Hickory City Council Meeting - January 15, 2013 - Video Presentation

The following is a video presentation of the Hickory, NC City Council Meeting of January 15, 2012. The most relevant topics of this meeting:

Special Presentation - Business Well Crafted Award to Hickory Chair

Public Hearing regarding Amendments to Articles, 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10 of the City's Land Development Code.

Departmental Report involving contracts for the Construction of the Hickory-Catawba Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrade and Expansion.

Departmental Report involving Sub-Committee of Hickory City Council Recommendations to "Decide the language for getting citizens input at the beginning of the meeting." This conversation get rather contentious with the Mayor accusing Alder Fox and Attorney John Crone of going behind his back and tricking him about the scope of the subcommittee in relation to the proceedings from the previous day - January 14, 2013.

Citizen Comments related to the Citizen Input issue by Cliff Moone and Thom Shell

Hickory Subcommittee on Citizen Input Meeting - January 14, 2013

Earlier Today I put this meeting out without context. The meeting began around 9:30am, this morning (January 14, 2012). This Subcommittee of City Council was formed to create language related to Citizen Input at City Council meetings.



As many of you know, this all began over issues related to the Swimming Pools and the structure built on Union Square where citizens felt that they weren't getting a fair hearing and the ambiguous nature of the Agenda and some of the proceedings that took place caused a lot of frustration.

About a year ago, Cliff Moone noticed what the cover page of the City Council Agenda stated and we waited for the moment in time to present itself to be able to utilize the process and thus empower the citizenry. That process allowed citizens to pull items from the Consent Agenda. We felt the Consent Agenda had been being utilized to circumvent public hearing processes.

Cliff and I had conversations with Rebecca Inglefield and at the City Council Meeting of May 1, 2012, she addressed the City Council and had items removed from the Consent Agenda. The City Council moved to close that process at the following City Council Meeting of May 15, 2012.

All of this point-counterpoint was a large part of the discussion related to the Referendum on Ward Specific Voting. Proponents and Opponents came to an understanding that Citizens should be heard before public policy and spending issues are voted upon. Joe Brannock, as the leader of the CEG's referendum drive, espoused 5 proposals to move us closer towards a more representative City Council and Number 1 on the Agenda is moving the time for citizens requesting to be heard to the top of the agenda at City council meetings.

Following back and forth discussions in public and behind the scenes, the Mayor moved to head off some of the discussions that were taking place by making a proposal at the October 2, 2012 City Council meeting to allow Citizen Input before votes take place, but he did not want to formally place it on the Agenda and he wanted it to be done through a motion process. The back and forth continued, because there was no structure or flow to this process. And that is what has brought us to where we are today.

The bottom line is that if the recommendations of Alders Fox and Patton go through tomorrow night at the Council meeting, then we have achieved what we wanted thanks to these ladies and Alderman Lail for initiating the process to form this subcommittee and Alderman Meisner for supporting the motion and process to move toward formalizing this structure.

The Mayor wanted to maintain the motion system that he implemented a couple months ago and this was rejected. Alder Fox moved to have all "Citizen Input" placed as item 4 on the Agenda, along with the current 3 minute structure. Both Fox and Patton want stricter administration of the 3 minute policy, but they both stated that it is not their intent to summarily cut people off. It is about respecting the rules and the process. Alder Patton made an amendment to allow "Other Comment" at the end of the meetings to allow citizens who have a "Burning Desire" to address anything that has gone on during the meeting.

When the ladies did this, the Mayor tried to say they were out of order, because the time issues and such was not a directive of the Council from the previous meeting. Alder Patton pointed that it was under the purview of the ordinance. When the Mayor saw that he wasn't going to get his way, he said that he wasn't going to participate, quit the committee and physically got up and walked over and sat on the front row and participated no further.

This was high drama and pretty darned good entertainment for the few of us who were there. I hope you will take the time to watch this video and if you can be at council tomorrow night. We need to help the Council guide this issue to its conclusion and thank them for settling this once and for all. We can put the grandstanding, demagoguery, and hyperbole behind us. That doesn't mean that we can't have opinions, but the marriage of trust, representation, direction, initiative, guidance, and structure are what it is going to take to get this community moving forward again.

