Happy New Year!

And yes, you’re right—time is flying. Wasn’t it just a year or two ago that we began a new century and millennium? No? Have we really finished off a whole quarter century?

Well, yes, we have.

And those of us of a certain age know the truth of what Mom said when we were kids, when time—especially time spent waiting for Santa—moved at a pace that made snails look like race cars: The older you get, the faster time passes.

I don’t need to stand on my tiptoes anymore to see 80 coming—it’s only a few birthdays away. So New Year’s resolutions have entered a new phase, taken on a new focus. Oh sure, I really am going to restart my long-dormant running program—the daily walk isn’t enough to keep the pounds off, and I have no interest in losing weight by starving myself. Good food is too precious. And I may have a dry-ish January, although any special occasion that arises will be reason enough to break that one.

But more important—way more important—is the time spent pondering what kind of world I’m leaving to the generations after my baby boom cohort, and what I plan to do to help create that world.

That’s not a new pursuit for me. I started having those thoughts and taking some of those actions, nearly 50 years ago, when I became a father (amazing how that changes your perspective, isn’t it?). And in these often chaotic, disputatious times, I’m revisiting a lot of those thoughts.

Few of us sit in places with sufficient power to alter the course of world or national or even state destiny. But that old bumper sticker is still right: think globally, act locally. If we want to create a better world, we start in our own backyards.

My time in Fayetteville showed me a lot of positive things, mostly involving good people quietly doing good things for their families, friends, neighborhoods, and the community in its entirety. My fellow journalists looked for those stories and told them well. They still do. But too often, those little microcosms of life didn’t expand to create a better city or county, because there wasn’t enough community leadership to make it happen.

For a whole host of reasons, many of our elected leaders get stuck in distractions. City Council members focus more on their district’s needs than on where the city as a whole is headed. County commissioners spend more time chasing the nickels and dimes of the budget than they do envisioning a path to a better future. Now, those district priorities and serious budget-keeping are indeed important parts of the job—stuff that’s got to be done, and done well. But it’s not the whole package. Without a vision for the future—not pipe dreams but fleshed-out plans—we’re stuck in a present that’s not good enough.

And Fayetteville and Cumberland County are indeed stuck. The economy lags behind many of our peer communities. Health outcomes are too close to those we see in our rural, impoverished neighbors. Our schools aren’t performing as well as we need if we’re going to break out of those seemingly endless cycles.  

So what do we do? What can individuals do? What can people do who feel powerless to create change?

Here’s one starting place: The next time you see your elected representative—city council member, county commissioner, board of education member, whatever—ask them about their vision for the future. Ask what they’re doing to create change. Ask which steps they want to take to lift Fayetteville and Cumberland County into the more prosperous tiers of North Carolina communities. Every single person who stands for election should have a well-thought-out answer.

And I can tell you, after decades as a journalist in Fayetteville and as a moderator of more candidate-night forums than I can count, that many of them don’t have that vision. Many of them think they’re doing their job well if they get a new fire station or recreation center in their district, and they have little inclination to think bigger than that.

That, my friends, is how a community can get stuck. It’s what happens when residents don’t ask big and important questions. We don’t get big thoughts and ambitious plans when we don’t demand them.

There is enormous potential in Fayetteville and Cumberland County. And there are great, talented people. But we may waste it unless we press our leaders, ask them hard questions, and insist that they see the big picture and have plans to advance Greater Fayetteville, leveraging all its resources and making it as good as it can be.

I hope you’ll join me in making—and keeping—that resolution.

And meanwhile, happy 2026!

Read CityView Magazine’s “New Year, New You” January 2026 e-edition here.