Fans of the American Girl dolls and accessories will definitely want to attend the American Girl Fashion Show on Saturday, March 21, and Sunday, March 22, at Haymount United Methodist Church in Fayetteville. The fashion show will teach children how clothing has changed over the years to reflect history, culture and the individual style of girls.
  American Girl is a line of dolls and accessories based on preteen girl characters from various periods of American history. Pleasant Rowland began selling them by mail order in 1986. Fourteen million American Girl dolls have been sold, along with 123 million books about the dolls.
  The company’s flagship line is a collection of historical 18-inch dolls that come with books and accessories. The dolls, representing 9-10 year old girls, live through important times in American history and provide a child’s perspective of significant events in American history.
  The fashion show will feature more than 124 girls wearing historical and contemporary outfits based on the American Girl series. The money raised by the fashion show will benefit the Child Advocacy Center of Fayetteville, which works to prevent child abuse as well as developing outreach plans.
  {mosimage}Tammy Laurence, executive director of the Child Advocacy Center, says this is the third year the show had been held for the center and that last year’s fashion show was a “huge” success.
  “We think it will be even bigger this year because we’ve got folks coming not just from Fayetteville, but from Charlotte and Wilmington and all across the state,” said Laurence.
  The girls chosen to participate in the American Girl Fashion show won a previous competition that Laurence said had many contestants from throughout the region. All contestants will be wearing clothes that are one of two sizes: 6x or 10.  All the fashion show participants are from 8-10 years old.
  In addition to the fashion show, there will be tea parties,  a hair salon for the dolls and a special birthday party. Also, American Girl products will be for sale or they may be pre-ordered on the brand’s Web site, www.americangirl.com, and picked up at the fashion show. Refreshments will be served and there will be door prizes.
  There will also be a raffle ticket drawing offering a chance to win a number of American Girl prizes, including: a Just Like You Doll; the Kit and Ruthie Best Friends Collection;  Kit’s Tree House; the Bitty Twins; and the Bitty Baby Starter Collection.
  In cooperation with American Girl, any catalog order you place now will benefit the Child Advocacy Center, with 5 percent of the order’s total going to the organization. Orders must be placed between March 6 and April 5; use the special key code 162440.
  The American Girl Fashion Show will be held March 21 at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; it will be held March 22 at 3 p.m. The event will be in the New Life Center at Haymount United Methodist Church, 1700 Fort Bragg Road. Tickets are $30. For more information, call (910) 486-9700. The event is recommended for ages 6 and up.

Contact Tim Wilkins @tim@upandcomiongweekly.com

  “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is a mantra most often encountered in classrooms or on the side of recycling bins. But if you enter CJ’s Design studio you’ll find a collection of art on display that might have you reciting the three R’s of the 21st century.
  The collection, known as “Winhouse,” consists of a variety of handmade pieces created by local artists Susie Godwin and Lisa Lofthouse. Godwin and Lofthouse first partnered together, not in an art studio, but in a yoga studio. Lofthouse, who owns Breathing Space yoga studio on Raeford Road, first met Godwin when she began yoga classes several years ago. Their relationship quickly developed into a friendship in which both their creative natures found breathing space of their own.
  {mosimage}After returning from a trip to Paris, Godwin told Lofthouse that she wanted a creative way to showcase some photos she had taken on her trip. Lofthouse invited her friend “over to play” in her at-home art studio. The two discovered that their creative ideas inspired and enriched one another. They soon began to combine their efforts to create a variety of three-dimensional pieces showcasing photographs of some of Fayetteville’s best-known landmarks. Some of their early pieces can be seen at Huske Hardware and The Cameo Art House Theatre and can be purchased at City Center Gallery and Bookstore in downtown Fayetteville.
  Godwin and Lofthouse share a love for the eclectic, used, passed-over or discarded. Where most people see something worth throwing in the trash, these two creative conservationists see art in the making. After using local inspiration for their first efforts, they began to mine a different vein after visiting Tucson’s well-known Gem and Mineral Show last February.
  The two returned to Fayetteville with a collection of rocks, beads and ideas. They began to piece together some of their Southwestern treasures with Southeastern overstock, creating unique pieces that are a juxtaposition of time, place and experience, much like the artists themselves. Godwin, a Fayetteville native, enjoys adding touches of green and splashes of red to the pieces while Lofthouse, whose family is in the Southwest, prefers the palette of the painted desert.
  “One of us will start something and the other one will just add on,” says Godwin of the artists’ ability to build upon one another’s work. Their raw materials are as varied as their final products. They use overstock items such as cabinet doors, desk drawers and discontinued fabric swatches, as well as unique details — ranging from beads to keys to sticks they found in the yard. The overall effect is something that is completely unique.   Each piece is hearty, hand-made and hard to resist.
  While the artists are thrilled about their emphasis on recycling the once-used or overlooked, one thing they do not reuse are their ideas. Their pieces are as diverse as they are detailed. Some pieces, such as Mirrored Monks, are simple reflections of the peaceful philosophy behind their shared practice of yoga. Others, such as the piece Ab-Original, which subtly portrays the bold beauty of originality, are statement makers.
  For these artists, the creative process is their passion, their motto being “we’re happy to sell enough to pay for our art supplies,” which means that you won’t have to recycle too many aluminum cans to be able to afford one of their original pieces, which range reasonably from $25-$200. One thing is certain, with such a collision of creativity and conservation, the “Winhouse” collection will certainly have you recycling your smile.

