Archive for Environment
Brownie Newman for Buncombe County Commission
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Look what landed in my inbox this morning! Brownie’s skills, talents, leadership, and effectiveness are going to move Buncombe County in the right direction.
Brownie Newman today announced his plans to run for Buncombe County Commission. Newman has served two terms as a member of Asheville City Council and has served as Mayor Pro Tem since 2009. Newman did not run for re-election to City Council in 2011. His last official day as a member of City Council is Dec. 6.
“As a member of Asheville City Council, I tried to set ambitious, achievable goals for our community. I am proud that we have established Asheville as a leader for energy independence and green jobs, promoted the growth of locally owned businesses and made it clear that we are an inclusive community that supports equal rights for all our citizens,” said Newman.
Newman cited these as some of the key accomplishments on City Council:
Established Asheville as a leader for clean, renewable energy:
- Asheville City Council committed the city to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% and to require all new municipal building to LEED Gold standards.
- Asheville replaced its old, polluting diesel buses with a new fleet including clean, quiet hybrid buses and is replacing its city street lights with LED bulbs, which will save taxpayers $650,000 a year in lower utility bills.
- Newman helped secure funding for Asheville Green Opportunities, to provide job training and mentoring for young people from low income neighborhoods so they can develop work experience in the new clean energy economy.
Supported job creation, locally owned businesses and working families:
- Asheville worked with Mountain BizWorks to create a revolving loan fund to provide capital to local citizens to start their own business.
- Asheville partnered with Buncombe County to bring Linamar to Asheville, who will create at least 400 or more good paying manufacturing jobs and put the property formerly occupied by Volvo back into productive uses.
- Asheville held the line on property tax rate while investing more than $35 million to fix our long neglected water infrastructure.
Along with other members of Council, Newman supported a domestic partnership policy to extend equal workplace rights to municipal employees. The policy assures city workers will receive the same compensation for doing their job, regardless of sexual orientation.
“During a time when state legislators are trying to change North Carolina’s Constitution to discriminate against our citizens, I am proud that our community is standing up for equality,” said Newman.
In addition to his work on City Council, Newman is also one of the partners at FLS Energy, a local solar utility company. Since Newman joined FLS Energy in 2008, the company has grown from eight employees to more than eighty. Newman serves as Vice-President and Project Finance Director. He is one of the four members on the FLS board of directors.
Newman will be running in a new two-member County Commission district that includes most of Asheville and the central part of Buncombe County. Long-time County Commissioner Bill Stanley has announced he will not seek re-election.
Holly Jones is currently a commissioner from this district who plans to run for re-election. Newman and Jones previously served together on Asheville City Council and the two plan to support one another for County Commission.
“Holly has done a great job as County Commissioner. I am proud to lend my full support to her re-election campaign and am honored to have her support.” said Newman. Holly Jones added, “I am excited that Brownie is running for County Commission. He has contributed a lot to the City Council over the past eight years and he will be an effective member of the Commission.”
The Newman campaign will hold its kick-off event in January. Details to follow.
To learn more about Newman for County Commission, go to http://www.facebook.com/BrownieNewman
http://twitter.com/brownienewman
Bill McKibben at UNCA tonight
Posted by: | CommentsFrom Mountain Xpress:
Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, The Global Warming Reader, and other defining books on the environment has become a galvanizing force in American politics. On tour, he will be visiting
Asheville on Wednesday, November 30 to speak at Lipinsky Hall, on the campus of UNCA. The program begins at 7:00 PM.
While McKibben is best known for his environmental writing, there’s a non-environmental essay from 2005 I keep going back to: The Christian paradox: How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong. McKibben examines that bizarre amalgam of Horatio Alger, Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ that for many Americans passes for Christianity, the same faith that informs McKibben’s environmentalism.
Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
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And on and on. The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they’re talking about. They’re like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track. But their theology is appealing for another reason too: it coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell.
Points to Ponder
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Lots of important topics on tap for the last meeting of this incarnation of City Council. While there’s one issue that has folks banging the drum more loudly, there are several others that also have far-reaching consequences. I’d love to hear more from everyone about them.
For those of you interested in it, Civic Center Naming Rights post is here
For those of you interested in conservation and development – there’s a behemoth development proposed for the ETJ.
For those of you interested in water issues and business issues, we’re having another look at potential water rate changes for heavy manufacturing.
For those of you interested in multimodal transportation, particularly transit, we’re having a look at whether to renew the contract for Transit Management Services to the current company, First Transit.
L.E.D.ing The Way
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City of Asheville press release:
Beginning Monday, Nov. 21, the city will move into Phase II of a streetlight upgrade program in which traditional bulbs will be upgraded to LED bulbs. Retrofits will take place Monday through Thursday between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. with no expectations of traffic disruption.
In spring of last year, the City of Asheville successfully installed 700 lights in River District and Kenilworth neighborhoods in Phase I of the street light upgrade project. Phase II has a broader reach and will involve 2800 streetlights across West Asheville, Kenilworth and Oakley. Once completed all four phases are expected to save $650,000 annually and 2628 tons of avoided carbon which is equal to the amount of carbon absorbed from 60,000 trees.
Phase I of the four year initiative began in May 2011 and has generated $32,000 in actual savings. City Council’s approval of the Green Capital Improvement Plan rounds out the triple bottom line impact of the project. The plan, adopted in the 2011-2012 budget commits all dollar savings from municipal energy efficiency projects to future energy efficiency projects.
The City of Asheville is the first in the nation to implement this innovative financial model where all the energy savings pay for the streetlight investment. The lighting upgrades build further upon the successful lighting ordinance passed in 2008 which ensures all municipal streetlights adhere to “Dark Sky” standards.
