ASHEBORO, N.C. — Dr. David Jones calls the alleged illegal killing of a beloved and well-known lion by a Minnesota dentist “unacceptable.”
Walter Palmer, an American hunter, is accused of using a dead animal to lure Cecil — a prized lion and tourist attraction — from a national park in Zimbabwe and then shooting him with an arrow.
“Poaching by a wealthy westerner in this sort of situation is an absolute disgrace,” said Jones, the director of the North Carolina Zoo. “There’s no excuse in this case for any of them.”
Officials say two locals who were guiding Palmer found the animal 40 hours later and shot him to death.
Cecil was skinned and beheaded.
The case is drawing international attention and harsh criticism from animal experts.
“There’s no excuse any longer for hunting lions,” he said. “They’re in steep decline.”
He says illegal hunting is part of the reason why animals like lions are quickly becoming endangered.
“The lion population has decreased from something like 400,000 in the 1950s down to an estimated 15 to 20,000 now,” Jones said.
Jones also says the lion’s death will likely result in the loss of tourism dollars for Zimbabwe.
“An animal like this is probably worth something like $100,000 a week to that tourism industry,” he said.
The zoo has been working with national parks and locals in Africa to protect wildlife through education and supplying technology to help crack down on illegal hunting.
“Small hand-held computers where they can actually record the activities of poachers,” Jones said.
Along with lions, Jones says elephants and rhinos are also becoming endangered in Africa.
Editor’s note: This essay is part of a series in which local experts were asked: “What would it take to solve the Asheville area’s affordable housing problem?”
Asheville’s affordable housing problem is rooted in our lack of affordable land for new housing projects, coupled with our ever-growing need for more affordable housing for lower-income workers. Addressing this conundrum demands facing facts and new approaches.
First, in our market of skyrocketing property values, we must acknowledge the need for some amount of subsidy to fill the gap between low-wage workers’ ability to pay rent or a mortgage and the landlord/developer’s need for a fair return on investment. We cannot view this as a problem that the market alone can solve. Fortunately, Asheville has high-performing nonprofit developers who, with appropriate subsidies, can build, preserve and maintain homes.
One strategy might be for more lenders to follow the lead of wonderful organizations like Mountain Housing Opportunities and think more in terms of the social impact involved, i.e., accepting more risk in order to make more housing happen. This means giving a project’s potential social and community benefits more weight in underwriting, rather than focusing solely on the economic risk. There is fundamental potential economic development benefit in creating more housing, because our growing tourism industry depends on workers being able to live affordably.
Another strategy is to build/develop more small units. Self-Help Credit Union, with 30 years of experience in housing finance under its belt — including more than $8.3 million in loans to affordable housing projects last year alone — now offers innovative multifamily housing loans for small projects. Available to owners, investors and/or developers, these loans are tailored to small multifamily properties that provide rental housing for people making up to 120 percent of the area’s median income.
In addition to expanding those existing strategies, I suggest the following programs for consideration as possible models for Asheville:
Housing cooperatives, in their many different forms and varieties, can be used to serve low-income families. Check out the Fellowship for Intentional Community (ic.org) or the National Association of Housing Cooperatives (coophousing.org/about-nahc). Or visit Asheville’s local co-housing project in West Asheville to see an example of a completely green co-housing project.
In Holland, there are projects for students to live affordably in homes for the elderly. The students receive free rent in exchange for living with the needs of the old folks and offering companionship and some service. Here’s the link: http://avl.mx/1dh.
Additional ideas for affordable housing for city dwellers listed on the Shareable website (http://avl.mx/1di).
Asheville’s economic rejuvenation is a blessing, but we must be creative in addressing related challenges such as affordable housing. I hope we can build on some of the ideas listed above and help provide more affordable housing to better meet the needs of all our community members.
— Jane Hatley
WNC Regional Director
Self-Help Credit Union
This post has been updated with reaction from SEANC, the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
The former head of North Carolina’s public-private economic development group received a $30,000 “stay” bonus in January, an enticement that only kept him at the new endeavor for three months.
Richard Lindenmuth
Richard Lindenmuth, a Raleigh business executive, was selected in January 2014 to get the largely publicly-funded Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina off the ground. He had specialized in helping troubled companies but had no prior economic development experience.
The public-private partnership, which received $17.5 million in state funding last year, has been a central piece of Gov. Pat McCrory’s economic development strategy, after state lawmakers granted the McCrory administration’s request to move Commerce’s job recruitment, tourism and marketing arms out of state government. The privatization of the state’s job recruitment strategies, which proponents say allow for more aggressive and effective job recruitment, has encountered accountability issues in some states that have taken similar approaches.
