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City OKs 67-home subdivision on Howard Gap

Henderson County News

Roundabout foes shift focus to Hendersonville council

LAUREL PARK — Residents and businesses who oppose a two-lane divided highway with roundabouts through Laurel Park are furious that a revised plan adds a fourth roundabout. Adding a roundabout at Daniels Drive, the new plan also keeps the two-lane design with a grass median, bike lanes and sidewalks with a green buffer between the roadway and the sidewalk.“For Laurel Park businesses, residents and individuals residing in the area, the regional growth and its associated challenges has arrived,” the Town Council said in a newsletter that hit residents’ mailboxes this week. “This has become most evident along the Brevard Road corridor and the difficulties associated with the current traffic patterns, flow and volumes. Roundabouts are a significant change for the road, but we believe they, as part of this comprehensive road design, are a positive feature for the Town, both now and for decades to come.”Not so fast, roundabout opponents say.In an email under the subject line “Who says it’s over?!?!” residents rallied like-minded neighbors and business owners to attend Tuesday night’s meeting of the Hendersonville City Council to speak against the revised plan.The Hendersonville City Council should get involved because 35-40 percent of the U.S. 64 project is in the city’s zoning jurisdiction, the opponents say. “It’s high time that Hendersonville demonstrate actual involvement in this project,” the email blast said. A website petition from the group, Fix 64 West, had 335 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.In its newsletter, Laurel Park Town Council reviewed the history of the U.S. 64 project. More than a decade ago the town asked regional transportation planners to add U.S. 64 improvements to the state Transportation Improvement Plan. The project reached the planning stage in February 2015 and proposed designs have been reviewed in November 2016, January 2017 and September 2017. After on the last design, the Town Council requested the additional roundabout. The council said roundabouts are safer and more efficient than conventional signalized intersections. The Laurel Park police department plans to offer courses on the use of roundabouts.While making U-turn at a roundabout may add 60 to 170 seconds of travel time, waiting to make a left turn across traffic can be a similar or longer wait, the town said. “The roundabout option is much safer,” the town said. “A small inconvenience to keep one from a serious injury or loss of life accident.” Roundabouts will slow traffic, make the town commercial center more attractive and make businesses more viable over time, the town said. “Yes, we fully understand that some businesses will be affected more than others, but this road design will also better define this district to those transiting Laurel Park,” it said. “It will not be the high-speed thoroughfare of today.”The newsletter contains five pages of roundabout facts, pictures and drawings.       Read Story »

Henderson County News

Newman announces candidacy for second term

District Attorney Greg Newman announced that he will seek re-election for a second term this year.  He will file the necessary paperwork with the NC State Board of Elections when the filing period opens next week on Feb. 12.  He currently serves as the chief criminal prosecutor for Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties.  A native of Henderson County, Newman was appointed by N.C.  Governor Pat McCrory in 2013 to succeed Jeff Hunt, who became a Superior Court Judge.  Mr. Newman was then elected in 2014 to a full term as District Attorney. The DA graduated with a degree in Political Science from UNC Asheville and then graduated from the University of Dayton School of Law in Dayton, Ohio.  He began his legal career as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Ashland, Ohio and then worked with the District Attorney General’s Office in the Second Judicial District of Tennessee.  Upon his return home to North Carolina in 2000, he worked in the law office of Ron Blanchard and handled a variety of civil and criminal cases in both state and federal courts.  In addition to his law practice, Newman was elected  Mayor of Hendersonville in 2005 and served a full 4 year term that ended in 2009.  He was a candidate for Congress in the 2010 Republican primary and finished third in a  field of 7 candidates.  He has been active with the Republican Party since 1984. The District Attorney and his wife of 33 years, Kim, have 3 children.  His two adult children are graduates of Clemson University and his youngest son is a junior at Hendersonville High School.  Newman is an active member at First Baptist Church where he serves as a teacher, usher, deacon and trustee. “I have a great staff and a talented team of lawyers.  I am very pleased with the performance and production of our office and I hope the voters in all 3 counties feel the same way,” said the DA.  “ We have strong support among all of our police and sheriff’s departments, our emergency responders, the business community,  our local pastors and many others.  The results in all our courts have been very gratifying, to say the least.  Some of our cases have received national attention.  We are experiencing the most productive period in our local court system in terms of cases resolved with strong jury verdicts, guilty pleas, and substantial sentences.  I credit my staff and lawyers for these results, as well as all the people in our community serving on these juries for supporting what we do.  It is indeed gratifying to live in an area where the rule of law is still respected,” added Mr. Newman. Mr. Newman then stated,  “I am told that I will have opposition in the Republican primary this year, so in addition to my regular duties, I will be spending time raising funds and campaigning for office.  I believe most people are aware of the serious cases awaiting prosecution in the district.  We have at least one death penalty trial and will likely have a second one in Polk County.   So I naturally take the position that now is not the time to change leadership and direction of the DA’s office.  Things are going well in our office and I would like to continue in my current position.  It is an honor to serve the people in the community that has meant so much to me personally.” Registration to vote in this year’s Republican primary election will end April 13, 2018.  Early, one-stop, voting begins on April 26 and runs through May 5th.  The primary is Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Mr. Newman can be contacted at P. O. Box 22, Hendersonville, NC 28793.   Read Story »