Dr. Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center
Posted by: | CommentsApproving funding for this community center was among my first votes on City Council, and it’s deeply gratifying to see the doors open. The Grant Center will be a new community hub for residents of Southside neighborhood and the River Arts District. It symbolizes healthy renewal and a integration of vision across generations. Thanks to all of the partners who helped make it a reality. I hope you’ll come and celebrate with us.
City of Asheville press release:
The City of Asheville invites the public to the grand opening of the Dr. Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, Asheville’s newest community center located at the former site of Livingston Street Park. Mayor Terry Bellamy will officiate the event on Thursday, October 13 at 5:30 p.m. at the center located at 285 Livingston Street at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street. The dedication ceremony begins at 5:30 followed by an open house until 7:30.
Declaration from Occupy NYC
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I’ve been watching the Occupy Events grow across the country and waiting to find out what it’s all about. As with so many left-leaning political efforts, there’s an air of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink to the issues raised. When I attended the protests against invading Iraq, I saw “Free Mumia”, “Keep Abortion Legal”, “End the Death Penalty”, and other activists out there piggy-backing on the message of the march.
When Occupy Wall Street began, I wondered if the same approach would occur. As of now, it’s uncertain. The movement is new, and as more people come to it, the purpose and message will adapt to meet their agendas. At some point, it’ll either boil down to something actionable (a la “Taxed Enough Already”) or it’ll peter out. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that lots of people are spontaneously coming together under interesting methods of self-governance to address local, national, and international issues is newsworthy.
In the interest of furthering the conversation about Occupy, I’m posting the “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City“. Click below the fold to read.
The “Execution Cheer”
Posted by: | CommentsThe New York Times posts a rundown of commentary on the the “execution cheer” at the Republican candidates’ debate on Wednesday, reminding readers that the cheer went up at the Reagan Library in California. The “gasp within a gasp” was Perry’s untroubled defense — no moral doubts about having ever executing an innocent — of Texas justice. The “it takes guts to execute an innocent man” caucus burst into applause.
Andrew Sullivan writes on his Daily Beast live blog, “Here’s why I find it impossible to be a Republican: any crowd that instantly cheers the execution of 234 individuals is a crowd I want to flee, not join.”
The Atlantic ’s Ta-Nehisi Coates performs the obligatory “both sides do it” genuflect, noting that no Democratic candidate in two decades has opposed the death penalty. But only after writing, “The only thing that shocked me was that they didn’t form a rumba line. It’s a Republican debate. And it’s America … the country where we took kids to see men lynched, and then posed for photos.”
Several others trot out the readily available evidence that the death penalty has been used to execute the innocent, as well as evidence that Perry himself signed off on the execution of an innocent man. This, in spite of 41 exonerations from DNA evidence in the last decade in Texas alone.
Steve Benen of Washington Monthly points out Perry’s doubt-free lack of consistency about the value of evidence:
Scientists tell him, after rigorous, peer-reviewed, international research that global warming is real, and Perry responds, “I don’t care.” A deeply flawed judicial process puts potentially-innocent Americans on death row, and Perry responds, “Let’s get the killin’ started.”
The governor balks when presented with evidence on evolution, abstinence education, and climate change, but embraces without question the notion that everyone he’s killed in Texas was 100% guilty. The scientific process, he apparently believes, is unreliable, while the state criminal justice system is infallible.
Intellectually, morally, and politically, this isn’t just wrong; it’s scary. The fact that Republicans in the audience found this worthy of hearty applause points to a party that’s bankrupt in more ways than one.
Apples to Apples
Posted by: | CommentsIn a post at the Progressive Pulse (the blog of NC Policy Watch), Brenna Burch lists a few of the accounting tricks that make the difference between the legislature’s budget and Governor Perdue’s seem smaller than it actually is:
While the legislature’s total appropriation is $19.7 billion, about $197 million of that amount comes from moving the Highway Patrol’s budget from the Highway Fund to the General Fund. The Highway Patrol has long been accounted for under the Transportation budget, which is funded not by General Fund revenues – personal income tax, corporate income tax, sales tax, etc. – but by the highway use tax and the gas tax. So, while this shift has no net impact on total State revenues or spending, the act of transferring it over to the General Fund is shown as $197 million in increased availability, offset by $197 million in “new” General Fund spending. This raises the total budget number to $19.7 billion, up from $19.5 billion.
Got it? About $200 million of the legislature’s budget is money that Beverly Perdue would also have spent – it’s just that she didn’t throw it into the general fund. There are a few other tricks like that: Brenna points to the Wildlife Resource Commission, and I would mention the shifting of More at Four out of the “education” budget and into the “human resources” budget (which, whatever the merits of the change, allows Republicans to crow about how little they’ve slashed “education” funding).
She provides a chart laying out the differences between Perdue’s cuts and the legislature’s on a subject-by-subject basis. Using that chart and a spreadsheet, you get the following real differences between the two budgets:
Read More→
Signature Moments Open Thread
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Rainbow Near Bunsen Peak , Yellowstone NP. By Jerry Taylor
Over coffee this morning we were reliving “signature moments,” those fleeting, magical experiences that you would go back and relive if you could.
One such moment was at dusk during a late October visit to Yellowstone. We had the park to ourselves and drove for miles not see another car. Above Mammoth Hot Springs (that is, south), we stopped in Gardiner’s Hole to take in the silence as the sun set. The elk were still in rut. In the dying light, we couldn’t see them against the trees, but their eerie bugles echoed across the valley with no one but us to hear them.
Share your signature moments below.