Here in North Carolina, Lindenmuth was in the interim chief executive officer role for the partnership until December 2014, when McCrory administration officials announced that an experienced economic developer from Missouri, Christopher Chung, would take over the organization.
Lindenmuth would be staying on a consultant, McCrory administration officials said at the time.
Records (scroll down to view) recently obtained by N.C. Policy Watch through a public records request show that the public-private partnership also opted to pay Lindenmuth a $30,000 “stay” bonus to continue as a contractor while also receiving the same pay he got as an interim director – $10,000 a month, or $120,000 a year.
The stay bonus didn’t manage to keep Lindenmuth on at the organization for very long.
He submitted a resignation that was effective as of March 31, less than three months after he received the $30,000 stay bonus, according to Mary Wilson, a spokeswoman for the agency.
When asked for the date when Lindenmuth submitted his resignation for the contract position, Wilson responded on Thursday that the public-private partnership had no comment.
N.C. Policy Watch requested a copy of his resignation letter, which was not immediately released.
In all, Lindenmuth received $71,770 for his three months of consulting work in 2015 – the $30,000 stay bonus, $35,538 in regular pay and $6,231 for accrued time off.
Lindenmuth declined to comment for this article, and hung up on an N.C. Policy Watch reporter who reached him by telephone this week.
State employers are not generally entitled to bonuses, but the public-private partnership can pay employees outside the standard wages that were allowed when the economic development functions were housed in the N.C. Department of Commerce.
Flexibility in pay was one of several reasons the McCrory administration pushed to move the economic development functions outside of state government.
For example, Chung, the new head of the partnership, is entitled to a performance bonus of up to 25 percent of his $225,000 annual salary, according to the terms of his contract.
Ardis Watkins, the government relations director for the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC), said a $30,000 stay bonus for performing a public duty is a classic case of what can go wrong when government privatizes its functions and oversight lessens.
“A $30,000 bonus for a person that is working for the public, no matter how you couch the terms of the employment, is offensive to a [state-employed] housekeeper or correctional officer,” Watkins said. “A bonus that is more than they make in a year is offensive.”
John Lassiter, a Charlotte attorney who serves as the chair of the public-private partnership, said the $30,000 stay bonus paid to Lindenmuth came out of privately-raised funds. He added that he was sorry to see Lindenmuth move on from the organization.
“We were pleased” with his performance, Lassiter said, adding that Lindenmuth left when offered a job elsewhere.
During the three-month contract period with EDPNC, Lindenmuth worked on projects related to extending fast Internet service to rural areas, re-employing military veterans and looking at how data analysis could aid economic development opportunities, Lassiter said.
“We didn’t need him [Lindenmuth] to focus on management of the organization and we wanted him to continue work on those projects,” Lassiter said.
The state legislature has not finalized its budget for the current fiscal year, though both House and Senate versions included funding for the partnership in versions of their budget.
More of an uncertainty is the future of financial incentives in the state, a need that Chung highlighted he comments he recently made to the Charlotte Business Journal.
“If we want to unilaterally disarm while the rest of our competitors continue to offer these tools, I really worry about our risk that we fall behind,” Chung said, according to the CBJ article.
View a copy of the EDPNC contract with Lindenmuth:
On Oct. 2, 2013, a trio of state inspectors traveled to the site of the proposed Two Elk Power Plant near Wright to see how construction of the long-planned facility was progressing.
The group, from the Department of Environmental Quality, was met by Brad Enzi, son of U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi and vice president of North American Power Group, the company behind Two Elk.
The roughly 1,300-megawatt power plant was first proposed as a coal-burning facility in 1996. But on this day, 17 years later, little work had been done. The inspectors reported the road to the plant had been damaged by a recent rainstorm and was overgrown with weeds.
Enzi showed the group where some rock had been removed. He reported a set of power lines crossing the property needed to be relocated to make way for construction activities. The inspectors asked if three water wells, which were supposed to be drilled in 2011, had been completed. Enzi told them no.
“No construction activities could be confirmed to have taken place in the last twenty-four months,” Tanner Shatto, a DEQ engineer, wrote in a memorandum to his superiors a week later.
The lack of construction appeared to be a violation of Two Elk’s state air quality permit. The permit is considered invalid if no work is done within two years.
Two Elk had already experienced problems with its permit. In 2005 and 2007, DEQ briefly revoked the permit after it appeared no work had been done within the required two-year time period. On both occasions it was reinstated.
But after Shatto’s visit in 2013, nothing happened. DEQ maintains Two Elk holds a valid air quality permit to this day. A cement pad poured in 2005 for the plant’s exhaust stack remains the only construction ever done.
