Xpress recently obtained a copy of the “book of interpretations”—more than 178 pages of memos, e-mails and handwritten notes that Asheville’s Planning and Development Department uses as a guide when ruling on specific points concerning the Unified Development Ordinance. Some documents in the book date back to the UDO’s creation in 1997.
Former planner Gerald Green, whose name pops up frequently, says the file gradually expanded as city staffers consulted higher-ups about specific points; the answers were saved to avoid conflicts later on—“and to not just sound like someone’s pulling it out of thin air,” Green explains.
That process continues today, reports acting Planning Director Shannon Tuch. While the UDO is meant to cover “generic conditions,” the situations referenced in the “book of interpretation” are more specialized, such as a question that arose about children’s playhouses (which aren’t restricted).
“They come up so infrequently,” Tuch told Xpress. “Oftentimes, these interpretations are made for one, maybe two situations; then that situation doesn’t come up again.”
But for Joe Minicozzi, the mere fact that the city was maintaining such a file unbeknownst to the public was a huge red flag—particularly in light of recent controversies concerning the interpretation of the city’s principal planning document.
“I didn’t even know it existed,” says Minicozzi, who is president of the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods board. His first hint came during a March 24 Board of Adjustment hearing, when Tuch named it as a source for her interpretation in a case. “I thought, ‘Where the hell is that book?’” Minicozzi recalls, adding, “I just about had a canary.” After that meeting, he requested a copy of the book via e-mail. Xpress subsequently requested a copy as well.
The problem, he maintains, is that planning code is being written at the staff level rather than being approved by a vote of City Council. But City Attorney Bob Oast says there’s a difference between creating policy and holding discussions among staffers.
Minicozzi says he’s read some of the material and even concedes that it’s a “good book—but it is a good to-do list of [future] UDO amendments.”
Tuch, however, argues that the kind of minutiae that typically lands in the book would only bog down a document that’s already plenty weighty and complex. But staff, she notes, is going through the book to determine whether some questions come up often enough to justify presenting them to Council as potential UDO amendments.
See a selection of key documents from the book at http://www.mountainx.com/xpressfiles.
Asheville and environs has a rich history as a health haven, ranging from 19th- and early 20th-century resorts and tuberculosis care to today’s diverse healing arts.
And that focus seems likely to grow in years to come, thanks partly to the N.C. Center for Health & Wellness. About 100 people braved a brisk spring wind on April 29 as a host of dignitaries broke ground on the new $42 million center near the heart of the UNCA campus.
“I’m so thankful this day is here. Yea!” exclaimed former state Rep. Wilma Sherrill, whose speech was briefly interrupted as a gust of wind nearly blew over the portable shelter she and other dignitaries shared.
Sherrill was largely responsible for securing $35 million from the General Assembly to build the 133,500-square-foot facility, which aims to benefit people across the state. Fundraising efforts are expected to cover the remaining costs, with $5 million collected so far.
“I’m very excited about what you’re doing—not only for Western North Carolina but for all of North Carolina,” said Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Chapel Hill, who is speaker of the state House.
The center will serve many functions. “In 2010, our new building will allow us to accommodate our rapidly growing degree program in health-and-wellness promotion,” said Keith Ray, chair of the university’s health-and-wellness department. “[It will help us] expand our multidisciplinary-research projects, share meeting and conference space with our community partners, host regional health fairs, operate summer conferences and institutes, establish an incubator program for wellness-related enterprises, host an ongoing distinguished-speaker series, and expand our demonstration-and-outreach initiatives.”
The facility will include classrooms, research and teaching labs, cardiovascular and strength-training rooms, offices, meeting rooms and seminar space, studios for dance, aerobics, yoga and other physical-activity courses, a wellness café and teaching kitchen, plus business-incubator space. In addition, the 4,000-seat Kimmel Arena will provide space for commencement ceremonies, speakers and symposiums, not to mention a new venue for Bulldogs basketball games.
At its heart, though, the center will combine teaching, research, community outreach and community collaborations to help address the state’s most pressing health concerns, with an initial focus on childhood obesity as well as workplace and senior wellness.
“Working together, we will build a national model that enhances student learning, strengthens the economy and improves the health and well-being of the community,” said Ray. “Ultimately, we must work together to create a wellness culture in North Carolina and America.”
Buncombe County and Health Partners, an Asheville-based nonprofit, are gearing up to roll out an ambitious online system later this year called Health Net that will help safety-net providers better serve the county’s uninsured, low-income and impoverished residents.
Tentatively slated to debut in September, the system is believed to be the only one of its kind in the state. Modeled on a program in Austin, Texas, Health Net should prove to be a boon for needy individuals, care providers, taxpayers and the business community, says J. Nelson-Weaver, the director of Health Partners.
