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Megan Edney, 14, awaiting heart transplant in Charlotte

Henderson County News

Don't miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning (175)

You won't want to miss this week’s Hendersonville Lightning.   Read Story »

Hendersonville News

Commissioners again decline to fund SROs at schools in city

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners ratified its earlier decision that rejected funding police officers covering four schools in the city of Hendersonville.   Read Story »

Saluda News

MossColumn: Why did McDonald lose?

The temptation on Tuesday night, May 8, was to describe the sheriff’s primary election as a stunning upset. We don’t expect an incumbent untainted by scandal to lose an election, especially not in a 58.5 to 41.5 percent landslide. That it happened begs the question: Why? In 42 years of covering politics, campaigns and elections, I’ve learned that political upsets, like wave elections, don’t happen because of one thing. They happen when a series of issues peels off the incumbent’s or controlling party’s support, one issue at a time, until the percentage adds up to 50 percent plus 1. That’s what I think was at play when voters fired Charlie McDonald and hired Lowell Griffin to replace him.Let’s start with the most obvious and most damaging one — McDonald’s law enforcement training center. Voters will tolerate big capital spending by government, as long as they’re convinced of a demonstrated need. Voters understand, for instance, that schools age out and need to be placed. For all the fuss over Hendersonville High School construction, little of the friction has focused on cost. Until the recent blowup over who knew the true cost when, the conflict was between new construction and keeping the old — not the cost.McDonald never effectively made the case for why he needed a training center. Voters could not get their head around paying $20 million — or $6 million — for live-action scenario training, tactical drills and 360-degree shooting practice. It was amazing to watch how quickly and decisively commissioners dropped plans for shooting ranges when their meeting room overflowed with angry homeowners. In August 2015, commissioners abandoned the Camp Flintlock site in Green River. They “folded like lawn chairs,” McDonald told me some months later. Next, the board dropped a site on Pinnacle Mountain before it even came to a public discussion. The proposed Blue Ridge Community College location, an idea intended to remove the Not in My Backyard dynamic, backfired bigtime. At $22 million, the indoor facility under an acre of roof inspired an even broader uprising based on fiscal conservatism and opponents’ belief that gunshots and explosions were incompatible with the classroom experience. A year after he had quietly told commissioners to pull the plug on the BRCC site, McDonald was in voters’ crosshairs again, going public with the Macedonia Road site in rural Saluda. If our elected commissioners and County Manager Steve Wyatt thought they were doing McDonald a favor by bringing up the training center days before the primary, they badly miscalculated. Hundreds of residents gathered at the Grove Street Courthouse to protest the shooting range on Saturday, April 14. A standing-room-only crowd filled a meeting room at Saluda fire station on Monday, April 16. One-stop voting started two days later.Read the spreadsheet to see what happened. McDonald got shellacked in the precincts in and around Macedonia Road. Griffin won 84 percent of the vote in Raven Rock and 73 percent in Green River. * * * * * While McDonald and the commissioners were busy shooting themselves in the foot on the training center, that wasn’t the only dynamic. McDonald won with 50.4 percent in the 2014 primary, which meant half the primary voters picked someone else — Michael Brown or Erik Summey. Brown is from a family of deputies who served in the Ab Jackson era, which ended when a young upstart named George Erwin ousted Sheriff Jackson in the 1994 primary. The Ridge has been trying to get the sheriff’s office back ever since and in Lowell Griffin those apple country voters had a deeply rooted native to support. It didn’t hurt that his brother, Robert, is the longtime chief of Edneyville Fire & Rescue. Firefighters stick together — and they talk and they vote. Brown won 30 percent of the vote four years ago. I’d say that was a reliable base number for Griffin. He needed 20 more points to close the deal.Griffin won the Edneyville box with an astounding 78 percent of the vote and took the Bat Cave, North Blue Ridge and Clear Creek precincts with at least 70 points. I suspect that the farm community bailed on McDonald. I say that because I was surprised to see the reaction to a relatively minor crackdown on undocumented immigrants by the 287G program under ICE weeks before the election.During their only debate, Griffin refused to commit to continuing a local partnership on ICE enforcement. Under President Obama, I’m guessing that apple and produce growers and greenhouse operators considered ICE enforcement a modest threat. Under President Trump, they may view immigration enforcement as an existential threat. Shift a few more points from the incumbent to the challenger.Speaking of Trump, McDonald scored the political optic of the year when he appeared at a White House roundtable on school safety with the Man of Hair. Or did he? Was McDonald’s close association with the right wing of his party — including Trump and Freedom Caucus leader and Tea Party favorite Mark Meadows — an asset or a liability? Plenty of spiritual Democrats are registered independents in our county; otherwise they cede their ability to influence local politics. Griffin also won the Mills River precincts, where community members have expressed anger over McDonald’s actions in the manhunt for Phillip Michael Stroupe, who is charged with the murder of Tommy Bryson. Add up the issues and the May 8 primary election outcome seems less mysterious.McDonald ran as a reformer and I would accept his campaign rhetoric that he had served as a reformer. It turned out it wasn’t enough to claim that he had fixed a broken culture. When voters feel like government action threatens their homestead — for most people, their biggest financial investment — they have long memories. * * * * * Reach editor Bill Moss at billmoss@hendersonvillelightning.com.         Read Story »

