segment. I mean, the city needs development, but can it welcome billions in private investment without asking the people already living here to underwrite the water and sewer that these things are gonna need? I mean, do you is there a way forward? do you know can be totally just drop off and say no believe in our at all at all just bad then stop using the internet. I mean if if it not in my backyard mindset I I mean I don't want it in my backyard but if they came to my backyard I would have to deal with because I used all of it. Right. All of it. but Mayor Colvin came back from Virginia with he was sold on it. He said I saw it, I touched it, good enough evidence for a permanent zoning change. Why are we putting it why do you have to make a zoning change? Don't we have industrial areas that we've observed already? So okay, the zoning change, and that's that's one thing that's been missed. So two things, I agree. the ridiculousness of the people protesting utilizing AI to create their talking points. Right. One. Two, I want to use a data center to create a data center, anti data center. Yeah. The zoning work that people at City Council are trying to do. We are have an absence of rules for data centers. And they went and met with AIT, Clarence Briggs down there. He's had a data center since the late nineties. But it's not a hyperscale data center. It's it's basically a server farm for web pages. Okay. so when the city council. I didn't know they were AIT. I don't know. we we'll bring him on a different but Yeah, we should have him on explain what it is, you know. We can reach out to Mr. Briggs. He's he'd probably be a good guess. But I can see it. The the zoning they're talking about. Okay. The the unified development ordinance has zero rules about anything data center related. So they need to change it, not necessarily to allow data centers, but they need to change it to have a legal basis to deny people to put data centers here. So they have got to change that UDO into zoning. And again, people are losing their damn minds about, you know, changing the UDO, but we need to put some rules in there. Same as the county. Can't the county's in the same vote. They chose to do a moratorium on this stuff. And I think city council I don't think they're gonna vote on it tonight. Well, I never know. It's because somebody's telling you that. Well, I think it's gonna be a public hearing tonight. It's gonna be busy. I think unless these guys wanna be there till two o'clock in the morning, they're probably gonna table the vote for another another time. Now or they go ahead and vote around it about who's gonna be done with it and then ha ha ha you're probably not gonna do that. Well they're not up for election this year, so they can pull that off. Yeah. guaranteed there's gonna be one grandstanding because he's running for an office that's not city council. now you mentioned that Mayor Colvin went I saw it and I touched it, which is a Clinton line, it sounds like. But Mayor Colvin and Council members they toward London County Vir Virginia data centers. Now Colvin's saying it's one point three billion in data center tax revenue up there that's funding the best schools, parks, health outcomes. And they're replenishing the water. Why not? I agree with that. I I mean, why not? and we'll talk about this again, but according to Robert Venghians, he's the president of the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corporation, they're the ones that are flirting with industry across the world, you know, around the world to bring them to Fayetteville, North Carolina. He says they have. a development pipeline, in other words, business that could come that they're nurturing. Five billion dollars of investment. But the region has only two industrial sites over a hundred acres with true industrial grade infrastructure. FC E D C's own language is that a transformative economic development projects are nearly impossible without sewer service. Okay. And then the sewer service they're like something Pretty much. Yeah. Well, it's it's not I don't know if it's maxed out the capacity. I know that it's it's maxed out as far as it's been built. It just doesn't extend into the county. And that's what the county was working on was municipal water trying to bring water to these places and sewage can be figured out. but that is a chicken and the egg type of thing. If F C E D C is saying we need sewer, we need water, who the hell's gonna pay for it just to sit there? And that would be us, taxpayers. Not necessarily ratepayers from PwC. It could be just a tax bond or something else to build those types. But yeah, the data center question is definitely a big one at the core one. now Eastover. Let's see where did I have that? Well, it's not an IMB neighborhood finding. I mean, this is a big deal. Three hundred megawatt facility. That's huge. And why can't they just go in an industrial park? That's what it's for. You would think so. What what it what is it that they're when they're protesting because I have found through whatever the research. Didn't the research produced experience. Yeah. But people are protesting, and just protesting, but protesting what what do you actually no data center, why? What are you protesting for? I wanna know specifically because it's a bad thing. Why? What