The Beauty of Brevard, North Carolina

Brevard has many beautiful things about it, too many things to cover with my limited ability in this limited space.  Still, I promised to try in an earlier post so here are some of my views on the city of Brevard, North Carolina.

Things I like about Brevard include the Brevard Music Festival. There are seven summer weeks in Brevard when world class talent descends on the small town to work magic with their voices and their music. In the past years artists like cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Joshua Bell and Midori, pianists André Watts and Emanuel Ax, soprano Renée Fleming and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade have appeared on stage in this city of only about six thousand people.

The downtown area of Brevard boasts activities as diverse as the monthly gathering of peace activists, mostly older people who hold a peace vigil one Saturday in each month. Often braving bad weather, these caring people assemble with their signs to remind us that there are wars going on. Our young people are in harm's way and we could all be working more for peace in the world. The street scene changes on Tuesday as Brevard hosts the evening “Dancing in the Street.” The downtown is closed on Tuesday night, the band plays and the people dance. The downtown streets are actually closed quite often to host various runs, a soapbox derby, a White Squirrel Festival, (Brevard is home to many white squirrels), and all of the classic reasons for closing the city and celebrating, things like Halloween, the Fourth of July and such.

There is a guy who stands at the corner of Main and Broad Streets in front of the Courthouse, with a Bible in his hand. He waves at you and wishes for you to have a good day. If you speak to him, he'll tell you that he has been called by God to stand there and that it is his ministry. I like that guy, I like that he does what he does. I like it that most of the local people wave back to him.

There is a small college in Brevard, (Brevard College, Methodist), with a fledgling football program, sometimes the defeats are embarrassing to watch. I like that the team exists, that the players play, that the effort is made. Having cheered for my son's losing team throughout his high school career, I am perfectly able to cheer loudly for a losing effort and I see the value in the game, the effort, the sport.

The Davidson River offers some of the best trout fishing anywhere in the East. There are bears in the area, daviaupost.blogspot.com/search/label/bears, and I have very much enjoyed my interactions with the bears. There is majesty in Brevard, great panoramic views around each bend. White water rafting, nature trails galore, great equestrian opportunities and wonderful faith congregations. My wife and I felt very welcome in every church we visited while seeking a church home. We found that church home in a place that we could both embrace though she was raised Lutheran and I was raised in a Catholic family.

My wife has enjoyed her involvement with the local AAUW, (American Association of University Women), chapter. The small community has the largest chapter in the state and the ladies do important work as they organize a massive book sale each year. The proceeds from that sale go largely to provide scholarship money for girls in the area and the money is really significant for many girls who aspire to graduate from one of the local colleges. My wife's involvement with the AAUW has been good for both the organization and for her as she has made many new friends through her work with the AAUW.

Brevard is a place that cares, with a free clinic and free pharmacy, those experiencing hard times have a place to turn to for medical care. The city boasts a charity called the Bread of Life, an organization that feeds those who have no good place to turn.  So very many people in Brevard care about those in need and I like that about the community.

 There are many good people in Brevard, it is an idyllic place in many ways and while the community has some problems, those problems are far from being beyond solution.

More on Brevard

Many of my friends wrote to say that I should be careful about the postings I place about Brevard, North Carolina. They say that if I am right about the corruption then I will pay some price. I am right and if need be, I am willing to pay the price whatever it may be.

The corruption is endemic and needs to be addressed by someone. We had an exchange student stay with us last year so we have been exposed to more truth than we wished for. We are told that the family of law enforcement people, including their children, carry cards that prevent them from being arrested by other police officials. Knowing that their family members and the family members of their friends are immune from the "system," the local police are free to be much harder on everyone than they would be if those they loved were subject to the same treatment.  There is a deep unfairness in only certain people in a community being held accountable for their actions.  Giving preferential treatment to some is, in my mind, simply un-American. When we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, no one says that they believe in "Liberty and Justice for Some."

In the County where I grew up, public officials served the public. When they went to work they were told not to park near the entrance of the building, that was for the public. In Brevard, 60 year old women report to jury duty having to walk, sometimes in bad weather, blocks to the Courthouse. Most of the near parking is reserved for the "public" officials. Can you imagine any private business reserving the best parking for the employees? Tellers at the banks and cashiers at the grocery stores are told to park away from the building to allow the public the best parking spots. Since when does "public service" allow perks that demean and inconvenience the public?

