A-B Tech OKs deal on sales tax issue
Eblen Charities chief exits under pressure
Biltmore Gardens Railway firing up
See STORY, Pg. A2
— See PICTURES/STORY, Pg. B1
Bill Murdoch
— See STORY, Pg. A4
LLE I V HE AS ASHEVILLEʼS GREATEST NEWSPAPER
April 2019
Vol. 15, No. 05
An Independent Newspaper Serving Greater Asheville www.ashevilledailyplanet.com FREE
$45M mall revamp plan sent back to drawing board
Special photo courtesy of Seritage Growth Properties
A $45 million redevelopment project, which could reshape the Asheville Mall into a mixed-use facility that will include housing, a movie theater, and more stores
and restaurants, was sent back to the drawing board March 12 by Asheville City Council. A story on the proposal — and council’s response — appears on Page A4.
Woman wonders about her eye anxiety
Q: I’ve been with my boyfriend for four years. I thought I was super happy, but I recently got a crush on a co-worker. Now I’m worried that maybe I’m not totally satisfied in my relationship. If I were truly in love with my boyfriend, why would I be crushing on somebody else? Does this make me more vulnerable to cheating? Should we go into therapy? — So Confused Want to know the answer? See ADVICE GODDESS, Page A14
The Advice Goddess
Amy Alkon
Syndicated Columnist
Muslim official rips Daily Planet for publicizing an ‘Islamaphobe’
From Staff Reports The chief spokesman for a major national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., emailed the Asheville Daily Planet on March 6, slamming the newspaper’s decision to cover and run a story about Chris Gaubatz, who wrote the 2009 book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” The email included the title line (without a question mark), “Did you do ANY research on Gaubatz’s Islamophobia.” It was sent by Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director and spokesman for the Council of American Islamic Relations (better known as CAIR), to John North, editor and publisher of the Daily Planet. The Daily Planet contacted Hooper at the CAIR headquarters on March 26 for a 15-minute telephone interview during which Hooper explained — in detail — his email jab at the newspaper as follows: “It always depends on how these things are covered... If it’s on one of the (world’s) leading Islamaphobes,” a category in which he feels Gaubatz clearly belongs, then the newspaper, in his view, was Ibrahim Hooper irresponsible in publicizing the views of someone who despises an entire religious faith, such as Islam. “If a KKK (Ku Klux Klan) speaker came (to Asheville), how would you deal with it?” Hooper asked. “If a neo-Nazi came in, how would you deal with it? I don’t think you would cover it.” North, who interviewed Hooper, responded that he would expect any good newspaper, when in doubt, to always err on the side of freedom of speech and of the press and, without fear of favor, to cover “hot” speakers, rather than censoring those deemed too politically incorrect, presuming the Daily Planet’s readers are independent Chris Gaubatz critical-thinkers who can make their own assessments. Addressing the Asheville Tea Party, Gaubatz had shared his concerns about what he sees as the national security threat posed by Muslim extremists in the United States. A story on his Feb. 12 speech at the Skyland Fire Department appeared in March’s Daily Planet. See MUSLIM OFFICIAL, Page A9
‘Good to be here for my periodic drubbing,’ Mayfield tells CIBO By JOHN NORTH
john@AshevilleDailyPlanet.com
Julie Mayfield
A report on the progress (or lack thereof) on the I-26 Connector project that is to cross West Asheville and cost an estimated $950 million was presented by Julie Mayfield, a member of Asheville City Council and an environmental activist, to the Council of Independent Business Owners on March 1. About 50 people attended the group’s breakfast meeting at UNC Asheville’s Sherrill Center. On a separate and unrelated matter, Buncombe
County Commissioner Mike Fryaer gave a status report on the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College tax issue. The third and final presentation was made by city Planning Director Todd Okolichany on the 2019 work plan for Asheville’s Planing Department. Speaking last, Mayfield, a political liberal who noted that she moved from Atlanta in 2008 to become executive director of the local environmental protection group MountainTrue, began her presentation by quippng that “it’s good to be here for my periodic drubbing from this group” — a reference to the conservative-leaning CIBO.
Turning more serious, Mayfeld asserted, “There’s been this thing (with CIBO saying) that my organization has been the problem, or I’ve been the problem” that has caused a decades-long delay in the I-26 widening and I-26 Connector projects. ‘I’d just like to point out.... The narrative that I see of this project is very tight community collaboration” in making the I-26 Connector the best-possible project it can be. “That has happened here again,” she said, referring to the latest changes that the NCDOT has agreed to make to the project. See CIBo, Page A8