what's better? I think they would they're gonna resort to their standard talking points. It hurts it contaminates the water, it you know, we don't have sewer, it's gonna harm the wildlife, it's gonna make the people that hold on the crystals and stuff, they're gonna get a different frequency or whatever. but look, if this passes tonight on the same night of the hearing. I mean, is that faible? Is that moving too fast to compete for jobs in tax base? Or do you think the mayor's railroading a boat before the public even finishes talking? Do you think he's trying to railroad it? I mean, do you think he's trying to run it through? If you're gonna ram it through now at the time you do it when it's not an election yeah, because if you guys bring electricity off the losing piece, yeah. Well that would be nice. We could refresh all of city council. So would you want data centers in your neighborhood if it meant low property license? Data center in my neighborhood lower property taxes. Yes. Okay, well if you're why however where's the guarantee that our government's gonna lower my property taxes just because they get more money from that other guy? No. There's never it's never what is it, proportional response. It's never lower here or higher here. It's always more, more, more. That's exactly on the government. So yeah. So those of you that went city council tonight, I applaud you. I will go and YouTube it from home. Tomorrow night you can do it in Eastover in in Brace Creek because it's another one. If you didn't make it tonight like I did, then maybe you want to go in one of those. I went to the one in Eastover a few weeks ago. there's a lot of heated debate or heated citizens, I think, but again I think not everybody has all the facts, including the government, all the way around. So well look, that's the local fight. There's a real case on both sides of it. So let's talk to talk about Raleigh stuff. You know, we love Raleigh. Go ahead. We're arguing over the role thing. Ar Raleigh is arguing over how to spend a budget surplus or something completely different. You know these politics. They just found sixty five million dollars for two sporting events in the same week. How did they just find how they just find sixty five million dollars? Let's start there. Okay, they must have shaken their their couch cushions and they found sixty-five million dollars fell out. what they're talking about, what's being discussed is now the house passed the budget, technical correction. So this is after the budget was passed. Bipartisan eighty-one to twenty-nine voted for giving up to sixty-five million dollars for the Military World Games and the P in the Charlotte and the PGA's Wyndham Championship in Greensboro. plus hospital and childcare funding and restored state. My camera looked up. My camera thinks it's smarter than the average bear we'll see here. nope, no, no, no. Hi. Well darn it. It does. There we go. Okay. Yeah, there I am. I'm back on screen now. Okay. What? don't put your there. manual. There we go. All right, now we'll do that again. All right. okay. Anyway. All right. So they money they just found money for sixty five million dollars for sporting events. They also build hospital and child care funding and restorts and state bats too. Is it supposed to make the the boom boom on my rear end feel better with sixty five million dollars? Nope, but my hat is off to Marsha Morey. She's a Democrat. She is? We've done Durham. Not even from this the the the east part of the state. I was surprised when I when I not that she's a Democrat, I was surprised because I know she was pretty vocal about the Hurricane Helene funding. Right. She was like, look, let's give it to the Helene and food banks and legal aid, not sporting events. And she's from Wake County, Durham. I mean, so why shouldn't you you'd think that the Western North Carolina guys would be more vocal, but I think they're I think Helene recovery is going pretty well. To my knowledge, didn't they hold up a vote in the Congress when they did the Defense Authorization Act? I think a lot of that was Helene, they finally got it through. well, either way, this bill is on Governor Stein's desk. but the bigger fight, election law rewriting. We talked about that pre-show. Now that's that's something that I think can really get people going because You've got people talking about reducing access to to voting and stuff like that. But the next thing I want to talk about tonight, another thing that's on Governor Stein's desk is this is beyond the devil's lattice now, and this is beyond reformatus. So every gas station in the county, it seems like they have a rack of cr Kratum? Is it Kratom or Kratom I'm gonna say Kratum? Kratom I'm just saying Kratom. So You can go in any gas station, you see Kratom and Delta Eight products by the register. Raleigh just decided that it's a policy problem. The question is whether the fix protects your kids or just kills illegal business. So first of all, these things are being sold without IDs, whatever. I would assume I don't even know if they're limiting sixteen or twenty one and up. I don't I don't know. This is a person doing a bit, so I'm very unpredictable when it comes to this. A lot of the stuff is sold as therapeutic stuff like calm you down that kind of thing. I'm just not