Slaying the budget dragon at the Citizen’s Academy

The Police Department needs eight new officers and three drug investigators. The fire chief wants six new firefighters, and the public works department needs new trucks. And everyone needs new secretaries. There’s only $600,000 to work with, and that’s not the only problem: City Council doesn’t support a tax increase, a pro-law-enforcement group called Citizens […]

Welling up

On April 11, state Sen. Joe Sam Queen of Haywood County arrived at the Old Fort home of Leonard and Janice Hensley. The couple handed the legislator a 4-inch pile of papers bearing signatures of residents opposed to any measure to meter water use in private wells in North Carolina. According to Janice Hensley, Queen […]

Asheville City Council

Voluntary conservation measures instituted by the city last October are paying off—the North Fork Reservoir is full to overflowing, Water Resources Director David Hanks reported during the Asheville City Council’s April 8 formal session. North Fork, the city’s primary water source, is currently about 3 inches over “full pool” and is actually running over its […]

Asheville City Council

Faced with a host of infrastructure wants and needs, Asheville City Council members were nonetheless reluctant to charge ahead with a proposed bond issue during their inaugural work session on March 18. An uncertain economic future seemed to dampen the prospects for issuing some $10 million worth of general-obligation bonds. Chief Financial Officer Ben Durant […]