Department officials say the proposed power plant meets the terms of its permit because Two Elk representatives regularly send quarterly updates detailing their planning efforts.
“I think they’ve planned. I don’t think they’ve actually done,” said Steve Dietrich, who oversees DEQ’s air quality division.
Delays and promises
A Star-Tribune review of Two Elk’s quarterly reports dating back to the beginning of 2013 shows a pattern of delays and unfulfilled promises.
Power lines promised to be moved by the end of 2013 remain in the same place. Work has yet to begin on pipelines projected to be installed by the fall of 2014.
Oftentimes, large portions of the reports appear to be copied and pasted from previous submissions.
The last four reports are illustrative of the trend. Each contains a section about Two Elk’s efforts to acquire a gas turbine. Each says the technical information for the turbine has been acquired, the mechanical requirements for its installation determined and the budgets for the work established. And each time they promise to examine the turbine’s electrical requirements in the coming quarters.
The section always ends like this: “It is anticipated that the schedule for the installation of the turbine will be the topic of upcoming meeting(s) on the project and could occur in the next construction season.”
DEQ does not appear to independently verify these assertions.
“We read the reports that come in and, periodically, when we do inspections out in the field, we kind of see if any other activity has changed since the last time we there,” Dietrich said, when asked if the department follows up on any of Two Elk’s claims. “That’s all we can do at this point.”
The on-site inspection in 2013 was the department’s last.
Two Elk maintains it remains as committed to the power plant as ever. And company representatives can point to some signs of progress. Two Elk reinstated an interconnection agreement with PacifiCorp, a six-state utility, in May. The power plant had suspended the agreement in 2012.
There is still a need for Two Elk’s electricity, said Charlie Russell, a North American Power Group spokesman.
“At the end of the day, American industry has always been driven by low-cost, reliable power,” Russell said.
Paul Murphy, a PacifiCorp spokesman, confirmed Two Elk is an interconnection customer. However, to the utility’s knowledge, the power plant still does not have a customer for its power, Murphy said. Two Elk has until Aug. 15 to provide financial assurance it intends to proceed with the plant. If it does, PacifiCorp will build a power line and a substation to connect the facility. But if it fails to provide a guarantee, Two Elk will have to reapply for a large generator interconnection agreement, Murphy said.
The agreement projects Two Elk’s in-service date as 2018.
‘Veneer of plausibility’
Two Elk has long faced questions over its viability, but it has never faced more scrutiny than it is encountering today.
The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking the return of $5.7 million in federal stimulus funding. Documents obtained by the website Wyofile show the government claims money was spent on unapproved costs.
A Campbell County judge issued a default notice last month against Two Elk for failing to pay $207,000 in property taxes. Two Elk officials have said the payment is coming. It had not been made as of this week.
Dietrich said he was unaware of those developments. Those concerns, he said, are outside his division’s jurisdiction.
“Air quality is not going to ask those questions,” Dietrich said. “Air quality division doesn’t get involved in that kind of discussion.”
But Two Elk has consistently involved its DEQ permits in funding discussions, using Wyoming’s approvals to give the project a veneer of plausibility. A separate permit, for industrial siting, has been extended eight times.
In a 2009 application to the U.S. Department of Energy seeking $576 million in federal stimulus funding, Two Elk officials noted Unit 1 was “fully permitted.” It ultimately received around $10 million in public financing.
The next year Two Elk applied for pre-certification under California’s renewable portfolio standard, which requires a third of all the state’s power to come from renewable sources by 2020. The certification would make Two Elk’s power more attractive to utilities trying to meet that threshold.
Company officials told the California Energy Commission that the plant would burn biomass, qualifying it as renewable power. But California regulators were concerned. In emails to the company, they cited news accounts that described Two Elk as a coal plant.
Michael Ruffato, North American Power Group president, wrote a letter to the commission in October of that year, seeking to address what he called “Internet information” that “may not provide an accurate view of the project.”
The plant would burn biomass, he said, though he conceded that “as originally conceived and permitted” it would burn coal.
Ruffato did not specifically mention that DEQ had temporarily invalidated Two Elk’s permit in 2007. Instead, he wrote, “Subsequently, on Dec. 3, 2007, the WY-EQC issued its decision and order that the Project had not discontinued construction for a period of twenty-four months or more. Construction is on-going.”
The Environmental Quality Council, or EQC, is a civilian board that oversees DEQ.
California regulators ultimately pre-certified Two Elk units 2, 3 and 4. Unit 1, which has an air quality permit to burn waste coal and natural gas, was disapproved. It is the only unit Two Elk is pursuing today.