buying. Well there's two kinds. So the bill, it's House Bill three twenty eight, and the bill splits Kratom into two things. The natural for which would be legal for twenty one and up adults and then synthetic kratom becomes a controlled substance which is bad. Okay. So that's the difference there. I don't know. I'm sure to get high. I mean why do you buy anything in gas station? I don't think I've got anything. It's convenience. Yeah. Well you don't drink. You don't drink. You don't do anything fun. I you think it's fine, but just not mind. That's true. That's true. Yeah, we gotta protect the So are we regulating the adult market? That's what this bill proposes, is basically splitting it into two and then you know, having one that's gated and the other one that's just off the market completely. I was told somebody told me that when you heat this crap up, that it becomes really potent, really lethal, and that it's really lethal to the kids. Wow. Well there's something going on with your body moving straight. Well definitely, and that's that brings us to we've had a people story doctrine stuff or anything about it. Yeah. They really I mean we really did. so let's see, I got one, two, three, four, five. This week. This week alone. From the top, we have on Jacqueline Road, a seventeen-year-old was charged with a murder in a fatal shooting. number two, North Sumac Circle, which is over there Lafayette Village. A fatal shooting with the stabbing left multiple victims, one dead, so that's two. Marquette Street, Woodbridge, don't know where that's at. A deadly shooting north of Fayetteville, a suspect has been detained. So there's three. Newark Avenue, one man killed, a juvenile injured, and a shooting near State Avenue for a homeless encampment shooting. A woman was killed. A man has been charged with murder. I think the heat's just killing people. Was it the heat or is it the heat? Make them go crazy. Well, you know, I I did I did have a discussion with councilman today. For my area downtown, about the homeless and about you know, what are we gonna do with this thing? Because I've been in business long enough that it's been good, it's been bad down that end of the town. Now we have the Dave Resource Center over there that's like a hub. the county was supposed to build a homeless shelter on B Street, which is off of Person Street. They've now decided they're gonna build one, but not there, even though Fable Tech and the school already gave them the land. We sure did. We also did a groundbreaking at the Crown Event Center, but now we just decided to steal parking. Yes, we certainly did. We certainly did. but yeah, you know, I think we discussed the homeless issue. my take always with homeless was that it is an economic issue. People need a hand up but not a hand out. we are, for better or worse, a j a Judeo Christian based society here. We don't want to see somebody suffer. We don't want to see somebody starve or be down. We want to think I love seeing people poop in the street in front of my you know I guess trial in it. Yeah. Well look, those are sad, sad things and we never want to be in that position. So we always we want to give a man a a loaf of bread. We want to I don't want to do you know I want to teach a man make his own local bread because if I give him the local bread would be back tomorrow another. Let's get fed and off the street and then we can teach him. Anybody that is feeding the homeless, you're wasting your time. You're doing nothing. You're doing absolutely nothing because there's a thousand and one places downtown that they can eat. Well what they're doing is getting Instagram likes. That's what they're doing. Okay. Well And and they're running for office so they're you know don't give them food. They don't need the food. What they need are socks. Yep. They need warm clothes in the summer and I mean in the winter. They need skills. You know what? Instead of giving somebody a a a sandwich or whatever for your Facebook leg, pick in and be like, Well, let me teach you a skill. Mm-hmm. One person, just one. It's a man. So look, how many people do you think, you know, actually are on the street are trying to actively get out of being homeless. Not very many. I think that's the smallest percentage of people that we see living out there. Well it is cold, but I mean who are the most housing insecure? The working for the people that are paycheck to paycheck, living in their car because they lost their apartment and they can't afford an apartment at twelve, fourteen hundred dollars a month, which is what a one or two bedroom costs in pay of allow. yeah well I got some for eight fifty, but yeah that's just because there is there there are, but they stay full. For reason. Yeah, I just come back and three were done in a week. I didn't show me I had over a hundred people apply. Well, there's the demand, then there's not enough supply of those low income houses. But people are not I didn't get a chance to drop. I mean look, first time for server, bro. No but anyway, my thing about homeless that it's an economic issue. mental health drugs and then you do have a percentage that are just like I'm off the grid. Leave me alone. They're a little loop little loony, but still they are content living where they're at. So you're not gonna fix that good buddy. Well