Major construction work happening at Appalachian State University's football stadium.

Seen at the rockin' www.BooneWeb.com.

Here's the story. But I saw it first at the all-knowing www.BooneWeb.com.

The Tweetise Railroad is more than a railroad - it's an economic engine for Watauga County. This well-written story covers all the bases, and the last paragraph sums it all up:

The Watauga County Board of Commissioners and the county’s Tourism Development Authority have proposed an economic development incentives partnership with Tweetsie Railroad to keep the theme park in the county. The proposal includes purchasing an interest in Tweetsie land and providing an annual marketing subsidy.

Tweetsie’s Recent History
A potential threat to Tweetsie’s remaining in the county surfaced two years ago when land leases critical to the park’s operation came up for renewal, and the park’s principals faced difficult negotiations to extend those leases.

Tweetsie Railroad, Inc. owns 87 acres of the park, but leases three additional tracts totaling approximately 188 acres. Ownership of those three tracts is split among multiple owners.

At the time of the lease negotiations, Tweetsie principals began exploring alternative sites for the theme park. According to information in the county’s report, Tweetsie has optioned a tract of more than 300 acres in Wilkes County as a contingency if the Watauga County leases cannot be successfully renegotiated.
Complicating the situation is a mandate to sell the theme park’s controlling stock. Before Tweetsie’s found Harry Robbins died, he and his ex-wife Revalle entered an agreement to pursue the joint sale of the controlling stock. Robbins’ widow Barbara and Revalle own 100 percent of the Class A controlling stock, and trust instruments require that the stock be sold.

Potential third-party buyers of the stock were interested in the land for commercial development purposes—not for continuing the theme park operations.

As a result, Harry Robbins’ son Chris, the current president of Tweetsie, has negotiated terms with the two trustees that would allow him to purchase a significant block of stock and become the controlling shareholder. Robbins has arranged financing with BB&T to enable the company to reorganize its stock, make improvements to the park and develop adjacent property to create another income stream for the park.

With regard to the leases, in 2006, Tweetsie successfully negotiated a lease agreement on one tract through 2065. In 2007, Tweetsie successfully negotiated with the majority owners of the two additional tracts to extend their leases through 2065. However, the minority owners of the two tracts want to sell their interests.

The County’s Proposal
Under the terms of the proposal, Watauga County will purchase the minority owners’ interests in the two tracts for $3.15 million and then lease the land to Tweetsie for $1 per year for six years. The county would own 46.34 percent interest in a 46-acre tract and 34.75 percent interest in a 96-acre tract.

The money for the property purchase will come from the county’s general fund, and the county may borrow funds as well. The county’s Tourism Development Authority will provide $200,000 of the purchase price, and will also pay Tweetsie $150,000 annually for six years to market the theme park. Tourism Development Authority funds come from the occupancy tax visitors pay to stay in rental properties in unincorporated areas of the county.

Tweetsie’s Proposal
In return, Tweetsie has agreed to the following terms:
• Lease the county-owned land at full market rate after the initial six years
• Purchase the land from the county at a future date to be determined at $3.15 million plus interest
• Build a greenway on Tweetsie land along the Middle Fork of the New River and convey the land to the county or other public entity
• Invest at least $13 million in improvements to the park over the next 19 years
•Stay in the county as least as long as the county assistance package is in effect
Economic Drivers and Rationale

In the proposal report, the county provides a number of economic reasons for stepping in to assist Tweetsie. Among them is Tweetsie’s impact on the local economy.

In 2007, Tweetsie attracted more than 235,000 visitors, and a 2005 study showed direct and indirect impact of $27 million to the county economy. In 2007, Tweetsie paid $691,000 in state, federal and local taxes, with sales and property taxes accounting for $226,000 of that figure. In addition, Tweetsie employs 26 full-time staff members and more than 300 seasonal employees. The park’s 2007 payroll was more than $2.7 million.

The report also notes that Tweetsie has spent a great deal of money to resolve its lease issues and is now paying “much higher lease rates.” To resolve the remaining land issues and maintain a quality attraction, the report continues, “it was necessary to turn to the County for assistance.”