Contact Meredith Mitchell at tim@upandcomingweekly.com

  When most people combine the words “Fayetteville” and “exotic dancing,” the mental picture that comes to mind usually involves g-strings and dollar bills.
  However, the most exotic dancing in these parts does not necessarily include girls with pasties and porn star names; over at the Turkish Grill on Yadkin Road there is a renaissance of one of civilization’s oldest, most sensual, and, most respected dances.
  Every Friday and Saturday night, Leyla and Nadia provide traditional belly dancing to go along with the restaurant’s traditional Turkish and Middle-Eastern fare of gyros, kebabs, kofte, humus and falafel.
  {mosimage}Owners Francis and Seyfi Kalendar say the accompaniment of belly dancing with a meal is very common in Turkey and across the Arabic world, especially in the finer, more expensive restaurants. Francis adds that bringing the dance of the seven veils to Fayetteville has been wildly successful at the Turkish Grill, which has been open about 15 months.
   If you do drop in to check out the restaurant’s sensual dervishes doing their thing, Francis says to remember there is a certain etiquette to tipping … this isn’t, after all, amateur night down on Bragg Boulevard.
“We’re trying to introduce the proper way of tipping a dancer, which is to shower them with the money — culturally, that is the way it is done,” said Francis. “We sit here and have a good time. It’s like a fun, family atmosphere. At the end of the night everybody is up dancing; more so the women … The men are a little bit shy. Everyone is clapping and whistling.
  “We have a lot of fun,” said Francis. “Last night I didn’t get home until 4 a.m. Everybody leaves here after belly dancing night with smiles on their faces.”
  Perhaps the biggest smile is reserved for Nadia Davis, the featured dancer. Nadia is a native of Iraq where she grew up surrounded by the culture of belly dancing. She says that while her soldier husband was stationed in Germany she began amateur belly dancing for friends and it grew from there. She has now been dancing professionally at the Turkish Grill for about a year.
  “My husband liked to see me dancing,” said Nadia. “I have loved to dance since I was a kid. I had no outfit when I started. My friends brought gifts the first time, including cash, because they wanted to push me to dance. My husband sent me a lot of stuff from India and Afghanistan when he was stationed there.”
  Both Nadia and Francis said that belly dancers tend to “mix and match” outfits, as there aren’t exactly a plethora of belly dancing outfitters populating the street corners of downtown Fayetteville.
  As for her music of choice, Nadia says she mixes traditional with modern tunes … utilizing whatever “moves” her. She mixes the exotic rhythms as easily as she does her exotic clothing into a combination of dance moves gleaned from her childhood in Baghdad.
  “I mix it up,” said Nadia. “I can’t dance to the music unless I’m feeling it. If it’s not touching my feelings I cannot dance. We have many types of different dances in Iraq — in Baghdad it is different … in the south of Iraq it’s different. So I take from this and that and mix.
  “And the music I use is not especially traditional,” said Nadia, “it’s been remade more modern. I don’t like the fast music … I like to feel and enjoy the music.”
  If you would like a taste of this exotic dancing as well as the Turkish Grill’s exotic, yet healthy, food, come by the restaurant every Friday or Saturday night beginning at 7. The dancing usually lasts until about 10 p.m.; however, as Francis said, sometimes the dancing lasts deep into the night.
  The Turkish Grill is located at 5044 Yadkin Road. For more information, call 864-6554, or check out the restaurant’s Web site at www.turkishgrill.net.

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com

  Strange how our urban lifestyle causes us to stereotype the words “farm” and “rural.”  It conjures up images that will not support an adjective like “entrepreneurial” or “innovative.”
  Well, dear friends. Let’s take it a step further and suggest “dirt” farmer may be a future trend. Perhaps the way farmers did it thousands of years ago may be a long forgotten answer that could help us through this economic downtrend and be a formula for survival if climate change, plague and pestilence or terrorist attacks (among other catastrophes) are visited on us. And it is an idea that creates jobs.
  {mosimage}Last September I visited the great ancient agricultural centers of Peru. The Incas had built terraced fields that awed me since it was the cradle of corn and potatoes (apologies to our Native American and Irish ancestors). The terraces demonstrated wonderful erosion control. But it was what those terraced fields contained that amazed me. Terra Preta! It was the top soil (dirt) that was richer and more productive after thousands of years than the soil in the fields surrounding them. Yet it is a simple process that turns unproductive dirt into a rich organic top soil that lasts a thousand years without fertilizer and sequesters carbon. Do not scoff. Top soil is serious infrastructure that we take for granted. There is a new book on the market named Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations that documents the displacement and fall of civilizations for lack of productive topsoil (i.e. Iraq).
  Yet these ancient Inca “alchemists” knew the secret of “manufacturing” top soil. And it is so simple. The Inca farmers took “char” (wood chips are the feed stock of choice at the N.C. Farm Center) and mixed it with any organic material or waste (I happen to have turkey litter) and put it on dirt. Vuella! Rich, organic topsoil requiring no fertilizer, lasting a thousand years and sequestering carbon. I cannot repeat that enough.
  I have char on the farm that is over 200 years old and is a testament to the kilns built by our predecessors lying in the small cemetery who boiled the pitch out of longleaf pines for the naval stores industry. I would consider making char the old-fashioned way but I was cautioned by my “land whisperer,” John Ray, that young boys tended the kilns because they could run faster if the kiln decided to explode. Since I am not easily discouraged, I have located a magic machine at N.C. State University called a torrefier. Researchers at N.C. State are experimenting with using the baked wood pellets created from heat and pressure as a “green coal.” The pellets do retain 90 percent of their original energy and are a carbon-neutral source of energy. And while I value energy independence, I am acutely aware that the U.S. only has a three-day supply of food. Lately, food security and food safety have also been making the headlines. And if a global financial collapse were to create a terrible depression, urban farming in empty buildings with terra preta or even gardening in formerly barren sandy soil has appeal. I am a child of the bomb shelter age so I would suggest planting vegetables from survival seeds (not genetically altered) as the crop of choice — watered from a well with a solar pump.
  If the N.C. Farm Center is successful in obtaining one of these magical machines and we perfect the formula we will be inviting you, our community, to visit and to sample.  And it will prove my formula — the land is the link to our past and to our future.

