CULLOWHEE-Western Carolina hosts Campbell tonight in a clash of two teams off to banner starts.
Western (8-1) and Campbell (5-1) both moved up to Division 1 competition in the mid-1970’s, and both are off to their best starts since that move.
Campbell, which is 0-15 in Cullowhee over the years, has beaten East Carolina and North Florida this year, and lost by 11 to Virginia Tech.
Western jumped from 31st to 23rd in the national RPI ranking after its Monday night win at Bradley, and moved to 15th in the collegeinsiders.com mid-major poll Monday afternoon. In addition to the win at Bradley, the Catamounts have topped Duquesne and SoCon foes Furman and Wofford.
Western meets Rick Pitino’s Louisville squad Saturday in Louisville.
STATEWIDE–Newly-elected Asheville city council member Cecil Bothwell defines himself as an atheist, and conservatives say that means that under North Carolina law he may not serve in a public office.
… the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and bans religious tests for office, so a lawsuit against City Council would have little legal ground to stand on. But the clause remains in the state constitution, even after a major rewrite of the document in 1972.
Voters have to approve changes to the constitution, and that’s a fight few politicians would want to take on for little or no practical benefit.
REGIONAL–The southern mountains’ regional daily, the Asheville Citizen-Times, has learned of another round of cost-cutting measures from its corporate owner, Gannett.
Jason Sandford at the Mountain Xpress gives a rundown, here.
Here’s an excerpt:
Gannett cut 10 percent of its workforce in 2008 and slashed another 3 percent this past summer. At the Citizen-Times, that has translated into about two dozen layoffs. Another 60 employees lost their jobs at the newspaper’s printing plant in January when the company closed down its press. The newspaper is now printed in Greenville, S.C.
ASHEVILLE–11th District Rep. Heath Shuler said mildly nice things about Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a speech yesterday in Asheville, and the result was a comical fit of pique by a Republican National Committee spokesman.
In general, Shuler suggested that the criticism of Pelosi might be, oh, shall we say, exaggerated.
In response, RNC spokesman Andy Seré said:
“Heath Shuler is the one who’s ‘misunderstood’. He may call himself a Blue Dog, but Shuler’s lavish Pelosi-praise has revealed him to be little more than a lap dog for the most liberal speaker in U.S. history. She may have let him off the leash this weekend in a vain attempt to salvage his re-election bid, but his political affair with Nancy Pelosi is destined to land him in the doghouse with Western North Carolinians.”
It’s the eighth time in nine years that the tarheel state has been so named.
Buchanan points out that the warm-hearth economic climate is limited to certain parts of the state.
An excerpt:
North Carolina’s business climate, it seems, is a lot like its … well, climate. Different parts of the state have markedly different weather. And looking at the Site report, it seems the same applies to business weather.
In the Charlotte/Raleigh corridor and the Research Triangle area, the business climate is blindingly beautiful. Business partnerships with universities and colleges are humming along, and the area has transitioned well from the tobacco/textiles/furniture economy to finance, medical and energy concerns.
<snip>
No silver bullet solution to the economic downturn or economic unevenness came out of our board conversation. Instead, many familiar issues and questions resurfaced, like the geographical and transportation challenges that are unique to the mountains. And frankly, blue-skying about economic development is fine, but that’s down the road. The task at hand for our leaders in a time of rolling credit crisis, high unemployment and an era of want most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes is to simply make sure the social fabric doesn’t rip clean apart.
REGIONAL–It’s no secret that in North Carolina, with its appointed and influential Department of Transportation Board, road construction is heavily politicized. That’s a foregone conclusion in the “good roads state“.
And one of the crown jewels of politicized road-building is I-40 west, which, just under half a century ago, was routed through particularly inhospitable country at the behest of well-connected state and regional leaders. A series of enormous rock slides has been the legacy.
When the slide-prone gorge route was first proposed, leaders from Madison County and the Asheville area had pushed for another route, one that would have sent I-40 through the French Broad River Valley in Madison, close to where U.S. 25/70 runs now.
