Calendar of Events

In response to statewide demand for healthcare
professionals, Blue Ridge Community College announced today an
expansion of the Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Program. The hands-on
nursing education program added 20 seats, now serving up to 74 students
each year. ADN students learn from highly qualified faculty in state-of-the-art
simulation labs at the College’s Health Science Center in Hendersonville or
Transylvania County Campus in Brevard. Blue Ridge is actively accepting
applications for qualified students. Scholarships and tuition assistance are
available, and more details can be found at http://blueridge.edu/nursing.
“Blue Ridge Community College’s team of experienced and compassionate
instructors plays a vital role in preparing aspiring nurses for jobs today and in
the future,” said AdventHealth Hendersonville Chief Nursing Officer Maureen
Dzialo, MS, RN, NE-BC. “They help students in our local community find
rewarding careers with endless possibilities for advancement. AdventHealth
values their exceptional program and the students that graduate from Blue
Ridge.”
Graduates of the two-year program are prepared and eligible to take the
National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) to become registered
nurses and provide hands-on care in a variety of health care settings. In 2021,
Blue Ridge students’ first-time pass rate for this exam was 96%.
“Pardee UNC Health Care is proud to partner with Blue Ridge Community
College to help train the next generation of nurses,” said Carol Stefaniak, DNP,
RN, NE-BC, VP Clinical Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Pardee UNC
Health Care. “Their nursing program graduates are of the highest caliber year
after year, and as we work to recruit a qualified workforce while facing a
national shortage of nurses, we are grateful to Blue Ridge for actively working
to fill that pipeline.”
Educating and training the next generation of nursing professionals is a crucial
step toward meeting the needs of area residents. It also positions the
workforce to respond to increasing demand for healthcare workers.
Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 2.6 million
healthcare occupation jobs will be added between 2020 and 2030.
“Nursing is a rewarding profession that aligns the passion to make a difference
in our community with the desire for a dependable career path,” said Blue
Ridge Community College Dean of Health Sciences Leigh Angel, MSN, RN. “As
essential members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team, nurses use expert
knowledge and clinical reasoning to manage complex care needs – all while
compassionately caring for others during each stage of life.

As part of the East Asheville Library’s LEED certification, the library has two level 2 (240 volt/30 amp) electric car chargers and special parking spots for both electric and other clean air vehicles, such as hybrids. The chargers add about 25 miles of range per hour of charge time and should be able to charge all types of electric vehicles. Tesla vehicles do require an adapter that comes with the vehicle when purchased.

These features are part of Buncombe County’s long-term plan for sustainable and eco-friendly facilities. To learn more about the Library’s LEED certification, stop by the library and ask for more information.

Think you might need to use an absentee ballot for the Primary Election on May 17? Here’s what you need to know so you can make sure your vote counts.

How to Request an Absentee Ballot

Absentee ballots will be mailed out beginning on March 28. The deadline to submit an Absentee Ballot Request Form is May 10 at 5:00 p.m. for the 2022 Primary Election. Any North Carolina registered voter may request, receive, and vote a mail-in absentee ballot. No special circumstance or reason is needed. Registered voters in North Carolina must request an absentee ballot with an official N.C. Absentee Ballot Request Form. There are two ways to access and submit the form:

1. Online – Request an Absentee Ballot at the N.C. Absentee Ballot Portal.
2. On paper – print the English N.C. Absentee Ballot Request Form for 2022 or the Spanish N.C. Absentee Ballot Request Form for 2022 (not available online currently).

For active-duty military, their family members, and U.S. citizens living abroad, click here. If you have questions about that process, you can call us at (828) 250-4200 or visit buncombecounty.org/vote.

No Printer? You may complete an absentee ballot request form at the Election Services office at 59 Woodfin Place, Asheville, 28801, or call (828) 250-4200 and one will be mailed to you. You may return the request in one of the following ways:

Mail it to:

P.O. Box 7468, Asheville, NC 28802

Hand deliver it to our office:

59 Woodfin Place, Asheville, 28801

Note: The Absentee Ballot Request Form may not be emailed or faxed. Request forms that are hand delivered to the office must be returned only by the voter or the voter’s near relative

How to Return an Absentee Ballot

The deadline to return the completed Absentee Ballot is Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at 5:00 p.m., however, voters are encouraged to return the ballot as early as possible. You may return it to us in one of the following ways:

By mail: Absentee ballots may be mailed to P.O. Box 7468 Asheville, NC 28802. Ballots must be postmarked on or before Tuesday, May 17, 2022 and received by Friday, May 20.

