Area article about local preservation efforts

Here's a link to an article from December in the Carolina Public Press about some of the local historical societies, including ones in Big Ivy and Ox Creek. Interesting notes about how these groups are preserving scrapbooks.

New council format

The Weaverville Town Council unveiled a new format to its meetings Monday (Feb. 20). The council is now allowing comments before certain topics. Mayor Al Root said the format is a trial-run, and the council will be evaluating its effectiveness over the next few months.

Several residents have asked council recently about allowing comments before a particular vote is taken. The previous format allowed for comments only in the beginning. The new format allowed for public comment following the council's discussion on each of the four primary agenda items in Monday's meeting. Public comments are still limited to three minutes, and those wishing to speak on topics outside of the agenda may still speak at the beginning of the meeting.

Town's website gets a makeover

Weaverville's website http://www.weavervillenc.org/ has undergone a makeover. The redesign has been in the works since last summer. Some of the new features include a slideshow of area pictures, a "Frequently Asked Questions" section and a "Forms and Documents" section that pertains to daily life in Weaverville.

Sidewalk dicussion continued

The Weaverville Zoning Board of Adjustment continued Wednesday's (Feb. 15) meeting until April 18 while the board decides how to rule on the lack of sidewalk beginning near Zaxby's at Weaver Village and continuing south to Ingles. There is a roughly 100-foot chasm between Weaver Village and Ingles that makes constructing a sidewalk problematic and costly. Weaverville Town Manager Michael Boaz said a preliminary deal has been drafted for a 285-foot sidewalk to be built that would complete a sidewalk from downtown Weaverville to Ingles. Some residents have complained they have to walk into the street to get past the area. The deal would need the support of Weaver Village developers, as well as encroachment and easement agreements from the N.C. Department of Transportation and Ingles.

Bus driver appreciation week

Approximately 790,000 children ride more than 13,000 school buses each school day in North Carolina.  To recognize the excellence of our state’s school bus drivers and their accomplishments, Gov. Beverly Perdue has proclaimed February 13-17, 2012, as “School Bus Driver Appreciation Week.”

School bus drivers in Buncombe County travel 15,100 miles, transporting 16,600 students in 290 school buses each day on the way to and from schools in the City of Asheville and throughout the 660 square miles of Buncombe County.  

A downtown ATM

Weaverville now has an ATM machine in downtown. Weaverville Drug Company installed one recently. Since HomeTrust Bank moved last January, downtown has been without an ATM for residents and shoppers to the district.

Zoning Board of Adjustments meeting

The Weaverville Zoning Board of Adjustments is meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday (Feb. 15) to discuss the sidewalk issue in between Zaxby's and Ingles on Weaver Boulevard. Area residents have complained that walkers have to cross into the road near Weaver Village. The 100-foot chasm that exists between the two properties makes constructing a sidewalk problematic, so the Zoning Board of Adjustments is reviewing where the liability might lay. Councilman Doug Dearth has suggested the town, the N.C. Department of Transportation and Weaver Village developers should work out an agreement to complete the sidewalk.

Local semi-finalist in contest

A Marshall woman did not ultimately win a nationwide contest for a social online television program.

Rebecca Morris was one of 18 semi-finalists for the Ultimate Online Audition Contest for a show called “Beckinfield,” created by Theatrics.

Michael Town of Venice, Calif., won the contest, judged by Jonathan Frakes of “Star Trek: Next Generation” fame. The contest winner was announced Friday (Jan. 27).

Theatrics’ Mass Participation TV series “Beckinfield” is the only social TV experience where anyone can create a character and play a part in a professional plot driven show. “Beckinfield” is an online science-fiction mystery set in a fictional small town. Subscribers create and play a character by submitting video blogs relating to the ongoing story.

"MPTV is the new wave of online television. It combines the best of innovative technology, online talent and social media collaboration," said co-founder Biff Van Cleve. 

To enter, contestants had to create a character and then audition for a role in the in-world play.

Leftover Weaverville Town Council notes

The Weaverville Town Council recognized resident and developer Lou Accornero on Monday (Jan. 23). Accornero was the town's first ABC chairman and was instrumental in getting the store to open in 2009. He stepped down from the board last year.

"It should provide some meaningful income for many years to come," Accornero said of the store.

Later in the meeting, Mayor Al Root nominated Accornero to serve on the town's inaugural Economic Development Commission.

"There is not another town I'd rather be apart of," he said.

* In other news, Michael Boaz, the town's manager, said the redesign of the town's website should go live by Feb. 1.

* The town's received a clean, unqualified opinion on its annual audit report.