If the county does not approve the proposed transaction, the report states, “The BB&T financing [for Robbins’ stock purchase and park improvements] will not happen, nor will Tweetsie Railroad’s stock reorganization. The current stockholders will sell their stock on the open market, which will most likely result in the demise of the Tweetsie Railroad them park in Watauga County.”

This sounds big:

The four largest realtors networks in the state are joining forces to share their public data across the state, they said in a statement Friday.

The listing services for the Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh areas are part of the program, called the North Carolina Data Share.

NCDS, as the program is known, expands the Internet Data Exchange programs of the four listing services.

The Internet Data Exchange is essentially the public version of a listing service, which is typically restricted to real estate brokers. Using the data exchange, a potential home buyer can log on to a broker's Web site and see all of the publicly available information about real estate listings in an area.

Now, those Web sites will contain information about homes in all four of the regions that are part of NCDS.

"Our four MLSs have taken steps to improve access to real estate information in North Carolina for brokers and consumers," said Richard Renton, executive vice president of Triad MLS. "Broker Web sites in North Carolina can now compete with Web sites of national aggregators as comprehensive sources of listing information."

The Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors is still deciding whether to join the program.

This NY Times feature shows what real estate you can get for $3 million in Weaverville. I blogged about the NY Times also featuring a $4 million piece of property in Tuckaseegee.

So much for a downturn in the local real estate market, eh?

Weaverville, N.C.

WHAT: A three-bedroom six-and-a-half-bath house with 6,796 square feet on 30 acres

HOW MUCH: $2,999,999

PER SQUARE FOOT: $441

SETTING: Surrounded by woods and hills, the property has 1,600 feet of frontage on the Ivy River. Asheville, N.C., is 15 minutes south; Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an hour away.

COMMON SPACES: The living room and kitchen share an open space with double-height ceilings. A sun room with a stone fireplace has wall-to-wall windows. Hardwood floors and custom-made wrought-iron light fixtures can be found throughout.

PERSONAL SPACES: The master bedroom is on the main floor.

OUTDOOR SPACE: The riverfront area has a rope swing and covered picnic area.

AMENITIES: These include three fireplaces, wraparound porch, a two-stall horse barn, a four-bay garage and a workshop. There is a game and media room on the lower level with access to a patio.

TAXES: $2,556 a year

CONTACT: David Welsh or Shelley Terry, Beverly-Hanks and Associates, (877) 313-9500; www.beverly-hanks.com

Photo taken on flight provided by South Wings.

Carl Mumpower on election night.

One-click Photoshop.

www.roanoke.com has the story:

PEARISBURG -- The Appalachian Trail reopened in Giles County on Thursday, two days after a pair of fishermen were shot and wounded in a crime that hauntingly resembled two gruesome killings committed near the same spot in 1981.

Officials removed the yellow crime scene tape that had cordoned off a 28-mile stretch of the trail while investigators searched for clues and other potential victims Wednesday, and hikers again began trekking through.

Perhaps, though, they had more to talk about than in any year since 1981, when Giles County native Randall Lee Smith Jr. killed two trail hikers at Wapiti Shelter, just a few miles up the road from where two fishermen had set up camp when police say Smith shot them Tuesday night.

"Man, I'm out here having the time of my life," said Nathan Adcock, a 31-year-old nurse from Asheville, N.C. "And then somebody's out there shooting."

Adcock -- trail name "Superchunk" -- and other friends he met along the trail spent the night Tuesday at Jenny's Knob shelter not far from the campsite where Smith is suspected of shooting Sean Farmer, 33, of Tazewell and Scott Johnston, 37, of Bluefield.

The pair were at their camp on Lions Den Road when a man Giles County investigators believe was Smith walked up and struck up a conversation. He hung around for about three hours, staying to have a dinner of fresh trout and baked beans with the men.

After they ate, the man reportedly jumped up and pulled out a gun. Farmer was shot in the face and chest. Johnston was shot in the neck and back.

The men fled out of the forest in Farmer's Jeep Cherokee and sought help a couple of miles away at the home of Sheila and Melissa Miller, two sisters who live on Dismal Creek Road.

