Kirk deViere Unveils Ambitious Vision 2030 Plan for Cumberland County

Cumberland County commissioners Chair Kirk deViere on Monday announced Vision 2030—his plan to transform the community for the better.

“Tonight, we’re putting a stake in the ground, and by 2030, Cumberland County will be recognized as a national model for military-connected community development,” deViere said during his second annual State of the County address.

Cumberland County will be a place where education, workforce development, and economic development “are seamlessly connected,” he said. “Where every home has clean water. Where mental health is treated with the same urgency as physical safety. Where our military families choose to stay and build. And where innovation and opportunity grow side by side.

“That is Vision 2030. And that is not a dream. That is a plan,” he said.

DeViere spoke before about 100 members of the public plus county staff and other commissioners in the 1926 Historic Courthouse on Gillespie Street downtown. DeViere was interrupted with applause several times. In addition to interested residents, the crowd included elected officials from Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Falcon, the Cumberland County Board of Education, and Fort Bragg garrison commander Col. Chad Mixon.

Although deViere put a name to his initiatives on Monday, in many ways Vision 2030 has been underway since he took office 15 months ago and snatched the board chair position from its old guard in a 4-3 vote. For example, he quickly pursued efforts to expand public water and boost support for the county’s public schools.

Some of the goals and objectives that deViere highlighted:

A New Children’s Museum

Downtown Fayetteville has a small children’s museum called Fascinate-U in the old City Hall on Green Street. The community should have something much more, deViere said.

“We’re talking with Fascinate-U, our local children’s museum, to explore what it would take to build a facility worthy of the children in this community—the best in the southeast—because our kids deserve nothing less,” he said.

In fall 2023 The Fayetteville Observer reported that Fascinate-U’s executive director said the museum planned to expand within its existing building, where it occupies the first floor and part of the second floor. There was no mention of building a new facility. The media outlet reported that Fascinate-U opened in 1995 in a community center off Ramsey Street and moved into the former City Hall in 1998.

Aquatic Center and Crown Entertainment Campus

The county is advancing on several fronts with quality-of-life amenities, deViere said.

“We’re building a community where people want to be—not just where they work, but where they choose to spend their time,” he said.

These include construction of a regional aquatic center, which is still in the planning phase.

“We are moving forward with a regional aquatic center unlike anything in the region,” deViere said. “A state of the art facility designed for collegiate and high school competitions, community recreation and advanced human performance training.”

He also addressed plans to revitalize the late 1960s-era Crown Theatre and Crown Arena next to the 1990s-built Crown Coliseum on U.S. 301.

“At the Crown Complex, we’re investing in a world-class entertainment campus,” deViere said. “We’re upgrading the theater for concerts and performing arts, and we’re modernizing our arena for sports and events. These improvements will help make our complex a year round regional destination.”

DeViere led the county commissioners’ controversial decision in June 2025 to cancel construction of the Crown Event Center in downtown Fayetteville. The center had been years in the making, and it was intended to replace the Crown Theatre and Crown Arena. Construction got underway in October 2024 before being abruptly paused in March 2025 and canceled in June.

Resources are instead being directed to the theater and arena.

Clean Drinking Water

The county is aggressively seeking to bring public water to the whole county, deViere said. “This county will not rest until every one of our families has clean, safe drinking water,” he said.

In this board’s first 100 days, he said, the commissioners directed the installation of water filters in two elementary schools in Gray’s Creek whose well water had been contaminated by industrial chemicals called PFAS and GenX, from a nearby Chemours Co. chemical plant. Since 2017, the schools had used bottled water.

In addition to providing filters to the schools, “we accelerated the construction of a water system in the most contaminated neighborhoods in Gray’s Creek. We committed more than $260 million to clean, safe, state-regulated drinking water and secured the largest water infrastructure allocation of any county in this state,” he said.

Further, deViere said, Cumberland County residents rallied to protest an effort by the Town of Fuquay-Varina in Wake County to extract more than 6 million gallons of water a day from the Cape Fear River, which serves as Cumberland County’s primary water source.

Economic Development, 911 Center, and Homelessness

Other points from deViere’s speech:

• “We will develop economic corridors around the Fayetteville Regional Airport and the Crown Complex to attract private investment, create jobs and transform some of our strongest assets into engines for growth.”
• The community has a metaphorical “innovation corridor.” “It brings Fort Bragg, our educational institutions, and our private sector partners together in one regional network for defense technology, cyber security, artificial intelligence and next generation workforce development.” 
• The county continues to work with the City of Fayetteville on an effort to combine their separate 911 call centers into one 911 center. Previous efforts failed amid disputes over control of a jointly operated center. “We will break that cycle,” deViere said.
• While the county has more to do to help homeless people, it worked with nonprofit organizations to provide more than 100 beds for cold weather shelter, and more than 70 beds for people in emergency situations. “No one should sleep in their car in Cumberland County. And while we still have more work to do, we are no longer just talking about homelessness, we’re doing something about it.”
• Mental health services have been expanded, and the county plans to integrate mental health professionals into its 911 response “so that when somebody calls in crisis, that a trained professional will be there. Help, not handcuffs.”

For the Next Generation

In announcing his plans, deViere recalled a similar initiative from 25 years ago, called the Greater Fayetteville Futures Project, and cited Tony Chavonne, who was one of that effort’s organizers. Chavonne at the time was the general manager of The Fayetteville Observer. He later served four terms as mayor, and after that was the publisher of CityView until 2024. Chavonne now serves on the board of the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville, which is a nonprofit that financially supports CityView.

As deViere outlined his ambitions for Cumberland County, he pointed out his 9-year-old son, Grey, who was in the audience with deViere’s family.

“Every decision I make as your chairman, I think about the county that he’s gonna grow up in,” deViere said.

“Will the water be clean? Will the schools be strong? Will there be opportunities for him and his friends when they’re ready to build their lives?” deViere said. “I want Grey to grow up in a community that never stops fighting for its future. And I know every parent and grandparent in this room feels the exact same way about their child or grandchild.”

Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.

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