Batten down the hatches, Vance County could see 40mph winds this weekend, and rain at around 1-2 inches. For tips on how to prepare for a hurricane, here’s a fairly good article. Click here for an updated look at the storm track.
As of this writing, according to the United Pullers of the Carolina’s website, the Friday night tractor pull at the Vance County Fairgrounds are still on. There is not a mention of Saturdays though as of yet.
In financial news, Warren Buffet’s Berkshire has bought $5billion worth of Bank of America preferred stock on Thursday. Mr Buffett, who made $4.5bn in profit from a similar move investing in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis, said he was impressed by Bank of America’s “profit-generating” capabilities. He added he had contacted the bank’s beleaguered chief executive Brian Moynihan on Wednesday morning proposing the deal, saying: “Bank of America is a strong, well-led company Brian… I wanted to invest in it.” The shares closed up 11pc on Wednesday. More details on the deal can be found here. Word is he already made a virtual $280million profit in under 24 hours.
Welcome to the Friday / Weekend Open Lines!
The hurricane is coming…………………. doesn’t anybody care? Swamp fires, forrest fires,earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. What’s next? A swam of locust? Did the rapture happen and I’m left behind? Where is everyone on this blog? Hello! Hello! Helloooooo! What’s happened to me?
Have all the bloggers left and gone to another site?
Phil, you must have a lonely job getting all of this info together for everyone and no one notices. I really feel sorry for you. Thank you for your effort and trying to rallye this town together though!
I’m still here, Mudball, and do read Phil’s thread notices.
Wishing everyone a safe weekend.
Isn’t it kind of strange that hardly anyone post any more? What is going on?
It took me over three months before I could get on the site. Wouldn’t except old pass word or give me a newone. Thought I had been banned
I check HiH all the time Mudball. Like many, sometimes I post and sometimes I don’t. This place is great for information on local news and events. I too appreciate all the Mr. Hart and Staff are doing to both inform and spark the imaginations of our area.
Login has been a problem sometimes. I spoke with Phil about it and he was working on it. I believe he may have it fixed. It seems to be much more friendly now as I haven’t had any problems logging on lately. Mr. Mojo, this is where I get all of my info as the HDD is a big disappointment for the community. Keep up the great work Phil! Kudo’s to you!
Time to spice this up a bit. So much about the beach–. To own property down there is a luxury and beyond the means of many of us. It is a beautiful area and I am glad so many Hendersonians are able to afford and enjoy their second homes.
Everyone knows it is a precarious area and Dr. Pilkey has his opinions on that area. I pray for no harm to life limb or property for here as well as at the Coast. “We takes our chances”.
Well said.
People posted on this blog to vent their frustration with the status quo, thinking maybe things could get better. The powers that be would not let this happen, things in Vance County are getting worse not better and I don’t see this changing any time soon. I think people including myself have just given up.
There’s always room to criticize the powers that be. I might not can change things but I can vent my frustrations verbally. I do speak my mind.
All, thank you. I wish we had more time and money to devote to this. Really, more money, as with that we can buy some time (reporters). But we do what we can with what we have. It may seem worthless to casual visitors who don’t see many comments. But I know the actual number of readers. (over 6,500 total in the last 30 days. Over 5,000 in Henderson) I know the people who like you wrote here, thank me in person nearly every day for the service. I know the many people in all sorts of places that read this. And those people absolutely do care about what your comments are. Yes, I mean people in political and government positions. They can’t say, but I know the same departments and people you think aren’t listening are indeed.
But here’s the problem. Comments on this blog, or anywhere else, can’t be taken into consideration in the normal political/government process. You guys need to go to the city council meetings, the board of commissioner meetings, the board of education meetings, sign up at the start of the meeting, and make your comments in front of them directly. It gets on public record in the minutes, and is officially taken into consideration by the people that can change things. Use HiH as a place to organize your actions. As a group if you feel strongly about something, organize here, but you’ve got to take that to the official meetings for them to have any effect. If there’s anything that HiH can do to help you guys with this please make some suggestions.
Our reporter that goes to the city council meetings has commented on the lack of public participation in them. The audience is mostly other city employees it seems, and not the public that will be affected by the outcomes. Occasionally a few citizens will come, but the lack of public interest in the meetings themselves has been fairly obvious. Do you have any ideas on how to increase public participation in the meetings we could help with?
