The Southern Highland Reader

REGIONAL–Asheville blogger Ashvegas laments the news that the Hendersonville newspaper, the Times-News (a New York Times paper), will soon move to its new offices in a shopping center.

Right there between Goodys and the Shoe Show, we imagine. Oh, wait, Goodys is history.

Here’s Ashvegas’s lead:

Yes, here’s the announcement we’ve been expecting: the Hendersonville Times-News is moving its downsized operation into smaller space in a shopping center. Over the past couple of years, the New York Times-owned newspaper has reduced staff, moved the printing of the newspaper to South Carolina and made other cost-cutting measures.

And here’s his post.

REGIONAL–Ingles Markets, one of the larger grocery chains doing business in the western region, announced earlier in the fall that it would not allow Salvation Army bell-ringing at its stores this holiday season.

After some public pressure, it has reached a compromise with the charity.

From editor Kelly Donaldson’s story for the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle:

Craig A. Gontner, Captain, WNC Area Coordinator and Waynesville Corps Officer with the regional Salvation Army office that serves Cashiers, said, “Ingles did make a business decision at a corporate level to allow only unmanned kettles to be placed in their stores. The Salvation Army’s view is that we understand their decision and value the partnership.

“Ingles is a committed friend and partner to the Salvation Army and this community,” added Gontner. “Ingles has agreed to allow bell ringers to be present for the time just prior to Christmas, Monday, Dec. 21 through Thursday, Dec. 24. We plan on utilizing this opportunity.”

The Hendersonville Times-News reported that Ingles originally banned bell-ringers to provide its customers with an “unsolicited environment” during the holiday season, given the tight economy. The Times-News also reported on the compromise. It’s lead: “The spirit of Christmas — and sensitivity to a barrage of customer complaints — has won the day.”

The compromise limits bell-ringers to a few days just prior to Christmas, down from more than a full month’s worth of ringing in previous years.

REGIONAL–The Hendersonville Times News, along with the Knoxville News Sentinel, have followed closely 11th District Congressman Heath Shuler’s real estate misadventure involving the TVA in east Tennessee.

The Times News warned early on that even the appearance of influence-peddling in real estate matters would recall memories of Shuler’s predecessor, Republican Charles Taylor.

In a Friday editorial, the Times News “wraps the thing up neatly, and says Shuler’s damage in this case is self-inflicted.

Here’s the lead:

REGIONAL–Hendersonville, NC, mayor Greg Newman will challenge incumbent Democrat Heath Shuler for the 11th District’s seat in congress.

Shuler, who unseated long-time Republican incumbent Charles Taylor in 2006 and won handily in 2008, is a relatively conservative “Blue Dog” Democrat in a conservative district.

An excerpt of a story in the Hendersonville Times News:

If elected, Newman said he would not hesitate to hold town hall meetings to hear what the people want. One of the biggest reasons he has decided to run is what he has been hearing from residents.

“We have young people who want to know if they will have a good job when they get out of school,” he said. “There are elderly residents who are hearing about possible cuts in Medicare. National security is a major issue that needs to be addressed. Are we meeting the needs of avoiding a terrorist threat?”

He said his major focus would be to bring industry to Western North Carolina.

Read the whole piece here.

REGIONAL-The smidgen of Tennessee lakefront property at the heart of a controversy involving 11th District congressman Heath Shuler was listed as a Shuler asset in 2007, but not 2008, reports the Hendersonville Times News.

An excerpt:

Shuler, who went into real estate development in East Tennessee after his career as a quarterback at the University of Tennessee and the NFL, claimed ownership of between $9 million and $42 million in real estate assets in his 2007 financial disclosure statement. The largest asset was the Cove at Blackberry Ridge near Knoxville, which became the subject of a TVA inspector general’s report into whether the agency was showing favoritism in granting water access development permits.

The entire story.

STATEWIDE–State of North Carolina legislators cobbled together a piecemeal budget this year, after the economic downturn and plummeting tax revenues left the state in a bind.

The result will cause plenty of discomfort during the next year, and as the Hendersonville Times News reports points out in this editorial, legislators will need to take a hard look at tax reform when they reconvene.