Fletcher News

Water main break closes Pardee urgent care in Fletcher

Due to a water main break in the Fletcher and Arden area, Pardee UNC Health Care announced this morning that all facilities at the Mission Pardee Health campus have been closed until further notice. This includes the YMCA, Pardee Urgent Care, all physician practices, Southeastern Sports Medicine, and Pardee Rehabilitation and Aquatic Therapy. Pardee officials are encouraging patients who need immediate care to go to the next closest emergency facilities: Park Ridge Health and Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care. The Pardee Urgent Care located off Four Seasons Blvd in Hendersonville remains open.Pardee officials will continue to monitor the situation and provide ongoing updates via Facebook and Twitter.   Read Story »

Laurel Park News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Give roundabouts a chance

The prospect of roundabouts in Hendersonville seems to have flummoxed the motoring public and alarmed property owners. Roundabouts raise two different challenges. There’s no denying the fact that a roundabout takes up more room and thus would require the state to condemn more property to build them. We’re only at the mid stages as the NCDOT, local elected leaders and the public react, discuss and massage the plans. If nothing changed — an unlikely outcome — we would in the years ahead have three roundabouts on U.S. 64 — at Glasgow Lane, Pisgah Drive and White Pine Drive — one at White Street and Kanuga Road and a big one where South Church, South King and South Main streets meet.Right of way acquisition and utility line relocation is already under way for the first one we’ll drive around — on Greenville Highway at (realigned) Shepherd Street and Erkwood Drive. It can’t come too soon.“The whole thing with new traffic implementation, like when we do roundabouts, you’ve got to train people to drive safely through roundabouts,” said Hendersonville City Councilman Steve Caraker. “They’re not used to it. There’s a learning curve with anything you do. The people that navigate roundabouts well are the people that live near them and have to use them all the time.”So, the second challenge is whether the driving public will accept these changes, which are new to us but routine for millions of others. No, they’re not all in France. There are at least 10,300 roundabouts in the U.S. Florida has the most, followed by California and Texas.As we’ve said in these columns before, the NCDOT has proposed several efficient and well-designed road improvements for our area. Under these plans, it’s true, a ride through Laurel Park would be on a divided highway. U.S. 64 would have roundabouts to allow for safe, low-speed U-turns. A roundabout at Kanuga and White, it’s true, would be impossible without taking some business property or entire businesses. Those are not by themselves reasons to kill the improvements. The talk at public meetings seems to be based more on emotion and fear than on facts about the safety and efficiency, where roundabouts have a very good record.Are roundabouts safer for motorists, pedestrians and bicycle riders than conventional signalized intersections? Yes, and don’t take our word for it.According to the Federal Highway Administration, roundabouts typically achieve a 37 percent reduction in overall collisions, a 75 percent reduction in collisions resulting in injury, a 90 percent reduction in fatalities and a 40 percent reduction in pedestrian collisions. Why? Because one-way travel eliminates the possibility of T-bone and head-on collisions. One-way travel eliminates “intersection ambiguity” factors such as right on red and beating the light. Roundabouts naturally slow intersection traffic to 15-20 mph.Pedestrians are safer, too. So-called splitter islands (see rendering) provide a space between opposing lanes at each pedestrian crossing, and each crosswalk is set back at least one full car length from the roadway yield sign. During public hearings, the caterwauling crowd tells us that roundabouts will maim and kill elderly drivers. That’s false. Conventional intersections maim and kill much more efficiently. Older drivers are twice as likely crashes as younger drivers to be killed in intersection crashes. The FHA analysis of roundabouts cites a report that roundabouts generate economic benefits for nearby businesses. A road improvement project that included four roundabouts, landscaping, medians and sidewalks along a commercial stretch of highway in Golden, Colorado, lowered the crash rate from 5.9 crashes per million vehicle miles to .2 crashes MVM, resulted in slower speeds and faster travel time through the corridor and increased sales tax revenue by 60 percent along the roadway.“Well-designed roundabouts,” the engineers concluded, “are good for communities and businesses.”We know roundabouts and medians are still a tough sell, for business owners who may lose all or part of their real estate, for residents who would be blocked from left turns out of neighborhoods, and for the vocal No Change! caucus. But for the good of all, we ought to give the new roundabout designs a chance. As we are seeing on Kanuga Road and Highland Lake Road, if we allow only those who shout the loudest and plant the most yard signs to win the argument, we’ll be stuck in traffic a long time.         Read Story »

