In case you missed John Rose’s radio news this morning, a “suspicious” fire took down most of the former Townsville High School building about 2 a.m. today. Here’s the link to the WIZS-AM (1450) report on the blaze, which we can’t improve on, so we won’t try. Owners Marjorie and Ralph Pegram have our sympathies, and we hope the responsible parties left enough evidence to be caught and convicted. On the positive side, the coverage is another reminder of how …
Category: Quick hits
Alive After Five rolls right on
Alive After Five’s first band of the year, Right On, led by vocalist Arline Burton, performs Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” with the help of Henderson children and one man from the audience Thursday night. After all of the debate about beer sales, after an overcast sky threatened but never delivered a downpour, and after the band arrived 20 minutes late, Alive After Five came off without a problem Thursday at the Henderson Operations & Service Center.
Payday lending bill delayed
The state Senate’s payday lending bill didn’t get its scheduled hearing before the Commerce Committee on Tuesday. The News & Observer reported that the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston County, couldn’t make the late-morning hearing, so it was postponed. During Saturday’s Faith Summit in Henderson, Gateway Community Development Corp. leader Margaret Ellis raged against the effort to give legal footing to payday lending. She directed much of her anger at state Sen. Robert Holloman of Ahoskie, who represented …
Cleanup committee looks like a bargain
The editor and most of his staff are on a weekend trip to Northern Virginia for the start of the holiday of Passover, so most of the interesting news we’ve gathered in recent days will have to wait to make it onto the Web site. (Look for much, much more from the Faith Summit.) Please accept our apologies and our appreciation for your patience. That said, we did spot this article in this morning’s Washington Post, and we thought it …
A right way and a wrong way
The Independent Weekly, the well-done but way-left alternative newspaper in the Triangle, has a column in the current issue about an issue near and dear to the hearts of many at home in Henderson: neighborhood revitalization through code enforcement. The columnist, Peter Eichenberger, is not for the easily offended, and the language isn’t family-friendly. But it’s worth seeing how the big city could botch the program and/or the PR for an effort little ol’ Henderson is proving has value to …
Trashing a good idea
In light of this morning’s discussion on “Town Talk” on WIZS-AM (1450), we feel the need to revisit the question of curbside garbage collection, if only briefly (we’ll get to the recycling program soon, we promise). Callers to the radio program, including City Council member Mary Emma Evans, decried the very idea of making Henderson’s senior citizens try to roll 90-gallon garbage bins to the side of the road or swallow their pride and ask for help from the city …
The thrill of budget competition
Code Compliance Director Corey Williams is in his first year as a Henderson department head and is in the middle of his first budget season for a department that didn’t exist a year ago. He got a pointer from a veteran of the process during the Clean Up Henderson Committee meeting two weeks ago. “We just got through budgets,” Williams said with some relief while delivering the regular report on his department’s activities. Chief Glen Allen, in his eighth year …
Opinion: Now that’s a chicken sandwich
Sometimes it seems like our No. 1 commodity in Henderson is fast food.
Fun Embassy fact of the day
What’s in a name? For some people lately, anything with “Embassy” will smell equally foul. No, that’s not fair. Few people are against Embassy Square. It’s a bold project, and most of us would love to see it thrive. But the Embassy project is the whipping boy for anyone who thinks the city’s priorities are out of whack. If you listen to enough people with a cause around here, you’ll hear a lot of “I’m all for the Embassy project, …
Fun Embassy fact of the day
The big Embassy Square event next week won’t be a groundbreaking after all. The official term now is “construction celebration ceremony.” That’s the wording on the invitation, which City Manager Eric Williams said will be going out to about 600 people. Don’t worry if your invitation gets lost in the mail; the ceremony, at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 1, is open to the public. The star of the show, of course, is Sen. Elizabeth Dole, whose mere presence is …
Opinion: It’s the thought that counts the loss
For all you would-be Ken Jenningses out there, consider the plight of the Quiz Bowlers on Saturday afternoon at the Vance County Administration Building on Young Street.
It’s all about priorities
Meetings of the Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee are unique in their ability to draw lots of City Council members. It’s a simple forumla: The FAIR Committee handles all of the money matters, and money affects everything that interests the eight council members. FAIR meetings have taken on greater importance now that the city is confronting its fund-balance problem and the budget season has begun. So it was surprising that Friday’s meeting drew only one FAIR member, Chairman Bernard Alston, …
We’re sure it’s no joke
Congratulations to Embassy Square Foundation Executive Director Kathy Powell and Chairman Sam Watkins for landing some serious star power for the long-awaited groundbreaking on the new H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library. They revealed Thursday that Sen. Elizabeth Dole has agreed to attend the grand ceremony in what we think will be the first visit by a sitting senator to little ol’ Henderson since John Edwards paid us a visit in 2001. (Check out the Dole story in The Daily Dispatch. …
Road bill passes House
Congressional legislation containing almost $2 million for projects in Vance County passed the House on a 417-9 vote Thursday. The Transportation Equity Act would authorize $284 billion in federal spending over six years. It includes more than 4,100 projects specifically earmarked for money by members of Congress. Included in that list are $1 million to reduce the cost of resurfacing Interstate 85 in Vance County and $960,000 to help widen and upgrade Beckford Drive in Henderson. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-Wilson, …
Time is not on their side
Monday night’s City Council meeting had such a light agenda that City Manager Eric Williams tried to cancel it, yet the meeting didn’t end until about 10:30. That three-hour session came only a week after council members were together for almost six hours, from the start of the public forum on the 2004 audit at 5:30 until the end of the regular council meeting around 11:30. That’s nine hours of talking and, perhaps, listening in a week. And don’t forget …
High cost could slow high-speed rail
Don’t hold your breath waiting for high-speed rail to come racing through Henderson. Yes, an announcement of the proposed stops for the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor could come from that state’s rail division this spring. And yes, Henderson is likely to be a stop at least one way on the route between Raleigh and Richmond. But that still leaves the matter of many billions of dollars to pay for the project. While the federal government is running annual deficits in …
Opinion: A clear view on forever
Winter is definitely not our favorite time of year. We tend to think the bears have the right idea: Bundle up and hibernate. But when we can dodge the threat of snow and ice, the cold does a wonderful job of clearing the air, unveiling a magical view of the night sky. Few sights are more impressive than countless stars twinkling brightly in the depthless blackness of space, and few places in modern America get a clearer view than we …
Happy birthday to reading’s cool cat
Erin Ellerman dangled the perfect bait to hook 35 preschoolers thirsting for knowledge, fun and a few catchy rhymes.
Satterwhite plays on Williams’ team
Hey, we at HomeinHenderson.com and City Manager Eric Williams have something in common (aside from the dark circles under our eyes after working at the Municipal Building past 11:30 Monday night): legal representation. Toward the end of a night of meetings that featured many questions and some direct criticisms aimed at him, Williams notified the City Council, Mayor Clem Seifert and City Attorney John Zollicoffer that he has hired Henderson lawyer Michael Satterwhite to handle any issues related to his …
The sound of missing money
We’ll have to watch the city government closely in the coming months while the management and council try to figure out what happened to the non-Embassy portion of the drop in the general fund balance and how to boost that balance again. Perhaps one clue was in the hands of Assistant City Manager Mark Warren (sitting in for an ill City Clerk Dianne White) after he sweated out the recording of nearly six hours of council meetings Monday night. He …