* The council approved re-entering its contract with Curbside Recycling. It has the ability to opt-out in July.

90 paintings in 90 days

Alicia Araya, a Chilean artist currently living in Marshall, is working on a project of painting 90 works of art in 90 days. She, along with her husband Jim Hickey, run Marshall Arts a new, grassroots gallery space on U.S. Highway 25/70, immediately adjacent to Momma’s Kitchen. For more on her project and to help fund her, go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aliciaraya/mountains-rivers-woods-sea-j-m-w-turner-and-me.

Howling Moon on shelves soon

Howling Moon, a new moonshine distilled in Woodfin, will be making its way on shelves at the Woodfin ABC store by the end of the month.

Ad-hoc committee addresses chairman

An ad-hoc committee, headed up Weaverville resident Fred Flaxman, is asking the Federal Communications Commission to deny the license renewal of WCQS in Asheville, charging that the station violated requirements to form a community advisory board and conduct listener surveys. The station filed a response with the FCC saying that it is now in compliance. The station’s broadcast license, held by Western North Carolina Public Radio (WNCPR), would have been automatically renewed on Dec. 1, but the group's petition to deny triggered an FCC review.

Flaxman drafted a letter on behalf of his group, made up of roughly 30 area residents, that addresses the list of complaints to Bryan Smith, chairman of the board of directors for Western North Carolina Public Radio.

It reads:

Dear Chairman Smith:

I write with the hope and expectation that the Board of Directors of Western North Carolina Public Radio and the members of the Ad-Hoc Committee for Responsive Radio share a common goal: helping Western North Carolina  to have the best, most responsive, public radio station it can have given the financial resources available. Assuming that is the case, we think it would be far better that we work together to reach this goal rather than to engage in a battle with each other as we have been doing.

The Ad-Hoc Committee members are all pleased to have public radio service in our area. We definitely do not want to do without it. We want to improve it. We want it to be more responsive than we have found it to be in the past, as documented in our FCC petition.

So I write to you today with several suggestions that we think would greatly help to bring about this improved  responsiveness and service to the community. We sincerely hope you'll agree with all of them. We don't think they are controversial. There are other public radio stations and nonprofits in the United States that operate in a similar fashion to what we are proposing. And these suggestions, if carried out, would deprive us of any reason to challenge your license renewal and lead us to ask the FCC to withdraw our Petition to Deny. Our proposals are as follows: 

1. The Board of Directors of a public radio station, in our view, should be elected by the members of the station, rather than being self-elected and self-perpetuating. We therefore suggest that the changes to the articles of incorporation and bylaws necessary to bring this about be made as soon as possible and elections held at the next annual meeting.

2. We suggest that the station's Community Advisory Board meet quarterly, rather than twice a year, and be open to any resident of the station's coverage area who wants to join the CAB and who attends at least three meetings each year.

3. We suggest that the CAB's bylaws be changed to no longer require Board of Directors approval of CAB members, to better assure the independence of the CAB.

4. We suggest that the CAB's advice be sought prior to any program changes, and that the Board of Directors make this a station policy. In suggesting this we emphasize that management does not have to follow the advice of the CAB, only to seek it, consider it, and follow it where practical and desirable to do so.

5. We suggest that all station employees be individuals who believe strongly in the mission of the station and of public broadcasting, and who are sensitive to and responsive to the needs of the communities served by the station. We suggest that they work hard to involve the public in public broadcasting, and never forget that they are paid by the public they are hired to serve. We are sorry to report that this hasn't always been the case in the past.

6. We suggest that final programming decisions be made by people who are qualified by training or background to make those decisions. We also suggest that a one-paragraph biography of each station employee be posted on the staff page of the station's website, so that listeners and members can see at a glance the qualifications of those holding decision-making positions at the station.

7. We feel that the broadcast of locally-produced news, public affairs, and talk programs by local public radio stations is more important than ever. We think it is essential to their very survival, as modern technology makes it possible through satellite and internet radio to listen to stations all over the world as well as network programming from NPR without tuning in to local stations like WCQS. Therefore we strongly suggest that WCQS make local news, public affairs, and talk programming an essential part of their mission statement, and hire the right people to carry it out.

8. Nevertheless, we also suggest that the broadcast of classical music, folk music, and jazz remains an important part of the public radio mission in communities like ours where it is the only free, over-the-air source of such programming. We think that the station should continue and improve such programming by identifying and broadcasting the best such programming available. We don't feel that this has been evident in the past. Many years went by, for example, before WCQS offered "From the Top" to their listeners. "Performance Today" from American Public Media and the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts are still not available to listeners here.

