Tonight at 6pm the Macon County Commissioners will be continuing the meeting from February 14, 2012. [see video of that meeting]
I am in the Commissioners Board Room coverinjg the meeting tonight on my @WPIG Twitter Account using the #MaconGov. If you don't have an account, you may follow along on the widget at the bottom of this post.
The meeting agenda will be the same one we used in the meeting on the 14th, minus the items already covered in that meeting.
This is Tchaikovsky's earliest notable work, called "Winter Daydreams" and I think it is appropriate for those of us who have missed having a winter this year.
Details of the work and performance:
P. I. Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 1 "Winter Daydreams" in G minor, Op. 13 (1866) [Wikipedia]
1. Allegro tranquillo g-moll (Dreams of a Winter Journey)
2. Adagio cantabile ma non tanto (Land of Desolation, Land of Mists)
3. Allegro scherzando giocoso (Scherzo)
4. Andante lugubre (Finale)
Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra [Discography]
Conductor - Vladimir Fedoseyev [web] [Wikipedia]
Recorded live at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, 1991
Whenever I hear this work, I cannot help but think that Jerry Goldsmith borrowed a musical phrase or two from this piece and used it in his upbeat "Leaving Drydock" that was used in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I have embedded a video of it below...
The National Weather service has issued a Red Flag Warning for most of western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina and Northeast Georgia for today. So, don't burn your trash, debris or garden area off today. Put that off until a better time.
740 AM EST SAT FEB 25 2012
...RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EST THIS EVENING FOR
WIND AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR YORK COUNTY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG HAS ISSUED
A RED FLAG WARNING FOR WIND AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY...WHICH IS
IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EST THIS EVENING.
* LOCATIONS...WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA AND NORTHEAST GEORGIA.
* TIMING...GUSTS WILL INCREASE WITH MIXING FROM MID MORNING INTO
THE AFTERNOON. RELATIVE HUMIDITIES WILL DROP RAPIDLY BY EARLY
AFTERNOON.
* WINDS...NORTHWEST 15 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 40 MPH.
* HUMIDITY...AS LOW AS 17 PERCENT.
* FUEL MOISTURE...FUELS ARE MARGINALLY DRY...BUT LOCATIONS THAT
MISSED OUT ON RAINFALL FRIDAY AFTERNOON WILL LIKELY SEE BRUSH
DRY OUT QUICKLY TODAY.
* IMPACTS...FIRE DANGER WILL BE HEIGHTENED AS THE WINDS INCREASE
AND RELATIVE HUMIDITY VALUES FALL TODAY.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A RED FLAG WARNING MEANS THAT CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS
ARE EITHER OCCURRING NOW...OR WILL SHORTLY. A COMBINATION OF
STRONG WINDS...LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY...AND WARM TEMPERATURES WILL
CREATE EXPLOSIVE FIRE GROWTH POTENTIAL.
Of course, the NC Forest Service [link] hasn't even bothered to put a special notice of the dangerous conditions on their website and only a couple of their offices are even awake at 8am:
Anyhow, don't go burning today and keep an eye for people who are just stupid enough to be burning today.
Quinnipiac has conducted a national survey that is quite extensive and includes a few questions on attitudes toward abortion and here are the crosstabs of one of those questions:
57. Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases or illegal in all cases?
Choices
Tot
Rep
Dem
Ind
Men
Wom
Wht
Blk
His
Legal all cases
22%
12%
33%
21%
20%
24%
22%
21%
19%
Legal most cases
33%
21%
40%
37%
35%
30%
32%
36%
39%
Illegal most cases
25%
37%
12%
27%
27%
23%
27%
20%
22%
Illegal all cases
14%
24%
10%
9%
13%
16%
14%
16%
14%
DK/NA
6%
5%
5%
6%
6%
6%
5%
7%
6%
Survey of 2,605 registered voters was conducted February 14-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 1.9 percentage points. Party ID: 30% Democrat; 28% Republican; 33% Independent. [Click here to see the entire poll]
Those opposed to abortion are losing the battle of public opinion and polls like this should serve as a warning that their current strategies and tactics in this culture war are not working. Those of us who are opposed to abortion should go back to the drawing board and develop another set of strategies and tactics if we hope to win this cultural war.