Contact Sharon Valentine at editor@upandcomingweekly.com

  Have you ever seen a child, or do you remember from the mists of your own childhood, having literal growing pains?
  I am thinking about the deep ache in their bones that children report feeling and which sometimes reduces them to tears. It can sometimes do the same to their sympathetic mothers. While uncomfortable, even painful, such aches are really positive signs. They mean the child is healthy and developing as he or she should.
  States can have growing pains as well, and North Carolina is in the throes of some deep and serious aches.
  We are now the 10th-largest state in the nation, having recently out-peopled New Jersey, and still growing. I believe without question that our state’s growth is a good thing. It means that our economy and our quality of life are such that people want to make their homes and their livelihoods here, somewhere between the mountains of Murphy and the beaches of Manteo. Estimates are that about 21 people are born or arrive in North Carolina every hour, a growth rate which will bring us about 4 million more people by 2030. This is roughly the equivalent of every blessed soul in South Carolina pulling up stakes and moving here.
 {mosimage} I would not want North Carolina to be a state that is losing population and wondering where its future lies.
  That being said, growth brings challenges — growing pains for our state.
  The Institute for Emerging Issues is a Raleigh think tank associated with North Carolina State University. It considers all sorts of issues each year, and once a year it puts on a two-day forum exploring an issue facing North Carolina. Over the last two decades, IEI has delved into many meaty issues, including the challenge of innovation and competition, investing in our health, the fragile partnership between people and our planet and public schools and higher education. Such topics have drawn national experts to speak, including the likes of Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Marian Wright Edelman, Steve Forbes and Thomas Friedman.
  This year’s forum occurred earlier this month on the topic of “Changing Landscapes: Building the Good Growth State” and included such luminaries as Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and New York Times columnist David Brooks. The talk was all about growth and infrastructure. How do we meet the needs of a steadily and rapidly growing population at a time when the resources to pay for those needs are dwindling?
Provocative ideas and stimulating conversation were everywhere, but the most interesting to me by far was Sen. Dodd’s challenge to North Carolina — and really to all of America — to “be bold.”
  The senator reminded us all that our nation has been transformed several times by advances in our infrastructure — advances that fundamentally altered the way we live and the way we develop as a country.
  He reminded us of the importance of the Erie Canal, which in 1825 opened up transportation from New York on the East Coast and the Great Lakes. The Erie Canal took 100 years to build and changed our commerce forever.
  He reminded us of the importance of the 1844 message that Samuel F. B. Morse pecked out in dots and dashes to the office Dodd now occupies in Washington. The coded message said “What hath God wrought,” and it ushered in the era of instant communication which has morphed into what you and I take for granted every day, the Internet.
  He reminded us of driving the final stake at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1861 to create the first intercontinental railroad and, thus, interstate commerce as we know it, and of Franklin Roosevelt’s lighting up of our nation through rural electrification in the 1930s.
  He nudged us once again on a grand plan begun during my own childhood which made us the most mobile nation in the history of the world. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had been mightily impressed by the German Autobahn and wanted roads like that in our country. The result is our Interstate highway system of 46,000 miles of roadways and which took decades and $400 billion to complete.
Each of these projects was bold. Each was wildly expensive, and each was ridiculed in its time as folly and extravagance. But where would we be without them? Dodd was challenging.
 Why are we who consider ours the greatest nation in the world letting our infrastructure age and decline? Why, when China is spending 9 percent of its gross domestic product and conducting the largest railway system expansion in world history, are we investing only 2 percent of ours in infrastructure? European nations are investing at double our rate.
 Why, Dodd asks, are we thinking small and patching what we have instead of envisioning, as one of Dodd’s constituents does, projects like a freight rail system that would run from California to North Carolina?
 What has happened to our courage, our vision, our innovation and our willingness to take risks? What has happened to our confidence in ourselves and in our nation?
 Where, asked Dodd, are today’s Erie Canals?
 Where, indeed?

Contact Margaret Dickson at editor@upandcomingweekly.com

  Dave Hurt was a presence when he entered a room.
  He would look the room over, assess the situation and then with his big, booming voice, greet his friends. Everything about Dave was big — from his height to the way he loved his family. Mostly, his heart was big. He was one of America’s elite — a Special Forces Soldier — and had that air about him. But he never took himself too seriously. I have a picture in my mind of Dave at our church’s annual vacation bible school. Unlike the other men who help their wives out with their classes, Dave didn’t mind being a kid himself. I remember the year our theme was sports — Dave sported a whistle and marched his class of first-graders around like a crack team. On his head, he wore a tiny, plastic baseball hat that didn’t quite fit. And when it came to music, he was at the front of the line leading his little cherubs in the singing and dancing that is a trademark of vacation bible school. The other guys watched from the sidelines. That wasn’t Dave’s style.
  {mosimage}Dave loved being a soldier. He was good at it. For the past few years he was a trainer at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. I got to see him in action one day and saw a totally different side of Dave. I walked up to a training site at Fort Bragg and heard a voice I recognized coming over a megaphone. It was Dave. He was pushing his soldiers to do better, to do more, to be the best. And his encouragement was somewhat colorful. I paused by one of his fellow trainers and said, “Hey, go tell that guy his Sunday School teacher is watching him.” I’ll never forget the look that crossed his face, and the good-natured laugh he always gave when I ribbed him about it later on.
   Dave liked to karaoke. He had a machine at his house and he was the first to grab the mic. One of his favorites was Johnny Cash. Did I mention that Dave really couldn’t sing? But that didn’t matter — he put everything he had into it.
   He did that with his family (real and extended). He always offered his best, and tried to take care of everyone he knew. Nothing was more precious to Dave than his beautiful wife Kelly, his daughter Avery and his son Wyatt. Everyone knew that.
   Dave loved God. He loved his church and his church family. No one questioned that.
   Dave loved his country. And this past week, he paid the ultimate price.
   Like the death of any soldier, Dave’s loss has been acknowledged by press releases and official notices in the daily newspaper. I would have been remiss to let his passing go unnoticed. You see, Dave was larger than life. He lived that way. He loved that way. For those of us who were lucky enough to know him and call him friend, our lives are a little darker, our hearts broken. In time, this part will pass. And I know when I think of Dave, I’ll see him in a loud Hawaiian shirt, dancing with our kids — always a little off beat.