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- January 13, 2013

Duke Energy to file for another rate increase - WRAL (Raleigh, NC) - January 8, 2013 -

GASTONIA, N.C. — Duke Energy Corp. has told North Carolina utility regulators that it will ask for another rate increase soon.                         The Gaston Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/WHL6cP ) that Duke late last week filed notice with the North Carolina Utilities Commission that it will file for another rate increase early next month.                      The request comes less than a year after regulators approved a 7 percent increase for Duke.               Duke representatives have said for months the company plans to apply for an increase to pay for maintenance and upgrades to its systems.                          Attorney General Roy Cooper has been fighting the increase that was approved last January. The North Carolina Supreme Court heard arguments on the challenge in November. Duke had originally requested a 17 percent increase but agreed to the 7.2 percent figure early last year.                        Cooper said Tuesday that he has "real concerns" about the rate increases, which he said produce double-digit profit margins for the company.                     "We believe that the Utilities Commission should have to look at the effect of the profit margin on consumers when considering that profit margin," he said. "We're going to continue to argue this. We're arguing it now in the Progress Energy rate increase. We'll argue it in the next one. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what the North Carolina Supreme Court says."                 Progress Energy, which Duke acquired in July, filed last fall for a 12 percent rate increase, which the company said was its first request for higher rates since 1987.

Are generics really the same as branded drugs? - Fortune through USA Today - Katherine Eban - January 10, 2013 - Consumers are told that generics are just like their name-brand counterparts. More medical professionals are starting to say that's not the case.                      In October the Food and Drug Administration took a highly unusual step: It declared that a generic drug it had previously approved -- a version of the popular antidepressant Wellbutrin -- was not in fact "bioequivalent" to the name-brand version. The FDA withdrew its approval.                          The federal action shook the business. Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA), which marketed the generic in question, has stopped selling it, and other companies are now testing their versions of Wellbutrin at the FDA's request. The episode is bringing momentum to a movement that has been quietly building among many doctors and medical societies that are increasingly willing to ask a question that borders on heresy: Are generics really identical to the branded products they are meant to replicate? To a surprising degree, they say, the answer is no.                        If you're a layperson, this is the way you probably think of generics: They're the exact same products in different packaging; generics companies can sell such medications for a fraction of the cost of the originals because they don't have to spend huge sums on drug development and marketing.                         That apparent miracle explains why more than 80% of all U.S. prescriptions dispensed in 2012 were generic. Using nonbranded medications saved Americans $193 billion this past year, according to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.                               But generic drugs diverge from the originals far more than most of us believe. For starters, it's not as if the maker of the original pharmaceutical hands over its manufacturing blueprint when its patent runs out or is challenged. The patent reveals the components, but it doesn't explain how to make the drug. In reality, manufacturing a generic requires reverse engineering, and the result is an approximation rather than a duplicate of the original.                   The FDA's rules effectively acknowledge that. The agency's definition of bioequivalence is surprisingly broad: A generic's maximum concentration of active ingredient in the blood must not fall more than 20% below or 25% above that of the brand name. This means a potential range of 45%, by that measure, among generics labeled as being the same.                        There are other differences. The generic must contain the same active ingredient as the original. But the additional ingredients, known as excipients, can be different and are often of lower quality. Those differences can affect what's called bioavailability -- the amount of drug that could potentially be absorbed into the bloodstream. As the American Heart Association recently noted, "Some additives traditionally thought to be inert, such as alcohol sugars, cyclodextrans, and polysorbate-80, may alter a drug's dissolution, thereby impacting its bioavailability."


Another infographic — this one from Onlinecolleges — explaining the systematic destruction of America’s middle class.

                   


Look at the numbers below. You don't stand a chance of retiring. Many of us were told that the older generations would retire or at least semi-retire and this would create the room we needed for career advancement and climbing the economic ladder. We were taught that working hard would create opportunity. Well, we have subsequently learned that it is a Dog Eat Dog World and in order to advance you just might have to take out Mom and Pop. Working hard won't guarantee anything, but not working hard guarantees failure. The Rat race will get you nowhere and is nothing but a big lie perpetuated by those in control. You have to think outside the box in order to get ahead. That is the definition of ingenuity, entrepreneurialism, innovation, and SURVIVAL.

