‘Ted was for the right thing.’ Fayetteville mourns as former Councilman Mohn dies at 59

Ted Mohn, the former Fayetteville City Councilman known for his in-depth research, for his charts and maps and data, and for striving to serve his community both in and out of elected office, died on Sunday.

He was 59.

“That’s a tough one,” Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin said Tuesday. Mohn and Colvin served together as members of the City Council, and after Colvin was elected mayor in 2017, Mohn served as the mayor pro tem. “I’m definitely thankful that I crossed paths with him.”

Mohn suffered a heart attack and stroke in July while traveling through Indiana on a trip to visit family in Chicago and Wisconsin, said his son, Kyle Mohn. Ted Mohn remained hospitalized there until his death.

The Mohn family plans a Fayetteville celebration for Ted Mohn in late September or early October, Kyle Mohn said. Ted Mohn’s survivors include his children, Kyle and Amanda and their spouses, Amanda’s daughter and Kyle’s son-to-be-born son, and two sisters, a brother, and his ex-wife.

Mohn lost the annexation fight, then won a seat on the City Council

Theodore William Mohn was born and raised in North Chicago, Illinois. He joined the Army in 1982, and was stationed at Fort Liberty in 1997. Divorced, he raised a son and a daughter. In 2004, after nearly 22 years in the service, Mohn retired as a chief warrant officer two, then continued to work on post as a civilian.

“He was a very good terrain analyst,” Kyle Mohn said.

He also lived in western Cumberland County, outside the city limit.

Fayetteville forcibly annexed Mohn and 47,000 other residents in what was known as the “Big Bang” annexation of 2005.

Mohn opposed the annexation. And, in a harbinger of his future service on the City Council, he sometimes expounded against it with a policy wonk’s analytical level of detail. In letters published in The Fayetteville Observer, Mohn cited “geospatial analysis of U.S Census Bureau data” as evidence that Fayetteville was doing the annexation improperly, and questioned whether the City Council was “ flouting the overall intent of statute 160A-48.”

The annexation took effect despite opposition and litigation from the residents being forced into the city. It inspired Mohn to run for the City Council in 2007. He told the newspaper, “My analytical mapping and planning experience,” set him apart from the other candidates. “I don’t rush to emotional decisions.”

Mohn defeated two opponents, including incumbent Juanita Gonzalez, and served from 2007 to 2011.

He skipped running for re-election in 2011, announcing in 2010 he was going to spend more time with Kyle and his civil service job with the military. Kyle Mohn was a student at Westover High School and active with baseball, football and bowling.

“He was always there — a lot, a lot, a lot — involved with the high school, during that time,” Kyle Mohn said.

Kyle graduated in 2012, and Ted went back to the City Council in the 2013 election.

He made things happen from behind the scenes

Mayor Colvin said Mohn focused on results, not glory.

“Ted did all of the background stuff and didn’t worry about the credit,” Colvin said. “That’s what I appreciated about him. So a lot of the initiatives we see, he supported, but he didn’t have to be the champion of them.”

When Mohn served as the mayor pro tem for Colvin, “he would give me all of the background and research that I needed to bring Council to a … consensus on a number of items,” the mayor said. “I know things important to him were more technical in nature, but he was a — he was a part of everything. All the successes we see, he played a role in them.”

Among those successes from Mohn’s time on the City Council: Fayetteville opened new recreational facilities around the city, the downtown area continued its rejuvenation, and Segra Stadium was built and became the home of the Fayetteville Woodpeckers Minor League Baseball team.

Then came the 2019 election.

He became the ‘Town Crier’ after losing the election

In 2019, City Council had six Democrats, two Republicans, and two members who did not belong to a political party. Mohn was one of the unaffiliated members.

The Cumberland County Democrats targeted three of the four non-Democrats: Mohn and Tisha Waddell, who were both unaffiliated, and Republican Jim Arp.

They defeated Mohn and Arp.

“My ground game was not strong this year,” Mohn said after the results came in.

But leaving office didn’t stop Mohn from striving to serve the city.

He regularly requested public records and, with his traditional charts and maps, offered deep-dive analysis of things the city was doing and general news updates of the City Council’s activities. He put these on his page on Facebook, where he developed a loyal following.

Mohn was one of the first to notice when Fayetteville removed its red-light cameras last year — which the city had not publicly announced. His commentary on Facebook alerted the general public and the news media.

Mohn’s activity inspired WFNC talk show host Jeff “Goldy” Goldberg to nickname him “the Town Crier.” Goldberg estimated that Mohn had appeared on the Good Morning Fayetteville show 100 times over the years.

In recent years, Mohn joined with Waddell (who resigned in 2021) and former state legislator Elmer Floyd to broadcast the UP Zone Podcast, a show “to break down politics for people curious about how it all works,” Waddell said.

“Ted's ability to compile data and create graphs and displays to help people make unbiased decisions made him an excellent fit as a host,” she said.

Support for people, not political parties

Mohn shared his skills with others, including the Fayetteville Police Accountability Community Taskforce and County Commissioner’s Chairwoman Toni Stewart.

Mohn advised Fayetteville PACT in its work to bring equity and equality to Fayetteville, Fayetteville PACT CEO Kathy Greggs said. He helped the organization understand and analyze rezoning and election districts, and how to get public records, she said.

“He was a truly excellent leader,” she said. “He was a very great mentor when it came to, like, how to look up files and everything through the city.”

He knew how to find archives, and “He came to our office personally and helped us, showed us 'How To Do It 101,'” she said.

Mohn had been scheduled to meet with Fayettevile PACT this month as the organization planned its involvement with this year’s City Council elections, she said.

Stewart had Mohn as her campaign strategist when she ran for the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners in 2020. They had met during Stewart’s unsuccessful run in 2017 for the City Council

“We just took a special liking to each other,” Stewart said.

“He’s great with numbers, and if there’s somebody you want on your team, it’s absolutely Ted. Because he can sit there and crunch those numbers and look at those maps — I mean, he was brilliant. He had a brilliant mind,” she said.

Stewart is a Democrat, but that didn’t matter to Mohn, even though he was not a Democrat.

“Ted supports people, not parties,” she said. “And it didn’t matter what it was — if you were Democrat, Republican, Independent — Ted was for the right thing. Ted was for people that cared about moving the community forward.”

Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@fayobserver.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Former Fayetteville City Councilman Ted Mohn has died