“Anyone who is pursuing money from the bank or the government are going to want to show as much project viability as they can. That’s permits, land leases, investors or whatever it is,” said former Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Freudenthal, a Democrat, approved $445 million in state industrial development revenue bonds for Two Elk during his time in office. (Two Elk says it has yet to issue the bonds.)
The state did not grant the bonds because of the permits, Freudenthal said. However, he noted the bonds would not have been approved had the permits been revoked.
“The problem is air quality extensions are too easy to get,” Freudenthal said, noting that something as simple as an equipment purchase could qualify as construction. “It was intended to work with people who were operating in good faith, and frankly, I’m not sure Two Elk always was.”
Hindered by uncertainty
Two Elk maintains its plans have been hindered by “regulatory uncertainty” created by President Barack Obama’s proposals to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
The proposal was unveiled last year, 18 years into Two Elk’s planning. But it underscores the changes in the power sector since the plant was first proposed.
Demand for electricity was growing at a rapid rate in the late 1990s, said Rob Godby, a professor at the University of Wyoming who tracks the power sector. Today, electricity growth is stagnant and construction of new coal plants almost unheard of.
“The world of the 1990s was a completely different one from the one we have today,” Godby said. “Even if they did get it off the ground, most of the companies around here had their needs filled.”
Plans to install a boiler stoked by waste coal are now on hold, company officials say. A downturn in the coal market has created “market uncertainty,” Enzi wrote in a letter to DEQ this month seeking a ninth extension of Two Elk’s industrial siting permit.
The company is focused on acquiring and installing a natural gas turbine at present. He said construction is now expected to begin next April.
News accounts have frequently estimated Two Elk’s price tag around $1 billion. Russell, the NAPG spokesman, said it is premature to say what the plant might cost to build now.
Asked what kind of plant Two Elk is today, Russell responded, “It’s a multifaceted generation facility that runs on waste coal, natural gas and biomass.”
As part of its settlement with DEQ in 2007, Two Elk submitted a modification to its air quality permit that would allow it to burn biomass.
Eight years later, Two Elk has not sent the information to the state needed to complete the modification. A DEQ spokesman said the department will be in touch with company officials about the modification.
“We’re working to get more information,” said Keith Guille, the spokesman. “It has been a while here, and this modification obviously needs to move forward.”
ASHEVILLE – When Marylou Marsh-Sanders opened a clothing store in downtown Asheville six years ago, all eyes were on her two-story neighbor.
The brown building on the corner of Haywood and College streets had been a CVS store since the 1970s, but its time at this busy downtown intersection was coming to an end. By the time Marsh-Sanders opened Spiritex in 2009, the red-lettered CVS sign was long gone and the national chain retailer Urban Outfitters had arrived.
The response from independent business owners was swift and clear: Keep Asheville local.
Now, six years later, downtown business owners find themselves fighting the same fight on a different street.
Their attention has pivoted one block up to Lexington Avenue, where it has been announced that an Anthropologie store will be moving in at 37 N. Lexington Ave. — sandwiching the women’s high-end apparel store between a local clothing boutique and Lexington Avenue Brewery.
One national retail chain in downtown Asheville is one thing, said Marsh-Sanders. But two? That could threaten everything — from commercial rental prices to the very character of downtown Asheville.
“Once one chain weasels their way in, more will follow,” she said. “Once that happens, how will you ever be able to come back to what it used to be? After everyone pioneered and worked and fought to make downtown Asheville what it is today, all of it could be wiped away if we aren’t careful. We’ve got to hold onto that. There has to be a way.”
CITIZEN TIMES
Anthropologie is coming to Asheville, permits say
The petition
Last week, Rebecca Hecht created an online petition calling for the city of Asheville to regulate and place a moratorium on chain and formula stores in downtown.
Within two days of posting the petition on Change.org, it had garnered 500 signatures. Four days in, it reached 1,000. By Friday, the volume of signatures neared 2,000.
Hecht, who owns Adorn Salon on College Street, said she drafted the petition as a way to let Anthropologie, property owners and the city know what people think about the idea of creating some sort of plan that might keep chains and formula stores out of downtown Asheville.
“We all feel like it’s time to start the conversation about how do we guide the development of downtown. It’s grown so fast over the last few years,” said Hecht, who also serves on the Asheville Downtown Commission. “That’s the mood on the Commission. We’d like to protect the unique, vibrant downtown that we’ve all created and start the conversations about how we can do it.”
City attorney Robin Currin said Asheville does not have any restrictions or zoning ordinances that are aimed at keeping the number of chain businesses in downtown low.
