Saluda Four Seasons Politics
A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered at the Grove Street Courthouse on Saturday, protesting a shooting range in Saluda and expressing anger that county officials barred them from a meeting inside where county officials described construction plans to the closest neighbors.Deputies posted outside said they were told that the county identified property owners within a half mile and sent them letters. Those were allowed in. Others, including the news media, were barred from attending.County Manager Steve Wyatt said Friday afternoon that officals and engineers planning the shooting range and law enforcement training center would brief the news media later.At 10 a.m. residents of the Macedonia Road area and other Saluda residents had filled the parking lot and congregated at the front of the courthouse. Later, the crowd stood on the courthouse steps and listened to speakers excoriate the idea of a shooting range and express frustration that the county had closed the information meeting.
Most people outside the courthouse said they felt entitled to be in the meeting. Pamela Sacco’s grandfather bought 100 acres on Macedonia Road 100 years ago, she said, and she has been visiting the land since she was a little girl and now lives on it.
“When they shoot the bullets they’re going to go over their property and land on me,” said Pamela Sacco, who was denied entrance. “I learned to walk there. It’s in my soul. To me it’s like building something in DuPont Forest. It’s beautiful and pristine and the birds, the geese come into our lake.”
Chandler Ward lives close to the property but did not get an invitation to Saturday’s information
“I think mine’s close enough to qualify,” he said. “I’m a builder and developer. Ain’t nobody going to buy property to build three or four houses” next to a firing range. Along with his cousin, County Commission candidate Don Ward, he was later admitted inside.
“This is a political move by the commissioners to help Charlie win the election,” Don Ward said. “That’s the only thing it helps.”
“How many resource officers could we put in the schools for $6 million,” Steve Rhodes asked, provoking one of the loudest cheers. “The issue on the front burner right now is children’s safety. How many school shootings are we going to witness and this clown wants to put $6 million on a training facility. When we already have one that could be utilized. Bullet-proof doors. Metal detectors, something, $6 million to protect our children, not for some guy that’s going to go shootin’ out in the woods.”
Four candidates for office showed up, capitalizing on a crowd of likely voters.
"That $6 million would have helped my school," said Norm Bossert. "I'm not only retired principle and candidate for state Senate as well, and it bothers me almost more than anything that this is their idea of transparency in government. The doors should be open to everybody. I think it's immoral and unjust to lock people out of a room where your voices have a right to be heard — a room that you paid for."
"Personally I don't think it's going to work for the sheriff," Bossert said. "These people are p---ed off. To me if the people didn't care, I'd say OK. They care, this is their neighborhood, where their homes are, where their kids play. I would bet that there are just as many Republicans here as Democrats. This is not a partisan issue. ... Don't we have sunshine laws here in North Carolina. Apparently, they're not as much use today."
Sam Edney, a candidate for the state House, called the shooting range an example of “government overreach” that has become common in Raleigh.
“How many times have they tried to locate this range?” Edney said. “Four,” people in the crowd said. “Well, you’re doing what Americans do. Your voices are going to be heard and that’s appropriate. I can tell you when I get sworn in my door will always be open.”
The Kury family from Spartanburg even showed up "because we spend all of our time and all of our extra dollars there," Mary Kury said. She and her husband, an arborist, and their five children, ages 4-10, visit Saluda as often as they can.
"We're always on the river, we're always hiking in the gamelands. The detriment to the natural resources is astonishing. Oftentimes when we stay, we stay in a cottage right up Macedonia Road."
"He's quit being a public servant and he's went to being a politician," Rhodes said. "And this right here proves it because he's shutting out the public's opinion. There's a facility right now that's not even being used to its capacity. Why are they pushing for this?"
Camp Wayfarer owner Nancy Wilson noted that the Saluda location is the fourth try at siting the training center.
"Does that not begin to tell the county commissioners something's out of whack?"
At noon, the property owners allowed in still had not emerged and all but two political candidates — Bossert and Edney — and about seven and landowners and the press waited outside a locked door. Everyone else had gone home.
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North Carolina Four Seasons Politics
David Sink, who served as president of Blue Ridge Community College for 20 years, is running for the state Senate in Brunswick County on the coast south of Wilmington.
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
The third time might be the charm for Sheriff Charlie McDonald, who has a site for a shooting range and tactical training center after more than two years of looking.
