Opinion Roundup: Silent Sam gone from UNC, Chancellor Folt forced out, government shutdown hits home and more

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Remnants of Confederate monument Silent Sam are gone, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt will leave post in two weeks, investigator pinged feds over 2018 election concerns, GOP ratchets up case to seat Mark Harris by questioning fraud investigation, former NC jail lieutenant told to keep scrap quiet until after primary vote and more.

SARAH KRUEGER & MATTHEW BURNS: With 'Silent Sam' gone from UNC-CH, chancellor to quickly follow (WRAL-TV reports) -- The UNC Board of Governors put Jan. 31 as the date of Carol Folt's resignation as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, not following the school's graduation in May as she wanted.

RICK SELTZER: More Division at UNC (Inside Higher Ed reports) – UNC System Board pushes Folt out in two weeks as chair says she took draconian action, but faculty cheer chancellor for ordering Silent Sam remnants removed overnight. Carol Folt on Tuesday morning tried to separate her decision to remove the remnants of the toppled Silent Sam Confederate monument from her choice to step down as chancellor after graduation. Hours later, the UNC system’s Board eliminated any slim chance that would happen, taking action some saw as telling Folt not to let the door hit her on the way out -- and possibly cementing her as a martyr in the eyes of groups unhappy with what they believe is an increasingly activist board.

JULIA JACOBS: Remnants of ‘Silent Sam’ Confederate Statue Removed From Park on U.N.C. Campus (New York Times reports) -- The last vestiges of the “Silent Sam” statue were removed from a park on the UNC campus early Tuesday morning at the direction of Chancellor Carol Folt, prompting an apparent backlash from the university system’s top administrators. Folt authorized the removal of the statue’s base, which bore plaques commemorating university students who fought for the Confederacy. She simultaneously made a surprise announcement that she would be resigning at the end of the academic year. But on Tuesday afternoon, her departure was hastened to the end of this month, after a vote by the board of governors, which oversees the statewide university system. Harry L. Smith Jr., the chairman of the board, called Folt’s action “stunning” and “draconian.”

CHRIS HILBURN-TRENKLE: Charlie Scott, UNC’s first Black basketball player, talks Folt and Silent Sam (Daily Tar Heel reports) -- On Tuesday, The Daily Tar Heel spoke with Charlie Scott, the first Black men's basketball player to integrate the sport at the University, regarding Scott's thoughts on Silent Sam and the decision of the UNC-system Board of Governors to push Chancellor Carol Folt's resignation forward to Jan. 31, 2019.

EMERY DALESIO: University head yanks Confederate marker, is forced out (AP reports) -- Hours after the last remnants of a Confederate statue were removed overnight from North Carolina's flagship public university, the state university system's governing board pushed out the official who ordered them gone.

JANE STANCILL: Chancellor Folt Out (Durham Herald-Sun reports) -- UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt will leave her post in two weeks -- months earlier than the timeline she suggested when she announced her resignation. In a closed session meeting the UNC Board of Governors accepted her resignation, giving her two-week notice to leave her job. She had planned to stay through graduation in the spring.

LISA PHILIPS: Activists Celebrate Removal Of Silent Sam Pedestal (WUNC-FM reports) -- Activists gathered Tuesday night for what they called a victory party across the street from the now-empty ground on which the Confederate statue known as "Silent Sam" once stood. Attendees chatted over free pizza and Kendrick Lamar’s "Humble."

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: UNC Leaders Hasten Chancellor’s Exit Over Silent Sam Decision (Wall Street Journal reports) -- The University of North Carolina board of governors made Chancellor Carol Folt’s resignation effective Jan. 31, instead of after graduation this spring, following her decision to remove the base of a Confederate statue.

SUSAN SVRLUGA: Remnants of the Confederate monument Silent Sam are gone. And UNC’s chancellor will leave swiftly as well. (Washington Post reports) -- On Monday evening, the chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill announced that the remnants of a Confederate statue would be removed and that she would step down at the end of the academic year. By Tuesday morning, the pedestal and plaques left from the toppled monument were gone. And by Tuesday afternoon, the statewide panel that oversees public universities in North Carolina announced that Chancellor Carol Folt would be gone, too, accepting her resignation effective Jan. 31.

UNC Chancellor Announces Removal Of Remaining Silent Sam Monument, Then Resigns (NPR reports) -- It's been a roller coaster these past 24 hours. Yesterday, in the same email that the chancellor announced her resignation, she also authorized the removal of the pedestal on the plaques for the Confederate monument. And that happened at - it had wrapped up by about 3 a.m. this morning. The move apparently took state university officials by surprise. They convened an emergency meeting this afternoon, and they voted to move up the timeline for the chancellor's resignation. In her announcement yesterday, she said she was planning on sticking around past graduation this spring. But they decided that they would move that up to the end of this month.

