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 Murshison 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 Larry Wright Sr.
Interviews with the other candidates:
Candidate: Larry Wright Sr.
Elected office experience: four terms (nearly nine years) on the Fayetteville City Council. (His fourth term was extended due to a postponement of the November 2021 City Council election until July 2022.)
CityView: If elected, what are three things you would like to do or accomplish or work on?
Larry Wright:
- One thing I would like to work on is the homeless issue. To really develop a program that will systematically bring accountability and to really make a difference, to allow those that want to come up to be productive parts of society again, to do that.
The housing issue is a part of that—affordable housing—to see how we as a county could help get the homeless off the street. - I want to be a champion for small business owners to see how we as a county could help small businesses succeed. Because small businesses really, when they succeed, our city succeeds, and our county will succeed.
- Safety, as far as crime is concerned To work with the sheriff’s department and police departments throughout the county to bring down crime. And also to develop classes or workshops for law enforcement to work with the community when you’re talking about culture and understanding the community in which law enforcement works, for the law enforcement and the community to work together to decrease crime.
And develop programs for young people that they can come off the streets, create jobs for them as well, and to create a mentor type of situation where young people, boys and girls, can be mentored by successful adults, business owners, churches and the community at large to get involved with bringing crime down.
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?
I think we need to expand water services. Growth in the community is a part of the vision of a community becoming self sustainable. And also you have to be concerned about the health and the welfare of the community as well. …
Clean water is important for all of our community, because it’s going to impact the whole community.
So in dealing with such a broad scope of impact, there are some people that you won’t be able to please. And I experienced that as a city councilman. But you have to look at the broader picture.
And so I think that running water throughout the county is a great vision, and I think it’s something that should happen. It’s going to take a little time, but at least we have a plan.
They put water out in my area, out west and charge the residents and houses a certain amount of money for running the lines. Eventually that’s going to have to be paid. Maybe it doesn’t have to be as much as we had to pay, but we’ll look at those numbers. But we would have to deal with that eventually anyway.
So why not make the long term plan and begin working on it as we move forward?
CV: What are your thoughts on plans for the county to build a regional aquatic center?
I love that idea. The first thing comes to mind is making our county and region a destination and also providing family entertainment, which then also would attract corporations. Because they’re looking for that type of thing when it comes to bringing their businesses to our area.
So that would just be one of those things that we need, and that we’ve been looking at for many years. Even with the city, we talked about an aquatic center, and maybe that’s something that the city and the county can partner with to bring that attraction to our region.
CV: The school system says it needs $610 million for capital projects. How should county commissioners address this request?
Well, we have to certainly look at it in depth. We do studies. We certainly need to deal with the facts of the needs of these educational facilities. And it’s going to cost some money. But will it cost that much money to actually do what we need to do? There has to be a serious look at that.
[Part of the plan is to replace E.E. Smith High School, estimated at $150 million, on its current campus.]
We want E.E. Smith to be a school that’s top notch, that’s able to perform and have all of the tools that’s necessary to meet the needs of our today’s students, the technologies and things of that nature as well. So yeah, I think that’s a must. …
But long term, we have to look at that and look at the budget and see what we could cut and what we could bring in from the state and the federal, if any, and look at it and then make those decisions. Because, yes, our schools are dilapidated, they are old. And we don’t want to continue to put money after money after money into old structures.
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?
I disagreed with the cancellation of the downtown [location]. … I have two priorities. Of course, I want to build that corridor that’s coming in down from the airport and over by the Coliseum. But how many years, and how long would it take to get all the things that we need, the anchors that would bring in restaurants, that will bring in hotels? We’re looking at what 10 years, 15 years, 20 years from now?
Given the downtown already has small businesses, restaurants in any history of downtowns that make a downtown great, or a city great is you would want to build and focus on your downtown or in the region of the downtown area.
Some people feel really strong about that. I feel strongly about it.
I looked at the overlays and the pictures of what the center will look like, which was would be a great fit, beautiful.
So we have to relook that.
I also looked at putting the center in a location where there are restaurants and hotels that are existing already, to spread out the wealth, of the entertainment, the growth of the city.
So what about those areas toward the mall area where people already come together to shop and to eat? So we there’s another area that we could look at.
And so I don’t think it’s over. I don’t think the final decisions are made. We certainly want to look at that and do more research once I get into the seat.
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 don’t look at it becoming a parking lot again. We don’t want to do that. What we want to do is move forward.
I think whatever goes there, you can always have in mind to put another parking deck. You can put a parking deck and can go up, and you could develop that area.
If the performing arts center doesn’t come back there, it could still be developed into something that will also help the downtown to become a destination, or something that’s going to bring revenue to the city and the county.
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?
I have a problem with the environmental safety and also the use of the power. All money is not good money. So you have to look at the holistic factors that’s going to affect our environment, that will affect our water, and the impact it will have on the community.
Is it something that’s going to be good for us in general? Or we’re just looking at how much money we can make with these data centers, but not looking at the negative impact in years to come.
I’m going to have to really look at that some more, and look at the numbers, and take all into consideration before I make a decision to embrace data centers coming to our region.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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