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Latino community on edge over ICE busts, protesters say

Henderson County News

Ward blasts board over county manager bonuses

Henderson County Commission candidate Don Ward is questioning the action by the Board of Commissioners granting large bonuses to the county manager, saying the amounts appear to be excessive and should have been approved in an open session. A campaign supporter made a public record request and received a spreadsheet showing County Manager Steve Wyatt’s salary, cost of living increases and bonuses dating back to March 2012. The records show that Wyatt has received $226,700 in bonuses since March of 2016, including a $75,000 lump sum bonus and $14,342 retention bonus effective April 6. His regular salary is $191,227.Ward is running in the May 8 Republican primary against Rebecca McCall for the District 4 seat held by two-term incumbent Tommy Thompson, who is retiring. At a Republican Party-sponsored debate with McCall last week, Ward and his supporters submitted a question about Wyatt’s salary and bonuses, using an old trick he learned from Ab Jackson, the Henderson County sheriff in the 1980s and ’90s. “We’re going to tear the top left corner off each one of the questions,” he told a supporter, so they could see which ones made it to the moderator. Only one did, he said. Wyatt’s pay is a legitimate issue, Ward said, because of the amount but also because of what he describes as a lack of openness.“They’ve been doing this in closed session. In my opinion this should be open session,” he said. “That’s the way we always did. To me this is hidden dollars. They’ve taken the liberty in closed session doing things I think should be in public session. If you look realistically at $75,000 and $90,000, that would pay for almost two school resource officers in our school system. … What is he doing that deserves a $75,000 bonus?”A lot, two county commissioners said when asked to respond to Ward’s criticism.Board chair Michael Edney and Commissioner Tommy Thompson strongly defended the pay increases and bonuses.“In that bonus I would say we did our research for all the counties in North Carolina and found that the amount we were paying Steve via retention or straight-out bonuses or standard salary was in line with the rest of them. “Should we have come out in an open session? I don’t know. I don’t know what the appropriate protocol would be.”“I have no problems with what I voted on. I’d back it up 100 percent. Steve has done an absolutely wonderful job for us and deserves the bonus. Between him and the finance office, they have saved in past 7½ years since I’ve been there millions and millions and millions of dollars — selling stuff at a premium and buying stuff where we could do it (at lower prices). I got no problem saying I voted for that.”The Board of Commissioners sets the salary for the county manager, county attorney, sheriff and register of deeds. (The salary of a third constitutional officer, the clerk of court, is set by the state.)“It was an enthusiastic unanimous endorsement of the fact that he has earned that,” Thompson said of the board's discussion and vote in closed session. “This county has no idea the job that he has. If you look at the hospital, corporations, the head of other institutions around here he’s not making any more money than any of them are. His overall salary is nowhere near what a lot of these CEOs and what of a lot of these corporate heads make. We’re still conservative for the amount (of pay) for what he produces.”Retention bonuses are part of the county’s pay policy and apply to all employees, Thompson said.“Each individual who works in the county has the opportunity to receive a retention bonus depending on what they’re supervisor feels is appropriate for them,” Thompson said. “I’ve always said since I came into the county commission I was never going to balance the budget on the backs of the employees.” Edney said that he had “absolutely” voted for the bonuses. He ticked off numerous reasons why.“He’s the best manager in state, or one of the best,” he said. “Thirty years of service, not all of them here but a number of years here. He has saved the county 10-fold every penny he makes. Good management, leadership. Getting the most out of employees. He’s been a godsend to Henderson County.”Both Thompson and Edney said it’s Wyatt’s fiscal management that has helped the county pile up a fund balance approaching $50 million, a hefty reserve account that keeps taxes low. “He deserves a great deal of credit for that,” Edney said. “He’s doing the day in day out stuff, from the lowest employee all the way to the top. It’s a culture that he creates. … He could be in Wake, Mecklenburg, any of those places if he wanted to making three times the money.”As for approving the bonuses in closed session, Edney said there’s no motive for secrecy.“We release those minutes,” he said. “They do become open. They are open, maybe not immediately.”He declined to offer an opinion on whether the county manager’s pay ought to be a issue in the District 4 campaign.“I made it policy not to get involved in Republican primaries,” he said.Thompson was not so reticent.“If Ward is wanting to make an issue on this thing, those votes were unanimous,” Thompson said. “That was not a 3-2 or 4-1. That was unanimous as to (Wyatt’s) productivity, his ability and his success in doing his job. He can take whatever issue he wants but it’s got nothing to do with running against her. That’s just trying to get his name in front of the people in some form for free advertising.”   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Hendersonville native's debut novel wins acclaim