It’s rare for the Board of Commissioners to insert a major policy or capital decision into its regular agenda with no advance notice. That’s what happened April 2. When commissioners emerged from a closed session, the law enforcement training center had popped up on an overhead projector. It was the first time in a year that commissioners had broached the subject during a board meeting and the sheriff himself had dropped the subject, at least publicly.McDonald’s first effort to site a tactical training center, in August 2015, triggered a huge uprising in the Green River community. When residents packed the county commission meeting room, commissioners summarily killed that idea. Trying to do the sheriff a favor in return, the commissioners endorsed County Manager Steve Wyatt’s recommendation to use free land at Blue Ridge Community College. That idea sparked even more widespread opposition. For starters, the BRCC site quadrupled the original cost, free land or not. Moving a firing range indoors, abating lead pollution, soundproofing walls so students next door could concentrate on math equations and English essays were expensive add-ons that escalated the cost to a jaw-dropping $20 million. If good ideas have a thousand fathers, bad ones become an orphan. The training center was looking like McDonald’s boondoggle and soon even he was running from it. By March of 2017, Commissioner Bill Lapsley had declared his opposition to a $20 million training center. By the time county officials cut the ribbon on the new Innovative High School last summer, it was clear that BRCC was out, though no one would say so publicly.The training center laid in a shallow grave until last month, when Commissioner Grady Hawkins neatly sketched an escape plan for McDonald, a few short weeks before his Republican primary contest with Lowell Griffin, the Polk County sheriff’s captain McDonald sacked in November 2014. McDonald the Reformer has worked hard to cultivate support among lots of constituencies and he does not look too vulnerable in this election. The pop pop pop of a firing range next to a high school in a time of heightened anxiety over school shootings may have been the sheriff’s biggest liability. Bad optics.At a joint news conference on school security three weeks ago, McDonald — flanked by commissioners and School Board members nodding their assent — vowed to deploy armed guards at all 23 public schools. Right on cue, Hawkins stepped forward to declare that now is the time for a cheaper but still excellent training center that among other things would drill deputies in school security and active shooter confrontation.So, somewhere, in an undisclosed wilderness location that Wyatt describes as “extremely remote,” a training center is what we shall have. The instinct for electoral survival and the gun violence crisis met, got married and birthed an extrication maneuver for the sheriff and the county commissioners. Ain’t politics grand?
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
Sheriff Charlie McDonald’s effort to build a firing range and law enforcement training center has become an issue in his own campaign and in a county commission race.
Don Ward, the two-term commissioner running against Rebecca McCall for the open District 4 seat, came out against a law enforcement training center, including the lower-cost version in Saluda the Board of Commissioners endorsed last week.“I am in opposition to any current proposal for a new training center in Henderson County at this time, at any cost,” Ward said. “It is unnecessary as adequate facilities in both county and state are already available. Training is always imperative; however, law enforcement has access to the North Carolina Justice Center locally as well as access to other state training facilities.”Like Lowell Griffin, McDonald’s opponent in the May 8 Republican primary, Ward favors spending the money on school security. “As a commissioner, I could not justify a $6 million plus tax expense on currently unnecessary training facilities,” Ward said. “There are more immediate needs to insure safety and security in our schools that must be met.”
Ward's opponent in the May 8 primary, Rebecca McCall, said she supports a training center, although she did not endorse the Macedonia Road site necessarily.
“I do support that we need to build a facility," she said. "It’s been proven that the Justice Academy is not adequate with type of training law enforcement to provide the scenario or different types of training they need to be aware of. I never did support the $20 million version of that.
"I really have nothing to say about the location because I have not been involved with the location of that or anything. I have read some of the information on Facebook and one thing I haven’t seen noted in the concern about the sound from the gunfire is that I am aware that silencers can be used so there won’t be interference (in the neighborhood). It’s kind of a double-edged sword because if you want to eliminate sound, it has to be enclosed and if it’s enclosed the cost is going to go up. But I think they have found a location that’s away from the majority of the population. You’re never going to satisfy everyone.”
The abrupt action by the Board of Commissioners last week to endorse the Saluda property — the fourth try at siting a law enforcement training center — tipped the scales for Rocky Hyder, the retired county emergency management director. Hyder announced he was endorsing Griffin.“Examine Lowell’s platform and then compare that with recent actions by the county commissioners,” Hyder said. “I have never seen a group of commissioners scramble so hard to save face for a sitting sheriff.”He also sides with Griffin on equipping deputies with body cameras.“I can’t imagine a future where video, possibly even live video streams from law enforcement officers are not standard practice,” Hyder said.Yorke Pharr, who has opposed McDonald’s efforts for shooting ranges at now four different sites, said it’s fitting that the sheriff's primary comes up in less than a month. “This should be a political referendum,” he said at a Saluda town board meeting Monday. “There’s one sheriff that is for it and one candidate for sheriff that is not and I hope people that do not want this thing will understand which one they need to vote for on this matter.”
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Saluda Four Seasons Politics
SALUDA — Residents near the Macedonia Road site Henderson County officials have targeted for a shooting range and law enforcement training center are organizing to stop the project.
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
County Commission candidate Don Ward has come out against a law enforcement training center, including the new lower-cost version that the Board of Commissioners endorsed last week.
"I am in opposition to any current proposal for a new training center in Henderson County at this time, at any cost," said Ward, a former two-term commissioner who is running for the District 4 seat. "It is unnecessary as adequate facilities in both county and state are already available. Training is always imperative; however, law enforcement has access to the North Carolina Justice Center locally as well as access to other state training facilities."
