Tagged: Charlotte Observer

  So get this – there’s a snowplow convention in town.

Yes, in Charlotte – where the official winter snowfall total is a wimpy 5 inches – the American Public Works Association Snow Conference opened Sunday.

It’s a gathering of about 1,500 professionals who muscle snow out the way in latitudes more inhospitable than these.

Mike Kennedy is one of them. He’s the guy who oversees the plows in Minneapolis, which typically gets about 50 inches of snow each winter. There’s still snow on the ground there now.

  A national advocacy group for recreational boaters is fighting a Senate bill in Raleigh that would hike registration fees for recreational boats statewide to pay for dredging inlets at the coast.

The bill would make a three-year registration in North Carolina more expensive than in Virginia and South Carolina for boats of any size, said Margaret Bonds Podlich, president of Boat U.S. Yet the bill calls for no increase on commercial fishing boats or for-hire charter fishing boats, she said.

  The neighborhood of cul-de-sacs in southwest Mecklenburg County would be quiet and secluded, with its woods and small lakes – except for the roar of passenger jets taking off and landing every minute or two for most of the day.

That noise, which has increased since the airport’s newest runway opened in 2010, is why many residents support Charlotte Douglas International Airport’s plan to buy 370 acres in the neighborhood, which has about 100 homes.

The estimated price tag: $35 million, most of which will be eligible for federal reimbursement.

RALEIGH Two key supporters of a proposed Charlotte airport authority Tuesday sought to downplay a report from the state Treasurer’s office that raised issues over the move.

In a letter Monday to Sen. Bob Rucho, a main sponsor of a bill to transfer airport control from the city to an independent authority, Deputy Treasurer T. Vance Holloman warned that could result in “prolonged litigation” and even raise the cost of state borrowing. He urged lawmakers to “proceed cautiously.”

  RALEIGH A day after speaking to a top Carolina Panthers official, the main sponsor of a bill to help finance improvements to the team’s stadium said Thursday there’s “a natural sense of urgency” to the effort.

Republican Rep. Ruth Samuelson said Panthers President Danny Morrison, just back from NFL meetings in Arizona, told her about public financing plans for stadiums in Atlanta, Buffalo and Minnesota.

After an outpouring of support from fans, organizers have decided not to cancel a popular, 43-year-old bluegrass festival in Iredell County this year.

The annual Ole Time Fiddler’s and Bluegrass Festival will be held May 24-25 at Fiddler’s Grove campground on N.C. 901 in Union Grove. That’s about an hour’s drive north of Charlotte.

“We were overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support and offers of help, and so we have been doing all we can to try and save the festival. We want to invite you to our Reunion Year,” organizers wrote in an email.