At an Early Voting site: Absentee ballots may be returned to an early voting site during the early voting period, but not at a polling location on the day of the Primary Election. Ballots returned at an early voting site must be delivered to the election official at the check-in station.

In person: Absentee ballots may be returned in person to our office at 59 Woodfin Place between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Absentee ballots may be returned only by the voter or the voter’s near relative.

For more information about absentee voting, visit the North Carolina Board of Elections website. Or call us at (828) 250-4200. You can also email your questions to [email protected].

Stories from the House is a virtual tour of our 1840s-era brick mansion as seen through the eyes of many of the people who walked these same hallways over a century ago and whose stories represent a microcosm of the history of western North Carolina. In 1918 vs. 2020, we took an in-depth look at the 1918 influenza epidemic in Western North Carolina through newspaper clippings, advertisements, ephemera, photographs, and oral history and place the events of 1918 into context with our present-day response to the coronavirus pandemic. Old Shiloh was one of Asheville’s first communities established by emancipated people. The community moved to its present-day location – New Shiloh – after George Vanderbilt, in an effort to expand his land holdings as he planned to build his Biltmore Estate, purchased the land and buildings and agreed to relocate the Shiloh church and cemetery.

We invite you to view this 13-minute film and share it with your friends, neighbors, coworkers, and other communities. As you view this film, we hope that you can see your hands, heart, and support at work in the collective efforts of everyone – volunteers, partner agencies, donors, advocates, and our neighbors sharing their lived experience – to address hunger right here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, and to be part of the solution for thousands of families every month.

If you’re behind on your water bill or afraid your water might get cut off, a new resource might be able to help you. On Jan. 4, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners approved more than $450,000 in federal funding for the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP). The initiative is aimed at preventing water disconnections and helping reconnect drinking and wastewater services.

The LIHWAP will be administered by Buncombe County-based Eblen Charities. The nonprofit will make payments directly to utilities on behalf of qualifying households. The program is slated to run through Sept. 30, 2023 or until funds are exhausted.

Eligibility requirements

Households that currently receive Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Work First services, or those that received Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) services from Oct. 1, 2020-Sept. 30, 2021, are automatically eligible to receive this benefit if their water services have been cut off or are in danger of being cut off.

For additional eligibility information or to apply, please contact Eblen Charities at (828) 255-3066.

The 2022 appeal period is open now. During the year of the reappraisal, or any year of the reappraisal cycle, a taxpayer may appeal the appraised value of their property. No matter how thorough and fair a reappraisal may be, there are still instances when only the property owner has all the information necessary for an accurate appraisal. Informal appeals for 2022 can be filed anytime between Jan. 1-April 20, 2022. Additionally, anyone receiving a change of value notice after April 20, 2022 has thirty days from the date of the notice to file an appeal.

Step One: Starting an Informal Appeal

An informal appeal is the first step in the appeal process.  Buncombe County Property Assessment has created a new suite of online tools to help make the appeal process easier. A taxpayer may begin the informal appeal process now by clicking on this link taxappeal.buncombecounty.org.

According to NC General Statutes, the property owner has the burden of proving that the property under appeal is incorrectly valued. The amount of your tax bill or ability to pay the tax cannot be used as a valid reason for submitting an appeal. The value of your property has been developed from sales and cost data within your local area. If the you believe this value is incorrect, please provide our office with a valid reason(s) to adjust the assessment (i.e. recent appraisal within the last 2 years, comparable sales of similar homes in the neighborhood or surrounding area, photos of the dwelling to show repair/maintenance issues, etc.).

A property owner appealing the property value of the property should start the appeal process online, or contact our office at (828) 250-4940 to request an appeal form by mail. The appeal form must be returned and/or postmarked, including your supporting documentation, within 30 days of the date listed on the appeal form. The appeal should include information to support the property owner’s opinion of value. Our appraisal professionals are here to help you through the appeal process. For appraisal purposes, Buncombe County is divided into multiple geographical areas. You can find the contact information of the appraiser for your area on the notice of value letter received in the mail, or by calling our office at (828) 250-4940.