As a child Heather Bell played with her sister in spooky sheds at her grandparents’ home. “My maternal grandparents lived in East Flat Rock and they had a bunch of abandoned outbuildings, farm buildings, chicken sheds, tool sheds, and my sister and I would explore them and we kind of found them fascinating and also a little scary,” she said. Another vivid memory became deeply etched at the homestead. “My sister and I were in high school when my mother passed way and we were at my grandparents’ house when we found out,” she said. Almost thirty years later, Heather Bell Adams combines the images of the shed and the heart-ache of loss in the opening scene of Maranatha Road, her acclaimed first novel that will remind readers here of Hendersonville, Green River and Lake Summit and familiar places like Shepherd Funeral Home. Heather Bell AdamsThe fictional town of Garnet feels a bit like Hendersonville but what feels truer than place is the people. Adams’ characters sound and behave like genuine small-town mountain natives, doing their best to navigate life’s challenges. The book has won the James Still Fiction Prize, the Carrie McCray Literary Award and the Independent Book Publishers Gold award as the best novel 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 native of Hendersonville, Adams is the daughter of Doley Bell, the retired administrator at Carolina Village, who lives in Mills River. She grew up on Kanuga Road, “the last house in the city limits.” Asked which teachers inspired her, she names philosophy teacher Lisa Vierra and English teacher Tom Orr at Hendersonville High School and Bel Smith, the Hendersonville Middle School newspaper adviser. After graduating from HHS, Adams earned undergraduate and law degrees from Duke. Although she works fulltime as senior counsel for First Citizens Bank and has a 14-year-old son, she steals time to write short stories and novels — a second one is in the editing stages. “Really I just try to fit in writing whenever I can, while waiting for a flight in an airport, waiting in the carpool line to pick up my son, just little snippets of time,” she said in an interview from her Raleigh office. “On my commute to work I’m often thinking about the story I’m working on and what will come next or what the characters will do.” Maranatha Road opens with Tinley losing both her parents. Losing her mother as a teenager gave Adams a searing memory to drew on. Adams’s lead characters, 17-year-old Tinley Greene and 60-something Sadie Caswell, unexpectedly collide. Adams guides them to place ultimately of love and forgiveness. It’s no easy road there. She tells the story from the points of view of Tinley, her lover, Mark; Sadie, and her husband, Clive. Tinley, and only Tinley, speaks in the present. “Being younger and almost a little bit more naïve Tinley lives in the present more so than Sadie,” Adams said. “That was always the way her voice came to me, whereas Sadie and the other characters are more nostalgic and looking back.” Adams finished the novel in a year. Working with a literary agent, she connected with Vandalia Press, a West Virginia University imprint, which published the book last October. “It was very exciting to see it,” she said. “I remember opening the email when they sent the cover. That was a great moment as well because I had no idea what the cover would look like.” A launch tour has taken her to bookstores and book clubs throughout the state and to Yale, where her book was honored. Invariably, readers have loved her book. Her next novel is a dual timeline story set in present day Savannah and in the Pacific in World War II. If fans ask whether we might see Tinley again, Adams says she has some interest in exploring how the young woman’s life turns out. For now, Adams is happy to be coming home, where she will see people and places that helped inspire Maranatha Road. “I’m really looking forward to the event in Hendersonville. I have so many family members in the area and friends,” she said. She hopes her paternal grandmother, 96, can be there, as well as her father, her sister, Melissa, who lives in Fletcher, cousins and in-laws. Adams will read from Maranatha Road and sign books at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at the Heritage Museum in the Historic Courthouse. She will appear on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin at 11 a.m. Sunday, April 22, and 5 p.m. Thursday, April 26.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

WHKP to air sheriff's debate

WHKP 1450 AM and 107.7 FM will air the two-hour sheriff's debate live from Blue Ridge Community College on Tuesday  beginning at 7 p.m. The station will also stream the debate on whkp.com. Incumbent Sheriff Charlie McDonald and challenger Lowell Griffin meet in the May 8 Republican primary.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

