Tag Archives: Asheville News

One-Stop Early Voting Begins April 15

Published in Asheville Events on April 12, 2010
Polling booths
Image by Ben Sutherland via Flickr

Primary elections are just around the corner, May 4th to be exact. AshevilleLiveCam.com is a big proponent of the notion that everyone who can vote should vote. Even primary elections are of great importance, since they determine who will be on the final ballot on Election Day in November. For those of you who are “too busy” to vote in the primary election on May 4th, your excuses are dwindling. One-Stop Early Voting opens April 15th and runs through May 1st. If you’re not yet registered to vote, you can also take care of that at the same time, making it worthy of the name “One-Stop”. This is an easy way to avoid the lines, vote on your schedule and make sure your voice is heard.

If you need to know who and what you will be voting for, go to http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/VoterLookup.aspx?Feature=voterinfo and enter your information in the form. After submitting, click on the link that says “My Sample Ballot”. You will get a PDF file showing you what your particular ballot is going to look like. The Mountain Xpress should be publishing their candidate issue on April 21st.

Starting April 15th, you can vote at the Buncombe County Training Center at 199 College St. in Asheville. The following locations will open for One-Stop Early Voting on April 17th:

  • Black Mountain Branch Library – 105 N. Dougherty St, Black Mountain
  • South Buncombe Branch Library – 260 Overlook Rd, Asheville
  • Fairview Branch Library – 11 Taylor Rd, Fairview
  • West Asheville Branch Library – 942 Haywood Rd, Asheville
  • Leicester Branch Library – 1561 Alexander Rd, Leicester
  • Parks, Rec. & Cultural Arts Dept. Bldg. – 70 Gashes Creek Rd, Asheville
  • Jupiter Fire Department – 331 Jupiter Rd, Weaverville

For maps to these locations, check out the Buncombe County One-Stop Early Voting Locations map. For more information on One-Stop Early Voting, including what identification you need to bring with you, visit the North Carolina State Board of Elections site.

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When the Lights Go Down In the City…

Published in Asheville Live on April 6, 2010
Server Room in a Power Outage
Image by Aaron Landry via Flickr

Well, the cams were down for much of the night and this morning due to a widespread power loss in downtown Asheville. I woke up to alerts on my cell phone and when I got to work I found that all the servers, phone system, voice mail, network routing equipment, everything was off. We have power protection, but it couldn’t hold out long enough, and it was emitting an ear-splitting beeping noise (took a little while to figure out how to get it to stop). According to the Asheville Citizen-Times:

About 700 Progress Energy customers in downtown Asheville lost power this morning following an equipment failure.

Utility spokeswoman Martha Thompson said the malfunction occurred in an underground vault housing a substation around 1:30 a.m.

All customers had power restored by 5:30 a.m., she said. The downtown police and fire station was among the locations that lost power.

Everything’s back up now and we’re running smoothly, but in honor of this event I present to you a bit of a musical interlude:

[swf]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4QkTvK2OEw,480,385[/swf]

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1100 Communities Vie For Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 29, 2010

The deadline for nominations has passed, and according to a post on the official Google Blog, over 1100 communities submitted bids and almost 200,000 individuals. The number of nominated cities almost doubled in the last few hours before the deadline. The post referenced was originally posted at 10:00 AM, and they had 600 municipalities. After the deadline, they posted this update:

Update at 5:26pm: The response deadline has now passed. We’ve received more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals. This map displays where the responses were concentrated as of 1:30pm PT. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. We plan to share a complete list of government responses and an updated map soon.

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Volunteer For The Annual Great Asheville-Buncombe Cleanup

Published in Asheville Events on March 26, 2010

Asheville GreenWorksAsheville GreenWorks will be holding their annual Great Asheville-Buncombe Cleanup during the month of April. If you want to volunteer or need more information, contact info is included in the press release below. This is a great opportunity for each of us to help make a better, cleaner Asheville, so make some time in your schedule to join in on one of the events.

Asheville GreenWorks is seeking groups, businesses and individuals to volunteer for their big annual spring push for a more attractive community, the Great Asheville-Buncombe Cleanup.
The event consists of special clean-up programs at various locations throughout the county during the month of April. To make a difference, hundreds of volunteers are needed. Volunteers can sign up anytime as individuals or groups, although logistical details will not be available until March 2010. For more information, call 254-1776 or email volunteer@ashevillegreenworks.org.

April 3rd 10am-1pm Everything Up Litter Cleanup
Kickoff event at Pritchard Park with an Asheville GreenWorks sponsored downtown cleanup. Neighborhoods can register ahead of time to get help with recruiting volunteers and pick up supplies early, or can pick up at Pritchard Park. Cleanup supplies include gloves, vests, trash & recycling bags, and pickers for some groups. The goal is: everything up! Asheville GreenWorks also arranges for bag pickup with the City.

April 10th 10am-2pm

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Google Moment Today at 1:30pm

Published in Asheville Live on March 25, 2010
This is one of the huge welcoming signs for Go...
Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t already nominated Asheville for the Google Fiber initiative, wait just a little bit longer. Today at 1:30 PM will officially be the “right time” to submit your nomination. Asheville City Council passed a resolution creating the “Google Moment” and is encouraging everyone to submit your applications for Asheville at the same time.

Be part of the moment! At 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 25, Asheville citizens including school children, employees, and business leaders, are encouraged to participate in a

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Controversial Housing Project Approved

Published in Asheville Live on March 24, 2010

Proposed Larchmont Apartment Complex RenderingThe Larchmont Project, a controversial low-income apartment complex, has been approved for development in North Asheville. Opponents of the project, which will include 60 units and will be located off East Larchmont Rd. near Merrimon Avenue, say that the scale of the project is too large and doesn’t fit with the surroundings. They also say that 60 units is too many and the complex will be too densely packed. From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

Opponents, including many nearby residents, said they were not opposed to affordable rentals on the site but thought the two proposed buildings

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Track Asheville's Status on Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 22, 2010
A segment of a social network
Image via Wikipedia

BlogAsheville has a terrific rundown of how you can track Asheville’s (and other cities) bid on the Google Fiber initiative. It includes lists of cities bidding, searches of various social networks, YouTube, Twitter hashes, and all sorts of ways to surf the Googleverse to find out who is bidding, what they’re doing, and what is being said about them. End result: Who’s winning? No clue, nobody knows except Google.

Check it out here: http://blogasheville.blogspot.com/2010/03/track-news-about-your-towns-google.html

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