IAN STEWART: Judge Throws Out Alabama Law That Protects Confederate Monuments (NPR reports) -- Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall sued a city, citing a state law passed earlier prohibiting the removal, relocation or alteration of historical (Confederate) monuments in place for more than 40 years. But on Monday an Alabama judge rejected his arguments and overturned the law. "The state has placed a thumb on the scale for a pro-confederacy message," Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo wrote in his opinion, saying that by forcing the city to leave the monument alone, the state was infringing on Birmingham's right to free speech.

Carol Folt takes the right stand on Silent Sam. Will UNC ultimately pay the price? (Charlotte Observer) -- UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor removes Silent Sam pedestal and resigns, leaving UNC facing uncertain future with politicized Board of Governors

Silent Sam and a war that won’t end (Fayetteville Observer) -- Robert E. Lee was a Confederate war hero, a great general — and a prophet. His vision of the future has been on display for a while now, and it’s right in front of us this week. Although his image is included in scores of Civil War monuments, Lee wanted nothing to do with them and warned that they were a bad idea that would only prolong North-South conflict.

NED BARNETT: Carol Folt goes out frustrated, angry and right (Charlotte Observer column) -- Before she entered academic administration, Carol Folt was a professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth College, where she researched metal toxicity. Her work concentrated on heavy metals, particularly mercury and its effect on ecosystems and humans. But as chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, Folt encountered a metal alloy that could wreak havoc on a university’s environment. It was bronze rendered in the form of a Confederate soldier. That metal man known as Silent Sam ignited protests and counter-protests, stirred passionate arguments about hate and honor and ultimately soured relations between Folt, who wanted it gone, and members of the UNC Board of Governors, who wanted it somehow preserved.

TRAVIS FAIN: NC investigator pinged feds over 2018 election concerns (WRAL-TV reports) -- Earlier concerns about Bladen County voting irregularities made it all the way to Washington, D.C., and a top Justice Department official came to Raleigh.

LAURA LESLIE: GOP attacks NC elections board, calls 9th District investigation a Democratic delay tactic (WRAL-TV reports) -- As the legal battle over the 9th Congressional District election wages on, the North Carolina Republican Party is amping up attacks on the state elections board.

JIM MORRILL: GOP ratchets up case to seat Mark Harris by questioning election fraud investigation (Charlotte Observer reports) -- Republicans ratcheted up their drive to put Mark Harris in Congress Tuesday, questioning "the entire legitimacy" of a state investigation into allegations of election fraud in the 9th Congressional District.

TRAVIS FAIN: Bladen prosecutor's calls went unreturned as state probed absentee ballot issues (WRAL-TV reports) -- A problem with the phones was blamed in 2017, but elections officials say now that Bladen County's prosecutor had a conflict of interest in an absentee ballot investigation.

RICK SMITH: N.C. reiterates Apple ‘remains active recruitment project’ (WRAL-TV/TechWire reports) -- North Carolina reiterated that Apple could still be bringing an economic development project to the state even though the tech giant’s announcement in December about new expansion didn’t include an N.C. location.

North Carolina officials say job talks with Apple continue (AP reports) -- Business recruiters say they're still in talks with Apple over bringing more jobs to North Carolina.

LORELEI COSTA: The government shutdown hits home (Outer Banks Sentinel column) -- Isn’t it nice to live on a barrier island? Out here on our little sandbar, it’s easy to imagine that the world’s problems are far away. Cholera in Yemen, famine in South Sudan. Light years away, right? Ebola in the Congo, government shutdown in…oh, wait. While the bickering in Washington often feels — thankfully — like it’s on another planet, the brouhaha is starting to harm our neighbors. Some are furloughed without pay; others are required to work without pay. Now, these folks may eventually get back pay. But that hardly helps with today’s bills. As of this writing, the federal government shutdown has no end in sight, and I’m starting to worry.

Government shutdown inflicts pain (Greensboro News & Record/Winston-Salem Journal) -- The unnecessary and wasteful government shutdown now has become the longest in the history of the United States, and Americans are feeling the effects more and more. If President Trump and congressional leaders can’t find some way to get the government up and running.

BRYN ELISE SANDBERG: 'Bathroom Bill' Prompts Netflix to Choose Alternative Filming Location (Governing Magazine) -- North Carolina's controversial legislation is impacting Hollywood's decision to film in the state. Netflix has opted to film its upcoming North Carolina-set series OBX, a coming-of-age drama set in a fictional town in the state's Outer Banks, in South Carolina instead due to remnants of North Carolina's anti-LGBTQ House Bill 2. Best known as "the bathroom bill," the law requires transgender people use the public restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate. The legislation first drew criticism when it was enacted in 2016, with some studios even pulling their projects out of the state.

IMARI SCARBOROUGH: Council job, Burr’s application remain pending (Stanly News & Press reports) -- After legislation allowing the Outdoor Heritage Advisory Council to set a higher wage for its open executive director position failed, the position remains unfilled, and former Stanly County state legislator Justin Burr's application is listed as pending.

NEEL KELLER: The Basnight Bridge? (Outer Banks Sentinel reports) -- Move emerges to name new span after former state senator Marc Basnight.