The number of comments here has nothing to do with inactivity. Consider this. Would you say the Henderson Dispatch is a more active community than HiH? They have commenting abilities on articles as well, which are very rarely used at all. HiH has much more activity than the local news paper comment wise. They do offer a great resource of local news that I would love to be able to have here. Perhaps one day we will, but for now we are focusing on keeping a safe, available place for you guys to come and discuss your thoughts freely.
Gee…why do only a few show up…is it maybe because this town has become overpopulated by a Section 8 population who are enjoying the status quo? Who is left who actually WANT to work? There is a lack of jobs for sure, but look around — there are way too many people taking advantage of the generosity of the taxpayers and in fact victimize us. What a joke of a system. So a handful of taxpayers and a whole lot of users. At some point it will implode — you can’t pay for a government or any services when no one is paying their taxes or are in fact taxpayers.
Well put Phil. I have visited Council and Commission meetings for years. There has always been very little participation. I don’t know what it would take to stimulate people either. Historically the biggest audience has been when a racial issue has arisen. Yes there have been times such as zoning and the shooting range that have stimulated people but we are talking in general. People just choose to stay at home and then wonder why……………………..
Mrs. Fox…..where are you? I went by the PUBLIC LIBRARY in the pouring rain to print some important documents from the computer today but was told by the 2 ladies that were at the front desk doing nothing more than talking to one another that the computers were down. When I asked why b/c the power was on or was it just a “computer issue”. Both looking like they didn’t know how to answer the question referred me to the Head of the Library whose name is Jennifer Brax. I asked Ms. Brax were the computers ‘down’ b/c of a computer problem or what. Her response was somewhat disturbing to me considering I really needed to use the computer to print off some documents. She said the lights had been ‘flickering on/off’ a couple of times and she didn’t want to risk harming the computers. When I asked about things such as surge protection she immediately blowed it off and basically told me the computers were not going to be ON anymore today. If she wasn’t so ‘unprofessional’ in her answer and her body language I probably would have let it be but I have seen the computers on during MAJOR thunderstorms and the lights ‘flicked on/off’ during this event as well.Guess what…..no harm to the computers according to the computer guy who worked there named Thomas. I guess I wouldn’t be that upset but the other day when I had a chance to go print the documents I got to the library to find out it had been closed due to the earthquake? What other public/county/city agencies closed after the earthquake on Tuesday in Vance County? Answer:NONE!!! They say your company(public/private) is only as strong as its weakest link. To that I say if Ms. Brax has this attitude to a taxpaying citizen such as myself about something so trivial then I guess the Board of Trustees needs to have a little talk with her. I will send my complaint/concern to both the city & county manager since the PUBLIC library is a Jointly Funded Venture. I know for a fact that the computers at the library have security systems in place that would cause NO HARM should the computers be operating and the power was to go off.
Why didn’t she just answer honestly and tell the truth instead of thinking she was talking to an idiot? She will find out who I am b/c I promise the letters will be in the city/county managers hands by Tuesday of this week…August 30th. Ms. Brax I will add that you were one of the rudest people I have ever met at the PUBLIC library and you just ‘blowing off my questions’ will not go unreported. That I can promise you!!!
Well Who Cares………… I do. I’m still upset that they are closed so much due to budget cutbacks. If we can’t afford to run the place then it doesn’t matter how big and nice it is either does it? I find it very hard to reason that they do not have surge protection in a facility like that. Progress Energy can provide that for them for the whole library………. wait a minute, I forgot the budget cutbacks. Can’t afford them. See my point? It’s pointless!
Also just wanted to let the town know that Mudball survived the herican that Gov, Bev warned us about. She has a funny way of saying hurricane!
I’m going to agree with Ms. Brax. Having power cycling on and off, even one time, can destroy a computer. When the power comes back on, it’s typical a surge is sent through the lines which can kill at least the power supply, if not more, on any computer, even with surge protectors. The most frequent cause of someone bringing in their computer to our shop where the computer won’t power on is that it occurred during the most recent storm where they lost power. The best thing to do for your computer ahead of a storm is to unplug the power cord from the outlet. Even if you have a surge protector or battery backup. If you were insistent they turn the computers back on during the storm I can see why she may have become rude to you.
I would suggest to Mr. Hart–it is never polite to be rude. I do not believe Ms. Brax is
the Head of The Library. I hope “Who cares—” follows through with his letters, including one to the Board of Trustees.