NCDOT engineers to meet with Balfour Parkway opponents

Volunteers with the effort to the stop the Balfour Parkway will be meeting with representatives from the North Carolina Department of Transportation on April 17 and 18, the organization Stop the Balfour Parkway announced. Cindy Lemon, campaign manager for the STBC, was contacted by the Balfour Parkway Project Manager Jennifer Fuller, of the NCDOT. NCDOT engineers will be in town for an April 18 work session with Henderson County commissioners. They asked to meet with the parkway opponents to present more detailed information regarding how the project works, who is involved and what their roles are. Fuller offered an opportunity for a small group of STBC volunteers to join in question and answer sessions with several of the NCDOT team and members of the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization. The closed meetings have been arranged and questions forwarded.  The organization of homeowners said it welcomes an open exchange of ideas. "The mission of the Stop the Balfour Campaign is to unite Henderson County communities against creation of an expressway that would destroy homes, businesses, churches and impact the quality of life of residents near and within the path of the proposed Balfour Parkway," the group said. "It is committed to working together and speaking with one voice to stop the needless road from laying waste to our neighborhoods, subdivisions and community."   Read Story »

Henderson County News

International chef gives historic inn a makeover

Michael Gilligan is serving up tasty plates at the former Inn on Church, bringing back the Roaring Twenties as the historic building approaches its 100th birthday. “I just felt that it was a shame that a building that was approaching its centenary, the public wasn’t allowed in it,” Gilligan says, describing his effort to make the place more inviting. “They couldn’t sit on the porch. They couldn’t walk around. Because this is the seat of Henderson County, The Henderson just made sense.”“This was built in 1919,” he said. “This was the start of the Roaring Twenties, when people started having fun.”Fun and nostalgic at the same time. The walls are decorated with posters of “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” and, of course, Gilligan’s favorite movie, “Harvey,” a serendipitous discovery as a teenager.“One Sunday night I came across this movie and I watched it and it completely changed my life, because the guy was so pleasant, so happy,” he said. Jeanne and Michael Gilligan found the perfect inn in Hendersonville.Somehow the gentleness of James Stewart’s character inspired Gilligan’s long and successful career as a chef and culinary director. A graduate of the College of Food & Arts in Birmingham, England, he’s been executive chef at Conrad Miami, the renowned Rusty Pelican Restaurant in Miami and the W Hotel in South Beach (Miami). He created menus, bought ingredients and trained kitchen staffs while traveling the world as culinary director of Royal Caribbean cruise lines.“One day I was in Shanghai, the next day I was in Tokyo, Barcelona, because we had ships all over the world,” he says. “A lot of it’s procuring ingredients and making partnerships. That’s something I wanted to do when I came here. That’s why the third Wednesday of every month we’re partnering with Wine Sage Gourmet.” He’s partnered with Sanctuary Brewing Co. for a vegan dinner.   Finding the impossible His search for a kitchen to call his own ended in Hendersonville last summer.“I started looking around at inns for sale,” he says. “But we had a whole list of criteria that it had to meet. The schools had to be great, it had to be a really good community, I didn’t want it too rural but I didn’t want a big city, wanted to be near Blue Ridge Mountains, I wanted at least 15 rooms, it needed to have a bar, needed to have a restaurant. Impossible to find that.”Then his online search turned up the Inn on Church. He couldn’t wait to tell his wife.“I think I found the place,” he told her.She whipped out her smart phone and held it up, “This one?”She had found the Hendersonville property that day, too. The inn would become, one might say, Gilligan’s Highland. The first thing he thought was that the place needed to lighten up.“It was dark, it was very old, the windows were covered with these boxes and curtains, the paint was this chocolate color. We said, this has so much potential.”Crews stripped the covering from the windows, repainted the rooms, replaced the sprinkler system, cleaned the kitchen hood. A carpenter and electrician are around so much that his kids call them Uncle Chuck and Uncle John. “Have you ever seen the movie, ‘The Money Pit’? I’m in it right now,” he says. He’s sunk a quarter million dollars into renovation. “And of course we bought the property for a couple million.”He and his wife, Jeanne, and children — Katie, 12, and Jack, 9 — live in three rooms upstairs, leaving 17 more to rent. Jeanne serves as front-of-the-house manager.They opened the bar, Harvey’s, naturally, in January. He serves appetizers, small plates and desserts on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Menu items include miso caramelized Brussel sprouts with smoked bacon, fried mac’n’cheese with Sriracha ketchup and baked sea scallops with orange-thyme butter (all $8), Carolina shrimp ceviche, crème brulee, Ahi tuna tacos and Harvey’s caprese ($10); cheese and charcuterie plates and crab cakes with grilled corn ($12).The restaurant is open 5-9 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A Sunday brunch from 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. features 10 Mimosa and Bloody Mary specials, pancakes, omelets, crab cake benedict, Scottish smoked salmon, avocado toast and steak and eggs. His once-a-month dinner and a movie on the second Wednesday, for $50, includes a welcome drink, appetizer, themed entrée with wine pairing and dessert. Recently, for “Key Largo,” he made conch chowder and a poached pompano with mushrooms and wine-soaked shallots. For this week’s feature, “Some Like It Hot,” he made sugarcane Florida gulf shrimp (for the Marilyn Monroe character Sugar) and braised pheasant with cranberry and mint, “because there’s a pheasant on the table when they board the yacht.”     Read Story »

