Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
It’s about time…
WLOSers at noon had the news that the Henderson County parents of the baby bitten up to 100 times by a rat have been arrested and are in jail under $10,000 bond. This story broke a week ago, and the local Department of Social Services and law enforcement have been moving slowly, but carefully, ever since.
The baby, named Shea, is recovering and has been released from the hospital into DSS custody. Meantime, the parents have been saying they were working on cleaning up the shithole trailer they were living in. The place literally looked like a landfill. But WLOSers showed us video of the place, and not much had changed.
The county condemned the property and WLOSers interviewed an inspector who said there were electrical problems, lots of dead rats on the property and a junk vehicle that still needed to be removed.
The parents are charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor.
Volvo expansion
All week, Jon “Punnyman” Le has been climbing on stuff. First he was climbing over piles of bricks in downtown Ashvegas at the site of a demolished building. He was tossing stuff and strutting over the debris like a plantation owner. Then on Thursday, Le got to play on a giant excavator built by Volvo here in Ashvegas. That’s because Volvo announced that it would be investing $25 million into its manufacturing facilities here and start making this new line of heavy machinery. The plan also includes adding 265 jobs, which would more than double the company’s workforce locally.
Le’s video quoted a bunch of officials falling all over themselves to thank Volvo for sticking around and hiring some more people. He quoted a Volvo guy saying the company came close to shutting down because sales were down. But Le’s weak reporting offered zero details on what state and local officials did to help Vovlo. Just how much taxpayer money was spent on incentives to keep the company here, Le? Huh? How ’bout some time spent telling us some details, rather than time wasted watching you dancing on a bulldozer?
One positive – Le actually wore a jacket and tie. Usually he looks like he just rolled out of bed and slapped on one of the standard-issue WLOS denim shirts and some wrinkled chinos.
Barbecued racoon?
WLOSers told us that a Polk County girl was bitten by a racoon recently at Harmon Field, the same place that this weekend’s state Barbecue Festival is being held. The child was treated for rabies, but nobody knows for sure if the racoon is rabid. Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan said local authorities are urging people to be on the lookout for a crazy racoon, and urgiing people not to “provoke” a racoon into doing anything crazy. “Don’t get that racoon mad,” reiterated Gloryhole Blunt.
In other news…
A UNCA weather professor got a $500,000 grant from NASA to work on computer models to measure tropical storm winds speeds far out and sea to help improve hurricane predictions… A giant oak tree on the campus of Haywood Community College is at risk of being cut down. The “turkey oak” is more than 100 years old and students are looking for ways to save it… The Cherokee drama “Unto These Hills” has been updated and remade. The long-running outdoor drama has debuted to lukewarm reviews.
I’m sorry but I don’t understand, how could letting your child be eat up by rats be called contributing to the delinquency of a minor???? If someone knows,could they please explain? I could think of alot of charges that would be more fitting.