Henderson County News

County threatens to pull Waste Pro's garbage permit

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners put a big garbage hauler on notice that it better improve its residential collection service or risk losing its permit to operate in the county.Waste Pro recently bought Republic’s residential routes in Henderson County and Brevard, adding 8,000 new households that it has had trouble servicing. Waste Pro had just 800 residential customers here before it bought the Republic accounts.“We recognize we have some service issues out there,” John Witherspoon, region operations manager for Waste Pro, told the decidedly unfriendly audience of commissioners at their regular meeting Monday night. “We acquired these customers from Republic. … In reference to not having enough staffing, we were going to retain their drivers, 22 people. … At the last second it didn’t happen. Otherwise we would have had several people, trained and ready to go. The documentation (of customers) was not quite up to par. There was lot of customers that shouldn’t be on there that were and a lot that should have been on there that wasn’t. ... You probably already know this already, a lot of these calls have already went down. …This was just a multitude of bad things that happened.”Will Sagar, of the Southeast Recycling Development Council, said he had received reports of Waste Pro trucks dumping recycling in with the garbage. When customers see that, he said, they lose the incentive to recycle, the success of which depends on household customers taking the trouble segregate the waste stream.County Manager Steve Wyatt and county Engineer Marcus Jones described a sharp rise in complaints from former Republic customers now served by Waste Pro. Unfortunately for Waste Pro, one of the unhappy customers was Michael Edney, the chair of the Board of Commissioners, who lives in Flat Rock.Edney said he and some of his neighbors had called repeatedly when the garbage hauler missed their houses. The company promised to come within 24 hours and did only so only one time out of four. One time, the hauler came and picked up his trash but left all his neighbors’ homes, also Waste Pro customers, with piles of trash.“It’s unacceptable,” he said.“The bottom line is you folks got to get this taken care of or we’re going to pull the permit,” Commissioner Tommy Thompson added.Commissioners gave the company 30 days to fix the problems or risk having its permit revoked.Witherspoon pledged to get the books right and get everyone served.“There’s still a lot of customers we don’t know about and we’re not going to know about until they slowly trickle in,” he said.Outside the meeting room, he said was confident Waste Pro can catch the households it’s been missing.“We’ll get it straightened out,” he said. “That’s what we do.”     Read Story »

Henderson County News

Downtown cameo is an X-Files mystery

A split-second image of downtown Hendersonville in a recent episode of the “X-Files” was as mystifying to local viewers as the science-fiction show’s unanswered questions involving the supernatural.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Which restaurant is offering '90s throwback prices?

Haus Heidelberg German Restaurant is marking its 24th anniversary a “’90’s Throwback Weekend” featuring a retro menu from the first year they opened. The special menu offered Feb. 2-4 will include not only the dishes they served at the time but also the same prices at which they were first offered.“It’s become one of the biggest yearly events we hos,” said owner and chef Helge Gresser. “Our first Throwback Weekend was held on our 20th anniversary, and it was a huge hit. Our customers love to come in and get their favorite dishes for such a discounted rate. It’s our way of thanking the community for supporting us for so long.”   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Super Bowl party benefits United Way

United Way of Henderson County invites the community to a Super Bowl party at Southern Appalachian Brewery, 822 Locust Street, on Sunday to benefit the United Way. Doors open at 2 p.m. and Super Bowl LII kicks off at 6:30 p.m. SAB craft beer will be featured throughout the evening with special release secret batches at kickoff and halftime as well as giveaways from United Way. The Olive Food Truck will be there. Ten percent of proceeds benefit United Way.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Remember canned goods on Souper Sunday

Remember your canned goods at worship services this weekend for the Souper Bowl of Caring. In photo, Jennica Tapia, with the Rev. Kathryn Cameron, shows a snack box that First Presbyterian Church will donate to the Interfaith Assistance Ministry to feed the needy. Mark White, a real estate broker and appraiser, donated 100 snack boxes to the church for this year’s Souper Bowl of Caring, which wraps up on Sunday. In the weeks leading up the Super Bowl, congregations, youth groups and other organizations around the country collect canned soup and cash donations for local organizations that feed the needy. In 2017, 6,542 groups across the country participated, including many congregations and groups in Henderson County. White runs the volunteer group Feeding by Grace, which cooks hot dogs, pizza and chicken on Seventh Avenue every Thursday night. He also cooks at sites in Asheville and Forest City. “I’m always looking for a deal on something,” White said of the snack boxes, which contain chips, tuna, cookies and other treats. “They retail for $4.75 apiece. We found 7,000 that they sold us for a dollar apiece because they’re not uniform.” He resold enough to break even and is giving the rest away. Feeding by Grace gives out the snack boxes when it’s too rainy or cold to cook out.   Read Story »

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