Contact Janice Burton at editor@upandcomingweekly.com

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    The 2009 Carolina Home & Garden show is all about the green: being green, buying green, saving green.
Sponsored for the 10th year by the Home Builders Association of Fayetteville, the 2009 Carolina Home & Garden Show, scheduled for Feb. 27-28 and March 1 at the Cumberland County Crown Center, is putting an emphasis on the “garden” portion of its title.
    {mosimage} We have several companies this year that deal with environmental issues,” said Natalie Woodbury, executive officer of HBAF,” including PWC, which will have exhibits concerning the ideas of water conservation.”
Woodbury said there will be 73 vendors at the three-day event, including one company that will really put the “green” into the Carolina Home & Garden Show — Green Biz Nursery and Landscaping, Inc.
    Located on 120 acres off Wilmington Highway, Green Biz has landscaped local lawns and provided plants for contractors and nurseries up and down the East Coast for nearly 30 years. Green Biz will bring a little bit of the outdoors indoors at this year’s home and garden show, providing all the landscaping for the event.
    “Since it’s a home and garden show, we’re going to bring the outside in,” said Charles Allen, owner of Green Biz. “We plan on bringing as much greenery and flowers and landscape … beds and such … into this building as we can. We want to try and give it a little more of a garden show aspect; the last couple of years it’s been more of a builders show.”
    Allen says decorating the Crown Center for the show is about more than just aesthetics: he says a lack of green — as in money — is convincing more and more homeowners to get “back to the country.”
    “I feel like even though things are kind of tight people are going to be able to do some things in their yard and those things are going to be maybe using smaller plants,” said Allen. “The same plants will always have the same kind of appeal. People will always like evergreens, they’ll always like berries and flowers and they might just go for something a little smaller. I feel like there will be less vacations taken abroad and across the country … more day trips, more stay at home cook-out type things and they’ll actually do a little more on their own property. And I think you’ll see people do a lot more remodeling, which should really be a good thing for this show. Instead of buying a new house they’re going to redo a room or add a room. Instead of doing a completely new landscape they might do just some clean-ups and pruning.”
Allen says homeowners can use strategically-placed greenery to save on electricity bills: planting the proper trees around a home can keep it cooler in the summer; and, he adds, folks with green thumbs can save greenbacks by making their own mulch rather than purchasing pine needles and wood mulch.
    While it might seem contrary for a businessman to suggest folks cut back on purchasing some of the products his business is built on, Allen sees himself as more than just a tree salesman or pusher of pansies — he thinks of himself as a conservationist who just happens to make a living working with plants; a caretaker rather than an owner of the very land his business sits on.
    “Most of my customers from a retail aspect have always been kind of green-minded,” said Allen. “This farm was settled in the late 1600s. People had been on it before that based on arrowheads and pottery shards we’ve found; people have been here forever.
    “We’ve got green spaces where we feed turkeys and deer and bobcat and the quail,” said Allen. “I’ve got bluebird houses up. It’s all interconnected.”
    Allen also toes the line when it comes to recycling. Everywhere you look on his 120 acres you see concrete shoring up banks and used as riprap; old blacktop filling in potholes on dirt roads; canals funneling irrigation runoff and rainwater back into a pond to be used again; plastic pots that have been used over and over to hold several generations of plants.
“We recycle everything,” said Allen. “It’s very important to me that as we move through this world … we’re not here for very long … that we leave something that’s better than what we found.”
    Woodbury adds that Allen’s theme of conservation will be extended to even the youngest visitors at the 2009 Carolina Home & Garden Show.
    “Saturday, Feb. 28, is Kid’s Day, sponsored by PWC,” said Woodbury. “There will be kids’ seminars from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It’s very hands-on; in the past they’ve have made bird feeders and planted flowers.”
    Other special days include Senior Citizens Day on Friday, Feb. 27, sponsored by Piedmont Natural Gas, and Military Appreciation Day on Sunday, March 1, sponsored by Gore Built Homes — service men and women with a valid military ID will receive a $5 food voucher to use in the food court at the show.
    Admission to the 2009 Carolina Home & Garden Show is $6 — children 10 and under will be admitted free. For more information, check out HBAF’s Web site, www.carolinahomeandgardenshow.

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    Times are tough all over.And in order to survive this uncertain economic climate, businesses are cutting back, including in vital areas such as health insurance.
    However, here in Cumberland County, some entities are trying to educate the public that when it comes to beating back the high costs of health insurance coverage, a little investment in prevention now will go a long way toward preserving the bottom line further down the road.
    Leading the proactive charge toward a future of lower health costs is the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce. On Jan. 15, the Chamber announced the launch of a new health plan exclusive to Chamber members — ChamberCare. According to the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce, “ChamberCare, administered by WellPath and in partnership with Doctor’s Direct Health Care, gives small businesses big business benefits along with affordable premiums and access to a strong, local health network comprised of local physicians and the Cape Fear Valley Health System.”
    The crux of the Chamber’s plan is Know Your Number — a disease risk assessment tool that employs patented next generation morbidity modeling for identifying the risk for onset of chronic disease and disease complications.
Gary Cooper, director of special projects for the Chamber, says the program is typically only available to much larger companies and is expected to save small business thousands through preventive measures.
    “What makes ChamberCare unique is that premiums that WellPath provides to our businesses will be as competitive, if not cheaper, than any other carrier that currently does business in Cumberland County,” said Cooper, “but it carries an added feature to it that is a wellness piece called Know Your Number, where Doctor’s Direct will go to the employer and will take vitals of all the employees on the healthcare plan — height, weight, cholesterol count — all those vitals, and they will, with the assistance of physicians in the community, come up with a plan for them to be more healthy. So, in the long run, that’s going to be better for the small business healthcare plan because their employees are going to be more healthy and eventually they’ll see their health premiums decrease because of the health of their employees.”
    Cooper says that among those in the community singing the praises of the plan is Mike Nagowski, president of the Cape Fear Valley Health System.
    “He (Nagowski) sees this as another way to help eliminate some of the uninsured costs that they write off every year,” said Cooper. “About 60 percent of all uninsured Americans are employed by small businesses … which means at some point they’re going to have to have healthcare and if they don’t have insurance and they don’t have means to pay for it, then folks like Cape Fear Valley will treat them but they will have to write them off. So Mike was very excited about the fact that we have this plan. He sees it not only as a benefit to Cape Fear Valley but to all citizens because we own that hospital … So it’s a way of making it more profitable.”
    The program is available only to Chamber members and can be sold only by insurance salesmen and brokers who are Chamber members. Cooper says that currently, seven different groups have received quotes under the ChamberCare plan, with one business that is very close to actually implementing the plan.
    Not only are local businesses already showing interest in the plan, but a handful of groups across the state have, according to Cooper, expressed “envy” over the ChamberCare plan.
    “Since Jan. 15, I have talked to the Raleigh Chamber, the Asheville Chamber, the Wayne County/Goldsboro Chamber,” said Cooper, “and they are all envious of fact that we were able to put something together because they have all been looking at this or trying to develop something like this for a number of years and have not been able to come up with it.”
    This idea of using an ounce of prevention to prevent a pound of illnesses is not unique to the Chamber. The city of Fayetteville also utilizes a wellness plan to save money on health costs … both for the city and its employees.
Terrie Hutaff, the city of Fayetteville’s human resources director, says the city’s projected healthcare costs for the current fiscal year are $10.6 million, with the city’s share being $8.4 million — that’s for 1,200 employees and 130 retirees.
    However, Hutaff says the city has started a wellness program utilizing biometric screening through third party administrator United Healthcare to lower future health costs. The program has been carried out in several phases: phase one was a survey to employees asking about health-related issues with the answers sent to United Healthcare for a follow-up with employees who had significant issues. Phase two is voluntary biometric screening, with incentives for employees who participate. Next year, Hutaff says the city hopes to move toward charging premium differentials for people who participate in the biometric screening.
    “What biometric screening gets us is those people who may be unhealthy and don’t even know they have issues but will now find out about it,” said Hutaff. “We are also going to start this year through risk management to offer some different wellness discounts … exercise classes … those types of things; we still have a good portion going toward lifestyle issues, so those are the people we’re going after, as well as those people who are unhealthy who may not currently be receiving treatment because they didn’t realize they had high blood pressure or diabetes.”
    Hutaff says the city has received a grant to help pay for the medicine needed by workers suffering from diabetes and high cholesterol. She says this program — which started in the city of Asheville — prevents serious complications by covering the pharmacy co-pays for those who can’t afford the medicine and would simply go without.
    “It seems to us to be very smart to pay for the co-pay for those types of illnesses instead of paying for, say, open heart surgery,” said Hutaff. “In the short term it may cost us but in the long term if it saves us one claim we can more than recoup our cost of paying for the co-pays for those types of medicines.”

