Surprising a large audience at a Fayetteville City Council meeting Monday evening, Mayor Mitch Colvin announced that there would be no discussion, as planned, of a controversial youth curfew. Instead, he announced the matter will be debated at a special council meeting next Monday.
At that meeting, scheduled for at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 at City Hall, the council will review and make changes to the draft ordinance — which was originally suggested by Police Chief Kemberle Braden — it deems appropriate. Colvin also said the council will schedule a public hearing after that meeting before any ordinance is passed.
“There’s a meeting Monday to do away with the ordinance, modify the ordinance or pass the ordinance,” Colvin said. “It’s just this one item on the agenda. After that, before anything is passed, any legislation is moved forward, that draft — the consensus that will come out of that meeting — we’ll have a public hearing for it.”
The council was expected to discuss the ordinance at Monday’s meeting, and many residents came prepared to speak about it. A total of 52 people signed up for the public-comment period. At least 20 residents held up signs for several minutes at Monday’s meeting that said, “Stop the curfew.”
Colvin said he was excited by the community engagement on the ordinance and hopes to keep the public involved in the process.
“This is a community problem that we have to address as a community,” he said. “And so, as we work through this, we’re looking for everyone to participate because we are a partner in a partnership.”
Council members Mario Benavente and Deno Hondros staunchly opposed the ordinance when it was discussed at last week’s work session. Benavente said the public’s interest in the ordinance informed the council’s preemptive decision to further consider it. He believes the council would have passed the ordinance on Monday if so many people had not signed up to speak on the issue.
“But because people were paying attention, because people went out of their way to sign up and come do this, I think it shook (the council),” Benavente told CityView. “This is a victory that the people made happen for themselves.”
The ordinance was put forward by Braden in the wake of recent gun violence in the city that includes shootings involving minors as perpetrators or victims. According to the draft ordinance, anyone younger than 18 would be prohibited from being in public in the city limits between 1 and 5 a.m. on weekends and midnight and 5 a.m. on weekdays.
A few residents spoke about the ordinance during the public-comment period Monday, including 3 of the 13 speakers who topped the 52-person list. Speakers exhausted the allotted 30 minutes allowed for public comment. Each of those who spoke about the curfew were opposed to it.
Christian Mosley cited the Fayetteville Police Department’s track record of apparent racial bias, referencing the most recent crime statistics that show Black drivers are stopped considerably more than white drivers, despite having similar “hit rates” for illegal drugs when a search is conducted.
Mosley said the council needs to confront the issue of how Black residents could be disproportionately affected by the youth curfew, which relies extensively on officer judgment, considering how the Black community has historically been treated by law enforcement.
“I think that is something that needs to be talked about a little bit more openly without trying to be a little bit too (politically correct) about it,” Mosley said. “So I would appreciate more transparency from this council, which, by the way, is majority Black, to address the issues happening to your people that make up 40% of the population in the city.”
Colvin said he thinks the meeting next week will give the council an opportunity to refine the ordinance. He said he was “concerned” about some aspects of the ordinance, such as penalizing children who are suspended from school for being out in public without a parent or guardian during school hours.
“I’m hopeful and I’m confident that if council sits down in a room, we can come up with something that’s reasonable but effective, and we need to also have a discussion with the other parties involved,” Colvin told CityView. “This will include (the Cumberland County Department of Social Services) and the justice system and some other people.”
Colvin said the remaining 35 speakers who had signed up Monday will be able to speak first at the public hearing if they choose. He did not say when the public hearing will be scheduled, only that it would be after next Monday’s council meeting.
City Manager Douglas Hewett said he supports the ordinance but also appreciates the discourse it has engendered in the community.
“I think that tonight, we’re doing something right as well, that people are listening, people are paying attention,” Hewett said. “And this is an issue that has touched a lot of people’s hearts and minds.”
The special meeting to discuss the ordinance will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 at City Hall.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com.
The CityView News Fund is a nonprofit organization that supports CityView’s newsgathering operation. Will you help us with a tax-deductible donation?