Centralized information sharing will enable government and nonprofit service providers to collaborate in responding to clients’ diverse needs.
“Service providers realized that if we could share information, that would help us a lot,” Nelson-Weaver explains. “If we could know, for example, at the hospital whether people were already on Medicaid, that would help us serve them more quickly, because we’d know they already have a payment source. Finding a source of payment for people that have no insurance is a very important piece of providing care to the uninsured. ... That means that particular person doesn’t have to take one of the very few slots away from people who have absolutely no way to pay.
“That’s really the whole concept of Health Net,” she adds. “How can we work together collaboratively to identify and get people enrolled in the services that are already there, so we can open up more of those slots for those people who really have no financial option.”
Initially, the system will link 16 partners, including all local health-care providers serving low-income, uninsured county residents plus a handful of nonprofits: ABCCM, Access II Care, the Buncombe County Medical Society (Project Access), the Department of Social Services, Eblen Foundation, Emma Family Medical Clinic, the Health Center, Health Partners, Hot Springs Health Program, MAHEC, Mission Hospitals, Pisgah Legal Services, Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care, Three Streams Family Health Center, Western Highlands Network and WNC Community Health Services.
The DSS will station a worker in each clinic to screen patients as they walk in the door. Those seeking care will be asked a few questions to determine their eligibility not only for Medicaid and other forms of health assistance, but also for such services as food stamps, WIC, job training and subsidized daycare. Using Health Net, eligibility can be determined in as little as three or four minutes, says Nelson-Weaver, and the person can then apply and be approved for those services on the spot. That, she says, is “really the beauty of the system. The sky’s the limit.”
If the first phase proves successful, the system could eventually be expanded to include any interested nonprofit that serves the needy. “The idea is that every place that someone goes that’s on this Health Net system becomes a one-stop shop,” Nelson-Weaver explains. “The other fabulous thing about it is, for example, if I find out I’m eligible for food stamps, I don’t have to go over to DSS a different day and sign up. I can sign up right there ... because everybody is sharing this Internet-based system. It’s really enhancing customer service, because we don’t have to keep running people around.”
“The end goal is to increase access to care, to be able to help more uninsured people in our community by using the funding we already have in a new way,” says the Rev. Scott Rogers, executive director of ABCCM and board chair of Health Partners.
“This is really a wonderful example of collaboration,” adds Abram Gordon of Network Sciences, the firm providing the software that facilitates the customer screening and eligibility assessments. “We rarely see the government, so many of the health providers, and the hospitals working so closely together in one system of care. It is really the vision for how this kind of system can work best.”
Besides serving the needy, the benefits of this level of collaboration should also trickle down to the general business community, notes Nelson-Weaver.
“The Chamber of Commerce has identified the improved health of our community as a critical piece of economic development in this town,” she points out. “Sick people don’t make good employees. You can be more productive if you’re well; you can be tremendously more productive if your kids are well. Community health is a critical piece to having a great economy in Asheville.”
Despite the system’s up-front cost (about $150,000 for phase one), Health Net’s efficiencies should actually save money over time. Currently, the county and other safety-net providers must eat the cost of treating uninsured patients not enrolled in Medicaid or other programs. The county spends nearly $4 million annually on primary-care services, and 53 percent of the adults who visit the Health Center for such services are uninsured. Health Net should expand enrollment in Medicaid and other assistance programs without requiring additional staff or other resources, county officials contend.
“The payback to the county is two things, I think. One is we can expand services without more tax dollars—that’s the main payback,” says Nelson-Weaver. “The other thing is, we estimate there’s a lot of people out there in our community that qualify for Medicaid [but] don’t have it. So if we can get them signed up, that will create a payment source for them and open a space for someone else.”
About 34,000 county residents are presently enrolled in Medicaid, she reports, adding that roughly 14 percent of county residents live below the poverty level.
“With Health Net, we’ll be able to make the most of our taxpayers’ investment by using tools that help us work smarter and help community members get the results they need,” says Assistant County Manager Mandy Stone, who chairs the Health Net collaborative.
Briefs
• Ready for their close-up: If you’re a fashion designer or model, you know you’ve made it if you’re featured in Vogue. And if you build houses, finding your creation highlighted in Fine Homebuilding is a sign that you’ve arrived.
That’s good news for Samsel Architects of Asheville, who designed a local house that’s featured in this year’s edition of the magazine’s annual Houses issue. It even made the cover, notes Samsel staffer Celeste Waid. The project, she notes, included many energy-efficient and green components.
