If you’re over 65 (or disabled) and make very little money, Buncombe County’s Board of Commissioners wants you to get a bigger break on your property taxes. At their March 7 regular meeting, the commissioners voted unanimously to adopt a resolution urging the North Carolina General Assembly to raise the income cap and property-value exemption […]

Come on, ‘fess up — you’ve done this at least once during your life in Asheville: Desperate for a parking space within 10 feet of your favorite coffee shop, you casually flip on your hazard lights, pull into a 30-minute loading zone — and leave your car there for hours. Or maybe you and your […]

For several years, the “No Dumping! Flows To River” curb markers meant for Asheville storm drains languished in a box at the Land-of-Sky Regional Council. The oval-shaped plaques had been purchased especially for city drains back in 1997 as part of a statewide incentive to educate people about the dangers of dumping oil, paint thinner […]

Change doesn’t always go over easy: Come May 2, many Buncombe County voters will find they must report to a new polling site. The Board of Elections has created seven new precincts, split off from existing ones in Asheville, Black Mountain, Riceville and Swannanoa, explains Director Trena Parker. And three existing precincts have new polling […]

Cautious support for aquatic center “I’m not here to ask for any money,” Pat McClellan assured the Buncombe County commissioners on Feb. 15, speaking on behalf of the proposed Asheville Buncombe Aquatic Center Committee. Instead, McClellan asked commissioners make two appointments to the committee. Board of Commissioners Chair Tom Sobol agreed to do that, but […]

Maybe that old couch has outlived its springiness, or else it’s just plain ugly — but tossing it down the nearest ravine could get the law after you. On a warm February day, Environmental Control Officer Jane Cole stands at the curve in the road that winds up and over Hookers Gap, in west Buncombe […]

Obsession runs deep among Asheville’s skateboarders. Bengi Rogers said he’d rather attend the opening of the city’s new skateboard park this fall than be back surfing the shores of Puerto Rico, where his dad lives. Even the lure of the 7-foot-high “half-pipe” that his dad built in the garage there isn’t enough to lure this […]

Pay up — or else Most Buncombe County property owners have paid their taxes for 1999 (due by Jan. 5, 2000). But 7 percent of them –approximately 8,000 — haven’t, and their bills add up to $5 million that’s owed to the county, Tax Director Jerome Jones reported to the Board of Commissioners on Feb. […]

When the Beatles advised us to “come together, right now,” they probably had no idea that the Internet would one day make it so easy for the world to converge on the information highway. Nor could they have anticipated a day and age in which America Online — an upstart Internet company that hasn’t even […]

Commissioners give $7,500 for Pack Square If you’re driving around the Vance Monument anytime soon, take care: The ground is sinking at one corner of Pack Square. Appearing before the Buncombe County commissioners on Jan. 18, Downtown Commission Chair Carole King asked the county to pitch in $7,500 to help fund an aesthetic redesign of […]

During their Jan. 18 meeting, members of the Regional Water Authority of Asheville, Buncombe and Henderson took the following actions: • Named Henderson County appointee Jack Tate as their new chairman. He replaces Charles Worley, whose term on the Authority was not renewed last year by the Asheville City Council (Worley was elected to serve […]

Plugging Census 2000 The nearly 40 percent of Buncombe County residents who didn’t return their mail-in census surveys in 1990 may have cost us more than $1.8 million in federal and state funds, Anita Metcalf reported to the Board of Commissioners during their Jan. 4 regular session. As the county’s training-and-development director, she urged the […]

Question-and-answer routine For the 21st century, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners has reverted to a little old-fashioned philosophy: They’ll allow questions from citizens during the public-comment section of each regular meeting, and do their best to answer those questions right then and there (or have county staff respond). Commissioners had been discouraging questions — […]

For the year 2000, it’s not a question of whether we’ll see a water-rate increase — it’s “how high will it go?” The answer depends on which financial scenario the Regional Water Authority of Asheville, Buncombe and Henderson opts for, come budget-adoption time this summer, members of the board’s Budget Committee learned during a Jan. […]

The switch to double zeroes proved so uneventful, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners even yanked a scheduled follow-up report from its Jan. 4 meeting agenda. Said County Manager Wanda Greene: “Nothing much happened. [The staff report on Y2K] would have been a blank page.” Sure, there was plenty of anticipation — all those new […]

On a cool December day at the Beaver Lake Sanctuary, you can hear sparrows skittering amongst the leaves in the thickets. You’ll spy them, too, hopping amongst the still-green leaves of swamp marigold in the mud flats. A bright red cardinal chirps and hops across the boardwalk. A chipmunk tries to slink away, unnoticed, when […]