From Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim that HPV vaccines might cause mental retardation to Gov. Rick Perry’s repudiation of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” the campaign for the GOP nomination has been fraught with a disregard for the truth. Last week, that same recklessness touched down in Chapel Hill, and it came from a familiar source — Kevin Wolff.
In a campaign flier, the mayoral candidate set his sights on a new homeless shelter planned for north Chapel Hill, saying children will be “assaulted, molested, kidnapped, or killed” when it is built. Chapel Hill voters should reject the flier for setting the wrong tone about the treatment of the town’s most vulnerable residents, interpreting it only as the baseless musings of a candidate all too willing to trade factuality for fear-mongering.
In the flier, titled “Attention! Please Help!” Wolff offers hypothetical rather than empirical crime data. He states that a 4-year-old girl has been reported missing. She was last seen three hours before, he says, talking with an unidentified man in Homestead Park. He follows this, in boldfaced smaller type, with “No, this did not happen today, but it will if a men’s homeless shelter is put next to Homestead Park.”
Wolff could not be reached for comment.
This isn’t Wolff’s first try with campaign fliers. Two years ago, he distributed campaign materials describing then Town Council member — and current mayor — Mark Kleinschmidt as a gay rights activist who has no children and doesn’t own a home in Chapel Hill. Wolff eventually withdrew from the race to swing votes to Town Council member Matt Czajkowski.
In the latest flier, Wolff returned to this point, saying that Kleinschmidt — and several Town Council members — cannot relate to the community’s concerns about the shelter’s move because they do not have children.
With this campaign material, Wolff has gone beyond stereotyping and shows complete insensitivity to the struggles of shelter residents. He has also reduced Chapel Hill to a community of nuclear families packed into the confines of white picket fences. He has failed to acknowledge the town’s progressivism and willingness to help those especially in need.
In saying he will “not rest” until a better site for the shelter is found, Wolff also shows a stunning unfamiliarity with governance. The Town Council approved the Inter-Faith Council’s use of the land in May.
Wolff’s failure to grasp Chapel Hill should come as no surprise, considering his involvement — or lack thereof — in the mayoral race thus far. To date, he has appeared at few candidate forums and taken even fewer stances. If Wolff wants to change his ways and become more than a gadfly buzzing in this election’s ear, he should begin by backing up his fiery claims with facts.