“Lots of people these days will say highway decisions are all politics — well, hell yes, they are,” said Jody Kuhne, a state engineering geologist with the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“Back at that time, Haywood County had a large paper mill, major railroad access and other industry, and Madison County just didn’t have that, except some in Hot Springs. So, sure, they out-politicked Madison. The road went where the action was.”
MURPHY–The U.S. Forest Service announced today that it will close the Upper Tellico Off-Highway Vehicle trail system because of serious erosion problems.
The 39-mile trail system 10 miles west of Murphy is a popular destination for off-roaders, and when various environmental groups complained in 2007 of the damage caused by trucks and other vehicles, intense and sometimes acrimonious debate arose.
A snippet from today’s Asheville Citizen-Times:
The agency first began looking at runoff problems in the area after several environmental groups threatened to sue the agency in July 2007, alleging the Forest Service violated laws by failing to prevent mud from eroded trails from polluting streams. Since then, there has been intense debate between four-wheel-drive advocates and environmental groups over how to manage the area, and the Forest Service has temporarily closed some trails in the area.
SYLVA–Balsam Mountain Preserve, a 4,400 acre gated community between Balsam and Sylva, faces a foreclosure hearing at month’s end, according to a reports in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times and Smoky Mountain News.
Boarding House, Balsam Mountain Preserve
The Preserve differs from other communities in the area that are facing troubles in a couple of ways: the project is nearly a decade old, which means it pre-dates by a few years many similar projects that came on during the last decade’s wave of construction. It is also one-half to two-thirds “built-out”, with more than 230 homesites sold of 354 total, and most amenities in place. In addition, Balsam Mountain Preserve was the first such community to build in the north-central section of Jackson County — away from the ritzy Cashiers plateau — and has been an economic driver for the county.
The Preserve’s considerable efforts at executing “green” development have been overshadowed by a dam break at a golf course irrigation pond two years ago that caused a flash flood. The wave of mud and water caused considerable environmental damage in Jackson County’s Scotts Creek watershed.
The Hendersonville community “Seven Falls” is also undergoing foreclosure, and an enormous, but much newer project in Jackson County is also facing such difficulties.
At Balsam, 40 of 80 full-time employees have been laid off, and many amenities, including an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus golf course, are closed.
An excerpt from the Citizen-Times:
“We had sufficient sales to stay current on our interest payments and to pay down the principal and payables,” [Balsam Mountain Preserve President Chris] Chaffin said. “Unfortunately, our loan is due. It’s apparent the lender doesn’t have the flexibility to free up capital right now.”
Chaffin acknowledged that Balsam Mountain “actually defaulted on our loan the end of last year” and has been working with the lender since then.
The lenders listed in court documents are two corporations under the umbrella of TriLyn LLC, of Greenwich, Conn. Balsam Mountain secured two loans in 2005 for $9.8 million and $10 million.
SYLVA–Don’t get me wrong, I like lists, too. In fact, I remember a teenage addiction to that eighties phenomenon called “The Book of Lists“.
But these days, when publications have less and less money but reader’s appetites for content are growing leaps and bounds, the lists come at you from every direction. US News and World Report, for example, which was a weekly news staple when I was a kid, is now a monthly publication that seems sometimes wholly devoted to lists of schools, hospitals and whatnot.
Sylva and Cullowhee made a couple of lists recently. Cullowhee got a controversial edge over Boone and Asheville in North Carolina as a “better sports town” in the Sporting News, and Sylva was named by the Mother Earth News as one of 11 “Great Places You’ve (Maybe) Never Heard Of”.
The Sporting News list ranks 399 “sports cities” in the U.S., using a methodology that is vague at best. That aside, the upshot is a 199th-place finish for good ol’ Cullowhee, 15 spots ahead of Asheville and 26 ahead of Boone. The howls of wonderment from the Asheville Citizen-Times sports desk will likely brings wails of self-defense from Western, all amounting to a tempest in a teapot.
Update: Citizen-Times sports editor Bob Berghaus back-pedaled like a slow cornerback today, publishing parts of an op-ed from WCU’s Gibbs Knotts and arriving at the conclusion, more or less, that maybe Cullowhee is a great sports burg, who knows?