No, it’s not polite to be rude. But I’m assuming by the tone of Who Cares comment that it wasn’t a one way rudeness. Here’s how I can imagine it and I very well may be completely wrong. But I am of the type that realizes the customer is not always right and have dealt with difficult people many times. Again, just by the tone of the above comment, I see his visit to the library going like this: Sorry, our computers are off currently due to the storm. Why, don’t you have surge protectors? Yes, but we’ve decided to turn them off. I came here last week and you were closed after the earthquake, and now I can’t use the computers again, I really need this printed. Sorry, but we’re not going to risk one of our computers. You’ve had them on during thunderstorms in the past. Maybe, but we’re not going to turn them on. This is ridiculous, I just need my document printed. Again, sir, we won’t be turning them on. Thomas said the security systems on the computers would fix any damages. That’s not exactly what the security systems are for. He told me they were fine after the last storm. Sir, I’ve already told you that we’re not turning them on, now please leave. This is crazy, I paid my tax dollars for this and you’re going to cost me a lot of money by not having this document. Sir, we’re not going to help you, leave.
Who Cares, I play devils advocate. I have no idea what transpired. But it is a great policy to shut down the computers during a storm. Arguing with them about why could have been perceived as you being rude. If you were rude, and like I said in my first comment ‘insisted’ that the computers be turned on, she very well may have gotten rude back. I also know security systems have nothing to do with surge protection. And BTW the security systems they do have are pretty well useless from what I’ve seen. The lab computers I’ve used in the last month are using an improperly licensed AVG home user version, not to mention they are expired.
It is possible the conversation went as Mr. Hart described–but we aren’t sure. In any event, if the security system at the library is outdfated and inadequate–the tech and supplier of that service should fix it.
The letters should still go out to powers that be about the Saturday incident; sounds like they should know who has the final say when the Director is absent. In my opinion.
sorry phil hart but your assumption as to what took place is about as far out in space as some of your elected officials. I simply enquired as to why the computers were not on when the power was working fine. SIMPLE question, right? WRONG! Rude, unprofessional lady who happened to be Ms. Brax talked down to me with her words as well as her body language. All I can say is if that’s the best you can do as a replacement for Ms. Fox I say close it some more hours and save me some $$$. She didn’t seem to mind that 2 ladies at the front counter who were ‘on the clock’ were just sitting up there having a nice ole’ conversation. I knew I would get a ‘fishy’ answer about the computers when I first asked the 2 chatting ladies as to why the computers were on and they both looked at each other and told me to go speak with the Brax lady. So…..phil that is a 1st hand explanation and I promise that you haven’t heard the last of it. Like I said earlier, how many other public operations in the city/county closed down after the earthquake last week? Answer again;NONE!! It must be nice to use taxpayer $$$ and just be able to do as you please even if it is wrong. No way in the world they should have closed after the earthquake b/c the ‘cracks’ they saw were there way before the earthquake. Maybe if they would pay attention and stay open more they would know the condition of the facility.
After working with the public for 30 years, I found that the customers I had trouble with, everyone else did, too. And there is a huge flock in town ready to put down the library. What is a better asset to a community than a library, whichs serves every individual and not just one segment of the community.
Phil does a great job with the sight. Nobody wants a fake positive sight but HIH the way it was crippled the community with ugly comments.
I’ve worked a lot of different jobs, serving the public, and rarely find members of the public as difficult to deal with as most ‘higher ups’ who think they know my job better than I do, but don’t know their own. As for librarians, I think there must be a course at Library School in how to lord it over the public that they all pass with flying colors. Finally, it would be an enlightening study to tour taxpayer-paid facilities and see just how many employees are standing around visiting with each other — or sending messages to blogs or emailing their friends — on the taxpayers’ dime.
I look at HiH maybe once every two or three weeks. You say you had 6,500 readers over a 30 day period; is that 6,500 individually unique readers or the same 216 readers per day. Any fair person can see the absolute drop is participation since HiH changed hands about 6 months ago. What could you do to correct this should be the question you are asking. First and foremost focus Home In Henderson on Henderson and Vance County. If I want to know what is happening in Washington or Raleigh this is not the place to look. There are enough local issues that folks here are concerned and do not ever see discussed here or in the disgrace. HiH was a news source for and about Henderson when you bought it, now it appears to be an advertising tool for your company and a regurgitation of Murdock’s media empire. One definite positive at HiH there are embers of life unlike the near corpse oxford voice. I partially agree with you that change comes from participation. HiH in Jason’s hands brought about and stimulated some change. If you truly want HiH to be a catalyst for change then focus on local issues. Start by having someone attend the meetings and local events with cameras in hand. Focus on Henderson and Vance County that may encourage latent participants to return.
