Contrary to media reports
voting termed ‘smog brown

Media reports about Asheville City Council and its alleged renewed support of new sidewalk construction have it all wrong.

Council did nothing to increase sidewalk funds on June 22; rather it stepped closer to reducing funds available for sidewalks over the next decade.

The reported “increase” in spending for sidewalks is a bookkeeping adjustment. City staff discovered that early budget drafts had missed developer money already collected as “fees in lieu” of building their own walkways, and already dedicated to sidewalk construction.

No council action was required because no other use could be made of that money.

On the same night, five council members voted to extend a financial deadline and continue funding a proposed and completely unnecessary parking deck on Biltmore Avenue.

If hoteliers garner financing before Nov. 1, it’s clear that council will approve a deal requiring all available money generated by all deck and meter fees for at least the next decade.

That precludes use of that money for sidewalks, bike ways, a downtown shuttle or other parking/transit projects.
At our January Council retreat we all agreed that “green” was to be considered in everything we did this year. I’m sorry to report that my colleagues voted smog brown.

CECIL BOTHWELL
Member, Asheville City Council
Asheville

School schedule decisions
called a bureaucratic waste

Raleigh politicians and education czars persist in maintaining a school schedule dedicated to motion over action.
Earlier end-of-grade testing and final exams have real learning ceasing two or three weeks before students are officially released from bureaucratic captivity.

The waste of time, money and energy is extraordinary.

CARL MUMPOWER
Asheville

BP engineers, leadership
lauded for efforts in crisis

With all the criticism of BP and its engineers I thought, as an engineer myself, I might try to put the situation in perspective.

The job of an engineer is “to solve problems.”

Without problems, you don’t need engineers. Most problems are solved with straightforward solutions based on previous solutions.

The difficult ones require creative and innovative approaches that are subject to failure.

BP engineers had the solution, drill relief wells, a tried and proven fix, but taking too much time. BP immediately started the wells, and the engineers started working on solutions that “might” work faster. The failure probability of these fixes was high, but one might work. It would appear that there has been significant success with the new “cap and pipe.”Congratulations to BP’s engineers.

BP’s management has shielded its engineers from all of the attacks by our president threatening “dozens of lawyers and criminal investigations” as his solution to the problem. This interference usually delays finding a solution. (Pressure exerted by incompetent, nontechnical people can totally demoralize an engineering team).

Kudos to BP management for absorbing the political posturing of our government, letting engineers solve the technical problem. BP’s problem now is money.

ALLYN M. ALDRICH
Asheville

Korea, one of bloodiest wars, merits recognition

Today, June 25, is the 60th anniverary of the start of the Korean War. Our government  has finally set aside a day to recognize the Korean War veterans, That day is July 27.

The armistice was signed on that day in 1953. It is called “National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day” and we are supposed to fly the flag at half-staff until sunset in honor of the ones who died in that war.

I believe that we should honor ALL of the veterans of that war on July 27 with a short ceremony at the new veterans monument in front of the Buncombe County Courthouse.

Please call each member of the Asheville City Council and each member of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and ask them to pass a proclamation declaring July 27 as Korean War veterans in our city and in our county.

We waited too long to start recognizing World War II veterans and many died before it started. The Korean veterans are not young men, either. The youngest Korean War veteran will turn 75 years old this year! Please help recognize what they did to defend out country!

Bill Lack
Asheville

President Obama termed
incompetence personified

There are a couple of things that we, the public, have learned from the disastrous oil spill:
That there is an enormous amount of oil off the shoreline and that the Community Organizer cannot simply order an end to the flow as his daughter requested.

He is not, after all, the Messiah and though “he has been in charge from day one” the spill has gone on for 46 days as of this writing. He has been unable or unwilling to cancel the Army Corps of Engineer’s requirement for an environmental study of the Governor’s request to dredge up barriers protecting the coastline.

Further, it is well understood that the spill is BP’s responsibility to cap the well and pay for the cleanup; however, protection and cleanup of the shoreline, specifically, is something that Government can and should be prepared to do.
Obama has wrung his hands, sputtered and blamed BP with no acknowledgment of culpability for submitting to Green Lobby threats and forcing risky drilling in deep water.

The only thing our illustrious President has done is to stop our drilling while that of Mexico, China, and Cuba goes on in the Gulf. Even his teleprompter writers seem witless.

Jerome “Jack” Lorenz
Mills River

Fletcher residents say no to new town tax increase

Talk about kicking people when they are down — we are in a bad economy, people out of work still, foreclosures and property values down.

Henderson County is not raising property taxes, but Fletcher is on its residents.

What about us people trying to sell our homes and we read in the newspapers how Fletcher is raising property taxes? Do you really think that is going to help sell our homes here in Fletcher?

I mean just because there are these so-called investors who have not shown us anything that says that they are really going to invest if we taxpayers go out on the limb and pay for this USDA loan with taxpayer money for a new Town Hall in the Heart of Fletcher.

It’s not good enough we don’t need this huge new Town Hall located off the main drag, just like the park. After we pay off other debts, then maybe something smaller and less expensive could be proposed.

The residents of Fletcher deserve to vote on such large expenditures not just five council members deciding for an entire city of 6,200 people. We want to vote on what is going to happen in this city. It is our tax dollars paying for everything we count.

JUDY E. PAULING
and Concerned Citizens
Fletcher

Most Americans’ gullibility
poses danger to nation

Acceptance of the communist/globalist myth of global warming proves the danger of not telling parables to your kids (or that illegal drug use produces mass gullibility).

If today’s 30-somethings had been taught classics like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and “Chicken Little” they’d understand the hoax Al “sex poodle” Gore and his “Church of Fevered Earth” are shoveling.

Without common grounding in common sense, however, this generation can be made to believe the sky is falling and the wolf is coming time and time again, and they continue drinking the Flavor Aid.

Sad when sex poodle Al’s masseuse was warned to “just suck it up” about Al’s advances, otherwise the earth would die of global warming. Obviously people this gullible should not be let outside without adult supervision.

Are most Americans now so gullible they believe in using toxic, screwy light bulbs made in China and in surrendering their life styles, payin global “existence” taxes, and making a “frisky” rich former VP much, much richer will save the earth from a non threat?

If so America is ripe for the picking, as commie Nikita Khrushchev predicted.

Perhaps a parable should be written today for tomorrow’s youth: “Gullible’s Travels.”

John Hensley
Weaverville