Saluda News

BIG CROWD PROTESTS SHOOTING RANGE

A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered at the Grove Street Courthouse on Saturday, protesting a shooting range in Saluda and expressing anger that county officials barred them from a meeting inside where county officials described construction plans to the closest neighbors.Deputies posted outside said they were told that the county identified property owners within a half mile and sent them letters. Those were allowed in. Others, including the news media, were barred from attending.County Manager Steve Wyatt said Friday afternoon that officals and engineers planning the shooting range and law enforcement training center would brief the news media later.At 10 a.m. residents of the Macedonia Road area and other Saluda residents had filled the parking lot and congregated at the front of the courthouse. Later, the crowd stood on the courthouse steps and listened to speakers excoriate the idea of a shooting range and express frustration that the county had closed the information meeting. Most people outside the courthouse said they felt entitled to be in the meeting. Pamela Sacco’s grandfather bought 100 acres on Macedonia Road 100 years ago, she said, and she has been visiting the land since she was a little girl and now lives on it. “When they shoot the bullets they’re going to go over their property and land on me,” said Pamela Sacco, who was denied entrance. “I learned to walk there. It’s in my soul. To me it’s like building something in DuPont Forest. It’s beautiful and pristine and the birds, the geese come into our lake.” Chandler Ward lives close to the property but did not get an invitation to Saturday’s information “I think mine’s close enough to qualify,” he said. “I’m a builder and developer. Ain’t nobody going to buy property to build three or four houses” next to a firing range. Along with his cousin, County Commission candidate Don Ward, he was later admitted inside. “This is a political move by the commissioners to help Charlie win the election,” Don Ward said. “That’s the only thing it helps.” “How many resource officers could we put in the schools for $6 million,” Steve Rhodes asked, provoking one of the loudest cheers. “The issue on the front burner right now is children’s safety. How many school shootings are we going to witness and this clown wants to put $6 million on a training facility. When we already have one that could be utilized. Bullet-proof doors. Metal detectors, something, $6 million to protect our children, not for some guy that’s going to go shootin’ out in the woods.” Four candidates for office showed up, capitalizing on a crowd of likely voters. "That $6 million would have helped my school," said Norm Bossert. "I'm not only retired principle and candidate for state Senate as well, and it bothers me almost more than anything that this is their idea of transparency in government. The doors should be open to everybody. I think it's immoral and unjust to lock people out of a room where your voices have a right to be heard — a room that you paid for." "Personally I don't think it's going to work for the sheriff," Bossert said. "These people are p---ed off. To me if the people didn't care, I'd say OK. They care, this is their neighborhood, where their homes are, where their kids play. I would bet that there are just as many Republicans here as Democrats. This is not a partisan issue. ... Don't we have sunshine laws here in North Carolina. Apparently, they're not as much use today." Sam Edney, a candidate for the state House, called the shooting range an example of “government overreach” that has become common in Raleigh. “How many times have they tried to locate this range?” Edney said. “Four,” people in the crowd said. “Well, you’re doing what Americans do. Your voices are going to be heard and that’s appropriate. I can tell you when I get sworn in my door will always be open.” The Kury family from Spartanburg even showed up "because we spend all of our time and all of our extra dollars there," Mary Kury said. She and her husband, an arborist, and their five children, ages 4-10, visit Saluda as often as they can. "We're always on the river, we're always hiking in the gamelands. The detriment to the natural resources is astonishing. Oftentimes when we stay, we stay in a cottage right up Macedonia Road." "He's quit being a public servant and he's went to being a politician," Rhodes said. "And this right here proves it because he's shutting out the public's opinion. There's a facility right now that's not even being used to its capacity. Why are they pushing for this?" Camp Wayfarer owner Nancy Wilson noted that the Saluda location is the fourth try at siting the training center. "Does that not begin to tell the county commissioners something's out of whack?" At noon, the property owners allowed in still had not emerged and all but two political candidates — Bossert and Edney — and about seven and landowners and the press waited outside a locked door. Everyone else had gone home.       Read Story »

