Shuler land swap “fails smell test”
KNOXVILLE/REGIONAL-The Knoxville News Sentinel-affiliated Knoxvillebiz.com recently reported that U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, congressman of North Carolina’s 11th district, was party to a land-swap with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The deal has drawn attention because Rep. Shuler, of Bryson City, sits on a committee that exercises oversight over the TVA.
The swap essentially provides water access at Watts Bar Resevoir to a development called The Cove at Blackberry Ridge, in exchange for an equal amount of shoreline elsewhere on the same lake and $15,000. Shuler is an investor in the Cove at Blackberry Ridge.
Shuler’s investment in the development predates his election to congress by approximately one year. Both Shuler’s business group and the TVA say he wasn’t involved in negotiating the deal. Furthermore, Knoxvillebiz.com noted, Shuler has “leaned on” the TVA over a number of issues, most notably pollution in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the ongoing conflict regarding the “road to nowhere” along the north shore of lake Fontana.
To us, it seemed like relatively small potatoes. Maybe so, says the Hendersonville Times-News’s editorial board, but still, Shuler needs to understand how these things are perceived.
The Times-News says, essentially, “too much of this is how your predecessor lost his job, Sen. Shuler.”
The Asheville Citizen-Times, meanwhile, takes a look at the issue in its Tuesday editorial. It arrives at the apparent conclusion that the incident is being overblown.
Tags: Asheville Citizen Times, Hendersonville Times-News, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Knoxvillebiz.com
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