In a year marked by a constant churn of updating numbers — COVID-19 dashboards, economic forecasts, political polls — Assistant Editor Daniel Walton took comfort in stories that were able to report more deeply on some of the issues facing Western North Carolina.
Asheville Yoga Center, a pillar of the city’s emerging “wellness district” in the area around South Liberty Street, is up for sale. The transition represents the next phase of changes brought about by the divorce of the center’s founders, Stephanie and Sunny Keach, according to Melissa Driver, the company’s general manager. Also in brief: prostate cancer screening tips for men, new programs and services and a new website that illustrates the impact of the opioid epidemic on the local community.
“We’ve got an epidemic within a pandemic,” says Kevin Mahoney with the Mountain Area Health Education Center. Social distancing, job losses and drug contamination associated with COVID-19 have all complicated local efforts to manage the impacts of opioid use.
Through medication-assisted treatment, inmates with opioid addiction could receive drugs such as naltrexone or buprenorphine, in conjunction with counseling and therapy, to help them avoid returning to dangerous substances such as heroin or fentanyl.
Under the new contract, according to a presentation by county Solid Waste Director Dane Pedersen available before the meeting, all customers would receive trash and recycling containers from Waste Pro as part of a $19.21 monthly service fee. Currently, customers pay a $16.08 base fee and can rent containers for an optional $3.80 per month.
The document, set by the chamber’s advocacy and policy committee, adds opioid and substance abuse prevention to the docket for the first time. Affordable housing and expanded transit options throughout the Asheville metro region also made the cut, while Medicaid restructuring and the Interstate 26 Connector Project were both removed from last year’s list.
2018’s annual joint meeting of Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners highlighted issues of racial equity, police use-of-force and zoning conflicts affecting Buncombe residents.
ASHEVILLE
Asheville, N.C.
Just three days before Monday’s rally in Asheville’s Pack Square Park to oppose the U.S. Senate’s version of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Lindsay Furst, a local teacher and activist, went to a coffee shop with her fellow organizers who shared her lack of sleep, she told the crowd in front of […]