It’s not the firm’s first nod from the magazine’s publisher, adds Waid. “Taunton Press has also featured our work in Inside the Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka, and House Transformed by Matthew Schoenherr,” she reports.
• Local employment picture brightens: The Asheville metro area’s unemployment rate headed back downward in March after a few months of increases, according to the latest statistics from the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The March rate came in at 4.4 percent, down from 4.6 percent in February.
Statewide unemployment also saw a slight decline in March, to 5.2 percent.
Of the state’s 14 metropolitan statistical areas, only Durham (4.2 percent) and Raleigh/Cary (4.0 percent) had lower unemployment rates than Asheville in March, according to the commission.
Buncombe County and Health Partners, an Asheville-based nonprofit, are gearing up to roll out an ambitious online system later this year called Health Net that will help safety-net providers better serve the county’s uninsured, low-income and impoverished residents.
Tentatively slated to debut in September, the system is believed to be the only one of its kind in the state. Modeled on a program in Austin, Texas, Health Net should prove to be a boon for needy individuals, care providers, taxpayers and the business community, says J. Nelson-Weaver, the director of Health Partners.
Centralized information sharing will enable government and nonprofit service providers to collaborate in responding to clients’ diverse needs.
“Service providers realized that if we could share information, that would help us a lot,” Nelson-Weaver explains. “If we could know, for example, at the hospital whether people were already on Medicaid, that would help us serve them more quickly, because we’d know they already have a payment source. Finding a source of payment for people that have no insurance is a very important piece of providing care to the uninsured. ... That means that particular person doesn’t have to take one of the very few slots away from people who have absolutely no way to pay.
“That’s really the whole concept of Health Net,” she adds. “How can we work together collaboratively to identify and get people enrolled in the services that are already there, so we can open up more of those slots for those people who really have no financial option.”
Initially, the system will link 16 partners, including all local health-care providers serving low-income, uninsured county residents plus a handful of nonprofits: ABCCM, Access II Care, the Buncombe County Medical Society (Project Access), the Department of Social Services, Eblen Foundation, Emma Family Medical Clinic, the Health Center, Health Partners, Hot Springs Health Program, MAHEC, Mission Hospitals, Pisgah Legal Services, Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care, Three Streams Family Health Center, Western Highlands Network and WNC Community Health Services.
The DSS will station a worker in each clinic to screen patients as they walk in the door. Those seeking care will be asked a few questions to determine their eligibility not only for Medicaid and other forms of health assistance, but also for such services as food stamps, WIC, job training and subsidized daycare. Using Health Net, eligibility can be determined in as little as three or four minutes, says Nelson-Weaver, and the person can then apply and be approved for those services on the spot. That, she says, is “really the beauty of the system. The sky’s the limit.”
If the first phase proves successful, the system could eventually be expanded to include any interested nonprofit that serves the needy. “The idea is that every place that someone goes that’s on this Health Net system becomes a one-stop shop,” Nelson-Weaver explains. “The other fabulous thing about it is, for example, if I find out I’m eligible for food stamps, I don’t have to go over to DSS a different day and sign up. I can sign up right there ... because everybody is sharing this Internet-based system. It’s really enhancing customer service, because we don’t have to keep running people around.”
“The end goal is to increase access to care, to be able to help more uninsured people in our community by using the funding we already have in a new way,” says the Rev. Scott Rogers, executive director of ABCCM and board chair of Health Partners.
“This is really a wonderful example of collaboration,” adds Abram Gordon of Network Sciences, the firm providing the software that facilitates the customer screening and eligibility assessments. “We rarely see the government, so many of the health providers, and the hospitals working so closely together in one system of care. It is really the vision for how this kind of system can work best.”
Besides serving the needy, the benefits of this level of collaboration should also trickle down to the general business community, notes Nelson-Weaver.
“The Chamber of Commerce has identified the improved health of our community as a critical piece of economic development in this town,” she points out. “Sick people don’t make good employees. You can be more productive if you’re well; you can be tremendously more productive if your kids are well. Community health is a critical piece to having a great economy in Asheville.”
Despite the system’s up-front cost (about $150,000 for phase one), Health Net’s efficiencies should actually save money over time. Currently, the county and other safety-net providers must eat the cost of treating uninsured patients not enrolled in Medicaid or other programs. The county spends nearly $4 million annually on primary-care services, and 53 percent of the adults who visit the Health Center for such services are uninsured. Health Net should expand enrollment in Medicaid and other assistance programs without requiring additional staff or other resources, county officials contend.