The health and safety of our community and employees is our priority, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, assessment staff is available via Live Chat, or you can schedule a phone conference or virtual appointment by calling (828) 250-4940. Your concerns and questions are important to us, and our team is committed to handling your appeal as quickly as possible.

Should a property owner have any additional questions or need help with a property appeal, please contact our office at (828) 250-4940 or email [email protected].

If you are able, consider making a donation to our Community Funded Ticket program, which provides no-cost tickets to our live events to those who could not afford to attend. Donate Here Vaccines and Public Health in WNC: Past and Present In this two-hour event, three historians discuss previous epidemics, pandemics, and public health campaigns in WNC and Appalachia, including the 1918 flu, smallpox, and polio, as well as the community and government efforts to combat these crises. These historians are followed by an immunologist and a virologist—both professors of biology at Appalachian State University— who present information on Covid-19 variants as well as data on lives saved by vaccines. Watch Now The Brevard Rosenwald School Betty J. Reed discusses her research into the Brevard Rosenwald School and other segregated schools in WNC. This school, also funded by Julius Rosenwald, served African American students in Transylvania County from c1923-1966 and, according to Reed, represents “a microcosm of Black education in southern Appalachia.” Reed, a native of Western North Carolina, is an independent scholar who has spent over twenty-five years researching the history of schools in the region, especially those functioning during the era of segregation. Watch Now Buncombe Co. Remembrance Project This project acknowledges the personal and community trauma inflicted on individuals of color after the Civil War, the Equal Justice Initiative’s research related to lynchings, and the three lynchings of record that occurred in Buncombe County, NC. Dr. Joseph Fox is a life-long educator, mentor, and community advocate. He has advocated for students of a darker hue for more than 30 years in his role as a community college instructor, as well as his role as a former Department Chair of Business Administration at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. Watch Now

As part of Buncombe County’s 2025 Strategic Plan, Permits & Inspections and Planning & Development are in the third phase of  the electronic plan submittal and review rollout for building permitting. “We started this process more than a year ago,” said Permits & Inspections Director Bob Haynes. “We’ve heard from our commercial builders that the portal has helped to streamline the permitting process and we are excited to offer this service to our residential builders as well.” The first phase of this implementation began in January 2021, and as of Monday, March 21, 2022, the residential permitting submittal process is also moving to the online portal. See details for submittal below.

Phase One (Complete)

• Planning & Development implemented a new permit case type called ‘Site Plan review’ (SPR) for all permit types (commercial and residential, etc.). Any development where there is new construction, or changes to the footprint of an existing structure now requires an SPR. The SPR permit must be approved prior to applying for your building permit.
• All commercial building plans must be submitted to the Building Permit Department in an electronic format and will be reviewed using electronic plan review software.

Phase Two (Complete)

• The requirement that SPR permits and commercial building plans be submitted through the Development & Permits Portal OR in person at 46 Valley St. Site Plan Permit applications will not be accepted through email to [email protected] after April 1, 2021.
• Please register for an account on the Buncombe County Development Permits and Licensing portal. Registration is required before submitting applications on our website.

Phase Three

• The requirement that SPR permits be submitted through the Development & Permits Portal  OR in person at 46 Valley St.
• The requirement that residential building plans must be submitted through the Development & Permits Portal OR in person at 30 Valley St.
• To upload your plans, please register for an account on the Buncombe County Development Permits and Licensing portal. Registration is required before uploading documents on our website.
• Residential Site Plan Permit applications will not be accepted through email to [email protected] after March 21, 2022.

Find more information at buncombecounty.org/permits or call the main Permits line at (828) 250-5360. Permit applications are not accepted in person after 4 p.m.

The City of Asheville has extended the deadline to April 8 to provide feedback on the South Slope Vision Plan. The South Slope Visioning process is a planning process led by the City of Asheville with the community and business stakeholders in the South Slope study area to develop a long term vision. Once the plan is finalized, it will be presented to City Council for adoption.