An excerpt:

The current tax code was created when farming, cigarette factories, furniture plants and textile mills dominated the state’s economy. The economy has vastly changed since then — the tax code hasn’t.

This year, budget writers included a $1 billion package of tax increases to close the budget shortfall including a sales tax increase from 6.75 to 7.75 percent.

It’s a short-term solution that puts money in the state’s coffers while punching tax reform in the gut. Lawmakers need to look beyond Band-Aids and prepare for major surgery. North Carolina has always had a balanced tax system based on taxing income, consumption and property. It has gotten away from that balance with recent 11th hour fixes made in the heat of a budget crisis.

Legislators plan to hold meetings this fall to try to come to agreement on a plan.

STATEWIDE–The North Carolina legislature is divided over ways to attack the state’s $4 billion budget shortfall. They’re a long way apart.

Writes Mark Binker of the Greensboro News and Record:

“Senators favor a rewrite of the tax code that lowers income and sales tax rates but taxes more items. House budget writers are leery of those changes and would rely more on raising the sales tax rate and creating new upper-end income taxes.”

In an effort to bridge the divide, Governor Beverly Perdue floated a tax plan of her own this week, and at least one of its provisions would have an impact on the mountain tourism industry.

Among the changes Perdue suggests:

• Reducing the top three income tax rates but adding a temporary “emergency surcharge” for high income earners, defined as $500,000 for a single taxpayer.
• Adding an “emergency” 1 cent sales tax that would end on Sept. 30, 2010
• Applying the sales tax to a bevy of new items, including certain online purchases, courier services and plastic surgery.
• Raising taxes on cigarettes by 50-cents per pack and raising taxes on beer, wine and spirits.

Among the items and services that might see added taxes are recreation and entertainment venues. While the specifics are still being knocked around, its safe to say that big ticket items like rafting trips, train rides and so forth would make the list.

The Nantahala Outdoor Center’s Charles Conner told the Hendersonville Times News: “We believe such legislation threatens the state’s tourism industry as a whole, and we admire the efforts of our peers statewide as we all battle the ongoing economic slowdown.”

WASHINGTON-11th District Congressman Heath Shuler was one of 11 Democrats to join all Republicans in voting against the Obama administration’s $819 billion stimulus bill yesterday in Washington.

The bill passed 244-188.

Shuler is comfortable in and apparently well-suited to his role as a blue dog Democrat, and his votes against bailouts for big banks and the big three resonate with much of his rural constituency. Still, Shuler will be criticized for his departure from what is a broadly popular stimulus package, and some constituents will worry that by venturing from the party line too assertively — particularly in instances like this in which the outcome is clear — he could damage his influence in the new administration.

Here’s a story from the Hendersonville Times News.

STATEWIDE/NATIONAL–While the house approved a $14 billion bailout program for automakers Wednesday night by a 237-170 vote and sent it on for senate consideration, NC lawmakers weren’t feeling so charitable. The state delegation was 14-9 against.

11th District congressman Heath Shuler voted against.

Senator Libby Dole voted for the bailout, Senator Richard Burr against.

Here’s how the NC congressional delegation voted.

How about the impact of the industry’s struggles on mountain dealers and mechanics? Here’s a story from the Smoky Mountain News.

And another from the Hendersonville Times News.

HENDERSONVILLE-With the GOP having suffered a setback, and particularly after Elizabeth Dole’s loss, many have wondered whether Rep. Heath Shuler will challenge Sen. Richard Burr in 2010.

The Hendersonville Times-News had the chance to ask him.

REGIONAL-Hendersonville native Jennifer Pharr Davis has performed a feat that the Hendersonville Times-News likens to an Olympic gold-medal performance.

And that’s no exaggeration.

Davis recently traversed the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail in 57 days, five hours and 35 minutes.

That’s 30 days faster than any other women has ever made the trip, and faster than all but four men.

Davis performed the feat, she said, in memory of John and Irene Bryant and Meredith Emerson, three hikers murdered last year in the southern Appalachians by drifter Gary Michael Hilton (since convicted).

Read a Times-News editorial here.

Read Times-News news coverage from Lindsay Lancaster here.

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.