Farmer has been released from the hospital, friends said. A spokesman for Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital said Johnston was still in serious condition Thursday.

Biltmore Estate from the air, courtesy of South Wings.

I love it when WLOSers try to explain a "trend" to me. Why? Because they make the everyday out to be a "frightening trend." They take something not new at all and make that the lead story on their news.

Tonight, for sweeps, it was about the Erwin Middle School "trend" of kids going "emo." Carolyn Ryan said the emo kids wear hair over their face, black T-shirts and they cut themselves. And she had an anonymous 11-year-old who had been wooed to that dark side tell us all about it. Emo is like being goth, only worse, according to Carolyn Ryan. Not sure why, but that's the way she made it sound.

The Erwin Middle School principal wouldn't give WLOSers an on-camera interview and told Carolyn the school's got everything under control.

WLOSers, here's a question to ponder: couldn't this all just be kids going through pre-adolescence? Couldn't it just be kids learning how to deal with peer pressure, learning how to deal with being themselves? Why does it this have to be a bloody story with a graphic over Carolyn of razor blades showering an old-fashioned school desk? Show some restraint. Please.

There was some other news about a murder investigation and downtown business owners complaining about the slow-moving construction of the new Pack Square Park, but I didn't really pay attention to it.

Good ol' boy Southern sheriffs. Gambling. Bribery. Cash wrapped in tin foil and stuffed in ceilings. ABSCAM-like video of an FBI sting operation.

The Bobby Medford trial has it all. So why isn't this national news?

As we've heard this week, the alleged public corruption wasn't just limited to the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. It allegedly reached into the Haywood County Sheriff's Department, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department and possibly the Cleveland County court system.

So why isn't this story being covered by state and national media? It is, by far, one of the most significant and wide-ranging public corruption cases ever in Buncombe County, and probably all of Western North Carolina.

I suppose the Medford trial doesn't have a couple of key elements necessary in a juicy national story. There's no sex. And no murder. And while the government is building a case of cozy relations between video poker machine operators and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, there's no clear victim here. The victim - the damaged entity - is the public trust.

But that's hard to capture in a tidy two-minute television story or a 2,000 word print story.

I guess I've just answered myself. But I still think this story deserves greater coverage. The breadth and depth of this case is still sinking in. Maybe it will sink in with others, too.

This is a photo of Bo Derek at the Kentucky Derby last week. Can you believe how beautiful this woman is? She's 60-something and looking like a young 40-something. And somehow, she's not gone into freakish facelift/botox mode. She's a wonder.

More photos here.

View from the 5th floor of the BB&T building in downtown Asheville. Thanks to all my loyal readers at the BB&T! Great to know you're out there, lurking.

From my friends at the RiverSculpture festival:

A quick note to thank you for your interest in RiverSculpture, and to let you know that Ethan Karp, Director of OK Harris Gallery in New York, will be our special outside the region juror this year. Regards
Arlene Winkler

A new blog I'm checking out: extrucker.blogspot.com.

The story is here:

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Grocery-store chain Ingles Markets Inc. on Tuesday said fiscal second-quarter profit fell 4 percent as a higher income tax expense offset rising sales.

Profit for the quarter ended March 29 fell 4 percent to $13 million, or 53 cents per Class A share, from $13.5 million or 55 cents per Class A share last year.

Revenue rose 15 percent to $782.8 million from $681.2 million last year.

Grocery same-store sales, or sales in stores open at least one year, rose 15 percent. Excluding the benefit of an earlier Easter, same-store sales rose 8.4 percent.

Total gasoline gallons sold grew 19 percent, while the average price per gas gallon rose 85 cents, compared to the same period last year.

Customers transactions rose 10 percent, and the average transaction amount was nearly flat.

Operating expenses rose 11 percent to $184.5 million, due to higher labor, energy and insurance expenses and depreciation and bank charges.

The company said the decline in net income was mainly due to a higher income tax expense due to a settlement last year of a tax position, which led to a reduced income tax expense in the year-ago quarter.

Here's the report, from Appalachian State University's WNC Economic Index:

BOONE—Western North Carolina’s economic activity remains weak, falling 0.2 percent in March and erasing earlier gains during the first two months of the year.