The South Slope Vision Plan provides a visionary framework to help guide continued long-term development, and provides an essential tool that will be used across the City’s departments.  Some pieces of the plan are aspirational and the specific visions may not necessarily come to fruition based on the available funding and priorities of the community and City Council.

You can view or download the entire plan here (12 MB file). The feedback survey can be accessed here.

What is the Stand Against Racism Challenge?

Previously known as the 21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge, the Stand Against Racism Challenge: A Virtual Community of Growth is the same program developed by YWCA and adopted nationwide.

The Stand Against Racism Challenge is an exciting opportunity to dive deep into racial equity and social justice. This year, we will be investigating Critical Race Theory, Living Wage, Film and Television, and Reproductive Justice. Participants will be able to download an app for their phone or visit the challenge website to engage with curated articles, podcasts, videos, activities, and more.

The SAR Challenge goes live Monday, April 4th, and continues (Monday –Friday) through May 2nd. Before April 4th you must register and download the appropriate app for your device.

Participation in an activity like this helps participants discover how racial injustice and social injustice impact their community, connect with one another, and identify action steps to dismantle racism and other forms of discrimination. This is an exciting opportunity to join a learning community dedicated to racial equity and social justice.

At the YWCA of Asheville, we eliminate racism and empower women by providing programs and advocacy for over 3,000 community members annually in Western North Carolina with services that support families, promote holistic wellness, and advance racial justice.

Thank you for wanting to share your time and talents with the YWCA! As a volunteer, you are integral to the YWCA fulfilling our mission, and we simply couldn’t do it without your help and support.

YWCA Asheville has volunteer opportunities for individuals and groups. We can design volunteer assignments to fit your schedule, experience, and team-building goals.

What makes a place idyllic?

Start with an emerald river that flows from ancient mountains. Add an abundance of living creatures that co-evolved over millennia. Bring in humans who honor their place in the interconnected web. And rebuild a vital stream that supports us all.

Your support and engagement helps ensure the health of this watershed for the ages! We can’t do it without you.

In response to statewide demand for healthcare
professionals, Blue Ridge Community College announced today an
expansion of the Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Program. The hands-on
nursing education program added 20 seats, now serving up to 74 students
each year. ADN students learn from highly qualified faculty in state-of-the-art
simulation labs at the College’s Health Science Center in Hendersonville or
Transylvania County Campus in Brevard. Blue Ridge is actively accepting
applications for qualified students. Scholarships and tuition assistance are
available, and more details can be found at http://blueridge.edu/nursing.
“Blue Ridge Community College’s team of experienced and compassionate
instructors plays a vital role in preparing aspiring nurses for jobs today and in
the future,” said AdventHealth Hendersonville Chief Nursing Officer Maureen
Dzialo, MS, RN, NE-BC. “They help students in our local community find
rewarding careers with endless possibilities for advancement. AdventHealth
values their exceptional program and the students that graduate from Blue
Ridge.”
Graduates of the two-year program are prepared and eligible to take the
National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) to become registered
nurses and provide hands-on care in a variety of health care settings. In 2021,
Blue Ridge students’ first-time pass rate for this exam was 96%.
“Pardee UNC Health Care is proud to partner with Blue Ridge Community
College to help train the next generation of nurses,” said Carol Stefaniak, DNP,
RN, NE-BC, VP Clinical Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Pardee UNC
Health Care. “Their nursing program graduates are of the highest caliber year
after year, and as we work to recruit a qualified workforce while facing a
national shortage of nurses, we are grateful to Blue Ridge for actively working
to fill that pipeline.”
Educating and training the next generation of nursing professionals is a crucial
step toward meeting the needs of area residents. It also positions the
workforce to respond to increasing demand for healthcare workers.
Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 2.6 million
healthcare occupation jobs will be added between 2020 and 2030.
“Nursing is a rewarding profession that aligns the passion to make a difference
in our community with the desire for a dependable career path,” said Blue
Ridge Community College Dean of Health Sciences Leigh Angel, MSN, RN. “As
essential members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team, nurses use expert
knowledge and clinical reasoning to manage complex care needs – all while
compassionately caring for others during each stage of life.