   Going in, I expected Revolutionary Road (119 minutes) to be a movie that could only be enjoyed after a hefty dose of Prozac. It looked like the sort of heavy handed overly (and overtly) emotional tripe that gets award recognition but otherwise lacks appeal (see Atonement, Road to Perdition, and Mystic River). Surprisingly, within minutes of the opening credits, I was deeply engrossed in the story. What if Jack didn’t die at the end of Titanic? Would he and Rose have lived happily ever after, or would the blush of young passion have faded to dishwater during their struggle to make ends meet? The trailer promised a glimpse into the darker side of suburbia, and it certainly delivered.  However, the trailer failed to reveal the subtle acting skills of Leonardo DiCaprio (who apparently can act), from whom Director Sam Mendes gets an outstanding performance. Kate Winslet deserves all the award nominations she is receiving, and she was shamefully overlooked for the Oscar nomination. 
   {mosimage}The film opens at a party, where April (Winslet) catches Frank Wheeler’s eye (DiCaprio). We skip to Connecticut in 1955, where April’s dreams of acting have been reduced to starring in a poorly received community play, and their promising relationship has turned to verbal sparring and poorly concealed hate. Since that first meeting, April has forced herself (or been forced) into the disappointing and unfulfilling life of a housewife while Frank works at a job he seems to hate in order to support her.
   April suggests they move to Paris, and despite the tragic air of the whole movie, it really seems like the two will recapture the lost promise of their youth and find a way to lead mutually fulfilling lives instead of being stuck in their mutually destructive roles. They begin to tell people of their plans, only to be met with open criticism and hostility. 
  Then, their friend Mrs. Helen Givings (Kathy Bates) introduces the couple to her son (The awesomely crazy Michael Shannon from the awfully awesome Bug). He, at least, approves of their plan, and it seems like these two crazy kids are really gonna make it work…but this is not that kind of movie.       
  In the final analysis, the film reads like a contemporary take on a too often idealized time in America. To my surprise, it is actually based on a novel by Richard Yates from 1962.  Mendes does great things with the material, and the story is incredibly involving.  The actors strike just the right emotional tone, making this film a must see.
  Despite the lack of the spectacular Nina Simone song playing over the trailer (“Wild is the Wind” for those of you who were going crazy trying to remember the title), the soundtrack nicely complemented the overall aesthetic of the fifties. The dialogue is letter perfect, skillfully integrating the appropriate slang and accent of the period. The sitting room, dining room, restaurant décor and knick knacks are nicely done, and a close eye for detail is evident throughout the film. The story kept me guessing, and while the climax is not a huge surprise, the foreshadowing is subtle enough to keep the audiences in suspense. Overall, an excellent film.   

Contact Heather Griffiths at editor@upandcomingweekly.com

   Feeling lucky?
   Got your rabbit’s foot on and your mojo working?
   Want to put it all on black and spin the wheel just once in your life?
   Then it’s a safe bet that you’ll have a grand time — for a grand cause — at the 4th Annual Casino Night scheduled for Friday, Feb. 13, at the Holiday Inn Bordeaux.
   The annual event — sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Fayetteville, Inc., and Carolina Mortgage Center — presents an evening of Las Vegas-style gambling to raise money for a worthy cause.
   For $75, you’ll get $500 worth of “funny money” to gamble on slots, blackjack and Texas Hold ‘em, with a shot at winning top prizes, including a piece of jewelry from Carlyle, a 42-inch television and a prepaid Visa card. And your conscience can take a free ride while you play these games of chance, as all proceeds go to help out this year’s beneficiary, the Child Advocacy Center — an organization dedicated to helping abused children.
   Natalie Woodbury, executive director of Home Builders Association of Fayetteville, Inc., said last year’s event drew more than 350 gamesters.{mosimage}
   “Over the past three years we’ve raised more than $50,000 for worthy causes... last year it was Cumberland Interfaith,” said Woodbury. “It’s just like walking onto the floor of a Vegas casino. It’s done by a great company from Raleigh called All In. You can visit Vegas without buying an airplane ticket... and it would make a great Valentine’s Day treat.”
   Tammy Laurence, the executive director of Child Advocacy Center, said the money raised by Casino Night is especially important in these tough economic times.
   “The money will help us maintain our level of service to abused children and their families,” said Laurence.
   The event runs from 6:30-10:30 p.m., and the admission price includes tickets for two drinks and heavy hors d’oeuvres. To purchase tickets, call 486-9700.

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com 

   In celebration of Black History Month, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra presents “Copland, Mozart and Dvorak” on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 8 pm at Seabrook Auditorium on the campus of Fayetteville State University.
   “This is one of our yearly performances at Fayetteville State University,” said Fouad Fakhouri, director and conductor of Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra. “For the past three seasons we have performed at Seabrook Auditorium as part of Black History Month.”
   {mosimage}Fakhouri added that FSO is repeating this particular performance three times in three different venues. The other two concerts will be held on Friday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Carolina Civic Center in Lumberton and on Sunday, Feb. 22 at 3 p.m. at Owens Auditorium on the campus of Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst.   
   The concert performance features the sounds of America, Austria and Bohemia. The selections include Wolfgang Mozart’s famous First Flute Concerto No. 1 in honor of Lincoln’s Bicentennial, Aaron Copland’s masterpiece Lincoln Portrait with narration by Ken Smith and Antonin Dvorak’s famous Symphony No. 8. The piece by Mozart features FSO’s principal flute player, Jessica Dixon. 
   “This concert is one that has much variety,” said Fakhouri.   
   Copland was commissioned to write a musical portrait of a great American statesman. He decided on Lincoln and picked out sections of Lincoln’s letters and speeches and interspersed them with short biographical details. The overall tone of the piece is serious and dignified. 
   Mozart hated the flute and despite his disdain for the instrument, the Concerto in G, along with its companion pieces, is an ambitious piece of work that is standing in the repertory.     
   Dvorak composed his piece in 1889. It reflects his love for his native culture and is the most national of his nine symphonies. The piece shifts from major to minor modes and features the flute that dominates the movement.
   “My hope is to have the audience come and experience a remarkable and memorable concert that will move them and inspire them to come back to all of our concerts,” said Fakhouri. 
FSO season tickets are only accepted for the Fayetteville performance. Individual ticket prices are $25 for adult, $20 for seniors 65 and older, $20 for military and $8 for students. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 433-4690 or at Seabrook Auditorium the evening of the performance.    

