City of New Bern Municipal Service District Advisory Committee recommends spending $122,500 on downtown projects.
The New Bern Board of Aldermen will consider approving the MSD Advisory Committee’s request to buy custommade bench dividers; add an extra-duty police officer, sidewalks, and fencing in downtown New Bern, NC on Tuesday.
The regular meeting will be held on Sept. 8, 2026, at 6 p.m. in the second-floor courtroom at City Hall, 300 Pollock St. The full meeting agenda and materials can be found here.
The costs include: $3,000 on additional armrests (dividers) to benches; $92,000 on Riverwalk fencing; $17,500 for additional sidewalk at Union Point Park; and $10,000 for an extra duty MSD-sponsored police detail. The agenda says Aldermen Aster is also allocating $17,500 from Ward 3 ARPA-enabled funds.
The city spent the American Rescue Plan Act funds a few years ago. The so-called ARPA-enabled funds will come out of the city’s General Fund.
People who own property within the MSD district pay an additional tax.
MSD Advisory Committee Chairman Sabrina Bengel told City Manager Foster Hughes at the Aug. 18 meeting that they needed armrests for benches while laughing about someone sleeping in Bear Plaza.
City Manager Foster Hughes said they ordered additional ones.
Bengel said, “It’s funny cuz I thought those were the first ones to have them and there he was sleeping.”
Public Works Director George Chiles said they were expensive and were $350 or $500 a piece. They are custom made.
Chairman Bengel — also a board member of the Housing Authority of the City of New Bern, Transformation Venture Capital corporation, Better Vision Housing corporation, Better Vision Housing Walt Bellamy corporation, North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, and an alternate reality show host – has also been pushing an effort that would create “noise chaos.” She used her appointed public position to promote a store that she manages and proposed playing “historical commercials” (for a business she manages), music, and other things on loudspeakers that would be controlled at City Hall. It appears that the proposed sound system could also accommodate an AI-driven surveillance system in downtown New Bern.
Editor’s note: The tactics of adding dividers to benches and pump music over loudspeakers in public places are featured in a book titled “Unpleasant Design.” Unpleasant architecture designs exert “some kind of social control in public or in publicly accessible private spaces. They are intended to target, frustrate and deter people, particularly those who fall within unwanted demographics,” the co-editor said. Adding an extra armrest on a bench, “discourages sitting and sitting together. When we expect people to do bad things to the bench before we think of anything good that people might do, I think that’s a very sad approach to public space… “We need to know when we are replacing human interaction, nuance and empathy with hard, physical and non-negotiable solutions.”
Bench in Ward 2
Meanwhile, this bench appears to be on property that’s partially owned by Transformation Venture Capital in Ward 2 has a different story.
NewBernNow.com reached out to Sabrina Bengel for comment but have not received a response. She claims to be transparent. Instead of answering basic questions about how public funds are being spent, she normally responds by making wild accusations on her alternate reality show.
By Wendy Card, Editor. Send an email with questions or comments.