According to the WNC Economic Index compiled at Appalachian State University, the region’s economy remained flat for the first quarter of the year.

“We had some positive movement during the first two months of the year, but that was wiped out by the losses in March,” said Todd Cherry, an author of the report. Cherry is a professor of economics at Appalachian.

“The regional economy continues to teeter on the edge of a recession, but the main story is the magnitude and persistence of the economic weaknesses,” he said. “Recessions are designed by negative growth. The actual growth rate reveals much more.”

Cherry says the region’s job losses are troubling. “Looking at the employment numbers from the first quarter, Western North Carolina is not holding up as well as the rest of the state,” he said. “The region lost nearly 3,000 jobs, or 0.5 percent of the workforce, during the first quarter of 2008. The state lost about 13,500 jobs, but that represents 0.3 percent of the statewide workforce.”

Seasonally adjusted employment for WNC fell 0.25 percent in March, and declined 0.50 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Thirteen of the 25 WNC counties experienced a net job loss in March. Graham, Haywood and Wilkes counties had the largest job losses (0.84, 0.51 and 0.51 percent). Ashe, Alexander and Catawba counties had the largest job gains (0.67, 0.55 and 0.41 percent.)

In a copyrighted story, local Hispanic publication La Voz Independiente writes that an Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College instructor called undocumented immigrants "leeches and criminals," but maintains that he's not racist. Click on the link to see the story.

Here's a portion:

ASHEVILLE.- An electrical engineering instructor at A-B Technical Community College whose message from his state email account called undocumented immigrants "leeches and criminals" maintains he is not racist nor opposed to immigration through normal channels but did not back down from his opinions.

Tom Sharar said his comments, contained in an email to a staff person at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, are his opinion as a private citizen and not those of the state-supported community college whose email system and Internet connection he used to express them.

"The presence of tens of millions of these leeches has a devastating effect on our economy and presents a real threat to our national security", wrote Sharar in the email dated Tuesday, April 29. "They are over-taxing our legal system and our healthcare (sic) facilities. They fill our jails and prisons with their illegal actions. Their mere presence is a danger (health and physical) to all of us."

Ecorazzi has it:

Actress Andie MacDowell is getting ready to build a new home in the environmentally-friendly mountain community of Balsam Mountain Preserve, North Carolina. The 4,400 acre development is heavily focused on conservation with 3,000 acres of protected land and 354 home sites. According to the Wall Street Journal, the houses — at elevations from 3,000 to 4,700 feet — can’t be larger than 4,500 square feet and “must use materials that blend the building into the environment.”

MacDowell originally threw down $1 million for a vacant lot just under two acres in size, but has since swapped her property for one of the community’s largest lots; which at 3.5 acres can accommodate a pasture and small barn. Apparently, the property also connects to the community’s equestrian center through a series of trails.

I have no idea if the building materials for the home must be sustainable as well as ‘blended’, but at least the development itself is highly respectful of the nature around it. We’re hopeful Andie will incorporate some eco-friendly elements into her new diggs.

I haven't closely followed this ritzy development out in Jackson County, and others like it. Some people love developments like Balsam Mountain and Bear Lake, while others show only disdain.

I'll direct you to this comprehensive Smoky Mountain News piece and let you make up your own mind.

In the meantime, Asheville's losing our one and only starlet. Frankly, I'll miss seeing you around town, Andie.

The latest I've heard on the local restaurant scene:

Amici Trattoria, a little Italian restaurant down on Hendersonville Road, has closed, my loyal readers tell me. Haven't heard why. I haven't been down to check it out, so I'll take it on faith that it's true.

Is the local economy beginning to take its toll on local restaurants? Soaring gas prices, the real estate market, a slow-down in tourism? Anybody?

Meantime, Nine Mile, located at 233 Montford Avenue, is now hiring and accepting applications. This used to be the spot for Pyper's Place, a friendly little joint that didn't make it, either.

The ad for Nine Mile, which I spotted in Mountain Xpress, says "pasta with a Caribbean flair. Coming soon in the heart of Historic Montford."

So there you have it. Maybe things aren't so rough out there after all.