Sylva, meanwhile, is unaccustomed to the limelight. The Reader’s home base is a busy working town, described, out of context, by Edward Abbey as having “the life of a market center and the dignity of a county seat”. You can get just about anything you need on Sylva’s Main Street, from fresh-brewed beer to fresh-roasted coffee to fresh-baked bread to fresh fish. You can still get shoes fixed here, and the downtown dentist’s family has been at the same trade in the same place for well over a century.
But in this pre-packaged age, Sylva doesn’t fit the mold of a “destination” (a surprise to its many visitors), so the tourism folks don’t circulate its name much.
Of course, the Mother Earth News isn’t all that concerned with tourism. Here’s what it said about Sylva, which was one of two southern towns to make its list:
“Sylva embodies a vibrant small town that engages its citizenry in a variety of ways,” said John Rockhold, managing editor for the magazine. “Mother Earth News focuses on cool things you can do to live wisely and create community, and we think our readers will identify with a place like Sylva.”
REGIONAL–The Asheville Citizen-Times’ Mark Barrett writes that while the value of all homes in western North Carolina has dropped, the high end is suffering most.
An excerpt:
The slow sales pace of expensive homes is not for a lack of properties on the market. There were 280 single-family homes listed for sale at $1 million or more at the end of August, according to figures from local Realtor Scott Raines. That’s more than a nine-year supply at current sales rates, a little less than it was earlier in the year but still far above what experts consider to be equilibrium. The median price of an existing home sold in Buncombe County fell from $225,000 in August 2008 to $187,000 in August of this year, according to the N.C. Mountains Multiple Listing Service. People in the industry say the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit has brought many buyers looking for less expensive homes into the market, a shift that accounts for at least some of the decline.
REGIONAL–The Asheville Citizen-Times‘ Mark Barrett reports today that some 6,200 mountain residents will lose unemployment benefits during the next six months.
An excerpt:
The number of people scheduled to lose their benefits will not match up with the number who actually do, since some will surely find jobs first. But projections suggest getting a new job will be particularly tough over the next few months, and other workers not eligible for a lengthy period of benefits will join the ranks of the unemployed.
Holiday hiring in retail businesses usually moderates the typical job losses that come toward the end of the year as seasonal businesses like tourism and construction slow down. But this year, consumers are expected to rein in holiday spending and as a result retailers nationwide aren’t expected to add as many workers as usual.
CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina University was recently criticized for its initial refusal to release a young student athlete from her commitment to play womens basketball at the school.
Last week the university released the player, Kelsey Evans, from her national letter of intent. She will play this year for conference rival Elon.
Critics of the NLI are many. Some call the NLI a “contract of adhesion,” because it heavily favors athletic departments over recruits. Because of NCAA signing periods, issues surrounding the NLI are most prevalent in college basketball. A lot can change from the time a recruit signs an NLI in November of their senior year of high school and when they arrive on a college campus 10 months later. The fairness of the NLI is most often called into question when the head coach leaves for another school. In these cases, the recruit is locked in to play for a new coach. This happens often in the coaching carousel that has become NCAA basketball.
Another:
Of course, signing an NLI before the senior year of high school can benefit the recruit. If athletes do not perform well as seniors or become injured, they have a sort-of safety net. Some student-athletes report playing their senior year under less stress because they have committed to an institution. Competing in high school with a signed NLI also prevents other schools from recruiting a student-athlete: the equivalent of an NCAA “do not call list.”
BRYSON CITY–The bad news, as reported by Jon Ostendorf for the Asheville Citizen-Times, is that 300,000 gallons of sewage went into the Tuckasegee River near Bryson City Thursday after a power outage got things a little sideways at the treatment plant. The worse news was that subsequent tests showed that the levels of fecal coliform in the water were higher coming into Bryson City from Sylva than they were below the spill.
CULLOWHEE–The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that WCU has released womens basketball recruit Kelsey Evans from the national letter of intent she signed to play at Western.
The school’s earlier refusal to do so had ignited controversy.
“Western Carolina University this afternoon delivered to Kelsey Evans a letter releasing her from the obligations she assumed when she and her mother signed on November 12, 2008 a National Letter of Intent whereby Kelsey agreed to play basketball under scholarship at WCU. She is now free to attend and play for another college or university.
