SUBSTANCE TREATMENT SUPERVISOR LOSES JOB

A Cumberland County Mental Health Center supervisor who pleaded guilty this
month to drunken driving no longer is employed by the county.

Stuart Bowers' last day was Friday. He supervised four substance-abuse
counselors for the center's Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime program,
which seeks to help people in the court system needing treatment for drug
or alcohol abuse or mental illness.

Bowers did not return a phone call Wednesday seeking a comment.

Bowers pleaded guilty Aug. 6 to driving while impaired. It was his third
such conviction since 1984. He was found innocent of two other charges of
driving while impaired.

On July 12, Bowers was arrested twice within a few hours in Fayetteville by
different state Highway Patrol troopers. He refused to take a chemical test
both times. Prosecutors dismissed one of the July 12 drunken driving charges.

Sharon Yates, a Mental Health spokeswoman, said the state's personnel
privacy laws forbid her from discussing why Bowers is no longer employed by
the county.

One Mental Health Board member, Weyher Dawson, said he did not know the
circumstances of Bowers' departure but that the change did not surprise him.

"Hypothetically speaking, it's hard to imagine that you could be an
effective performer in the role of substance-abuse counselor," he said.
"Let's be real."

Cumberland County requires employees whose duties include driving on the
job to maintain a valid driver's license as a condition of employment.
Yates said Bowers' duties required him to drive, making him subject to the
policy.

This month, District Court Judge John Hair Jr. ordered that Bowers
surrender his driver's license for 30 days. He gave Bowers a 60-day
suspended sentence, meaning he served no jail time, and ordered him to pay
$100 in court costs and $100 in restitution. Bowers was placed on 12 months
of unsupervised probation.

According to court records, Bowers voluntarily submitted last month to
being assessed by employees at the Raintree Clinic counseling center in
Fayetteville. He agreed to undergo 20 hours of substance-abuse treatment as
a result of the assessment, according to the records.

Bowers, who is 43, made an annual salary of $35,316. He had worked for the
county since 1996.

Yates said Mental Health employees are not offered severance packages and
that Bowers was not eligible to receive retirement benefits.