This Thursday, the Don and Rick show will visit Asheville’s Renaissance Hotel to talk about criminal investigations associated with former Governor Mike Easley. The program will start at 6:30. As far as I’m concerned, most of what government does is criminal, anyway. As Asheville city councilman for one more [...]
UNCA tuition may increase 5.5% next year. The increase is needed to support an unprecedented number of students who cannot afford tuition.
Funds might also be used to keep the library open long enough for students to conduct research, remove the germ-ridden carpet from the sports medicine clinic, move the [...]
The Town of Boone is considering a smoking ban. Unlike most Lockers, I am supportive. I harbor a personal agenda based on a rational selfish interest to be able to:
See. I cannot continue to wear contact lenses in cigarette smoke, and often removal does not alleviate the stinging [...]The Macon County Commissioners approved a 1.5-cent tax increase. The county needs the money to build a new elementary school. The new school will replace one existing school and allow the county to shut down another. The consolidation is estimated to save the county $250,000/year in operation costs. Nothing was [...]
Another interesting conversation held by Asheville City Council concerned a proposed gun buyback. Something there is about these programs that appears to run counter to the Second Amendment. Members of council admitted violent criminals usually aren’t the most ambitious to turn in their weapons. Instead, they said the greatest [...]
I sometimes wonder if this country would be better off if the use of caffeine and harder stimulants by Congress critters and their aides could be banned. Then, rather than churning out thousands of pages of bills, legislators could know how it feels to be unable to lift their foreheads [...]
Just Economics succeeded in getting the City of Asheville to pass a living wage ordinance for city hires. It now wants the living wage to extend to persons contracted by the city. In her staff report, Brenda Mills said such an ordinance may be in violation of statutes [...]
My mother had to explain this one to me. I couldn’t understand why Organizing for America was so afraid of Sarah Palin they felt they needed to raise $500,000.
If you need some local flavor, she came to town Sunday to visit with Billy Graham’s family. Reportedly, [...]
One of the major recommendations of Goody Clancy, the consulting group hired to prepare Asheville’s Downtown Master Plan, was that the review process for new development adhere to the rule of law. Too many developers were complaining about having sunk thousands of dollars into giving the various review boards what [...]
One annoying thing about the healthcare debate is Democrats tell us what it is supposed to do, rather than what it says. They act as if they have never heard of an unintended consequence. That is why their legislation has so many. I would expect legislation that provides healthcare to [...]
Macon County residents are resisting another attempt to create a comprehensive land-use plan. The stated reason is they mistrust government’s outreach for buy-in because it has never listened to them in the past. Visioneers who moderate community forums have a way of knowing what the outcome will be and [...]
Dr. Mumpower wants public safety officers in the City of Asheville to undergo fitness tests. The dumbest thing about it is I actually bothered to read his supporting documents. One gave a statistical analysis of fat rolls pinched on officers over 12.5 years. In Charlotte, where the study was [...]
The Swain County Commissioners declared their county a Recovery Zone. County Manager Kevin King wanted the declaration so the county could be eligible for a $1.9 million interest-free loan from the $12 trillion national debt. The loan would pay for job creation. Said King:
We don’t know right now if [...]
According to some accounts, the national debt is now in excess of $12 trillion. Heath Shuler’s debt clock, however, has not yet broken the $12 trillion mark. It is, of course, understandable that the federal government would not be able to track its finances with a tolerance tighter [...]
The Citizen-Times provided extended coverage of the Buncombe County zoning hearing. I disagree with the concept that fair reporting means if about thirty people speak in opposition and four speak in favor, then the pros and cons get equal coverage. I was also amused at how, after the commissioners [...]
Like clockwork, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners took public comment from dozens of persons opposed to countywide zoning and approved the amended ordinance, anyway. Comments included typical complaints about investing large sums of money in land only to find 5/7 of it is unbuildable; the only place to [...]
The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners is expected to adopt countywide zoning today. A public hearing is being held, but the commissioners seldom respond to public comment unless somebody is airing a personal grievance. Matters of political philosophy (e.g., Respect for the right of individuals to own and control property [...]
John Hood wished to call attention to a couple state legislator score cards. Civitas Action developed its Conservative Rankings by counting the number of bills on which each senator and representative voted “conservatively.” They then posted each legislator’s percentage of conservative votes and the ranking this earned them. Buncombe [...]
Perri Morgan of Capitol Monitor, Inc. has created a “Stimulus Watch” page for the state. Listed are eighty-some-and-counting pages of grants with unspecified jobs to be created. Morgan features several articles relating the fuzzy accounting reports associated with the grants. If you’re into local flavor, you can see if [...]
A big story today concerned ethics investigations into Heath Shuler’s alleged use of his power to obtain a special deal on TVA property. I only care because I’m tying my brain in pretzels trying to figure out why Republicans want to give Speaker Pelosi power by creating public will in [...]