9. We also feel that part of the mission of WCQS should be to encourage the production of high-quality programming for broadcast on the station by local, independent producers. Some of the best programs on public television in the U.S. come from independent producers. The same is true for public radio. We suggest that the mission statement be revised to encourage such production and acquisition, particularly from your coverage area.

10. We suggest that WCQS conduct annual surveys of its members to determine their reaction to the programs being broadcast and their suggestions for improvements. We further suggest that the results of these surveys be discussed at an annual WCQS Listeners Meeting, which would be broadcast live and permit live input from the public by telephone and electronic means.

11. We suggest that WCQS produce and broadcast a regular, half-hour, daily local public affairs program, perhaps immediately following NPR's "All Things Considered" at 6:30 PM, Monday through Friday, and using the same radio magazine format. Grants from local foundations, companies, and individuals could be sought to make this concept financially possible.

12. We suggest that, in order to be more responsive to the communities it serves, WCQS should voluntarily conduct community ascertainment of the communities' needs by interviewing community leaders each year. Also, we suggest that the station respond to and tabulate all programming comments and requests, whether they come by telephone, e-mail, via the station's website, or by letter, as is common at other public broadcasting stations. The logs of comments should be distributed weekly by e-mail to management, the Board of Directors, and the Community Advisory Board.

13. Because radio is a sound medium with no pictures, we believe that a station's sound is very important. We suggest that WCQS commit to hiring the best on-air personnel that they can find, so that the station always sounds like a professional, world-class operation, and not like a college training station. We think that the station has some excellent announcers on its staff, but we have heard many complaints from our members and others about some announcers who fall short of professional standards.

14. If low pay and benefits is the reason for the lack of a totally professional announcing staff at present, we suggest that the station establish a pay scale with benefits that is generous enough to attract first-class, professional, experienced talent.

The Ad-Hoc Committee for Responsive Public Radio feels that, if our suggestions are taken and implemented, these improvements will pay for themselves in increased listeners and increased donations of financial support. They will certainly make the station a more responsive and essential community resource.

We would like to meet with you to discuss these suggestions and to see if we might reach a written agreement and affidavit required by the FCC for us to withdraw our Petition to Deny WCQS's license renewal. We would appreciate your bringing this proposal up at your meeting on Wednesday (Jan. 18), and I look forward to your reply shortly after that.

Flaxman is a longtime public broadcaster who previously held executive positions at WTTW in Chicago, WETA-FM and TV in Arlington, Va., and KUAT-TV in Tucson, Ariz.

Local business news

* Newbridge Cafe in Woodfin has not changed names. Roof damage brought down sign that had been placed on top of the old Ilene's Cafe sign that was there on Weaverville Road from 1989-2000. Owner Lorin Knouse said new Newbridge sign should be up in a week or two.

* Food Lion in Weaverville to close soon. The closure is part of a nationwide closure of 113 Food Lion stores, including the one in Hendersonville.

* Ashvegas is reporting Westall Chandley Lumber in Woodfin has closed. The store has been having an inventory reduction sale since last fall. It has been in the area for more than 100 years and in Woodfin since the 1970s. This would be the second long-standing hardware store to close in Woodfin in a year. Citizen's Do It Best Hardware closed last summer after more than 70 years in North Asheville and Woodfin.

* Zaxby's in Weaverville scheduled to open next week.

What other business news is out there?

Mars Hill College graduate recipient of Rotary scholarship

Release from Mars Hill College...
 

Tina Rathburn, a 2011 graduate of Mars Hill College, was back in the area for her holiday break from the University of Peace in Costa Rica where she has been pursuing a Masters’ Degree with the help of a $25,000 scholarship which she was awarded by Rotary International.

Tina was nominated for consideration by the Rotary Club of Madison County to go through the rigorous selection process last year. With her impressive resume of community service and top academic scores, Tina was one of two students chosen from the western North Carolina District to be part of the Ambassadorial Scholar program. As part of the requirements for receiving the scholarship for studying overseas, Tina agreed to serve as an ambassador to represent the ideals of Rotary and become involved with humanitarian programs in the country where she is studying.  While there, Tina has also been making presentations to groups about Rotary and participating in Rotary events.

The overall goal of the program is to encourage scholars to dedicate their personal and professional lives to improving the quality of life for the people of their home community. While in the program, the scholars are made aware of cultural differences and learn to become leaders who can address the humanitarian needs of the world community.  The Club in Madison County is proud to have Tina represent Rotary and western North Carolina in Costa Rica.