“I don’t look down on you. I respect you for who you voted for because you got a right just like anybody else. I just want us to work closely together and go forward to help out our people.”

– Ricky Burnett, newly re-elected speaker of the Lumbee Tribal Council, commenting on fellow council members who did not vote for him.

“The primary reason for increasing our scale on our college would be to prevent further salary compression due to the legislative increase.”

– Kyle Chavis, chair of RCC’s Finance Committee, explaining that pay compression is when newer employees are paid near or more than another employee who has worked longer in the same role.

“DEQ’s own environmental justice report noted that these four hog operations shared proximity with largely black and Latino neighborhoods. The agency did not take any steps to address those disproportionate impacts or conduct a more robust environmental justice analysis.”

– Blakely Hildebrand, a Southern Environmental Law Center attorney, commenting on an EPA investigation of degraded “groundwater, surface water and air quality” from hog biogas operations near communities of color. (Source: https://insideclimatenews.org)

“N.C. law should require that a special prosecutor automatically handle all fatal police shootings. Such a system would serve police, and it would give the public and families of victims more confidence in justice.”

– Editorial by the Charlotte Observer related to the recent shooting death of a man by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Fayetteville.