Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Gibson trial
Michelle Boudin brought us the ongoing coverage of the Michelle Gibson trial in Jackson County. Gibson is the mom accused of locking her 8-year-old son in trunk of her car last year, going to work, and returning to find him dead from heat exposure.
Michelle said Gibson took the stand to defend herself from the second-degree murder charges. The testimony was “unbelievably emotional,” Boudin said, noting that some jurors had to look away at times because Gibson’s testimony was “tough for just about everybody.” Gibson told jurors she didn’t lock her son in the trunk. But she also told them she took the blame for what happened.
This is a sad, sad case. So here’s the prediction on the verdict – the jury will convict Gibson on second-degree murder charges, despite her attorney’s argument that Gibson never showed malice. The jury just won’t buy that, in our view. All they’ll see is a poor black woman who acted irresponsibly. The jury, in our estimation, will reach this decision in less than two hours of deliberation.
Trashy Taylor
U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor needs to clean up some rental property he owns in Transylvania County, according to that county’s health department, which sent Chuckie T. a notice to clean shit up. That’s what WLOSers said, anyway. He has until June 15 to get the property cleaned up. Charlie, just hire some of the liberal Ashvegas hippies hanging around downtown. Promise them a couple of Phil Lesh downloads and a vegetarian salad, and they’ll do whatever you tell ’em.
Haw Creek fish kill
Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan told us that the East Asheville Recreation Club killed hundreds of fish in Haw Creek when it dumped chlorinated water into the creek.
A spokesman for the club did his best “we didn’t know” act when Carolyn asked him why a sewage pipe was unhooked and why all that chlorinated water went into the creek. The spokesman said “it’s a mystery to us” – yeah right. Ryan said a neighbor took photos last week of some pool water draining into the creek, but it was unclear whether that resident actually told anybody at the club. Anyway, the resident came forward with the photos, but Ryan never identified the source of that information.
Regardless, the pool owners say they’re fixing the pipe immediately. And in the meantime, the state is investigating and will probably fine the pool owners for what happened.
Traffic sux on I-26
A truck wrecked on Interstate 26 near the Polk-Henderson county line, backing up traffic. Every day this week, there’s been something on that damn road. Stay away. Stay far, far away.
Reporting LIVE, from a crosswalk
In fake news from Henderson County, Sheraldo told us how some librarians are scared they’ll get hit while crossing a crosswalk on Third Avenue to get to their book repository.
Sheraldo covered the hell out of this non-story by talking to librarians and book-borrowers. He talked to the city public works guy, who said yeah, that crosswalk ain’t much.
Then after all that, we see Sheraldo reporting live in the rain from the crosswalk, and he tells us that the city already has plans to put up a bright green sign and “rumble strips” on the road to make sure motorists slow down. Thank God we’re saving the bookworms.
Saw from the sky
Progress Energy showed off a vicious contraption it was using in Madison County on Thursday to trim trees near power lines. Big circular saws – probably six or seven of them – were dangling from a helicopter that moved along and chopped to pieces everything in its way. WLOSers said Progress Energy could do six weeks worth of trimming in one week with the contraption.
School merger?
WLOSers played catch up on a story they completely missed. In covering an Asheville school board meeting earlier in the week, WLOS blew it off as a “retreat meeting” where school officials talked long-range planning. But when the local newspaper came out with a story about how the schools were planning for a possible forced merger with county schools, they got on the story.
Susan Mundy actually provided a solid report, noting that a city-county school merger has long been discussed. And every year, somebody in Raleigh submits a bill that would require every county in the state with two school systems to merge them. So city schools were talking about it.
Susan said any merger plan is tricky for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that under a merger, the lesser-funded school system would have to be funded at the higher level. In Buncombe County, that would cost the county some $40 million, Susan said, because the city school system is funded at a much higher level than the county. Of course it is – it’s tiny, compared to the 25,000-student county schools.
City school Superintended Robert Logan got on his high horse, saying the city and county schools are both good systems, so “Why dismantle that?”
Because it would save money, Logan. That’s why. You get rid of a bunch of lame administrators, you do away with the city’s appointed school board and make one elected school board (the Buncombe County board of ed is elected) and you save a bunch of money.
Still, there are other issues. The city school system operates under a federal desegregation order. What would happen under consolidation? How about the supplemental school tax that some Ashvegas residents now pay – would everyone in the county have to pay under one school system? Who knows.
In other news…
Billy Graham says he’ll got to Maryland this summer to take part in son Franklin’s crusade, the Metro-Maryland Festival… There’s a wallabee on the loose in Fletcher. The kangaroo-like marsupial got loose on Wednesday. It’s 2.5-feet high and weighs 30 pounds and it’s name is Max… In Henderson County, a rabid fox attacked a couple of people walking Park Ridge Hospital’s walking trail and bit one person. Luckily, this happened at a hospital. The person was treated, and somebody went out and killed the fox. This all happened last week sometime, but WLOS still acted like it was news.
