The Monday news wrap-up

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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E-mail onslaught
The Asheville School, continuing to wage war on its potential new neighbor – Wal-Mart – unleashed a new weapon, according to Jon “Punnyman” Le. It’s called “e-mail.”

Last week, the hoity-toity Asheville School, a private college prep school that costs like $32,000 a year to attend, announced that it wanted Ashvegas City Council to require the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter to build a big berm and a fence and hire a security guard to patrol 24 hours a day. The school also doesn’t want the WallyWorld to sell firearms.

So the Asheville School put up a form letter on its fancy web site to make it easy for anyone to e-mail City Council its demands. Councilman Carl Mumpower said he’d gotten like 50 e-mails and didn’t like it. He said he felt like the school was taking advantage of the situation, or something. I didn’t quite understand his point.

Anyway, here’s the link to the Asheville School’s form letter, if you want to check it out.

Zoning problems
In another example of WLOSers doing something different (Jon Le reported a news story at 6, though he usually sticks to his pun reports), Julie WunderBlunder reported on the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods asking the city’s board of adjustment to take action on three projects the didn’t approve of: Walgreen’s construction on Merrimon Ave; the Staples project on Merrimon Ave; and a big Prudential sign somewhere.

The board of adjustment told the neighborhood activists 1) you’re too late with your appeals and 2) we’re not the right venue for your complaints – go see City Council or something.

Hanger hangs it up
Howard Hanger, a Methodist minister, announced that he would “turn in his ordination” because he disagreed with the church’s stance disallowing gay marriage. Hanger said it was a fairness issue and he didn’t feel he could say one couple’s love was fine, while another’s wasn’t.

With Hanger’s move, that now makes three Ashvegas ministers that have taken public stances like this.

Lottery ticks on sale Thursday
I think that was the essence of WLOS story on Sunday. On Monday, they had a story about how lottery tickets will be sold in neighborhoods where poor peoople live.

Ghostriders give up the ship
Ashvegas’ minor league arena football team is calling it quits on the rest of its football season. I think they played three games locally? Four? Why can’t we get any decent pro sports teams in this town besides the Asheville Tourists?

Lady Tar Heels rock!
The Lady Tar Heels will play Tennessee tonight for a ticket to the Final Four in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament. Sparkplug Ivory Latta hit a last second shot the other night to beat Purdue. Now she’ll take on those dreaded Vols. Go Heels!

By the way, did you see the tidbit on the Final Four in the men’s tournament? There were three million brackets filled out online at ESPN.com. Guess how many correctly picked this year’s Final Four. Four. Four who picked LSU, UCLA, Florida and real Cinderella George Mason. I think those four must be George Mason fans, who picked them all the way to the top.