There was also a question regarding Roe v Wade and 64% of Americans agreed with the court decision while 31% opposed.
I've broken down the numbers on question #57 a bit further:
Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases or illegal in all cases?
I had some business to take care of in Jackson County this morning and here are some photos I took while over there...
Traffic was backed up due to the road leading into Sylva from Dillsboro being periodically blocked by Town Crews. They were removing trees from the hill below the library and dragging them down the road to be cut up at the old Rescue Squad Building. I waited nearly 20 minutes going in and 12 minutes going back out. It seems to me they should have established a detour route if they were going to be blocking the road for that period of time.
People were pulling out and driving up the wrong side of the road so they could detour around the road blockage.
The hill does look nice now. I hope it doesn't end up sliding into the road since all the trees (or most of them, anyway) are now gone.
This guy probably made better time than I did this morning.
The Macon County Economic Development Commission board met on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 and the above video is from that meeting.
The Macon County EDC has a website [link]that is being developed as a tool to assist business owners see the advantages of locating their businesses in Macon County, as well as a resource for the business community that already are in the county. The EDC Director spent several minutes going through the various features of the website at the above meeting.
Tommy Jenkins and the board also discussed the upcoming BizWeek 2012 that is scheduled for April 9-12 in Macon County.
On April 10th, there will be am Entrepreneur Networking Night beginning at 7pm at The Rathskeller in downtown Franklin where Pam Lewis, the Director of Entrepreneurship of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, will be speaking. Register for this event online.
On April 11th, there will be a seminar during the day for entrepreneurs. More information about that will be released later.
And on April 12th, the Macon EDC Banquet will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the Holly Springs Baptist Church at 6pm and Keith Crisco, the North Carolina Department of Commerce Secretary, will be delivering the keynote. Register for this event online.
Unemployment Data for Macon County was released at this meeting and is as follows:
Month/Year
% Unemployment
% Unemployed Yearly Avg
December 2011
11.3%
10.9%
December 2010
10.5%
11.0%
December 2009
12.0%
11.2
December 2008
8.9%
6.0%
December 2007
4.3%
4.1%
Here is data showing that Macon County is the regional sales leader west of the Balsams:
County
December 2011
Macon
$29,339,062
Jackson
$24,943,677
Cherokee
$16,905,968
Swain
$6,559,801
Clay
$5,243,541
Graham
$3,318,371
The next meeting of the Macon County EDC board will be on March 20, 2012 in the Cecil Groves Building on the campus of Southwestern Community College.
This is video of the Arizona Republican Presidential Debate that took place last night in Mesa, Arizona. It will be the last time the candidates go head to head before this cycle's down-sized Super Tuesday on March 6th.
In case you've missed the other debates, or wish to compare the performances of the various candidates over time, here is a list linking to where you can watch videos of the previous 19 debates in this cycle:
"Wander a whole summer if you can. Thousands of God's blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted."
"The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation." ~Dr Russell Kirk
The above quote comes from Dr Kirk's 5th Principle of conservatism, reprinted below:
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Ever since 1971, the third Monday in February has been recognized as Washington's Birthday. Here is a little tribute to the man who was our nation's first President.
Here is the first movement of the Holiday Symphony by Charles Ives called "Washington's Birthday"for your enjoyment:
A PBS Program on the full Holiday Symphony is at the bottom of this post.
Here are links to 13 volumes of the writings of George Washington on the Internet Archive. These works are in the public domain, so may be copied and distributed without regard to copyright. The books are available in several electronic formats for reading on your computer or whatever brand of eReader you use.
On February 11, 2012, the Transylvania County Republican party hosted a candidate forum in the 11th Congressional District Republican Primary and held a straw poll.
I've been waiting to post this information until I had an actual vote tally to report.This morning I received a tally in a personal communication with a member of the Transylvania County GOP.
Here it is:
25 Mark Meadows
15 Jeff Hunt
7 Kenny West
4 Vance Patterson
3 Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
1 Spence Campbell
1 Ethan Wingfield
0 Susan Harris
0 Chris Petrella
If anyone took video of the forum, they have yet to post it online. If they do, I'll embed it here.
Newt Gingrich is quickly becoming a laugh track candidate. By that I mean when he opens his mouth to speak, you expect to hear a laugh track in the background because no serious person (or at least one in full control of his mental faculties)would say the things he does.
