On the appointments of applicants to fill the County Planning Board vacancies: If the county is stacking the CPB with business interests, the public should demand their own board stacked with environmental interests.
What appears to be happening in Buncombe County politics seems the same as tactics used in the George W. Bush administration, except on a smaller scale. First you elect neocon business politicians, and they appoint their neocon boards and committees to support their neocon business interests. Those boards and committees are automatically given credibility and legitimacy by the local media, and presented to the public as experts on whatever they are planning on doing. Well, maybe they are experts in making money from development, construction or real-estate land transactions, but they don’t have any more expertise in environmental conditions, or the aesthetic values of mountains that could be defaced, than an environmentalist or an artist.
Business interests in Buncombe County are running roughshod over public interests. It’s time to change the county deck in November. Vote out all incumbents.
— Bert Bass
Weaverville