Ward said that the county now has wasted money on architectural plans for a $20 million training center that the Board of Commissioners has now dropped in favor of a more modest facility with an outdoor shooting range. Commissioners on April 2 agreed with the recommendation by County Manager Steve Wyatt to pursue the purchase of an undisclosed "extremely remote" site for the training center, dropping their previously approved choice to put the center on the old baseball field at Blue Ridge Community College.
"The use of training resources readily available prevents duplication of services while making it possible to spend tax dollars more wisely on schools, school safety and security," Ward said in a statement. "School Resource Officers must be in every school with Social Workers desperately needed as well. It is also crucial that recommendations of each newly formed School Safety Committee be met. These are necessities that our children and our schools deserve. ...
"As a commissioner, I could not justify a $6 million plus tax expense on currently unnecessary training facilities. There are more immediate needs to insure safety and security in our schools that must be met; needs that can be addressed in a shorter time frame with more significant impact. The greatest challenge we have is to protect our children and give them a safe environment in which to learn and thrive. This is my commitment to the children and parents of Henderson County."
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis pulled no punches last week in a wide-ranging business roundtable that covered local, national and world issues — and, of course, President Trump.
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
Sheriff Charlie McDonald issued a statement on Wednesday thanking the Henderson County Board of Commissioners for its decision Monday night to move forward on a law enforcement training center McDonald has sought for three years.
"It has always been my intention to have an outdoor facility that would allow more training opportunities as well as an indoor force options building that would allow ongoing and realistic training for deputies responding to crisis events," he said. "Recent incidents across our nation have only served to underscore the necessity of such training. We ask these men and women to respond to incredibly complex emergencies, exercising flawless critical problem-solving skills, when in many instances we have failed to properly prepare them. As your Sheriff I have, and always will, make every effort to provide the best possible training for all my personnel and I will do so with an eye toward the future as well as the present.
"I promised the Board of Commissioners over a year ago, that if they would table the indoor project at Blue Ridge Community College for the time being, I believed we could find a better and more cost-efficient way to meet our growing training needs. I kept my promise to them, and I appreciate their commitment to both law enforcement and the citizens of Henderson County. Theirs is a difficult job."
On his campaign website, McDonald also published "Facts about the Training Center," a timeline of his efforts to get county approval of the facility.
After he took office in 2012, he identified an outdoor firing range and advanced tactical training as high priority needs. The Board of Commissioners agreed, and McDonald began looking for land. The first site he identified was a 125-acre wooded former summer camp in Green River. County commissioners unanimously rejected the site after Green River residents packed the assembly room in opposition. A second site on Pinnacle Mountain was also rejected when commissioners heard that neighboring property owners plan to oppose that purchase.
"Prior to the final budget meeting in 2016, Sheriff McDonald was told that the Commission had decided that they would not be able to locate suitable land in Henderson County to create an outdoor range and they had decided to set aside tax monies to build an indoor range area meeting all specifications of the outdoor facility," the timeline went on. "This facility would be located on, and jointly used by Blue Ridge Community College. While not his first choice, Sheriff McDonald supported their proposal as the only option available to get the necessary training his deputies needed."
In the timeline, McDonald reveals publicly for the first time that he met privately with commissioners one on one and asked them to table the BRCC location while he looked for "better options."
"When the (BRCC) proposal was made public, the sheriff was tasked with selling the idea to the public," the sheriff's account says. "There was a great deal of opposition to locating a law enforcement training facility on the grounds of Blue Ridge Community College, mainly for safety and cost concerns. The Sheriff did his best to explain the safety protocols in place and the success of numerous other facilities of this kind located on community college campuses across North Carolina. The cost issue was discussed, with the Sheriff emphasizing that it wasn’t his first choice, but that the need for realistic training for his employees outweighed his misgivings as to cost.
"In fact, Sheriff McDonald took it upon himself to meet with the Commissioners individually and ask that the $20 million-dollar law enforcement training center be placed on hold while he looked for better options. He felt, based on his years as a weapons & tactics instructor, that an outdoor facility designed properly, would be better able to meet current and future training needs, at a greatly reduced cost with minimal impact on others."
For the full account, click here.
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Henderson County Four Seasons Politics
Don Ward, a candidate for the District 4 seat on the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, has come out against the Balfour Parkway, the proposed $160 million bypass that has triggered broad opposition from homeowners in its path.
“The Balfour Parkway, a proposed four-lane expressway connecting N.C. Highway 191 and U.S. Route 64, would impact hundreds of homeowners and disrupt entire communities,” Ward said in a statement on Tuesday. “The homes of hundreds of county residents would be destroyed should this project be approved and homeowners are justified in their concerns of adequate compensation as well as negative impact on property values close to the project but not directly in its path. There are also legitimate concerns of possible effects to the local economy as well as the county tax base. Many feel they have not been adequately informed of the proposed project and many feel it is not needed.”
He said “stands firmly against the Balfour Parkway project (and) supports county residents and homeowners 100 percent in their opposition to this project and pledges to stand with them in protecting their homes and property.”
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