His latest outburst is a statement that Mitt Romney should drop out of the Republican nomination if he doesn't win Michigan.
“If he loses his home state, I don’t see what he says the next morning to his donors to stay in the race,” Mr. Gingrich told Fox News Sunday.
If a person hasn't been paying attention to this primary race this cycle, he or she might not know that Newt has won only one state out of nine and Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have each won four states. If anyone should go, it is Newt Gingrich.
GOP Delegates Awarded So Far:
Candidate
States Won
Total Delegates
Bound
Unbound
Mitt Romney
NH, FL, NV, ME
99
73
26
Rick Santorum
IA,MO,CO,MN
47
3
44
Newt Gingrich
SC
32
29
4
Ron Paul
None
20
8
12
So, you can see how things are currently in the race as far as the delegate count goes. Some of the delegates that are unbound are free to choose another candidate to support after the first ballot is cast at the national convention, other states allow their delegates to choose whomever they wish despite who has won the support of voters in their state. Typically, delegates in caucus states may choose who they will support. In years past, they've almost always gone for who ever holds the lead in the delegate count at the national convention.
RNC Delegate Math
The real reason the primary race is dragging out so long this year is that the RNC (in their very limited wisdom) decided it would be best if the primary lasted until May so the candidates could dig up dirt on each other and alienate the various factions of the Republican party in the process.
On August 6, 2010, the Republican National Committee (RNC) adopted new rules for the timing of elections, with 103 votes in favor out of 144.[source] Under this plan, elections for delegates to the national convention were to be divided into three periods:[source]
February 1 – March 5, 2012: Contests of traditional early states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina,
March 6–31, 2012: Contests that proportionally allocate delegates,
April 1, 2012, and onward: All other contests including winner-take-all elections.
Several states, most notably Florida, scheduled their contests earlier than prescribed. This pressured every traditional early state except Nevada to push back their contest into January. As a result of their violation of RNC rules, these states were penalized with a loss of half their delegates, including voting right for RNC delegates. Despite having early caucuses, Iowa, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri were not automatically penalized, because their contests do not bind national delegates until after the prescribed time period for the early voting states.
If Gingrich really was interested in defeating Romney, he'd be the one to drop out of the race instead. The only thing that is keeping him afloat is a billionaire sugar daddy named Sheldon Adelson. [$21 million so far]
The Real Clear Politics polling average has shown that numerous ABR (Anyone But Romney) candidates have enjoyed a brief time as a bubble candidate before they are vetted in this drawn out primary season and dropped as unelectable in comparison to Romney by the conventional wisdom of the polls.
Dr Dan Eichenbaum has decided not to file for election in the 11th Congressional District Republican Primary. Here is the announcement I just received in my email:
With the filing deadline upon us, having spent many of the past days in prayer and discussions with family and friends, I have decided that I will not file for US Congress in North Carolina’s 11th District.
Over the past several months of the campaign, listening to the other candidates for Congress in NC 11, I find increasingly little difference, on paper or in words, between the positions I have consistently held and theirs. More importantly, I am unable to self-fund sufficiently to compete against those who can. As such, I see no clear path to victory in the primary.
I wish to extend my appreciation to my wife and my children, my team, family, friends and all who have supported me in my political endeavors over the past two election cycles. My thanks and appreciation go out to the Asheville Tea Party, Blue Ridge Tea Party Patriots, Cherokee County 9-12 Project, the FairTax organization, and other grassroots organizations who, standing firm on conservative principles, refuse to give in to pressure from the establishment of both political parties.
I extend my deepest heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Jane Bilello, Chair of the Asheville Tea Party and Asheville Tea Pac, for her unwavering commitment to saving our nation at great personal sacrifice.
For those candidates seeking the support of grassroots groups, especially those affiliated with the iCaucus, I urge you to submit to its vetting process. Evaluation and approval of your platform by independent groups gives citizens of this district the ability to hold you accountable for your actions in Washington, D.C.
Be assured, I will continue to champion private property rights, Constitutionally limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal restraint, individual liberty, and a free market economy based on the principles of sound monetary policy.
I remain passionately committed to educating everyone I can on the urgency of repealing ObamaCare in January 2013, and spreading awareness about Agenda 21, the United Nation’s incremental plan to take away US citizen's private property rights and, ultimately, US sovereignty.