DAVID BAUDER: In era of news deserts, no easy fix for local news struggles (AP reports) -- The statistics are numbing: U.S. weekday newspaper circulation is down from 122 million to 73 million in 15 years. The number of working newspaper journalists has been cut in half since 2004. Nearly 1,800 daily and weekly newspapers have been lost in the same period, down to a little more than 7,000. The tally is compiled Penelope Muse Abernathy, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, whose study of the topic has given rise to new terminology: news deserts, refers to communities that are no longer covered by daily journalists; and ghost newspapers is a reference to publications that have become a shadow of their former selves in terms of circulation and ambition.

Exonerated man to receive additional $2.2 million (Hickory Record reports) -- A wrongfully convicted man will receive roughly $2.2 million as part of a settlement that also involves the city of Hickory and an insurance company.

KATE MARTIN: Former NC jail lieutenant: Told to keep scrap quiet until after primary vote (Carolina Public Press reports) — A former high-ranking guard at the Cherokee County Detention Center has told Carolina Public Press that he was asked to delay reporting an altercation between two guards and a federal inmate until after the May primary election.

On Charlotte affordable housing, dollars catching up with ambitions (Charlotte Observer) — For years, Charlotte’s ambitions for providing adequate low-income housing have exceeded the actual dollars committed to achieving them. Now that may be changing. While the needs remain massive and growing, it’s heartening to see both the public and private sectors stepping up recently in more concrete ways.

RUPEN FOFARIA: Teacher diversity among Cooper's top education priorities (EdNC/WRAL-TV reports) -- Gov. Roy Cooper met with the Governor's Teacher Advisory Committee Monday to talk about some of his priorities ahead of the 2019-20 legislative long session. In its second year after he established the committee, it continues to serve as his eyes and ears in the classrooms and advises him on education issues.

ALAN GREENBLATT: Do School Vouchers Only Benefit the Wealthy? (Governing Magazine reports) -- Most of the students using Arizona’s vouchers are already in top-performing schools.

MAGGIE BLACKWELL: Rowan-Salisbury assesses way forward on Renewal (EdNC reports) — The Rowan-Salisbury School Board met on Monday and key among their agenda items was a presentation by School Superintendent Lynn Moody on the Renewal implementation process. Rowan-Salisbury Schools was approved as a Renewal District by the General Assembly in 2018 for a five-year term, effective immediately upon approval.

KIRK ROSS: Session Ahead: Oysters, Storm Damage, PFAS (Coastal Review Online reports) — The legislative session cranks up in earnest at the end of the month, but members putting together bills and budgets on environmental and mariculture initiatives are getting an early start.

MARTHA QUILLIN: Months after Hurricane Florence, the actual recovery is just beginning for some (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — Tens of thousands of homes across Eastern NC were damaged by floodwaters from the storm, and five months later, many still have not been stripped to the studs so they can dry out and be rebuilt.

JASON DEBRUYN: NC's Largest Health Insurer Reaches Landmark Deal With Five Health Systems (WUNC-FM reports) -- It's become cliché for executives of health systems and insurers to talk about the need to move away from a fee-for-service reimbursement model toward one that pays for value and rewards health providers for keeping patients healthy, not for simply treating them when they are sick. Value based models have become a buzzword, with various pilot programs showing success. Now, in what appears to be the largest such arrangement in the United States, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina agreed to a value-based reimbursement model with five major health systems in the state. Others could follow as their existing reimbursement contracts expire.

YEN DUONG: N.C. gets a ‘F’ on how equally it treats mental and physical health issues (N.C. Health News reports) -- This is the first in a series of stories exploring mental health parity—treating mental and physical health equally—in North Carolina. What is parity, why do we rank behind other states, and what do these rankings mean? Future stories in this series will include stories of patients and providers trying to make it through the system, how the insurance appeals process works and how the North Carolina Department of Insurance tries to help.

Former News & Record and Winston-Salem Journal journalist Bob Burchette dies (Greensboro News & Record reports) -- Robert “Bob” Burchette, a News & Record reporter and editor for nearly 34 years, was known for his compassion as well as his journalism. Burchette died Sunday in Winston-Salem at the age of 81.

Ed Turberg helped save city’s history (Wilmington Star-News) -- Like the old buildings and other structures he so dearly (and taught us so much about), architectural historian and preservationists Ed Turberg was part of the very fabric of Wilmington. Many people have worked over the years to preserve our historic buildings and places, and to learn more about them. But we’d be hard pressed to name someone who contributed more to that important work than Turberg, who died Dec. 22, 2018.

JEFF HAMPTON: Corolla wild horse who roamed his way to fame has died (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports) -- Roamer, a 15-year-old stallion, died of sepsis at the Corolla Wild Horse Fund farm in Grandy. He got his name because he had a habit of straying from the four-wheel-drive area of the Currituck Outer Banks and into the Corolla community. He was a tourist favorite.