Contact Shanessa Fenner at editor@upandcomingweekly.com    









 

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The Greatest Show On Earth

   It may not be the three-ring variety, but the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is still the “greatest show on Earth.”
   The world’s most famous circus — rechristened BOOM A RING — rolls into the Crown Coliseum Feb. 12-15, confining its action into one ring to provide a more compact, cost-effective product to the thrill-seeking public.
   Don’t worry though, while it’s one ring rather than three, the action is just as fast, furious and frenetic as you remember. It’s also much more intimate — circus-goers will enjoy an up-close and personal experience as they sit feet away from white tigers, majestic Asian elephants and acrobats from around the world.
In addition to the crossbow wizardy of Marti Peltonen, featured acts include: Los Scolas in a gravity-defying performance on the whirling Wheel of Steel; Vicenta Pages, one of the world’s youngest performing tiger trainers, demonstrates the bond she shares with her rare white-striped Bengal tigers in a display of acrobatic jumps, balancing and even a high-five; Patti Zerbini performs alongside Asian elephants; and the Vedyashkina family presents a delightful Daschund dog act.
   One of the best things about the BOOM A RING format is it allows for an all-access pre-show, which starts an hour before show time and allows the audience to meet and get to know the performers personally.
   The performance schedule is: Thursday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 14, 3-7 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 15 at 2 p.m.
   Tickets start at $15.50 and are on sale now and available through http://www.Ringling.com, Ticketmaster or the Crown Coliseum box office. Contact the Crown at 438-4100 or visit its Web site at www.crowncoliseum.com.

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com
 
 
 
 




 

   As Valentine’s Day approaches, and procrastinators everywhere (myself included) are breaking out in hives at the prospect of purchasing gifts and planning events, a roundup of romantic offerings around town seems like a great idea.

Hotels and Spas
   Holiday Inn Bordeaux is offering a romance package that includes overnight accommodations, dinner for two, dessert, champagne or sparking cider delivered to your room in the evening, plus a Sunday Brunch.  Call 323-0111 to book your room.
   The Renaissance European Day Spa has several Valentine’s Day specials, including everything from a chocolate mousse facial, manicure and pedicure with a spa lunch, to an aroma therapy massage, a gentleman’s package that offers and hot stone massage and a facial, and a couples offer that includes massages, facials and a pedicure.  Prices range from $75 to more than $400. Call 484-9922 for more information.
   Ravenhill Medical Day Spa & Salon has a few Valentine packages, as well. How about a chocolate full body massage, chocolate facial, and romance and roses manicure and pedicure, or a warm soak and a moisturizing massage? Prices start at $65 for a mani/pedi. Call 497-0218. 

Pubs and Clubs
   The Doghouse Bar is offering two dinner specials — chicken or rib-eye steaks for two with baked potatoes or fries, a veggie, bread and a salad. It’s $18.50 for the chicken, $23.50 for the steak. Check out www.thedoghousebar.com or call 323-2400 for reservations.
   Jesters Pub is celebrating Valentine’s Day on Feb. 12 with the 2nd annual Valentines Day Massacre featuring Saliva, Pop Evil and Since October.
   It’z will be hosting ladies night on Feb. 12 with giveaways that include free trips, spa gift certificates and gym memberships.
   The Keys Piano Bar will be featuring Johnny Stone, Paul Hoefler and Richard Wojeck.

Sweets and Treats      
   The Chocolate Lady is featuring a rose box special for $25, which holds 12-14 strawberries depending on their size. Of course, said strawberries are dipped in a variety of confectionery delights — white chocolate, dark chocolate, or a combination of both. Truffles can be substituted if strawberries aren’t your sweetheart’s favorite treat.
   Baskets of Blessings has something to fit every budget, starting at $2.75 for a single, boxed chocolate or truffle. The high end of the candy spectrum tops out at $35 with a box full of goodies. Chocolate baskets and     Sweet n Salty baskets are another popular item, starting at $36 and climbing as high as you are willing to go.

Restaurants
   Hilltop House has a new executive chef who is excited about his updated menu. Look for a filet and lobster entree and a bone-in New York strip with an espresso rub served with a chocolate steak sauce among other exciting options. I asked for more, but that is all they would give up about their romantic menu. Musician Bill Mann will be performing jazz to create that perfect romantic mood. Call 484-6699 now for reservations as spots are filling up fast.
  Morgan’s Chop House is relatively new on the culinary scene in Fayetteville and it is not holding back on its Valentine’s Day offerings. Corky Jones and the Mighty Blue will be providing entertainment. For $55 a person, a four-course dinner with mix-and-match menu items will be featured. Appetizer choices include a lobster crab strudel, spinach artichoke dip or oysters Rockefeller, followed by a choice of a wedge or Caesar salad. Filet mignon, apple walnut pork chops (a best seller) and a 12-ounce rib-eye are offered as entrée choices, all served with either baked potato or sautéed vegetables. And you can top all that off with a slice of lollipop cheesecake served with a tuxedo strawberry. Reservations are being taken for 5, 7 and 9 p.m. by calling 867-8447. 

Contact Stephanie Crider at editor@upandcomingweekly.com

 
 
 
 
 
 
 




 

