Overview:
• The top two candidates advance to the November election and will likely win, as there are no Republicans running.
• District 1 includes Spring Lake, Fort Bragg, and parts of western, central and northern Fayetteville, the Murchison Road corridor, downtown Fayetteville, and the Cedar Creek Road area.
CityView interviewed the five candidates in the 2026 Democratic primary for Cumberland County District 1. Below are the questions and answers for Commissioner Glenn Adams, who is seeking reelection to serve a fourth term.
Interviews with the other candidates:
Candidate: Glenn Adams
Elected office experience: county commissioner, 2014-present (three terms). Has served as the board chair.
CityView: If elected, what are three things you would like to do or accomplish or work on?
Glenn Adams:
- I think, do a school bond issue. We can’t piecemeal these schools.
[A bond referendum would ask voters for permission to borrow money to pay for a new E.E. Smith High School plus other repairs, construction, renovation, and capital projects for public education. The Board of Education recently requested $610 million.]
I think it needs to be between $700 million and maybe a billion dollars. - The area of health for Cumberland County. That means the opioid epidemic that we had. It turns with maternal health. It deals with HIV and AIDS, all of getting Cumberland County in a position to be a healthier community.
- [The hiring of new leaders to replace Cape Fear Valley Health CEO Mike Nagowski and Methodist University President Stanley T. Wearden. Cape Fear and Methodist are working together to build a medical school.]
I think it’s important that we work through this process, as we bring that med-school school and Cape Fear Valley (which I think is a tremendous asset to this community), that we make sure that we are taking care of those assets.
[The county commissioners serve on the hospital system’s board of trustees.]
CV: The county is commencing with plans to expand water services countywide in a project estimated to cost $1 billion to $1.4 billion.
Some residents worry that they will have to pay fees for waterlines that pass their property, and that they don’t want to be forced to take the water. Some residents don’t want growth that water service may bring to their communities.
What are your thoughts on the effort to expand water service?
You need countywide water and sewer. Some of these septic tanks are eventually going to fail.
[Adams said Harnett County, the Town of Dunn, Robeson County, Bladen County and the Fayetteville Public Works Commission, are working with Cumberland County on public water service.]
We’ve got to talk to these partners to be able to do it in a controlled manner, to make sure that it doesn’t all fall on the citizens of this community.
[Adams cited a county lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont over forever chemical in Gray’s Creek. He wants the companies to cover “some of that cost, or to pay that cost entirely” to provide public water to Gray’s Creek.]
CV: What are your thoughts on plans for the county to build a regional aquatic center?
I brought that up when I was chair. … I championed that. I’m the one that brought that to this county, an aquatic center. And large enough to be able to have an economic impact, also, as well as for local citizens to be able to use.
CV: The school system says it needs $610 million for capital projects. How should county commissioners address this request?
I put forth just last week that we need a bond issue. And what happens is the school board has to sell it. The county commissioners have to sell it. And all of these municipalities—we as a community—need to come together and say, ‘We’re going to take care of our schools. We’re going to take care of modernizing these schools.’
I tell everybody: We’re not just competing against other students in North Carolina or in the United States—we’re competing globally now. And these buildings need to be accessible with internet technology for the next—not for five years from now—we’re talking about 20 and 30 years. Because, you know, some of these schools are older than you and I.” [Adams is 66.]
CV: Now that the Crown Event Center project is canceled, the county is pursuing renovations at the old Crown Theatre and Arena, and wants to spark development there. Your thoughts and ideas? Do you agree or disagree with the cancellation?
No, I didn’t agree with the cancellation. And you never know, if you get enough people, you can always revert back to where it was.
[County commissioners voted 5-2 in June to cancel the Event Center.]
I’m not a proponent of all the renovation. I’ll see the cost when it comes in, out at the old facility. But we went through that already, where they already told us that it wasn’t the way to go. And so I’ll see the cost to come in on that. But I’m still a proponent of somewhere downtown.
CV: There’s talk of private or public-private development downtown on the former parking lot in front of the county courthouse, where the Event Center was going to be built. But some people who work in and who patronize the courthouse want it returned to parking. What do you want to see there?
I do not want to see a parking lot.
[Downtown Fayetteville has ample parking within walking distance of the courthouse, Adams said, citing as an example a city-owned deck that charges $1 per hour, and no more than $5 per day.]
I believe in green space. If we can put some green space there, it’s not much green space downtown.
[Adams said he loves Festival Park, which is several blocks away from the former parking lot, but finds it to be too big for some activities that could be served by a smaller park at the courthouse.]
I would love to see an outdoor theater there. … They could do plays there. They could have oratorical things there. … [People downtown] can get their lunch and meet there. The green space works for me right now, if we don’t put an arena there.
CV: Some county residents are concerned about the vast amount of electricity that data centers use, plus their use of water, and other issues. What are your thoughts on data centers?
It’s a legitimate business. And if it’s a legitimate business, it ought to be there.
But I think it ought to be regulated. I really don’t want it anywhere near any residential [areas], because of the noise and because of some of the waste water and all of that the other thing. So I think we ought to be able to identify where they can go if they come.
One of the questions, and the problems I had, was, if you allow these data centers to take up all your megawatts and take up your electricity, do you prevent other companies from coming in because they can’t meet that? …
The other thing is this: … You will get some property tax and all of that. But the issue becomes, it doesn’t create many jobs.
So, let’s get ahead of the curve. Let’s talk about what we can do as they come, because I think they’re going to come.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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