It is difficult to read, watch or listen to the news these days because of the media’s slant on every issue.
Case in point is your article last week [“Hot Seat: Buncombe Register of Deeds Drew Reisinger Takes the Heat for Snow Days,” Aug. 27, Xpress]. Being in the “Hot Seat” implies that a person is in trouble. (Drew) Reisinger is not in trouble. Rather, a certain faction in our community is trying to make trouble for him.
The primary facts in this matter, which reflect a much better picture of the register of deeds’ actions, are at the end of the article.
I’m sure many folks stopped reading after “his office remains under scrutiny following the news that he closed the deeds office in February during inclement weather and a governor-declared state of emergency.” The next sentence states that vacation leave “could cost the county $480,000.” Not until later the end of the article does County Attorney Robert Deutsch explain that it could “cost the county zero.”
The truth of the matter is that it was dangerous to be on the roads. No one should have been expected to report to work. If a county employee had come to harm trying to get to work, it would have cost the country a lot more than $480,000 and more importantly caused personal harm.
Certainly there are more important issues in the country to report on, and my hope is that Mountain Xpress, which I have read faithfully for 20 years, will go back to reporting the way it used to by simply “reporting” without a slant.
Also, I want the register of deeds to know that many of us in this community have his back.
Rev. Kathryn Cartledge
Swannanoa
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