Ethnic bias alleged in Johnston

FOUR OAKS -- Johnston County commissioners are facing a lawsuit and charges of bias against Hispanics after refusing to allow a nonprofit group to build a low-cost health clinic in a rural area outside this town.

Tri-County Community Health Council has nailed down four acres of donated land in the southeastern end of the county and $650,000 a year in federal grants to run the proposed clinic. If built, the new facility would offer low-cost medical, dental and mental health care to a remote part of Johnston County that sorely lacks such services.

In its lawsuit, Tri-County claims that commissioners acted arbitrarily by denying a request to rezone the property where Tri-County plans to build the clinic. The suit also cites what it calls discriminatory comments made by one member of the board before denying the permit. About half of the patients treated at other Tri-County health centers last year were Hispanic.

Filed in Superior Court in March, the lawsuit targets the leadership of a county still embroiled in controversy after Sheriff Steve Bizzell made statements against Hispanics. The county board has expressed support for the sheriff, who apologized after calling Mexican natives "trashy" and accusing illegal immigrants of "breeding like rabbits," in an article that ran last month in The News & Observer.

The vote to deny Tri-County's request is part of a legacy of hostility toward the county's growing Latino population, said Tony Asion, director of the Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo.

"This is unfortunately typical of the Johnston County of the past trying to stay that way," Asion said. "We want people to work the fields, but we don't want to take care of them."

Commissioners cited the opposition of neighbors when they denied the permit in a 5-2 vote this spring -- the only time this year the board turned down a project approved by the planning board.

Before the vote, Commissioner Ray Woodall was one of several board members to question whether a petition with more than 1,000 signatures in support of the clinic included neighbors of the proposed site. Of the signatures with nearby addresses, Woodall said "many of the surnames made me wonder if they are renters or actual owners in that area." Most of the names in the area are Hispanic.

Board members Tony Braswell and DeVan Barbour voted in favor of the rezoning. Those who opposed it said they support Tri-County's mission, but they agreed with neighbors that it would fit better in a less-rural setting. They vehemently denied charges of bias.

"That didn't have doodleysquat to do with it," said Wade Stewart, commissioners' vice chairman. "I'd like to have three of those in Johnston County, if they had found a better location."

But critics say the board should have approved the rezoning despite the objections of neighbors because the clinic would benefit so many county residents -- including Hispanics, who make up more than 10 percent of the county's population and often lack health insurance.

"The duty of the commissioners is to do what's best for the county, not what's good for a few people," said Tom Moore, a former county commissioner who served on the planning board at the time the case was heard. "You're always going to have someone objecting."

Need in area

Tri-County leaders began plans for the clinic by identifying a swath of southern Johnston county where many residents lack health insurance. They applied for a federal grant to serve an estimated 3,800 patients a year.

Officials at Johnston Memorial Hospital and the Johnston County Health Department submitted letters in support of the proposed clinic, noting that the lack of access to routine health care results in increased demand for emergency care at hospitals.