The Dive: Stein Draws Criticism for Handling of Endowment

As Harper Peterson gazed across the river toward the city he once led, he saw inequities in the Wilmington skyline. 

Standing in Battleship Park under a drizzle of rain, Peterson pointed out publicly funded, glitzy development projects that city officials prioritized over ensuring the poorest neighborhoods had functioning parks—a blindness he says continues to plague decision-making. He says he’s not a pessimist, but rather an optimist for what could be.

“There’s no political will,” he said, swatting at dime-size mosquitoes. “It’s a free-market, entrepreneur-driven, private-sector community, and they call the shots.”

Peterson isn’t a stranger to lobbing sharp critiques. A one-time mayor and former state senator, the Democratic organizer earlier this year corralled a new coalition together to stand up to some of the most powerful entities in the state: Attorney General Josh Stein and the New Hanover Community Endowment, the state’s largest philanthropic fund per capita. As attorney general, Stein is seen as the only stopgap—other than the Internal Revenue Service—to keep the endowment in check. 

Peterson’s group, Heal Our People’s Endowment, has collected nearly 1,240 signatures on a petition urging Stein to intervene in the endowment, which the group believes has suffered from a political takeover. 

But Stein has been largely absent on the issue. He’s been busy running in one of the most expensive and—before the latest scandal erupted around his opponent—competitive gubernatorial races in the country. 

While Stein has frequented the Wilmington region this year for private fundraisers, local critics, many from within his own party, say he has ignored issues voters in the area care most about, like the state of the hospital and what’s become of the endowment that controls the sale proceeds. 

Experts say Stein’s legal authority is limited. Still, Peterson and his group argue the attorney general does have more avenues at his disposal than he is using. They say Stein has failed to fulfill his legal obligations in New Hanover County and now are studying taking legal action against the endowment on their own. Stein has said he imposed conditions in the hospital sale using the fullest extent of the law.

This is the second time in recent years that Peterson finds himself publicly pressing Stein to step it up. As a state senator, Peterson filed a complaint with Stein over the initial sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in 2020, alleging the deal was corrupt and prebaked. Stein never responded. 

This time, Peterson received an acknowledgment letter in August from the attorney general’s office’s “constituent services,” but has yet to hear from the man himself. 

Stein Draws Heat for Hands-Off Approach To Region’s Largest Endowment

Attorney General Josh Stein has kept his distance since approving the sale of a county-owned hospital to Novant Health. A grassroots group is begging him to step in, but his authority may be limited.

– Johanna F. Still

Read this newsletter online or contact The Dive team with tips and feedback at wilmington@theassemblync.com.

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The Venus flytrap is no stranger to enemies. Smaller than a cupped palm, green and spiky, indigenous to the longleaf pine ecosystem of North Carolina’s Sandhills and coastal plain, the flytrap has faced certain adversaries for years: development, overgrowth, the eager fingers of children, and crashing feet of off-trail hikers.

This summer, the Venus flytrap defeated a different kind of adversary: a long bureaucratic wait in the General Assembly. With the final passage of legislation, North Carolinians can now buy a license plate championing the state’s official carnivorous plant. For each $30 plate, $20 goes to conservation work throughout the state. 

The threatened flytrap grows natively only in a 90-mile radius outside Wilmington—an area that also happens to be the state’s fastest-growing.

In the face of a changing landscape and huge population influx, local residents are poised to become the Venus flytrap’s biggest protectors. But as Sara Heise Graybeal reports, that will require some on-the-ground coordination between groups that have not normally connected. If they can’t, the flytrap may soon grace more cars than native groves.

A Homegrown Plant With a Taste For Blood Gets New Life

Can a new license plate boost interest in a threatened species and collaboration across stakeholders?

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Around the Region

Stop the Dock: Port workers are on strike, demanding higher pay and safer working conditions, WHQR reports.

Cost and Climate: Insurance companies want to hike home insurance premiums by 99 percent in coastal areas around Wilmington, but the state insurance commissioner is fighting it. A hearing on the rates is set for next week, StarNews reports.

Sky High: City council passed plans for a $6 million upgrade to the Skyline Center during the item’s first reading, 6-1, Port City Daily reports. 

Affordable Grants: The New Hanover Community Endowment announced its first much-anticipated affordable housing grants, a $14 million package, WHQR reports.

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Around the State

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