News-Record.com

County Commissioner Skip Alston continues to talk to area newspapers -- newspapers that don't contact us for comment on his criticism, by the way -- about how we've done him wrong in our reports about St. James Homes.

Skip is trying to make our coverage of the conditions of the complex he manages personal. It's not personal. Writing about structural problems with housing that is subsidized by tax money is fair coverage, as is writing about housing conditions that could well be considered unhealthy. Anecdotes we've published and anecdotes in The Carolina Peacemaker's story speak for themselves. Skip acknowledges St. James has problems, which is why he's trying to find the money for a $1.4 million renovation program.

Fixing the housing is really the point. It's not about Skip.

Skip says he has a letter in which a tenant claims never to have talked with our reporter, columnist Lorraine Ahearn. The fact is that Lorraine interviewed the tenant with housing advocate Brenda Cogdell present. Then, after Skip said he had a letter, Lorraine went back to the tenant who told her that she never wrote or signed such a letter.

I wasn't present at any of the conversations that Skip says he had with editors here back in the early 90's so I can't say if his version of those conversations is accurate. They sure don't sound like anything the editorial board would have said. His comments about editorial page editor Allen Johnson are insulting and wrong-headed.

And personal. And fixing St. James isn't personal.