Saluda News

County moves firing range meeting to Grove Street Courthouse

The number of people expected to turn out to oppose a firing range in Saluda prompted a change in location late Friday afternoon in the meeting place for adjoining property owners. Due to traffic and safety concerns associated with holding the proposed training center informational meeting in the Macedonia Road area, county officials moved the meeting to the Grove Street Courthouse, 200 N  . Grove St.  County officials said the meeting is for residents of the Macedonia Road area who were previously contacted directly by Henderson County via letter. County officials will be there to answer questions and respond to concerns about the proposed location.   "We did test shooting out there yesterday and you cannot hear it in Saluda," Wyatt said. "We fired everything we had and had  decibel readers" to measure the sound at several locations. The noise did not carry to the town of Saluda. The shots could be heard at nearby homes, he said, but that's before any sound suppression measures or berms to block the noise. The decision to hold the meeting in Hendersonville reversed earlier plans to meet on the site. Adjoining property owners make up a fraction of the total number of area residents already involved in a robust effort to oppose the firing range. Opponents in the town of Saluda organized a communitywide meeting Monday night to talk about the plans and plot their opposition. Henderson County Commissioner Grady Hawkins, who represents the district where the range would be built, said Thursday night he had received "more emails than there are residents of Saluda." Green Riverkeeper Gray Jernigan announced to volunteers Saturday that MountainTrue was postponing a river cleanup in order to attend the Saturday morning information session. "The reason for the change is that Henderson County is moving quickly to acquire a property adjacent to the Green River Game Lands at 2823 Macedonia Road for a law enforcement training center and shooting range," said Jernigan, who is also MountainTrue's southern office director. "We have lots of concerns about lead contamination and water quality, noise impacts on wildlife, sedimentation from land clearing and development, and potential steep slope development and landslide risk. The county has scheduled an informational meeting on the site for 10 a.m. Saturday. We plan to attend before the cleanup, and hope you will join us." John McHugh, who owns 30 acres adjoining the 99-acre site the county wants to buy for the training center, responded to several points Wyatt and county commission Chairman Michael Edney made in response to an opponent of the firing range.  "What people seem to be missing is the fact that the property at some point in time would likely be developed for residential purposes," the county officials said. "In other words the potential for 70 to 80 single family houses.""It appears that whoever wrote this is unfamiliar with both the property and the relevant portions of the county's own Land Development Code," McHugh said. "At 1.5 acres per dwelling under R3 zoning, the maximum number of houses would be 66, if the land were flat. The land is not flat and the code substantially reduces density in such cases.  The density is further reduced by floodplain areas, space needed for access roads, utilities, etc." The Macedonia Road property is between U.S. 176 and Old Howard Gap Road and near I-26.     Read Story »

Henderson County News

Laurel Park holds work day for park

The town of Laurel Park is holding a volunteer work day Saturday to finish beautifying Rhododendron Lake Nature Park ahead of a big park dedication on Arbor Day, April 27. "We're expecting probably 20 people to volunteer," said Mayor Carey O'Cain. They could use more. "Meet at 9 Saturday morning at Town Hall and we'll divvy up responsibilities." Among the tasks are roadside cleanup, fertilizing and watering trees, pruning, raking, wheelbarrowing and speading mulch. Bring loppers, clippers, shovels, rakes and other garden tools, plus garden gloves, sunblock and water. The Rhododendron Lake Nature Park celebration from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 27, features a history walk, ribbon cutting and an "ask the experts" time with master gardeners, birders, conservationists and others. People are encouraged to bring a picnic dinner and (for the park celebration event only) beer and wine are allowed.   Read Story »

North Carolina News

Former BRCC president seeking NC Senate seat on coast

David Sink, who served as president of Blue Ridge Community College for 20 years, is running for the state Senate in Brunswick County on the coast south of Wilmington.   Read Story »

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