However, other cities do.
After a Ralph Lauren opened in 2005 on the Main Street of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, the town adopted a zoning ordinance a year later that limits stores and restaurants in its downtown to companies with fewer than 14 identical outlets and fewer than three standardized features, like trademarks, menus or employee uniforms.
In 2006, citizens and elected officials in Bristol, Rhode Island, adopted an ordinance that bans formula stores larger than 2,500 square feet or that take up more than 65 feet of street frontage downtown. Smaller formula stores have to apply for a special use permit and must not detract from the district’s uniqueness or contribute to what it calls the “nationwide trend of standardized downtown offerings.”
Other cities have taken similar actions.
But Currin said the city of Asheville is bound by G.S. 160A, a North Carolina statute that dictates what cities and municipalities can do with their zoning.
“A zoning ordinance may regulate and restrict the height, number of stories and size of buildings and other structures, the percentage of lots that may be occupied, the size of yards, courts and other open spaces, the density of population, the location and use of buildings, structures and land,” it reads.
In other words, Currin said, businesses cannot be kept out of downtown Asheville by tenant.
“We can’t just do whatever we want to do,” Currin said. “We have our laws that we have to follow.”
But downtown business owners fear that if something is not done, Asheville could lose the local identity that makes it so special — a process that they have seen played out in other cities.
King-sized fears
King Street in Charleston, South Carolina, once belonged to the locals.
Though some mom-and-pop shops remain on the commercial thoroughfare, the proliferation of chains cannot be ignored.
A sprawling, four-story Forever 21 sits in the heart of the King Street Fashion District. A Chipotle opened on the street four months ago.
Dean Peterson, general manager of Tops for Shoes, remembers it wasn’t always like that.
“King Street is lovely, but 20 years ago it was kind of like what we are now — it was unique and different,” he said.
Jamee Haley, the executive director of Lowcountry Local First, a nonprofit independent business advocacy group in Charleston, has seen the impacts of these chain stores firsthand.
“We no longer have businesses that serve the needs of the community that lives downtown,” she said, citing salons, shoe repair shops, dry cleaners and hardware stores. “Even the legacy businesses are selling because of rising property taxes and deals that are just too good for them to pass up.”
Haley said an empty downtown lot that sold for $1.5 million a year ago sold this year for $8 million.
“The only way to make money on that acre is to put in luxury condos or a hotel,” she said. “Additionally, we are dealing with absentee landlords who are not invested in our place and are unresponsive to the needs of their tenants. National businesses take up a large footprint and create large retail spaces that are hard to fill once they leave.”
Franzi Charen, the executive director of Asheville Grown Business Alliance, has been leading the “go local” charge since the organization’s founding in 2009.
It was Urban Outfitters moving into downtown Asheville that prompted the creation of the group in the first place.
“We all want a downtown that we can live, work and play in, and we must prioritize the needs of residents in our community over those that only wish to extract resources,” Charen said. “Corporate interests and Wall Street profits have dictated the direction of hundreds of downtowns; we’ve seen what happens and seem to be following suit. We must look 20 years down the road at the real implications of these decisions based on short-term profit and outside interests.”
Charen said this is why the community must look at other solutions to keeping downtown Asheville local in the future.
“While (a ban or regulation on chains) could buy us time, it is not the remedy to creating a resilient community,” she said. “There are communities developing interesting solutions that help to build a stronger local business community not dependent on tourism. In New York City they’ve established a fund to incubate worker cooperatives. Utah incentivizes downtown property owners to sell to local businesses over national chains or outside developers.”
However, local business owners and leaders alike say chains downtown do not necessarily mean the end of downtown Asheville as we know it.
Silver linings
Kit Cramer, president and CEO of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, is a downtown resident.
The offerings of local downtown establishments contribute to why she lives downtown. However, she added that sometimes chains can keep Asheville’s economy competitive and growing.
“I love shopping and eating and being entertained at local establishments. It’s part of the reason I live downtown. That being said, I also love seeing a quality rehabilitation of a vacant storefront. That infusion of dollars not only creates jobs, it will attract more potential customers — both locals and visitors — for all the businesses in the area,” she said. “That means the businesses profit and are able to pay the sales and property taxes, which allow us to provide the community services of which we all take advantage.”
The property at 37 N. Lexington Ave. has sat vacant for years. Before Urban Outfitters — parent company of Anthropologie — moved into the former CVS store on Haywood Street, the drugstore had been empty for almost a year.
