Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
What a week ahead:
-Asheville City Council vote on gay rights measure: Asheville City Council is set to pass an “equality resolution” on Tuesday that some council members say will go down as an historic civil rights measure for the city. The resolution will:
1. Extending the city’s employment discrimination clause to include “sexual orientation”, “gender”, and “gender identity or expression”
2. Enacting an anti-bullying ordinance for all city institutions and grounds
3. Creating a Domestic Partner Registry to recognize same-sex relationships for the purposes of providing documentation and offering a mechanism through which hospitals, businesses, and other entities will have the opportunity to recognize these relationships
4. Endorsing and supporting the rights of same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the familial rights and responsibilities of civil marriage
-Beer City crown creator visits Asheville: Charlie Papazian, the creator of the Beer City USA online poll, arrives in Asheville on Monday. There’s a whole series of events set up for him, including a rally for the American Homebrewers Association on Feb. 24 at Highland Brewing. Follow Tony Kiss, the Beer Guy in Asheville, for the latest. He’s on Twitter at AVLBeerGuy.
-Who will be the next Buncombe County Register of Deeds? The recent retirement of longtime Buncombe County Register of Deeds Otto DeBruhl triggers the Feb. 23 election of a new register of deeds. The Democratic Party’s executive committee will make the decision. There are two declared candidates: Drew Reisinger and JoAnn Morgan. Scrutiny Hooligans has a good backgrounder here.
-Video game conference: Dale Neal of the Asheville Citizen-Times has a nice overview here. The event will be held from 9 a.m. until noon on Thursday at the Grove Park Inn. A tidbit:
Gobion Rowlands heads Red Redemption in Britain, one of the world’s leading developers of “serious” games. His latest game, “Fate of the World,” uses the latest scientific data to let users play out scenarios to save the world from climate disruptions, a growing population and dwindling resources.
Rowlands plans to unveil his new game here in Asheville Thursday at “Gaming the Future: Connecting Innovation and Education,” an interactive science exhibition at the Grove Park Inn that could draw hundreds of scientists, game designers, educators and entrepreneurs from across the country and even Europe.