“It is acknowledged that both the University and the Evans family entered into the National Letter of Intent with good and sincere intentions – to support the women’s basketball program at WCU and provide opportunities for Kelsey and the other student-athletes on the team to succeed. Kelsey and her parents have great respect for the WCU women’s basketball program; it was never their intent to impair the program or impair WCU’s ability to succeed. However, after Coach Harper’s departure, Kelsey and her parents came to believe that exploring Kelsey’s athletic interests at another institution to be in Kelsey’s best interest. While he understood the reasons for the Evans’s decision, WCU Athletic Director Chip Smith believed it was important to support WCU coaches and student-athletes and maintain the continuity of the WCU women’s basketball program.
“WCU’s decision to release Kelsey from the National Letter of Intent resolves the legal dispute between the Evanses and WCU. WCU, Kelsey and her parents have agreed to issue this joint statement to achieve common ground and reflect their respect for each other and their goals, neither party will issue further statements.”
REGIONAL–My family’s recent visit with friends in a Cincinnati neighborhood brought to mind all the clothesline conversations that took place down in Raleigh this summer.
NC state legislator Pricey Harrison, of Greensboro, introduced legislation that would have forbidden municipalities from outlawing clotheslines (although homeowners associations would’ve been able to continue doing so).
Her attempt died in the senate, but it got plenty of press. What goes around comes around, you see, and air-drying laundry has sort of become a thing.
From a Raleigh News and Observer editorial:
We’re not sure how the notion arose that outdoor clotheslines are something akin to a public nuisance, appropriately banned in any self-respecting neighborhood. What we are sure of is that a natural process for drying clothes that avoids use of an electricity-hogging machine dryer is one that helps conserve energy and also saves money. (Not wanting to get bogged down in aesthetics, no judgment will be passed here on the relative touchy-feely-sniffy merits of clothes dried in the great outdoors by God’s own sun and wind versus clothes dried and shriveled in a hot, spinning tin can.)
State senators had a chance to stand tall for the venerable clothesline. But members of the Commerce Committee — were certain senators’ machine-dried knickers too tight? — decided that the state shouldn’t presume to override local anti-clothesline rules.
Switching to low-tech drying saves energy but can get residents in hot water with associations, landlords or towns that see clotheslines as eyesores. Now states from Maine to Hawaii are stepping in to override local laws and rules.
“What we’re talking about here is a cultural shift,” said Alexander Lee, founder of pro-clothesline group Project Laundry List. “It would be nice to go from community association to community association to have this discussion and change the rules, but there are 300,000 of them, and we need to hurry along now if we’re going to cope with climate change.”
Vermont, Maine and Hawaii this year joined Florida, Utah and Colorado in passing laws with varying levels of protections for clotheslines.
As for our Cincinnati friends, theirs is a pretty bungalow in a century-old neighborhood. All the lots on the street are about the same size, with small front yards and long, narrow back yards. And while most of the homeowners keep their back yards neat, they do so in a practical way.
The neighbors on one side, for instance, are into archery. The folks on the other side have let the woods grow back in.
Our friends’ yard, meanwhile, is home to a nice garden, a tree house, a hammock tree, and — you bet — a nice clothesline rig. It runs on its own made-for-the-purpose pulley right off the back porch, and its use has become part of daily household rituals that Tara and Dave enjoy — and profit from.
“There aren’t many appliances more expensive to run than a clothes dryer,” Dave says.
STATEWIDE-It’s been a century or so since North Carolina was in the toll road business.
But various influences, including growing public sentiment for user-based taxation, and an apparent state government desire to divest itself of some road-building responsibility, is changing that.
But officials with the N.C. Turnpike Authority say they have no projects planned for the mountains, reports Mark Barrett at the Asheville Citizen-Times.
An excerpt:
The project “marks a new era in transportation in North Carolina,” [State Transportation Secretary Gene] Conti said in a statement last month. “With dwindling transportation revenues and more fuel-efficient vehicles, the state needed another tool in its toolbox to deliver megaprojects like the Triangle Expressway. By the community choosing to toll the expressway, we will be able to deliver this project decades sooner.”