“The best way to keep our independent businesses is to help them be successful. We do that by growing jobs and marketing the community so that businesses have a good environment in which to grow,” Cramer said. “The Chamber is a proponent of business. We have both independent and chain businesses as members. Sometimes people forget that franchises are often owned by local people who employ other local people and who pay their taxes, give to charities and are involved in the community in many ways. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
When Marsh-Sanders opened Spiritex, she worried about what would happen across the street from her storefront.
Though she can’t say whether being across from the clothing retailer has resulted in more foot traffic for her business, she said she was pleased that the store made an attempt to blend into its surroundings.
“They seemed to adapt to make it look like Asheville. They were like the chameleon box store,” she said. “They tried to really do their build-outs and everything to appeal to the community. They didn’t just worm their way into a spot and keep repeating what they always do.”
Anthropologie would not comment about its plans for the space on Lexington.
Marsh-Sanders said her real fear with chains isn’t about a specific store. It comes down to one word: homogenization.
“What makes Asheville Asheville is the people, is the community, the artists, the unique designers trying to make a living and the business owners trying to have their own flair and own uniqueness,” she said. “If we start to look and feel like everywhere else, what will happen to our ‘Keep Asheville Weird’ motto? What will the tag line be then? We have more of the same, but better? If a whole bunch of box stores and chains come into downtown, it will change the flavor of Asheville so much. We have to find a balance.”
Jeff Milchen, the co-founder and co-director of the American Independent Business Alliance, said Asheville is not alone in those efforts.
The great unknown
Milchen describes this challenge of keeping certain areas chain-free as a fairly consistent issue among communities nationwide.
“The larger trend of gentrification, to use the more generic term, with above-market rate increases in rent and the resulting increase of local rent has become a huge topic in this past year. We’re seeing a lot of other cities with organizing fronts who are exploring different ideas,” he said.
One idea Milchen expects to see more of in the coming months is commercial real estate land trusts. They allow people to collectively invest in and own a commercial property in town and make a profit, but with the stipulation that the property can only be leased out to local businesses and residents instead of leasing for the greatest rate of return.
But Milchen said cities don’t necessarily need a moratorium, regulation or ban on chain stores to make a difference.
In the 1990s, Milchen was organizing go-local efforts in Boulder, Colorado. His group was exploring a citywide cap on formula businesses of all kinds and a limitation on square footage of retail chain operations. It was not adopted, but Milchen said it still made a difference.
“Even though it didn’t pass into law, they were really powerful tools for advancing public awareness and creating a really healthy debate in the community that led people to taking much more proactive measures when thinking about growth,” he said.
And that is what small-business owners want to do moving forward.
Peterson, an Asheville native who has been the manager at Tops For Shoes for more than 20 years, said there’s no stopping Anthropologie at this point.
The focus, he said, needs to be on what downtown Asheville can do for its future.
“I’ve seen both ends of it. I’ve seen it bustling pre-mall. I saw it boarded up with drug dealers, and I’ve seen it come back. I love it. It’s unique,” he said. “It’s Asheville.”
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American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight.Trucking Moves America Forward.
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American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight.Trucking Moves America Forward.
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ARLINGTON, Va., July 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Today, American Trucking Associations announced registration has opened for its annual Management Conference Exhibition, scheduled for October 17-20 in Philadelphia.
“Every year, the ATA Management Conference Exhibition grows, improves and becomes more indispensable for trucking industry executives,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “Last year’s MCE was the best attended in history, and we look forward to continuing that success in Philadelphia.”
“The MCE is consistently the most informative and important industry meeting of the year,” said ATA Chairman Duane Long, chairman of Longistics, Raleigh, N.C. “And with this year’s full agenda of general sessions, educational breakouts and critical policy discussions, MCE will once again provide all the information an executive could need to run their company safely, efficiently and profitably.”
Schedule for October 17-20 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, MCE’s general sessions will feature a series of top notch, nationally recognized speakers, including:
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan will discuss leadership and the benefits of hiring veterans in a session sponsored by Shell LNG.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello and Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Inc., will explore the impact of the economy on trucking in a session sponsored by Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC.
ATA’s Technology and Maintenance Council and the American Transportation Research Institute partner to create a session aimed at how advances in truck manufacturing, technology and telematics will create a safer, more efficient and more profitable trucking industry. The session is sponsored by Freightliner Trucks.
And finally, Transport Topics Publishing Group will present Jeff Skiles, first officer of US Airways Flight 1549, and a panel on the connection between safety technology and human performance.
In addition to these informative sessions, MCE will also feature the ATA Exhibit Hall featuring the latest in trucking technology and service providers, critical education sessions on important topics, awards and honors for the best in trucking and unparalleled networking opportunities for attendees.