Henderson County News

Ask Matt ... about new building, Etowah Smokehouse

Q. What is that interesting looking building going up next to those two big white tanks on Spartanburg Highway near Cason Builders Supply? That would be the new home for Blossman Gas & Appliance. After ten years of leasing property on US 64 East in Etowah, they are building their own facility. The new location will serve existing propane customers and allow the company to expand service on the east side of I-26 as well as into Polk County. The store has an art deco design with a modern shine. It has a larger showroom floor that can offer expanded appliance selections including vented fireplaces, grills, fire pits, outdoor furniture, lighting, generators, water heaters, cooktops and more. Emily McCollin, Blossman’s public relations manager, said an open house is planned when they cut the ribbon for the new store later this summer. I suspect they will offer up some barbecue slow cooked on a propane-fired grill. Blossman deals with propane gas, a naturally safe, clean energy source that has been used in millions of homes for almost 70 years. Propane fuel is popular because it has a low boiling point and is vaporized as soon as it is released from the bottle. No carburetor is needed. Propane gas can come from a variety of supply points but most of it is delivered by truck to Henderson County from Apex, just south of Raleigh. Blossman Gas & Appliance is a family-owned company with more than 75 branches in the Southeast. Q. What happened to the Old Etowah Smokehouse? Is it going to reopen? The long-established barbecue restaurant closed in December of 2017. “It was strictly a business decision,” said Tim Rice, managing partner of the Etowah Valley Golf Club & Lodge. The Golf Club partnership, a group of 14 businessmen, purchased the restaurant property in 2016 and operated it for over two years. Many residents will remember the wooden-sided building as the former home of the Barbecue Shack, a popular eatery founded by Gene Miles in 1981. Rice said that buying the restaurant was a business opportunity because the property was adjacent to the golf course and fronted on U.S. 64 plus it allowed access to five acres of landlocked property that could be used for future development. After it was purchased, a narrow bridge was quickly built over the adjacent stream so that players could drive their golf carts from the fairway to the restaurant. Think weddings and pig pickings. “Last year, even though our restaurant operation was marginally profitable, we decided to change its use,” said Rice. “We plan to rent out the facility for weddings and large events.” The building, which will be referred to as the Catering House, has 110 seats indoors plus another 70 outside. Downstairs are pool tables, a bar and bandstand. Existing staff from both Zeke’s and Chelsea’s — the Golf Club’s two other eating establishments — will assist with the catering business, which will feature a full catering menu with all ABC permits. Send questions to askmattm@gmail.com.     Read Story »

Henderson County News

Apple Festival announces 2018 Apple Ambassador

A rising senior at North Henderson High School has been named the 2018 Apple Ambassador for Western North Carolina's largest summer festival, the North Carolina Apple Festival announced.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Wayfinding signs guide visitors to our attractions

Visitors and local motorists alike can more easily find attractions, public parking, government offices, parks and other destinations thanks to the countywide wayfinding project the Tourism Development Authority has now completed.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

TDA awards grants to festivals

The Henderson County Tourism Development Authority awarded $20,000 in grants for festivals, art shows and other events that draw visitors to town. A total of 10 applicants requested grant funding totaling $24,817. The TDA invites non-profit organizations to apply for advertising and promotional funding through the 2018-2019 grant program. These reimbursable grants are awarded annually to Henderson County non-profit organizations for the purpose of promoting events, attractions and festivals that draw visitors from more than 40 miles outside Henderson County and encourage overnight stays, stimulating spending and boosting the local economy. The funding is available for the new fiscal year starting July 1. For more information contact the Henderson County Tourism Development Authority during regular business hours.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Hendersonville native to talk about debut novel

lHendersonville native Heather Bell Adams will talk about her award-winning debut novel Maranatha Road and sign books at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at the Historic Courthouse. Set in the fictional town of Garnet patterned after her hometown, Maranatha Road tells the story of a young woman and an older woman whose lives converge in trauma and ultimately wind to redemption. The book has won the James Still Fiction Prize, the Carrie McCray Literary Award and a Gold Award in the 2018 Independent Publisher Regional and Ebook Awards as the best fiction work in the Southeast. Southern Literary Review called Maranatha Road “an exquisite story with characters so real they could step off the pages into your living room.”A graduate of Hendersonville High School, Adams earned her undergraduate and law degrees from Duke University. She’s married with a 14-year-old son, works fulltime as senior counsel for First Citizens Bank and shoehorns in her fiction writing while waiting in airports or in the school pickup line. A second book, a dual timeline story set in present day Savannah and in the Pacific in World War II, is expected to come out later this year.Her reading is in the County Commission meeting room on the second floor followed by a reception and book-signing in the Community Room next door.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Flooding causes WNC Air Museum to cancel air show

The annual Air Fair at the Western North Carolina Air Museum this weekend has been canceled due to flooding from the recent storms. The WNC Air Museum will be operate on their regular schedule. For more information visit http://www.westernnorthcarolinaairmuseum.com/.     Read Story »

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