you know what one does have to have an seat. it did. We had some agreement in the A and C house, huh? Street free line doesn't say he's reaching for the weekend. Of course he is Gotta love Governor Stein. So look, you're gonna ask ten people in this county what these bills do regarding elections, and nine of them are gonna repeat what the Democrat or Republican Party told them to say. but we're not gonna do that, of course. Let's hold every provision up against one plain standard. Does it make the rules clearer before election day? Or does it just move the goalposts closer to it? So let's see. I I I highlighted HB 834. Which was the House bill that allows ballot counting to begin on election day. On election day. So the all the provi provisional absentees that they've received at that point can start being counted. And the early voting results can be tallied up. Because those are not allowed to be tallied at the end of early voting. Well, and I agree that nothing should be counted before election day. No. No, this doesn't allow for that. And as long as it's the later half of the day, I don't know about. I think it says they have to start at nine AM, which after two. We got it to election day, which is good because previously it was they couldn't start counting until the conclusion of election day. And that postponed results till very, very late last couple of years. What about the ballot curing deadline? So how long it takes for them to fix a screwed up ballot? Okay, well it went from three days to five business days. It was three business days before. And now it's five business days which actually seven days. Because you're probably doing on Tuesday, you've got three days. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then two more business days, you can be Tuesday. So you've got a whole week for your ballot. But what ballots need to be cured though? Who are we curing? I just absentee ballot. Mailing ballot once of week and maybe addresses that therefore you feel free to Yeah, pretty much. I mean voting is pretty important. You should be prepared. The most important thing that you do as a citizen. I don't know. Have you ever left the house and forgot your wallet? I mean, it's happened. Maybe we want Yeah. All right, Miss Perfect. Whatever. A woman doesn't forget her wallet or whatever because she cares about Or the mom purse, yeah. Absolutely. let's see, the House did House split a single elections bill into two after the Senate changes. So that's where we got HB nine fifty eight that did pass along a straight party line. Yes. And they both cleared the house August fifth, which was only five days ago, and now sit on Governor Stein's desk. now well yeah, because I think the he's focusing on this right here, HP nine fifty eight cuts primary early voting from seventeen to ten days. Absolutely. general elections aren't affected us. So basically the early voting period, which is way too long. Seventeen days has been cut down to ten, but only for the primaries. I think it needs to be no more than five I actually I think it needs to be one day voting day. But if you're going to I would say Five days. Five days is fine. Five days. Tuesday through Saturday. None. No. Election well that's that not five. I mean election meetings is Tuesday. So it'll start on Thursday before. Thursday, Friday, my bad. The other way. Sunday off, Monday, Tuesday. You get a weekend and then the final day that's it? That's it. That's fine. I look. The other thing that's gonna stop is going into early voting and changing your party affiliation. I love that. So Doesn't give us closed primaries, but it tightens the rope a little bit on people screwing around with our primaries. Yep. People that just switch parties just to upset those numbers. How's that gonna work for some crossover candidates if they miss the one year deadline? I wonder if that applies to the office registrations too. So Do you think it's really about election integrity? Or do you think this is our Republicans pushing a Republican agenda? I think anything that tightens up restrictions on voting is about election integrity because we are out of control. If anybody can say who they are and come in and vote well now, that I do it. Okay. You've got ten years to vote for one election, and shall we fall? Whatever. Nice to what it could be. yeah. The more days that you have, the more opportunities there are to cheat. So I you know, I don't disagree with that. And I I just from a perspective of somebody who's run and been involved with elections, it's it's a long time. Like I said, five days is enough. I can promise you there's there are very few Americans that can't get to the polls on l let's say Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off, Monday or Tuesday. Mm-hmm. You have five full days and we can do it from six in the morning to six at night or whatever. Well it's not like it's a surprise. We have an election every November. Every no matter whether it's federal, municipal primaries, yeah. So there's like there's two elections a year. A primary. And well, there isn't always a primary though. If it's municipal, if it's only a couple of them running and they don't have a primary. Right. But ninety eight percent of the time there's an election, a primary. Yeah, I'll actions. Everything pretty