   Slowly, the light fades in, revealing the Moon, dressed in white tuxedo and wearing whiteface, sitting atop an ancient, battered refrigerator, playing a plaintive melody on a violin as sad and sweet as a young girl’s first crush.
   Somewhere, as if from the bottom of a deep, desert ravine, the Coyote wails and then makes an appearance, sniffing around, wearing a carnivorous smile and a derelict’s shabby clothes as he searches out the object of his affection — Cat — all dressed in black, hunkered seductively in a corner and purring away like God’s own house tabby.
   And so begins References To Salvador Dali Make Me Hot— a surreal, sexy, sublime stage adaptation of Jose Rivera’s play about a lonely, lusty and lustful woman living in the desert of Barstow, Calif., seemingly always awaiting the return of her warrior husband, a soldier in the United States Army who most recently fought in the first Gulf War. Thrown in to the mix are all of the aforementioned characters, plus a 14-year-old boy next door who is a walking, talking hand grenade of hormones.
   {mosimage}Thursday was opening night for References To Salavador Dali Make Me Hot at the Gilbert Theater, and if you’re looking to warm up the libido during these cold, February days, then this is the ticket. The production, directed by Marcella Casals, smolders like Valentino’s eyes on Valentine’s Day and shows off the talents of a largely inexperienced, yet talented, young cast.
   Gabriele (Brooke Sullivan) is the lady of the house, alone and bored in her desert domicile, wishing her soldier husband Benito (Will Moreno) would come home for good, forsaking his most demanding mistress, the United States Army.
   While she pines for Benito and a better life, the Moon (Rickie Jacobs) and the Boy (Manquillan Minniffee) pine desperately for her. As a subtext, the Coyote (Steve Jones) and the Cat (Teresa Dagaz) trade sexually-charged barbs as the audience tries to figure out whether the Coyote wants to make love to the Cat or simply make her a main course.
   As Gabriele, Sullivan is sex incarnate, strutting the stage in cutoffs and a tank top, driving even the klieg lights to distraction as she questions her place in the universe and whether or not she wants to remain faithfully wed to a man whose vocation she hates — a vocation that has dragged her from Germany to the doorstep of Death Valley. Sullivan possesses a sultriness far beyond her years.
   Moreno is excellent as Benito. As Gabriele’s by-the-field manual husband, he puts honor and duty first, and the love for his woman a sloppy second. This is Moreno’s first ever appearance on a stage and he gives the play’s strongest performance, pitch perfect as a psychologically-wounded warrior confused by his wife’s constant questioning of his chosen career. Future directors looking for a male lead in an upcoming production should drop this publication and run to Moreno’s dressing room door... like RIGHT NOW.  He’s that good.
   Minniffee is also a standout as the teenager from next door who wants Gabriele to both take him seriously as a man and take his virginity.
   Hell, all the characters are great. Jacobs makes a perfectly “inconstant” moon, while community theater vets Jones and Dagaz are superbly animalistic as their cat and canine alter egos.
   The dialogue is as beautiful as the desert set in spare.
   The story — the seemingly never ending wait by spouses for their soldier husbands and wives to come home — is particularly poignant in a military town such as Fayetteville.
   And don’t worry about venturing out into the February chill — this reference to Salvador Dali will definitely make you hot.

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com 

   Over the last six months, Rape Crisis Volunteers of Cumberland County has served 260 people — all of whom were having the worst, or one of the worst days, of their lives.
   All of these 260 victims reached out to Rape Crisis Volunteers of Cumberland County (RCVCC) in their time of need, clutching for a helping hand to guide them through the nightmare of sexual assault.
   And now, RCVCC is reaching out to you.
   The organization, founded in 1976 to provide support services to victims of sexual assault, needs volunteers to help out with the facility’s 24-hour hotline for sexual assault victims, as well as serving as hospital companions and/or providing courtroom accompaniment. Volunteers also assist with community education presentations and special projects throughout the year.
   Deanne Gerdes, executive director of RCVCC, says there are no real requirements to become a volunteer... other than being 18, a good listener and showing dedication toward the client.
   And you should be emotionally ready to deal with it... to be able to separate what happened to the victim and your own life,” said Gerdes.
   And they’re not looking only for female volunteers. Gerdes says that since the overwhelming majority of sexual assault victims are women, volunteers who serve as hospital or courtroom companions should ideally be female; however, Gerdes says one of RCVCC’s most dedicated help line volunteers is a blind male. Also, men are needed to go into the schools and counsel male students on doing their part to prevent sexual assault on women as well as appropriate dating relationships.
   Getting the word out that “no means no” would appear to be especially important here in Fayetteville — a military town where Gerdes says soldiers returning from overseas sometimes have trouble readjusting to their return.{mosimage}
   “Out of the 260 victims we’ve helped in the last six months, 156 were military-related,” said Gerdes. “These victims are more comfortable sometimes going off post to talk to us.”
   Despite the number of military-related cases, Gerdes praises the staff at Womack Army Medical Hospital for the professionalism the staff shows when treating victims of suspected sexual assault.
   “Womack does a great job,” said Gerdes. “It has nine nurses trained in treating sexual assault.”
   Katie Krob RCVCC’s victim’s advocate community liaison, says sensitivity is extremely important at the hospital, on the part of both the staff and RCVCC volunteers.
   “There’s no easy way to ask the graphic questions and the examination itself is almost like an assault itself,” said Krob.
   Krob adds that local law enforcement is extremely sensitive when dealing with sexual assault victims and is a great partner with the RCVCC. One of those folks standing behind the thin blue line helping serve and protect is Teresa Currey, a victim advocate for the Fayetteville Police Department.
   Currey says the best treatment for sexual assault is prevention. She offers these tips for preventing an attack:
   • Make sure the front of your apartment or house is well lit and free of heavy vegetation an attacker can hide behind;
   • Be cognizant of your surroundings, particularly at night;
   •Travel with friends, especially when going out to bars.
   •Make sure you know plenty about your date before going out for an evening on the town.
   •Take self-defense classes.
   •Don’t ever leave your drink unattended in a bar. Both Currey and Gerdes warned that sexual predators will often slip GHB — the date rape drug — into a victim’s drink.
   And Currey and Gerdes also emphasize that parents need to be aware of who their children are talking to on the Internet, as sexual predators have become experts at accosting the young via the Web.
   And finally, Currey offers one final piece of wisdom if you are attacked: “Just survive,” said Currey. “You can recover from anything... even something as terrible as this.”

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com

 
 






 
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 Too often, the governed feel a disconnect with the governing.
Elected officials are perceived as being ensconced behind the fortess-like walls of Capitol Hill, isolated and removed from their constituents.
   Well, those walls will officially come tumbling down Feb. 9 when the citizens of Cumberland County get the opportunity to meet, greet and (gently) grill the folks calling the shots in D.C., as a who’s who of North Carolina-based politicians — U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, U.S. Congressmen Mike McIntyre, Larry Kissell and Bob Etheridge, and N.C. Sen. Tony Rand — will be at Fayetteville Technical Community College for a Congressional Community Conversation — a forum free to the public.
   The event is sponsored by the county’s three leading schools of higher learning — FTCC, Methodist University and Fayetteville State University.
   The program is the brainchild of a group of private citizens, including local attorney Gardner Altman Jr., who sees the public forum as an opportunity for input into the decisions that affect our lives.
   “We wanted to get these folks together in one place and let them know that they represent us,” said Altman. “This will allow our elected officials to take a few minutes to listen to the concerns of their constituents and our community. So many people have told me that they don’t get an opportunity to talk to their elected officials... Well, here it is.”
   The program will run from 4:30-6 p.m. and will be held in the Tony Rand Student Center on the campus of FTCC, which seats more than 600. A host of local officials and politicians will also speak, as well as introduce the visiting politicians. Fayetteville Mayor Tony Chavonne will welcome everyone, followed by an overview of the program and the introduction of Brig. Gen. Paul Dordal, who will give a presentation on perhaps the single most important issue confronting the future of Cumberland County — Base Realignment and Closure.
   “I will discuss the latest as far as what we have done and what we still need from the government as far as getting funding for BRAC,” said Dordal. “These politicians have been so supportive of our efforts to do what is best for Cumberland County as the BRAC deadline bears down, but more is needed to be done.
   {mosimage}“For example, our latest information shows us that there is probably going to be the biggest influx of families moving into the western part of the county,” said Dordal. “Right now, it looks like Jack Britt is going to be the most popular school system of choice for these families and there will be an influx into gated and/or golf communities such as Gates Four. We need to get federal funding to improve our infrastructure and we need to make our case to these politicians.”
   After Dordal’s presentation, Hagan is scheduled to speak for 20 minutes, followed by Etheridge, McIntyre and Kissell, all of whom are scheduled to speak for 5-7 minutes. There will then be a question and answer session with questions from audience members lasting approximately 20 minutes. According to Altman, questions will be written down on index cards by audience members and submitted to the moderator.
   Kissell says he is particularly looking forward to the event, both to meet with his constituents and to pick up pointers from his fellow congressmen.
   “I think it’s important to communicate with the voters... and not just to answer questions... but to really listen,” said Kissell. “And I can’t wait to share a stage with Congressmen Etheridge and McIntyre — there’s a lot I can learn from them.
   And the BRAC discussion will be very important. I am a big supporter of Fort Bragg and want to help make this transition as smooth as possible.”

