Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly Open Thread for Saturday, September 30th, 2023
This space appears each weekend to give readers a variety of links to local and regional news of interest, and opens the floor for comment and discussion. Wishing all a good day from beautiful Western North Carolina.
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The weather looks fine, and the leaves are teasing their change. Next Saturday and through October, I will be featuring our annual fall colors and forecasts for the different elevations in WNC.
Citizen-Times, 9/29/2023
No bathrooms on the Blue Ridge Parkway? Longer lines at Asheville Regional Airport? Closed Asheville child care centers?
While many of these possibilities are still up in the air, the disruptions that come with federal government shutdowns have become unnervingly more familiar. If congressional Republicans fail to reach an agreement by this weekend, the country could see its 22nd shutdown in the last five decades.
Here are some ways the potential federal government shutdown could impact residents and visitors to Asheville and Western North Carolina:
Find more information about the potential shutdown here, Operations in the Absence of Appropriations | U.S. Department of the Interior (doi.gov)Some of the best-known and most beloved federal agencies in Western North Carolina are its national parks. Citizen Times calls to the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Carl Sandburg Home were all referred to regional and Washington offices of the National Park Service. NPS Chief of Public Affairs Officer Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles told the Citizen Times in a Sept. 26 email that NPS doesn’t have any information to offer "at this time."
WLOS, Rex Hodge, 9/29/2023
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, N.C. — The ramifications of a government shutdown would stretch across the country, impacting recreation areas such as Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Should the government shut down, the National Park Service said places that are accessible to the public like Great Smoky Mountains National Park will face significantly reduced visitor services.
HCA/Mission Health and cancer treatment
Citizen-Times, Mitchell Black, 9/29/2023
ASHEVILLE – The office of North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein sent a letter to the president of HCA Healthcare's North Carolina division, Greg Lowe, sounding the alarm on HCA’s oncology services in Western North Carolina.
HCA, a Nashville-based for-profit company, bought Asheville's Mission Health in 2019. Stein, who approved the 2019 sale, is also a candidate for governor.
The Sept. 29 letter, sent by Assistant General Counsel Llogan Walters, questions whether HCA is complying with the terms of the $1.5 billion agreement to buy the former nonprofit system by failing to provide adequate oncology services in the region.
“The people of western North Carolina deserve access to high quality cancer care in their own community, not several hours away from their families and support systems,” Walters wrote. “That is why the Attorney General conditioned his approval of HCA’s acquisition of Mission Health System on HCA’s commitment to continue providing oncology services in the area.”
The letter points at the decision made by Messino Cancer Center, a Western North Carolina-based medical oncology provider, to stop providing inpatient complex hematology treatment at Mission Hospital for adults with leukemia or lymphoma.
Mountain Express, John Boyle, Asheville Watchdog, 9/29/2023
A former city of Asheville water director — who was also a member of the Independent Review Committee that investigated the holiday water outage — says the city is overlooking the key to the crisis, and another major service disruption could happen if it’s not addressed.
Mike Holcombe, water director from 1993-97, remains adamant that the city is downplaying what he says is the major cause — the decommissioned East Asheville Booster Pump Station. That multi-million dollar facility opened in 1993 and closed in 2010. The city has little documentation as to why it was shuttered.
The pump station was designed to boost water flow during high demand. The outage, which the city primarily pinned to two closed valves and the frozen Mills River water plant, spanned 11 days over the Christmas holidays, shuttered businesses and left thousands without water.
“I have no hesitation — and believe I could defend in whatever forum I had to — that the absence of the pump station was 85 or 90% of the problem,” Holcombe said. “The closed 24-inch valve, it was a problem, but if you’d had the pump station operational, you would’ve discovered that problem a lot quicker, because you would have been pumping against a closed valve.”
Mountain Express, Chloe Lieberman, 9/29/2023
Cool evenings and brisk mornings are heralding the coming fall. Soon we’ll be gazing in wonder at the display of colors that the forest puts on before those glorious trees settle down for their winter rest. Your gardens may be making a transition, too, from summer fruits to fall and winter greens, or into a state of renewal beneath mulch or cover crop. Don’t forget to send in any questions that come up to gardening@mountainx.com, and I’ll get them answered in next month’s feature, which will be the last of this calendar year.
Not too late to plant
I’ve just moved into a new place. Is it too late to plant a fall garden now?
Now is a great time to plant several crops that will ripen as the weather cools. You’ve missed the boat on some longer-lived cool weather favorites, like broccoli, cabbage, carrots and beets, but there are greens and roots galore that still have plenty of time to grow. Some suggestions are: arugula, winter lettuces (be sure you choose cold-weather varieties, many of which have “winter” in their names), turnips for greens, mustard greens, kale, cilantro, tatsoi, bok choy, spinach and radishes of all kinds.
Most of these veggies will be fine as the temperatures dip below freezing but will benefit from covering once it gets really cold. There are two main factors that limit gardening in the fall and winter: temperature and amount of sunlight. Not only do days get cooler during these seasons, but the number of hours of sunshine goes down, too. Plants grow in response to both of these influences (plus water and soil nutrients, of course). So, even if we’re in for a milder winter, crops still won’t grow much after the daily sunlight goes below about 11 hours. For us, that means most of November through January. So, the key is to get things in soon, so that they have time to grow while the sun is still shining, and the soil is still warm.
WLOS, Grey Hallok, 9/29/2023
The first Beer City Comic Con is underway at Harrah's Cherokee Center Asheville.
It features everything from comic book vendors to local artists to costume events -- and it benefits OpenDoors, a nonprofit organization with the mission is to break the cycle of poverty through education, one child at a time.
Calling all science nerds, comic fans, cosplay enthusiasts, and those curious about our scene, the inaugural Asheville Beer City Comic Con will exceed your expectations and delight all your senses. This dynamic event will be marvelous thanks to exciting comic book and pop culture vendors, brave local artists, magnificently big brained speakers, and yummylicious beer from Western North Carolina’s best craft breweries. We’re packing into one weekend a super amount of musts, including:
- Intellectual seminars with renowned brainiacs from comic, academic, and civic circles discussing the Con community’s role in keeping our planet safe from harm!
- Panel discussions about the psychology of comic book characters and their influence on modern culture!
- Pop-up dance and costume events with DJs for all you freaks and geeks!
- Fancy philosophical conversations about the ontological themes of sci-fi, comics, and human nature!
- Shamazing artwork from locals you won’t find anywhere else!
- Speciality batch beers made only for BCCC—slurp!
Thank you for your time, I hope your weekend is swell.