As patriots, we must resist with vigor the elitists in the current administration and their fellow travelers in both parties who seek to steal our birthright of Freedom and replace it with the tyranny of Socialism.
"Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors moulded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines. For what remains to us, nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot. And what am I to say of the men? For our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are now called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word "republic" long after we have lost the reality."
Update #2 (These videos are still processing at Youtube, so it may be an hour or so before they are availble for viewing).
Part One
Includes the 6pm public hearing on proposal to term limit members of the Macon County Planning Board.
Part Two
Includes the second public hearing of the meeting on a proposal to remove a reference to the 2006 slope hazard map and a public comment period that included representatives of local towing companies concerned that preferential treatment is be given to calling another towing company to tow vehicles away from accident scenes.
Part Three
This is the third (and last) part of the February 14, 2012 meeting of the Macon County Commissioners. This video covers the discussion among Commissioners on theproposed amendment that established term limits for members of the county planning board and the discussion and vote to remove the refernce to the slope hazard map from the Macon County Subdivision Ordinance, the Consent Agenda and the consideration or revising the appointment procedure to county boards. The Commissioners than went into closed session after announcing that they would have a continuation meeting on February 28, 2012 in the Commissioners Board Room to take up the rest of tonight's agenda.
Update #1
Tonight's meeting of the Macon County Commissioners lasted five hours before they went into closed session.
Over 100 people showed up at the meeting and they moved it upstairs to the 4th floor courtroom and there were still people who couldn't get in.
Something like 50 speakers addressed the County Commissioners (this is counting some who spoke in each of the two public hearings and in the public comment) until nearly ten pm.
Long story short, the Commissioners amended the subdision ordinance and placed term limits on the county planning board starting one appointment from now. I'll have more detailed notes out sometime late tomorrow.
Don't know when I'll get the video of the meeting out. My laptop is in the repairshop, so everything will be taking much longer to do.
The Macon County Commissioners will be meeting tonight at 6pm and I will be there to cover the meeting. If you have a Twitter client, you may follow along using the hashtag #MaconGov. If you are not a Twitter user, then there is a Twitter Widget at the bottom of this post that will update automatically as I tweet. I will be using my @WPIG account.
The two main attractions tonight are the tow truck operators and the public hearing on the planning board. Since my laptop is at the repair shop, I am not sure when I will be able to upload the audio or video of the meeting.
The agenda of the meeting is below:
MACON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
FEBRUARY 14, 2012
AGENDA
1.Call to order and welcome by Chairman Corbin
2.Announcements
3.Invocation
4.Pledge of Allegiance
5.Public Hearings
A.6:00 p.m. – Proposed amendments to An Ordinance To Establish A Planning Board For Macon County
B.6:30 p.m. – Proposed amendment to the Subdivision Ordinance of Macon County
6.Public Comment Period
A.911 Dispatch procedures for towing – Lloyd Cox with Ambassador Automotive and Walter Hunter with Franklin Body Shop
7.Adjustments to and approval of the agenda
8.Reports/Presentations
9.Old Business
10.New Business
A.Consideration of amendments to the planning board ordinance
B.Consideration of amendment to the subdivision ordinance
C.Lease of property on Fulton Road
D.Consideration of Change Orders 9 and 10 on the Little Tennessee River/Cartoogechaye Creek Trunk Sewer Project
E.Farm Land Use Program – County Manager
11.Consent Agenda – Attachment #11
All items below are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion. No separate discussion will be held except on request of a member of the Board of Commissioners.
A.Minutes
B.Budget amendments
C.Tax releases
D.Tax refunds
E.Approval of Health Center lab fee
F.Amended ordinance concerning procedures for disposing of personal property
12.Appointments
A.Consideration of revision to appointment procedure
B.Planning Board
C.Economic Development Commission
D.Library Board
13.Closed session
A.Per G.S. 143-318.11(3), to preserve the attorney/client privilege
B.Per G.S. 143-381.11(5), with regard to property acquisition
14.Adjournment/Recess
NOTE: The Board will need to set a date for the joint meeting with the towns of Franklin and Highlands, perhaps for mid to late March.
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Red Flag Warning for WNC
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