“The payback to the county is two things, I think. One is we can expand services without more tax dollars—that’s the main payback,” says Nelson-Weaver. “The other thing is, we estimate there’s a lot of people out there in our community that qualify for Medicaid [but] don’t have it. So if we can get them signed up, that will create a payment source for them and open a space for someone else.”
About 34,000 county residents are presently enrolled in Medicaid, she reports, adding that roughly 14 percent of county residents live below the poverty level.
“With Health Net, we’ll be able to make the most of our taxpayers’ investment by using tools that help us work smarter and help community members get the results they need,” says Assistant County Manager Mandy Stone, who chairs the Health Net collaborative.
Briefs
• Ready for their close-up: If you’re a fashion designer or model, you know you’ve made it if you’re featured in Vogue. And if you build houses, finding your creation highlighted in Fine Homebuilding is a sign that you’ve arrived.
That’s good news for Samsel Architects of Asheville, who designed a local house that’s featured in this year’s edition of the magazine’s annual Houses issue. It even made the cover, notes Samsel staffer Celeste Waid. The project, she notes, included many energy-efficient and green components.
It’s not the firm’s first nod from the magazine’s publisher, adds Waid. “Taunton Press has also featured our work in Inside the Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka, and House Transformed by Matthew Schoenherr,” she reports.
• Local employment picture brightens: The Asheville metro area’s unemployment rate headed back downward in March after a few months of increases, according to the latest statistics from the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The March rate came in at 4.4 percent, down from 4.6 percent in February.
Statewide unemployment also saw a slight decline in March, to 5.2 percent.
Of the state’s 14 metropolitan statistical areas, only Durham (4.2 percent) and Raleigh/Cary (4.0 percent) had lower unemployment rates than Asheville in March, according to the commission.
If you’ve seen a small sedan tooling around town with a 4-foot-tall pole strapped to its top, don’t be alarmed. The car, which has a camera mounted atop the pole, is part of Google Street View, which aims to give Internet users a street-level, panoramic vista of streets and neighborhoods.
Asheville resident Greg Goodman spotted the car recently, with its California license tags and “Google” sticker.
“I think it’s interesting that they would put AVL on their mapping list (assuming that is what they are doing),” he wrote in an e-mail response to Xpress‘ questions. “I checked Google that night, and the only NC city with ‘street view’ is Raleigh. My son thought it was cool—anything Google is cool to him.”
Company spokesperson Elaine Filadelfo confirmed that Google is, in fact, mapping Asheville with camera-mounted cars. Durham and Chapel Hill also have Google Street View, she said, and the company is “trying to get to smaller regions [in North Carolina] as well.”
Once a mapping effort is launched, it takes about a year to get the content online, Filadelfo explained. It’s all designed to provide useful information for people traveling or planning trips, she added.
But not everyone likes the idea of having so much information available at the click of a mouse. Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania couple sued Google, claiming that photos of their home on Street View violate their privacy.
Filadelfo said the company takes privacy concerns seriously. “We only drive on public roads, and we have easy tools for users to request takedown.”
Back in Asheville, Google-spotter Goodman said he doesn’t see the project as an intrusion. “I like it. I can see it to be a great help to those wanting directions—‘picture is worth 1,000 words.’ If I recall correctly, the lady that raised the privacy issue either saw herself or her cat on a street shot. If that’s a problem with someone, they should draw the blinds,” Goodman wrote in an e-mail.
He also offered a little assistance for anyone who’s interested in mapping the mappers, using Google to create an online map for folks who want to mark where they’ve spotted cars doing the photo work.
The Joli Rouge—a popular hangout for countercultural Asheville—has closed its doors for the last time.
Many a punk show, drag show, fashion show and even fetish freak show played out within the cavernous black-and-red, two-story bar on College Street in downtown Asheville, which opened in 2005.
Goths, rocking knee-high boots and lace, would swap clothes there. Pinball players would get sucked into alternate virtual universes till they ran out of quarters. Fire-spinners would mesmerize people in the courtyard as they artfully twirled their blazing poi. On slow afternoons, regulars would perch at the bar, sipping gin-and-tonics and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes while trading jokes.
On the busy nights, if there was a popular band in town or a benefit concert, the crowds swarmed in, consuming impressive quantities of whiskey and PBR. They came in rowdy and chattering droves, wearing boots and suspenders, taped-together glasses, wildly colored hair, tattoos, velvet, sleek black shirts and tight-fitting pants. (One patron was even spotted cuddling a pet fox.)
Many Mountain Xpress readers expressed their regrets online about seeing it go. “My favorite bar,” wrote one. “Best drinks, bartenders and atmosphere in town ... we’ll miss ya Rouge.” Another reader fondly recalled a Halloween party there in 2005: “Remember the hunter wearing a deer’s head and holding a bleeding man’s head in his grip? Or, how about all the HOT pirates?” Yet another reminisced about the “marvelous people,” writing: “No one ever gave me a strange look when I was there, and I’m pretty strange looking.”