“HiH in Jason’s hands brought about and stimulated some change”.
Would like to know an example of that change, can’t think of anything. “Change” is one of those vague words like “hope”. With this format, the readers vote out the offensive comments they don’t want shown, sounds “fair” to me.
Anonymous said it right; thanks for putting in words what I was thinking. Something is missing on this site. There is nothing that can be done about the issues in Raleigh or Washington, but what can be done are issues concerning Henderson/Vance county. I ask myself alot of times “Did a local politician succced in shutting down HnH?” And I think he did!
Anonymous, I think maybe you’re visiting the wrong website. I’ll clarify that that is 6,500 individually unique readers. Over 14,000 visits, and almost 40,000 page views. All from July 31 to August 30. If your business would like to advertise on HiH, if you have any news tips for us or article suggestions, if you’d like to donate your time to write a story, attend the city and county meetings, please contact us. I have offered all that to you many times, (as the offer is to all), yet you have ignored it and continue to pop up now and again to question what we do here. The number of stories since Jason’s hands have left is easily proven by looking at the archives on the right hand column. You’ll see the article counts per month and find there is not much difference at all in the number of articles we run. Finally, I don’t think I have ever linked or referenced a Fox News article so how are we in cahoots with the Murdoch family?
We have worked with the city who has been awesome at providing us with information about happenings. We now get the full council meeting agendas online, in addition to the detailed 100 page packet per meeting for download, something that was not done before. The city contacts us about any errors or clarification we may need to make in our articles. The County and BoE are a completely different story in that regard. I will say though they are making a good effort to get the redistricting info to us so we can get that to the public.
The intent for us getting the agenda and big packet information up ahead of the meeting is to get you that information about whats going to happen in the next meeting. You guys need to be proactive in what’s going or planning to happen. Not wait on someone else to attend the meeting for you and video tape it so you can sit on your butt at home and watch it after it’s already decided on and come on here and complain about what happened in a meeting you didn’t attend.
City, County, and Board of Education have a way of scheduling their meetings at the same time or during business hours(Planning and zoning). Somehow I do not think this is by accident. Having attended many meetings in the past over issues that changed my property, I find those on boards shut you down fast.
Prudence, thats our problem that we have a reporter who would like to cover all the meetings, however the city council and county meetings are usually on the same nights.
In response to Who Cares..
The Library is a Public Facility..when they are told by other Public Officials after such natural occurances as earthquakes that they should not open until the fire marshall or building inspector has investigated cracks in their facility then it seems to me that they have done exactly as instructed. Would you rather they open and then God forbid, an incident occure and someone was seriously hurt just to satisfy the needs of a few. As for the incident regarding Mrs. Brax..after working with the public for over 30 years I have found that some of the rudest people are the ones who will not take an answer when it is given simply because it is not the answer they want to hear. The computers at the library are used by the public and are provided to them at no cost.
Should these computers be disabled due to storms or for any other reason then they are repaired
for the library at the expense of the county. I’m sure you are aware that surge protectors are not a cure all for electrical problems. As for me I had rather be safe than sorry. Not only that but the employees at the library are required to work on Saturdays for the convenience of the community even though the County Offices are closed on Saturday. On this particular Saturday there was a hurricane going through our town with winds in excess of 40 miles per hour. I am surprised that they even made an effort to open and applaude them for it. The fact that they shut down their computers and closed shows a great deal of intelligence to me. How would you have liked your wife or daughter or mother driving in that kind of weather. I should hope that if you take your “concerns” to the board that they use much better judgment than you do.
The events that happen in Vance are affected by the events that happen in the Nation and the World and vice versa. I fail to see how they are mutually exclusive.
Who cares but me (post 16) were the important documents you needed to print (as the outer bands of a hurricane swirled around the town) library reference documents or some personal documents? If library reference documents, I have learned something new about our library. That something new is that some or all reference documents are available in an electronic format when using a library computer. If the important documents you needed to print were personal, then they were on some electronic media such as a jump drive or diskette. Are you aware that Staple’s offers printing services directly from a jump drive? I have availed myself to the Staple’s services when I had something I needed printed and did not want to use my personal printer. This brings me to another option; you should have or could have used your own or a neighbor’s printer.