Recent rock slides have obstructed commerce in Western North Carolina. To address the issue, Governor Bev Perdue came to look at the first rock slide. Now, the state’s Division of Tourism “has several strategies to make sure tourists continue visiting WNC.” Perdue has asked the FHA to help the [...]
Today, WWNC 570AM’s Matt Mittan told of Asheville City Councilman-Elect Cecil Bothwell’s priorities. They included legalizing all drugs and prostitution and getting local police officers out of immigration enforcement. Councilman-Elect Gordon Smith’s priority is securing benefits for domestic partners of city employees. The link from Mittan’s web site pertaining [...]
I was invited to participate in a RiverLink survey. I am not going to provide a hyperlink to the survey, because its crafters were smart enough to block email addresses that attempted to access it twice. In short, it asked what kinds of development I wanted along the river, and [...]
The Mountain Xpress reports the following from Asheville City Councilman-Elect Cecil Bothwell’s celebration on election night.
Bothwell, meanwhile, celebrated while urging his supporters to look to the 2011 Council elections for further progressive advances. Leaning on his agenda of local solutions to global climate change, he told Xpress that [...]
The Citizen-Times announced today an architectural firm has been contracted for designing Asheville’s performing arts center. The basic reaction to the article was, “What performing arts center?” A group has been around for a long time lobbying for it, but the general public was unaware of any land transaction [...]
Downtown Maggie Valley may become a theme park. The aldermen will soon have to vote on new design standards intended to replace the town’s 1950s look with a “mountain look.” Only subdued colors and natural materials will be allowed on building exteriors, flat roofs will be outlawed, and property [...]
Some people are of the opinion that Congressmen cast their votes on the healthcare bill in manners that would increase their chances for re-election. Rhetoric about helping people with pre-existing conditions or capping profits of insurance companies are tossed to the public to give them some dots to connect.
[...]Cynthia Wadsworth of Keepers of the Blue Ridge asked that I post an advert for two events. They will be held November 11 at 6:00 pm at Owen Hall, UNCA and November 12 at 6:00 pm at Maryland Community College in Spruce Pine. The Keepers have reportedly fought very hard [...]
Are you tired of unresponsive government? You may stand around and get counted like a dork, and maybe even talk to a legislator by joining the Taxpayers’ March on Raleigh this Saturday. Also, Senator Richard Burr will be in Asheville Thursday and Friday.
[...]One of the first items to be addressed by the new Asheville City Council is likely to be the extension of benefits to committed homosexual partners of city employees. This is being billed as “gay rights.” No mention was made about extending the “right” to fringe benefits to heterosexual [...]
The federal government continues to encourage irresponsibility. It wishes to redistribute earnings, confiscated from taxpayers too poor to hire accountants to find tax loopholes, to persons naïve enough to suppose if they can’t make a down payment on a house they will somehow be able to keep up with [...]
Two more people have resigned from the Jackson County Economic Development Commission. Reasons cited did not include the realization that governments do not create wealth. Rather, members of the board felt the Jackson County Commissioners were not cooperating with their attempts to meet statutory requirements for things like audits [...]
A Tea Party was hosted at noon today outside Representative Heath Shuler’s office in south Asheville. I bothered to take off work and combine the two hour round trip with some errands so I could stand around like a dork and be counted. While there, I was informed that the [...]
The ability of people, not government, to own land was once equated with freedom. It still is. That’s why the Land-of-Sky Regional Council has been partnering “to identify how we can be more proactive about maintaining a network of these natural systems to maintain the valuable services nature provides to [...]
Congressman Heath Shuler cosponsored a bill that presumed to increase tourism by raising the price. More specifically, the bill would charge foreigners $10 to enter the United States (through official ports of entry, that is). The perverse incentive is supposed to work because the funds collected would pay a [...]
61.1% of Swannanoa voters opposed incorporation. This is likely due to strong campaigning against the measure, telling voters incorporation meant a tax increase to pay for little more than another layer of government. The initiative to incorporate was construed by City of Asheville staff to be defensive against involuntary [...]
Progressives won the Asheville City Council race by a landslide. Conservative Dr. Carl Mumpower collected only 13.9% of the vote, just more than write-in Progressive Robin Cape. The three winners garnered 17, 18, and 19% of votes. Affordable housing, domestic partner benefits, and green jobs were some of the main [...]
After years of delays, the NCDOT has re-engineered plans for the popular Alternate 4B for the I-26 connector. Given more time, those who show up at public meetings will prevail upon the DOT to modify their highway plans until they’re sound. Those who have idled and needlessly carbon-footprinted in [...]
Even as we speak, a crowd of conservatives are smoking cigars at the Grove Park Inn. It’s all part of the 17th Annual Meeting of the State Policy Network. Quite under the radar, representatives of conservative think tanks from forty-eight states converged in Asheville for a four-day strategy meeting. Tonight, [...]