For more information on MCE, or to register, visit mce.trucking.org.
American Trucking Associationsis the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or on Facebook.Trucking Moves America Forward
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CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — LendingTree, Inc. (NASDAQ: TREE), operator of LendingTree.com, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, today announced that it will participate in the annual Needham Interconnect Conference being held on August 4-5, 2015 at The Westin Grand Central Hotel in New York City.
LendingTree, Inc. (NASDAQ: TREE) operates the nation’s leading online loan marketplace and provides consumers with an array of online tools and information to help them find the best loan for their needs. LendingTree’s online marketplace connects consumers with multiple lenders that compete for their business, empowering consumers as they comparison-shop across a full suite of loans and credit-based offerings. Since inception, LendingTree has facilitated more than 55 million loan requests. LendingTree provides consumers with access to lenders offering home loans, home equity loans/lines of credit, personal loans, auto loans, student loans and more.
LendingTree, Inc. is headquartered in Charlotte, NC and maintains operations solely in the United States. For more information, please visit www.lendingtree.com.
The eight shark attacks along the NC coast this summer don’t seem to have kept people from heading to the beach, or getting in the water.
Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper says, “Over the past couple of years we’ve seen an increasing trend of tourism in Atlantic Beach, all along the Crystal Coast, and this year has been no exception.”
In addition to being Mayor of Atlantic Beach, Cooper is also the Chairman of the Crystal Coast Tourism Development Authority and he runs the Oceana Pier and Motel with his father.
Cooper says, “We’re having, really, our best year ever here at the pier, so I think the shark attacks really haven’t had any bearing at all in Carteret County.
In addition to just seeing people out on the beach, Cooper says they’ve been tracking parking at the beach accesses, and the numbers are up from years past.
Carol Lohr, the Executive Director for the Crystal Coast Tourism Authority, says the tourism industry hasn’t seen any drawbacks from the shark scares.
Lohr says, “No cancellations that we’re aware of from our properties and we did a poll up and down the coast, actually, with the state of North Carolina. They were proactive in making sure people understood the safety issues that were involved and there were very few cancellations up and down the coast, so we feel like people understand, we’re invading their water, they’re there – just use common sense.”
Frances Marsh says business at Marsh’s Surf Shop has been better than ever, and not only did their surf camp stay full, they also had a wait list.
Restaurants like the Island Grille, have also been packed
Aimee Scott says, “It’s been a phenomenal summer. I really believe that the whole beach is busier this summer.”
Scott says she can look down the beach on any weekend and see it lined with people and she doesn’t think that’s something that will be changing anytime soon.
With roots firmly planted in Western North Carolina, Bryson feels he is best qualified to be a voice for its people. Congressman Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, has represented the district since being elected in 2013, but Bryson — who will be running as a Democrat — thinks he can do better.
“The N.C. 11th District has been poorly served during Meadows’ four years in office. He is, at best, ineffective; at worst, an expense we cannot afford,” Bryson said.
Bryson was born in Franklin and his family moved back to Bryson City when he was still a baby. Bryson City was named after his great-grandfather, T.D. Bryson, who was a colonel in the Confederate Army and the first representative to the General Assembly.
“His son, T.D II, was a Superior Court judge, my dad, the third T.D., was mayor here, Solicitor (D.A. now), Superior Court judge and candidate for Congress in 1960,” Bryson said. “So, you might say that I was born and bred to politics.”
After a long career as an industrial public relations writer in Cleveland, Ohio, Bryson, now 71, moved back to his hometown of Bryson City to serve his community. While he was unsuccessful at securing a spot on the Swain County school board, he was elected to the town board of aldermen in 2013. He said his record on the board shows that he can get things done.
For example, Bryson said he helped push through a major upgrade to the town’s water system.
“We were losing 50 percent of the water we pumped, but new digital meters cut our losses down to 20 percent and falling,” he said.
He has also led the charge to get Bryson City named as the newest “Trout City,” by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which he sees a great opportunity to improve tourism and economic development. Lastly, Bryson said he’s led a statewide fight to keep the N.C. General Assembly from changing the formula for how sales tax is distributed. If the formula is changed, the town stands to lose a large amount of revenue, which could result in property tax increases for residents.
On the other hand, Bryson said Meadows had a major hand in the government shutdown that cost his district $23 million in lost wages and revenue. He says Meadows record for job creation in the region is dismal and that he’s done nothing to recover the money owed to Swain County by the federal government for the Road to Nowhere agreement.
“I am hopeful my record of being a voice for the people of Western North Carolina and someone who actually represents their interest will return me to Washington, D.C., for a third term,” Meadows said in response to Bryson’s announcement.