routine Americans. You need to get out there and vote. You need to act like you're an American citizen and get out there. Yeah. So why not the illegal three more stories and we're gonna go to our slightly mis Mr. Jonathan Strange. Fayetteville City Council again. they did change some zoning changes. so they n made narrower mi narrower minimum lot widths. So I guess you can build houses. No. You can you can be you can build smaller houses or you can build a smaller lot. Closer closer to the property line. Say again. through lot definition, I don't know what that means. two historic districts to protect seventy-eight plus black historic history parcels. It's a new favorable black historic district, plus oak groves expansion. Those were all unanimous votes. So I don't know if you've seen the The outcry of like black neighborhoods disappearing and stuff like that. But it's like, would you want to live with their mouth? That's what I want to ask these guys. I mean, not you or me, but it's the people that are complaining that they we've eradicated black neighborhoods. It's like, well, first of all, people went they went got educated. Yes, they came from humble beginnings, but that's the whole point is to pay from black people. And first of all, I mean I mean black neighborhoods. predominantly black people live. I'll be it there's not a black people it's just for it's just where people live. Yeah it doesn't matter what colors are white people live so it's not with the colors. I've always said it was like integration mission accomplished. Because I feel like you can't there there isn't like a sector or a town that's exclusively one way or the other. That's exactly where we we certainly are a melting pot, especially of race, but also we have different religions. We have how many languages spoken at Cumberland County schools. It's like over eighty, ninety, I think, native languages spoken. what exactly is a black history parsing well isn't it just it's traditional, traditionally black owned, I guess. So let's think back far enough why this even would be delineated. If you go back to reconstruction in those times, I'm sure that there was like the black the designated area where blacks were to live. Because of segregation. Because the white man owned everything. Right. But absolutely. But I think that's where even the connotation of these things come from. I think it goes way, way back. Somebody's reading their history but misapplying it to the current day. Can we just get away from people black or white or whatever? Can we just be like it's a history parcel? Can't we all just get along as it gets dragged out of no, that wasn't Ronnie King. That was the truck drive where they got dragged out and had the crap beat out of Right, little Denny? yes. Yes, my bad. Well, Governor Cooper is leading Watley by nine to eighteen points in the US Senate race of North Carolina. there are four separate polls that have been taken. so I guess I guess it depends who you ask. So one of the polls from Fox News, another one's from Healthier United, another from Carolina Journal, and another from Public Policy polling. Trump's favorability in North Carolina is still underwater. forty percent favorable, fifty-eight percent unfavorable. So he's still your president. Yeah, whether you like it or not. And just circling back to what I said earlier. Maybe we can think of socialist. Yeah. Yeah, DSA. Yeah, all the way. I didn't know what that meant until last week. Really? Yeah. Well I'm not even paying attention amount. They're saying that ALC is leading in the middle of that the presidential individual. that would be hilarious to see her run. She's got like twenty-two percent. I hope they run her. Can I donate to that? I'd like to encourage her to run. I'd love to see could you see her up against Marco Rubio or or J D Vance? Yes, I can. it's gonna be entertaining stuff. But she's really good on camera. She really does a great job at marketing. Yeah. So she could pull some people to she's not the only one in Capitol Hill that knows how to market. So I wouldn't be too worried. Now, the last thing I want to remind everybody, I did mention that the thing about the sewer and water capacity, that is Robert Vangians, the president of C E D C saying that he's working on five billion dollars in pipeline, but he needs the water, he needs a sewer. So if we are going to get ourselves out of a tier one status for the schools. We're gonna have to do something to raise tax revenue as much as I hate. I can't believe I just said that. taxation is theft. They don't deserve our money. However, that's the way our system works, and we have to pay to play. And we can definitely use some industrial bases here to help us move that along. So with that, we appreciate you joining our live this evening. we're gonna take a little break and we're gonna come back to our recording segment with Mr. Jonathan Strange running for district court of Cumberland County. And please do go to the Carolina County the the Carolinacabinet.com. you can like and follow. And for the first time tonight, I am simulcasting on YouTube as well. So we're live, YouTube and Facebook. So y'all have a good evening. And please don't forget to subscribe and follow us. And you can see the full show later on this week, maybe by Thursday. Good evening.