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District 9: Challenger faces council veteran in Fayetteville's commercial heart

Fayetteville Observer - 11/1/2019

Nov. 1--In the central part of Fayetteville, long-term District 9 City Councilman Jim Arp and challenger Yvonne Kinston both have ideas for a better and more prosperous city.

Arp was born and raised in Fayetteville and had a career in the Army as a helicopter pilot. Now he is a civilian instructor at the special warfare school at Fort Bragg.

Kinston, who moved to Fayetteville at age 10 when the Army brought her family here, is in sales and service for AT&T Mobility. She also is a leader in the Communications Workers of America Union.

District 9 is in central Fayetteville, encompassing many middle class neighborhoods along Morganton Road, Skibo Road, McPherson Church Road and Glensford Drive. It also has the retail commerce heart at and around Cross Creek Mall on Skibo Road.

"The city has done very well with developing around the mall area, we just got the new Freedom Town Center," Kintson said. Going forward, the city should encourage businesses to open in the Cain Road area and hire local people, which she said has lost some commerce.

Arp said the city could encourage more dense growth and high-rise buildings in District 9 and elsewhere. Younger generations want walkable and bicycle-friendly neighborhoods with a mix of residential and retail, he said.

"Sprawl is expensive, OK? It' really expensive," Arp said. "Density helps us in so many ways, and I think there is an opportunity."

Both Arp and Kinston would like Fayetteville's bus service to be quicker. Both said distances that take minutes to travel by car often take hours on the Fayetteville Area System of Transit.

Express buses could get passengers quickly to and from the city's bus station, Kinston said. There they could change buses to get to their destinations.

Arp said he has ridden the bus. The city needs to look at how the bus system works, he said, and come up with ideas to make it faster and more convenient for passengers and increase its usage. Shorter routes with more hub locations to change buses might help, he said.

Arp, well-known for advocating for the new baseball stadium downtown, proposes that the city build a promenade or boardwalk along Cross Creek. It would run from the Martin Luther King Jr. Park on Murchison Road, down through the parks downtown and on to the Cape Fear Botanical Garden.

"Build a beautiful walkway through there that is aesthetically inviting, but also inviting for new business, retail and residential," Arp said. He thinks the boardwalk could be built with $5 million that the city was planning to spend for a park on the Cape Fear River.

Kinston said she wants to be a voice for the 9th District and promises to be visible and accessible to the residents. In her work for the Communications Union she has to make herself available to her fellow workers, often at odd hours, she said.

"One of the things that I've learned in the position that I'm in, is when I take on a project, I like to make sure that it's the voice of everyone, or I like to get input," she said.

Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3512.

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