A pirate flag hung above the downstairs bar. And indeed, the joint apparently encountered some rough waters, as the bar served its final shot of whiskey the last weekend in April.
When Xpress tried to contact the Joli Rouge for more details, thinking perhaps the owners were still there cleaning things out, the phone just rang and rang. The only hint of a goodbye was a succinct post on its MySpace page. “So long,” it read, “and thanks for all the fish.”
Need to get outside? There are 113 options in Buncombe County alone, according to a new map of parks and recreational facilities compiled as part of the Year of the Park project. The newly launched promotional campaign aims to call attention to the area’s many opportunities for getting a little cultural stimulation and fresh air.
Although new projects such as Pack Square Park often generate the most conversation and column inches, Year of the Park is trying to talk up those resources already available. “Sometimes we don’t know about the wonderful things that are right under our nose,” Donna Clark of the Pack Square Conservancy told a crowd of supporters at the Diana Wortham Theatre on April 29.
Clark serves on the steering committee of the Year of the Park project, a collaboration involving local nonprofits, businesses, schools and governmental bodies—“people you may not have thought played together,” as committee member Laura Boosinger put it.
Parks and public spaces, she continued, enhance a community’s physical and mental well-being, increase safety and make the area more attractive. And while much local energy goes into attracting and entertaining tourists, parks, said Boosinger, “are for people who live here.”
Meanwhile, Evergreen Community Charter School has pitched in by creating scavenger hunts, or “quests,” at assorted locations, including the WNC Nature Center and Carrier Park’s interpretive areas.
As representatives of the many groups involved grazed a buffet provided by Blue Ridge Food Ventures, Year of the Park spokesperson Leesa Brandon told Xpress that it’s fitting that so many separate entities have come together for the cause. After all, parks are places for sharing. Or as the project’s slogan puts it: “Everyone loves a park.”
For more information on local parks and upcoming events, go to http://www.yearofthepark.org.
It was May 1, and Capt. Tim Splain, an 18-year veteran of the Asheville Police Department who’s the head of criminal investigations, was in the firing line (metaphorically speaking) at the latest session of the city’s ongoing Citizens Academy.
“Let me be clear: Hip-hop does not cause gangs,” Splain declared after asserting that local media had blown police statements concerning the extent of local gang activity out of proportion. “Gangs have always been around; they arise when you have a lot of inequality. You have a lot of ‘haves’ in Asheville, but you have a lot of ‘have-nots’ too. They’re isolated in areas like public housing. The question, then, is how—with no education and no money, no power—how they’re going to get that stuff. They’re going to band together, and they’re going to take it.”
The increase in shootings in Asheville over the last three years is mostly due to gang violence, he said, and purely local neighborhood gangs are being replaced by national affiliations.
Splain detailed names, territories and affiliations of Asheville gangs. He shared photos from alleged gang member’s MySpace pages.
But Asheville resident Jumal Jackson was doubtful. “Doesn’t seem to me that you’ve got a gang problem so much as a clique problem,” he said. “Are you going to blame every random shooting on gang violence?”
Again, Splain blasted the media: “You sell more newspapers ... if you’re talking about gangs. They want to hype everything.
“A lot of the big problem we’re having right now [is] with the wannabes,” he added, “because they feel like they have to prove themselves.”
The district attorney’s office, he noted, has started putting a “Death to Gangs” designation beside the names of known gang members charged with a crime, barring them from getting a plea bargain.
Earlier, police Chief Bill Hogan provided an overview of his department’s roles and the challenges it faces. There were also demonstrations by the APD’s specialized SWAT, explosive-devices and hostage-negotiation teams. But Splain’s presentation on drugs and gangs drew the most questions. Crack, he said, is Asheville’s most problematic drug, and he noted that the area has particularly high-value marijuana.
“There’s some really good weed around here,” he said, drawing laughter. “That’s a relatively recent trend. It used to be that pot was just pot; that’s not the way it is anymore.”
That prompted Jenny Bowen to ask how the APD would react to decriminalization, noting that it’s been proposed in a bill before the House of Representatives. “Would marijuana decriminalization help the APD by freeing it to concentrate more on these other drugs, or would it hinder things?”
“I understand that, for a lot of people, it’s no worse than a beer or a glass of wine,” Splain responded. “But the DEA ... research says it’s a gateway drug ... and I’ve seen that some too.
“In the end ... if Congress passed a law, if City Council agreed, we would do that.”