The culture of arrogance is so engrained in the system of Brevard that it has become an accepted practice to allow those elected to "serve" to think that they are entitled to view themselves as superior to the citizens that they are supposed to be serving. That became clear to me when we went to football games and found the best student parking spaces marked as "reserved" for the Senior Class President and for other elected student body representatives. It is no wonder that so many public service employees in Brevard thinks it a "right" to inconvenience the public that must go to the City or Court offices a couple of times each year so that the government employee can avoid walking in the rain.

There are things I find troubling about other places where we have or had homes but sometimes I am simply appalled at what happens in Brevard.

Why do we have property in Brevard? Partly because you cannot know these things about a place before you buy property. There are not many bloggers writing about local issues and the information we were able to gather about Brevard came mostly from local Realtors and promoters of the community. Brevard is a place of waterfalls and majestic mountains, the physical features were a huge attraction to us. Hopefully, those thinking about moving to the area in the future will find my blog or the local officials will find it and make needed change.

I hate to write negative things about any community, most often I write about the good side of life in the United States and that is what I enjoy writing about.  Brevard has much good to expose in these writings and in my next blog about the town I'll focus on those things that made us want to retire to Brevard in the first place.

Brevard, North Carolina

I have a couple of places to live with my wife, one in Houston, Texas where she works and one in Brevard, North Carolina where we hoped to retire someday.

In addition to these places, I have spent a lot of time in Chattanooga, Tennessee over the past several years as I have a business there. I lived in Cobleskill, New York for many years and grew up in South Hadley, Massachusetts. With this wealth of experience in actually having current and past homes in such diverse places, I decided to write about the differences in America, both good and bad.

One thing I know now that wasn't apparent when we were looking for somewhere to retire is that small towns can have big problems. Brevard North Carolina is such a town. In my opinion, there is so much corruption in law enforcement, including the Sheriff's Office in Brevard that the citizens are not safe from the people sworn to protect them. The City Manager had to resign because he was fondling young girls at the local bars and the police chief was fired for reasons that could not be made public.

In Houston or Chattanooga, there are about 3.1 law enforcement personnel for each 1000 citizens. You aren't going to get in trouble with the law unless you deserve it, they don't have time for petty things. In Brevard and Transylvania County North Carolina, there are about 8 law enforcement people for each 1,000 population. The excessive law enforcement presence puts a real burden on taxpayers and the police and sheriff's have entirely too much time to find things to simply harass the citizens about.

I recently went to a Jury Trial in Brevard relating to a black man who was stopped for driving while intoxicated. The policeman was angry because the subject didn't stop his car until he came upon a crowd. Turns out, that was the best thing the suspect could have done, the police officer argued that the man was drunk. Everyone in the crowd claimed that the suspect did everything the policeman asked and more, he walked the line, then he walked it backwards. His crime was that he made the policeman look stupid and ultimately, he was exonerated. To be exonerated, he had to pay a lawyer and waste a lot of time. The police officer got paid for going to Court. Justice wasn't served.

I had to wonder if they would have ever carried it so far if the “suspect” had been a white man. I have to wonder why District Attorney Jeff Hunt allowed that case to go to trial. In Hampshire County, where I grew up I knew the son of the DA, that DA took his responsibility very seriously, he told me that Lawyers were to defend both the guilty and the innocent but District Attorney's were bound to serve justice. The statements I find on the website of Jeff Hunt speak only of prosecuting for the state, no mention of serving justice. That difference can be seen in the Court as they prosecute people who should never have to stand trial.

I had occasion to be in the Sheriff's office in August of 2008 during the height of the political campaign. I was being arrested at the time for a charge that was so bogus that it was dismissed without there ever being a hearing on the matter. There is a certain Detective Brian Kriegsman who for some reason known only to himself and to God, seems to desire that I be punished for something.  Plastered on the walls of the Sheriff's Office were bumper stickers proclaiming” “I'll keep My Guns and My Freedom, You Keep The Change.” David Mahoney, the Republican Sheriff had the right to support John McCain, but it was patently illegal to allow this partisan political activity in the office where taxpayers money was being spent. The Sheriff or Deputy who posted it and all that allowed it to be are criminals in their own right and shouldn't today be drawing salaries from the taxpayers. In this small town, the standards for behavior by law enforcement personnel are far different than they would be in a larger community.   One example is that while larger communities may be plagued with drive by shootings, Brevard has drive by death investigations like the one described in this website:  http://southernjusticewanted.blogspot.com/2010/02/press-release-to-transylvania-times.html

More on Brevard and the other communities in the coming days. There are more good things than bad about each community but I do believe that Brevard does need to get its house in order with regard to the police state that exists for far too many residents there.