Ecusta Trail’s skyrocketing popularity prompting safety concerns in the Haywood/Druid Hills area

Regarding the Ecusta Trail opening, the Daily Planet noted that this trail may draw 20,000 tourists and generate 9.4 million in annual visitor spending.

There are new bicycle lanes from Patton Park, into Druid Hills to connect the Oklawaha Trail to the Ecusta Trail.

Across from Druid Hills, on the Haywood Road side, Advenir Azora Development LLC, has requested that the City rezone the property, at 1741 Haywood Road from a R-15 medium use property, to dense property use.

It is not neighborhood-compatible with the proposed 180 units (comprising 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom family units).

Three hundred eleven parking spaces are on their blueprint. It is not proposed as an affordable property option. The only possible exit is close to Ridge Road, where the Bike Trail in Druid Hills will exit.

Druid Hills residents already have safety concerns about the increased number of cars that are using their subdivision as a cut through to other streets to avoid the Haywood congestion.

A meeting was set at 08/19/25 at 5:30 pm at the Blue Ridge College to discuss the impact of rezoning.

According to President (Donald) Trump, this has been the best six months ever in the history of the United States.

By sending the National Guard troops to Washington D.C., Trump will end all crime. All of the homeless people living in tents and tarps will be sent to shelters and treatment centers. If the homeless people refuse to go to the shelters and the drug and alcohol treatment centers, they will be put in jail, says Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt. This will help those homeless people.

Thank goodness Mr. Trump enacted all of the new tariffs. Trump says that in the short-term, it will cost us much more at the stores, but in a few years, all Americans will get a bonus rebate dividend.

I was so pleased that Trump pardoned most of the January 6 criminals. For the most part, the criminals were acting within the law and behaving while breaking into the Capitol. They deserved to be pardoned!

Trump was a very close friend of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. They partied together for 10 years. There is no evidence that Trump was involved with or dated any of the underage girls. That was all done by Maxwell and Epstein.

Columnist Bill Press lambasted for getting it wrong on Epstein...

Mr. (Bill) Press (whose latest syndicated column appears below — and regularly — in the Daily Planet), please get your facts straight.

You stated in your article in the Aug. 6-Aug. 19 issue: “ever since Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking underage girls,” …

Sadly, he was never convicted of trafficking. He was in prison after having been convicted on lesser charges. He was facing a new trial for sex trafficking, when he died in prison.

Sex trafficking is deplorable. He should have been convicted of trafficking, but was not.

While the Great State of North Carolina has a Monument Protection Law, it is said to have no validation because there is no enforcement apparatus within.

However, there are parameters within that the North Carolina Supreme Court never viewed when it ruled against the 26th North Carolina vs. the City of Asheville, where the scalawag Jewish mayor, Ester Manheimer, bypassed the public clause within and led her constituents with the exception of the lone black vice mayor (Sandra Kilgore) to have this crown jewel torn down.

And because it was in the Historic District and ironically a landmark for the Historic March Across Dixie, many considerations should have been made to not remove it.

I believe that there should be an attempt by another entity to have it replaced. I would hope that this reading would be enough to employ the Jewish community in the city to help restore this memorial to a man (Zebulon Vance) who fought so hard for their integrity and interest — nationally and locally.

And if they (Asheville’s Jewish community) don’t have the wherewithal to come forward physically... to at least come forward fiscally to help right this wrong.

And within this plea is a message to the North Carolina legislature to do better by a man (Vance) who saved our glorious state before, during and after the War for Southern Independence.

Co-founder, Veterans to Defend the Arlington National Cemetery Reconciliation Memorial Cenotaph

Life Time Achievement Award Recipient of the National Sons of Confederate Veterans

H.L.Hunley Award Recipient of the Virginia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans

General Robert E.Lee Medal Recipient, Mississippi Division Sons of Confederate Veterans John F.Harris Award Recipient, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Texas Division

President, Jefferson Davis Medal Recipient, South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans Citizen of the Year Award Recipient, Asheville, North Carolina Police Department

Citizenship Award Honorary Life Member, Zebulon Baird Vance Camp 15 Sons of Confederate Veterans

Honorary Life Member, Jackson Rangers Camp 1917 Sons of Confederate Veterans Secretary of the State of Arkansas

Life Member, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia Orders of the Confederate Rose

When America adopted the term “separation of church and state,” it began America’s greatest mistake, although it was a great idea originally.

It was meant to keep the federal government from dictating to churches what to do or say. But since then, they have changed what the First Amendment really meant. Now it is used to keep God and His Word out of federal and state government buildings — and our schools.

Sadly, they are so ignorant about God and the Word of God, that they do not realize that God is not a Church. God is God, the Creator of the universe and everything that has ben created.

HE IS THE BOSS! Each of us owes our life to Him! He is the giver of life!When he ordered to spread his word throughout the world,

He meant everywhere. But because humanity has failed to do so, we now can see the past ungodliness that the world has experienced, and that is now going on.

From the beginning, God has wanted his precious human race to do good, and not evil. With a fiery finger, our holy God wrote the Ten Commandments on the face of the rock for Moses, while he spent 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain.

He meant it not just for Israel, his chosen nation, but for all humanity to follow those commandments.

This nation, which prints “In God We Trust” on our money bills, now does not trust God enough to teach God’s Word, God’s History, in our schools — not even His Ten Commandments!

Teaching the history of God’s great accomplishments should be the most important thing in this world for humans to do! After all, without His creating powers, nothing would exist today — and that includes YOU!!

Otherwise, as Jesus predicted, that He will come back, because the world will become so ungodly that none can be saved!

One can easily see that this is exactly where America — and the world — is headed at this present time!

Schoolteachers should start to teach that, “in the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth”... “And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep”... “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”... “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

Then tell about God’s great creation powers, and what He expects from us, and that He loves us, that He is a forgiving God who cares for each of us. He wants us to go to Heaven and not to Hell — and later, to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone for eternity.

God’s Ten Commandments should be posted in schools, offices and all government and state buildings. Obedience of his laws is MANDATORY!

Representative Mark Harris, R-N.C., was among a group of Republican lawmakers who recently met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.

The trip was organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying organization.Importantly, the International Criminal Court contends that there is reasonable evidence to conclude that Netanyahu “intentionally and knowingly” deprived the civilian population of Gaza of food, water and medical supplies, including anesthesia.

According to the ICC, this lack of anesthesia forced doctors to perform amputations on adults and children with no safe way to sedate them.

Dr. Mike M. Mallah is a trauma surgeon from Charleston, S.C., who volunteered in Gaza. In an interview, Mallah’s voice shook as he described “anesthesiologists who don’t have anesthesia who are holding people down and singing to them so that they can comfort them and do their surgery.”

Moreover, a doctor from Gaza recounts, “Because of the shortage of painkillers, we leave patients to scream for hours and hours.”

The ICC, which also issued an arrest warrant for an Hamas leader, is not equating Israel with this terror group. Rather, it is evaluating Israel’s actions against the standards of International Humanitarian Law.