Contact Tim Wilkins at tim@upandcomingweekly.com

   On Monday night the city-appointed Fayetteville Museum of Art Task Force presented its recommendations to the Fayetteville City Council during its work session. The council took no official action on the recommendations but will take it up at an upcoming meeting for action.
   The task force was formed at the request of City Councilman Ted Mohn after opposition was raised to the park’s construction  in Festival Park and questions were raised concerning the museum’s ability to pay for the construction and the sustainment of the facility. The task force, composed of individual’s recommended by the city council, the museum and the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, has been meeting for several months. They were tasked with determining the financial viability and sustainability of the proposed new museum facility, recommending a site for the museum and ensuring proper parking was available at whatever site they recommend.
   On Monday the task force chairman, local banker Scott Baker, brought the recommendations to the council.
   In regards to the financial sustainability of the project, the task force reported that its members, after careful scrutiny of the museum’s current and past financials and its sustainability reports, did not believe the proposed $15 million facility was sustainable.
   Throughout the task force’s discussions, the topic of financial sustainability has often turned acrimonious. Task force members appointed by the museum — Meredith Stiehl, Mark Sternlicht and Ralph Huff — have contended that the museum’s financials and sustainability of the project have been studied in detail by professionals and were not and should not be a part of the task force’s discussions.
   Other members, led by Linda Devore and Dave Wilson, have been adamant that the financials were at the heart of the tasking by the council. Devore has frequently pointed out that the sustainability report was created using numbers that were questionable, including sales in the museum gift shop and attendance.
   During the task force’s final meeting on Jan. 26, Sternlicht again argued that the museum had presented a sustainability study that involved budgets and projected incomes for the new facility and how money would be raised and generated to fund it. “That seems to me to be the only information we have on the issue of sustainability,” said Sternlicht.
   Devore countered that information in the study was not credible and would have a bearing on the sustainability. She added that since the study was conducted in 2006 many factors have shifted in the economy. She pointed to the fact that the museum’s study used increased attendance numbers to project revenue, but noted that attendance numbers at the museum are decreasing. “We have every reason to believe that trend will continue in that direction” she said.
   Following limited discussion, the task force voted that the project was not sustainable. Sternlicht voted in opposition on the sustainment issue, a visibly upset Stiehl abstained and Huff was not in attendance.
In regards to site selection, the task force had initially agreed to recommend three sites — a 1-acre site in Festival Park in the proposed facility’s current location, a second 1-acre site realigned closer to Ray Avenue and a site in the city-owned AIT parking lot.
  Devore made an impassioned plea for the task force to come together and make a unanimous recommendation to the council. Devore said one of the reasons she wanted to be on the task force was to try and rescue the project. She said that everyone on the task force, no matter their opinion on the current proposed project, wants a museum downtown. She added that the park cannot be built without public support for the project, and that the construction of the project in Festival Park would not garner public support. She asked the museum to use the 1-acre site within Festival Park that they have the deed for as a bargaining chip. “You have three years and three months left on the deed. You need to consider it as a bargaining chip,” she said. “Dr. Pennik (the chairman of the museum board) says no significant fundraising can be done in the three years and three months. At that time you will have lost your bargaining chip. You can use it now to facilitate a swap to entice the city to swap for an alternative site. I would like to see that happen. I would like to see this project succeed.”
   She asked the task force to unanimously recommend the AIT site as the best site to get a fresh start on the project. “I think you will find that this site will work. The public will support it and the museum will be built,” she said.
   George Breece asked Sternlicht and Stiehl and museum director Tom Grubb to comment on the idea.
   Sternlicht, an attorney who works with the museum board of directors, noted that the fixation on three years and three months was not appropriate, adding that the city and the museum have a contract and the time on the contract is extendable if the museum was unable to build because of acts beyond their control. He noted that the city’s action in failing to convey the property and by forming the task force is responsible for the museum’s inability to raise funds for the project.
   Devore said she was “really disappointed by the museum’s stance,” stating, “I think this means that there isn’t going to be a museum built downtown, so I really don’t see your end game.”
Stiehl dropped a veritable bombshell on task force members when she said that recommending the AIT site would limit the museum by giving it no alternative negotiations. She added that the limiting recommendation wasn’t much of a lifeline at all.
   “If we are going to have credit for a bargaining chip, let us bargain with it and don’t take away our ability to bargain with it,” said Stiehl.
   Breece asked if there were other locations the museum was considering. That discussion centered on the Festival Park Plaza, otherwise known as the Lundy Building. After further discussion, the task force agreed to recommend that site as the fourth possible site to the city council.
   During a telephone interview prior to the task force’s presentation, Mayor Tony Chavonne said the city did not own any part of the Lundy building, but rather had a master lease on the facility. With this arrangement, the city would pay the rent on the privately owned facility if it could not be rented. He said to date the city has not had to pay any rent.
   The 300,000 square-foot building, which is the headquarters of Schoolink and a law firm, has a large square footage of the facility that is not rented.
   Since the task force’s Jan. 26 meeting, many in the community have argued that the museum could begin a staged move to downtown by offering some programming and events in the empty facility.
   No action has been taken by the museum or the city on this idea; however, the task force did recommend the site as the fourth location in its presentation to the city.

Contact Janice Burton at editor@upandcomingweekly.com