Meadows added that he looks forward to the coming months when he and the people of Western North Carolina get to know Bryson.
“I certainly applaud anyone who is willing to put their time, talent and resources to work for the public benefit,” he said. “Swain County has a rich history of great public servants, many of whom I call my friends.”
If elected to Congress, Bryson said he would push for a major new industrial complex in the district that would incubate clean industries in fields like biomedicine, solar energy, recreation and agribusinesses. He said sites could be spread all across the district and all manufacturing would have to be done in the U.S.
“But the best news is that it would enable the kids that we send off to get educated to have a place where they could earn a satisfying living and enable their own children to grow up with a mountain experience,” he said.
Bryson said his plan got a positive reception at the Democratic selection committee meeting recently in Asheville. While it’s still early in the game for 2016 election, Bryson said he is working on putting his campaign team together and looks forward to getting out in the district to talk to people face-to-face.
Enjoying their majority in the General Assembly, North Carolina Republicans may find it short lived.
Because Republican N.C. Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown of Onslow and Jones counties introduced a bill to redistribute state sales tax revenue to counties, cities and towns based on population rather than where the sale occurs. This will anger taxpayers who are voters.
State sales tax revenue is now distributed among the state’s 100 counties using ad valorem tax collection (property tax) — point of sale distribution — as the base, the method of distribution. So 75% of the local option portion of sales tax revenue stays in the county or the city where sales occur, and 25% is distributed according to population.
Mr. Brown proposes to change that over four years so 80% of the money is distributed by population and 20% by sales location.
Changing the sales and use tax distribution from the basis of ad valorem tax to population is — we’ve said it before — redistribution of wealth, or income. If it happens it happens at the expense of the state’s urban centers of population.
Mr. Brown’s plan, his bill, a mistake, would move millions in state sales and use tax revenue from the state’s urban counties and cities and the coastal counties of Dare, Carteret and New Hanover, which have just as much need, to rural counties. This would impact tourism and the state’s overall economy for the worse.
At the expense of the state’s centers of population, this redistribution of income would penalize the state’s most populated areas, Charlotte and Mecklenburg county, Raleigh and Wake County, the Triangle, the Triad and the three coastal counties.
Mr. Brown says his plan would help 83 of the state’s 100 counties, rural counties, meaning it would hurt 17 urban counties, forcing the counties and cities in those counties to raise property taxes — considerably.
If Mr. Brown’s bill is enacted over four years, in the fourth and final year of his grand plan, FY 2019-20, Atlantic Beach would give up 8% of its ad valorem tax revenue, Beaufort, Bogue, Cape Carteret Cedar Point, Newport, Peletier and Pine Knoll Shores would each give up 9%, Emerald Isle would relinquish 10% and Morehead City would relinquish 11%. The county’s tax revenue would drop 10%.
This would require massive tax increases here and in the 16 counties, hurting businesses and property owners.
On NC Policy Watch Monday, Steve Ford, former editorial page editor at Raleigh’s News Observer and now a volunteer program associate at the N.C. Council of Churches said “It’s true that an urban county such as Mecklenburg or Wake faces additional expense to support the retail zones where many folks who live in outlying communities do their shopping. So from that standpoint, a sales tax scheme favoring the counties where goods are sold makes sense.
“It’s also true,” he said, “that rural counties, with little retail and meager property tax bases, can use more money for schools and basic services. Those counties favor tilting sales tax revenues more toward where people live.”
He said the Senate had a choice. “Rather than helping smaller counties at the expense of big ones — which then might be forced to raise property taxes to make up the difference — the Senate could have called a halt to the state’s series of income tax cuts. Then, it could have taken the income tax revenue that it proposes to forgo and channeled it into aid for rural counties in distress.” But it didn’t do that.
Knowing some rural counties are hurting financially, some might also say they’re culturally deprived. Might Mr. Brown and the N.C. Senate mandate they have cultural events? At what cost? And who would pay?
Residents in the state’s urban counties and cities, the state’s largest population centers, vote. Their votes, their clout, could and would likely carry the day for a political party.
If Mr. Brown and his Senate colleagues enjoy what they do and perhaps might do, they must comprehend what changes, financially and politically, they portend to inflict on the state’s urban counties and cities, the state’s centers of population with their Senate budget proposal.
Should they continue on this unwise, reckless course, unwittingly following President Obama’s liberal Democrat plan of redistributing income, Mr. Brown and the Republican majority in the General Assembly shouldn’t be surprised if they find themselves displaced, turned out of office, and sent home because of urban voter dissatisfaction at being forced to pay higher property taxes.
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