Like many states, North Carolina has been looking for different ways to finance highway construction as the cost of projects has outstripped revenue from the gas tax.
Joyner said the state and nation may eventually replace or supplement gas taxes with technology that allows government to track vehicle movements and charge motorists for miles driven on any public road.
STATEWIDE–Tourism promotion is a trendy business, with lots of seminars, theories, conferences and back-patting.
And you’ve heard the resulting catch-phrases: “destination tourism”, in which travelers are drawn to a thing (say the second biggest tree in the southwest corner of the county, or a theme park); “heritage tourism” (visit because of a culture, just not the dominant one); “ecotourism” (find places that are really pristine because no one goes there, then go there); and stay tuned for “civic tourism”, in which travelers find a little town they like and immerse themselves in it, like a hot tub.
Well, heritage tourism, from a state marketing perspective, is getting a little long in the tooth. We saw evidence of that yesterday, when the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which oversees travel and tourism efforts, slashed a bunch of heritage tourism jobs.
Here’s Jordan Schrader’s lead in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
RALEIGH — Budget-trimming lawmakers mostly kept their hands off economic development efforts, figuring North Carolina needs jobs now more than ever.
They made an exception, though, for the employees who promote tourism for the state’s small-town historic and cultural attractions.
Budget knives cut deeply into the jobs known as heritage tourism development officers. Two-thirds of positions were eliminated.
[Rep. Phil] Haire, a Sylva Democrat, and Sen. Joe Sam Queen, a Waynesville Democrat who has been an advocate of adding more heritage tourism positions, said the reduction reflects the Commerce Department’s recommendations for where the budget cuts should fall.
“I think Western North Carolina has come out good on the balance here, but in the priorities of the state, the Commerce Department’s priorities, I think this was just toward the bottom,” Queen said.
Queen hopes the jobs will be restored in a better budget. He’s an advocate for heritage tourism projects like the department’s effort to have the Rutherford Trace designated a national heritage trail.
In 1776, Revolutionary War Gen. Griffith Rutherford led more than 2,000 militiamen from Old Fort to raid and burn Cherokee villages all the way to Murphy. It was a key part of the resistance to the British and their Indian allies, and the beginning of Cherokee removal, Queen said.
Queen said North Carolina’s stories — even violent ones like the Rutherford Trace — need to be told. “There’s no better way to promote your region than to promote your authentic selves,” Queen said.
SYLVA--Asheville string band Dehlia Low plays Bridge Park in Sylva Saturday evening to culminate the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural late summer music festival.
Dehlia Low comes as highly anticipated as any of the acts in the series. They are a “young band focused on early country, bluegrass, and original music. Their songs feature honest, hard-hitting vocals with tight harmonies backed up beautifully by masterful dobro and mandolin playing, lively fiddling, solid guitar, and a booming upright bass”.
Dehlia Low
Some press snippets:
“Meet Asheville’s newest successful offspring — Dehlia Low. The band…is poised to become the next buzz band in the inually expanding scene of new school old-time. Mixing vintage country sounds, tight picking and high lonesome harmonies, the group has quickly developed a traditionally minded original brand of mountain music.”
~Asheville Citizen-Times
“We’ve fallen in love with this cd over here, every one of us…we’ve had more requests for it than any other disk in the past year and a half. It’s a hit record….fresh….solid songwriting and the vocal duet is what gets them. ”
~Dennis Jones WNCW 88.7
Voted #16 of the top 100 releases of 2008 by WNCW 88.7FM!
CULLOWHEE–As many as 70 cases of swine flu have been reported at Western, according to a story in the Asheville Citizen-Times. The Western Carolinian reported 20 cases earlier in the week, and since then, the numbers have grown quickly, although health officials don’t seem surprised.
An excerpt:
“Ninety percent of flu in the state is H1N1 so I assume that is what is here as well,” said Pam Buchanan, director of university health services. She said that while the flu cases hit earlier than she expected, she is not surprised to see students showing up at the health center with symptoms of the H1N1 flu. Buchanan said she expects the university will continue to see more flu cases.
