Problem with ballpark petition has some on edge

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — City officials have asked the New Hanover County Board of Elections to further analyze more than 160 names on the taxpayer-funded ballpark petition.

Elections Director Marvin McFadyen says the city has called 165 names from the petition into question. McFadyen says 104 of the names on the petition have questionable signatures, and 61 of them have incorrect dates of birth.

Josh Fulton, one of the petition organizers, was more than a little perplexed at the news that his petition was again short of signatures because of verification.

“We had been told it was the Board of Elections’ sole duty to verify the signatures, and now it seems like the city is trying to take a backdoor route to verifying them themselves,” Fulton said.

We reached out the City Council for input. We got a comment from Charlie Rivenbark referring to an incident two weeks ago when he told one of our reports he was out of town and ran into our GM a little later that day.

“What’s your bosses name? Pickey or Hickey? Why don’t you have him give me a call,” Rivenbark said. “He chose to go online and call me a liar and avoiding you, and I didn’t appreciate that, so why don’t you have him call me, and I’ll give him my answer, OK?”

Meantime Fulton and his group plan to keep collecting signatures until they can verify the correct number.