RIVERARTS NEWS

Owens-Bell Park Gets A New Garden

The West End/Clingman Avenue neighbors got together to plant the WECAN Sunny Cultural Garden on October 27, 2007, in honor of many of our neighbors.  First, we honor Mr. Owens and Mr. Bell, whose photos reign above the new garden.  Second, we honor all the gardeners who live and have lived in WECAN.  Thirdly, we honor the keepers of the plants whose histories have lived along side us all these years and last but not least, we honor my 50th year.
As a tribute to the enduring nature of all of our neighbors, WECAN chose to set some of our historic granite curbstones as the border of this new garden.  These stones, having been harvested by the City of Asheville when new sidewalks were installed on Park Avenue & Jefferson Drive in 2006 & 2007, came back back home with help from Richard Hawes (Pattiy’s childhood friend), David Sluder of MHO, a crew of 7 volunteers from Warren Wilson College and a few random passsers by.
The garden itself results from the efforts of Byron Ballard, garden designer Nicole LaChance and all of those who gave plants and came to help plant the WECAN SCG.  Some of those include Luella & David Heetderks, Jessie Mae Jones, Jessie Nell Coleman, Evelyn Littlejohn and her two granddaughters as well as members of Pattiy’s immediate family, Lynn Torno-Murphy, Joe Torno-Murphy, Sharon Souders, Harry Torno & Gail Millbank.

Hot Spot Comes To Talk

Dan Durbin, the president of Jordan Oil Company, the owner of record of the Hot Spot, came  to speak with a group of around 30 WECAN & South French Broad neighbors in the Community Room at Aston Park on Thursday, October 18, 2007.  While he admitted that some of the company policies are not being followed at this store, he focused on Jordon Oil's desire to tear down and rebuild this location.  Most of the South French Broad neighbors felt that this would be a good option.  Those of us from WECAN who met with Mr. Durbin last year were less than impressed.
There is another meeting scheduled at the Aston Park Community Room on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 6pm to hear more from the neighbors about their concerns.  Please join us. 
Also, i need to give tremendous credit to our new APD Community Resource Officer, Louis Tomasetti and our sister neighborhood organization for making this meeting happen.  They have also set up a yahoo group so please contact profamahoney@yahoo.com to join the "ashevilleneighborhoodassociation" group.
"This group will talk during the week - post pictures, post bulletins, even take polls! Hopefully this will further aid our goal of getting to know one another and ridding our neighborhood of crime!!" says Ann Kadar.

WECAN Master Plan Up For Adoption

The WECAN Master Plan produced around 2000 is up for adoption by the City of Asheville.  Terry Bellamy was very involved in the creation of this master plan when she worked for MHO.  Now that she is only the Mayor, she is free to ask that our plan be adopted without a conflict of interest.  She expressed to me her desire that WECAN be a community leader on this issue.  Our Mayor would like to see master plans for all of our neighborhoods, guiding documents that would help to shape our city to the wishes of its residents.
Alan Glines, a planner for the City of Asheville will be attending our next board meeting to give us his overview November 1, 2007 at 6:30pm.  As Bret Frk suggested at our last board meeting, WECAN will then create a cover letter speaking to our 2007 concerns about this plan to be included in the adoption process for our Master Plan.
We will review that letter at our December Meeting (10 year anniversary party!) and then would probably be scheduled to go in front of the Planning & Zoning Commission in January 2008.
There is a copy of the plan at the Front Desk of MHO for those of you who would like to re-read it.  We are also working on getting the entire plan set up to be able to be downloaded off the City of Asheville website... i will keep you posted.

WECAN Sunny Cultural Garden Gets Started

The WECAN Sunny Cultural Garden in Owens-Bell Park is being established as a home for some of our historic plants.  We are reusing some of the granite curbstones that were taken off of Park Avenue as the border for the garden and you can see the first four stones having been laid by Pattiy Torno is morning.  Thanks go to Al Kopf for overseeing our garden plans, Nicole LaChance of Birds Eye View Professional Garden Design for drawing the plans, our historian Byron Ballard for compiling the list of plants from all the neighbors' gardens, Robert West, labor coordinator for COA's street division for bring us back our granite and all of those who will be joining Pattiy Torno to celebrate her 50th Birthday on Saturday, October 27th, from 10 to 2pm by helping to plant the plants in the WECAN SCG. and don't forget coffee this saturday, October 20th, at the cafe at 9am.

Ralph/Choctaw Streets MHO Project Public Meeting #2

Mountain Housing Opportunities invites any and all interested public to join in the discussion of their new project on Ralph & Choctaw Streets.  To be able to read the invite to the left... please just double click on the image...
The date is October 16th at the Reid Center from 6:30 to 8:00pm

Progress for Progress Park

The Progress Energy Property on Riverside Drive is getting a beauty treatment from the Department of Parks & Rec.  Thanks go to Lauren Bradley for her tenacity in pursuing this remedy, City Attorney, Bob Oast for making this grooming by the City Crews legal and for the Parks and Rec Crews doing the heavy lifting. What a difference a day makes. From all of us who live and work down in the River Arts District of Asheville we say a huge "THANKS".... and the crews are already back this morning at 7:30am! Wow!