ABIOTIC OIL

Citizens input at City Council Meetings - Meeting at 9:30am - Monday January 14, 2012

Departmental Report for the City Council Meeting on January 15, 2012
Sub-Committee of Hickory City Council Recommendations to “Decide the language for getting citizens input at the beginning of the meeting.”

*** The meeting on Monday Morning at 9:30am is a public meeting.

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of January 2, 2013 - (Departmental Report) - SUBCOMMITTEE ON CITIZEN INPUT AT THE BEGINNING OF MEETINGS - At it’s December 18, 2012 meeting, City Council established a subcommittee of Mayor Wright, Alderwoman Fox and Alderwoman Patton to “Decide the language for getting citizens input at the beginning of the meeting.” As a duly appointed subcommittee of its members, the meetings will be advertised and open to the public. Council can discuss the process of the subcommittee and establish a time and location for its first meeting.

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of December 18, 2012 - Cliff Moone spoke once again about the process that has been instituted in relation to allowing Citizens to be heard before votes are taken in relation to second readings,  Consent Agenda Items, and Departmental Reports.At the end of the meeting Council voted affirmatively to form a subcommittee to formally put this process, allowing Citizens to be Heard before votes are taken, on the Agenda.

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of October 2, 2012 - Addendum on the CEG proposals - Proposal introduced by the Mayor outside of the constructs of the agenda

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of November 20, 2012 - Cliff Moone addressed the issue of Citizens being allowed the question items on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting. He discussed what occurred at the October 2, 2012 meeting.

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of December 4, 2012 -  Cliff Moone addresses the City Council about the Council's new policy odf making a motion to allow citizen's to address the City Council about items on the Agenda. Cliff and all members of the Citizens for Equity in Government feel that the Council is proverbially flying by the seat of their pants on this. Second they are not following proper protocol, because this is nowhere to be found on the Public Agenda, so technically it is a matter not on the Agenda and should by statute come at the end of the meeting after Citizens Requesting to Be Heard, which takes us back to square one. Hickory Inc. wants to say what's the big deal and we agree. Since it isn't a big deal, then formally put in on the agenda and quit with the ruse.

SPLAT!

Peter Schiff The Real Fiscal Cliff How to Spot the Ledge - December 20, 2012

Richard Garrison, WBTV, & Grace Hospital

1-5-13

Thom:

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to use the "hickoryhound" to tell people about the upcoming news story concerning Grace Hospital.

Starting this week, WBTV NewsChannel 3, will begin developing a news segment to spotlight ongoing problems at Grace Hospital. My personal issue involving a "process dispute" will be included, and reporters Jeff Keene and Jamie Boll will be working on and talking to others who have had a bad experience at Grace Hospital. If you have had ANY experience that caused you grief or harrassed you or continues to harrass you months or longer after the experience at Grace Hospital, Jeff Keene wants to talk to you. Please contact Jeff at:

jkeene@wbtv.com - OR - (704) 374-3757

Jeff wants ALL types of issues to include in the news segment, so if you want to share yours, please contact Jeff at the email or phone number listed here.

Sincerely,

Richard Garrison

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- January 6, 2013

Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000 under new fiscal deal - UK Mail Online - Hayley Peterson - January 4, 2013 - Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center...                Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more - or an additional $2,711 - in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent - or up to $1,784 - the D.C.-based think tank reported...            Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.


FOMC Minutes: Some Fed Members Argue to End Bond Buying This Year - AP through NewsMax - January 3, 2013 - Federal Reserve policymakers expressed broad support last month for the Fed's plan to buy bonds to support the U.S. economy. But they differed over how long to keep buying bonds to drive down long-term interest rates.                    Minutes of the Fed's December policy meeting show that some of the 12 voting members thought the bond purchases would be warranted through the end of this year.                    Others felt the purchases should be slowed or stopped altogether before the end of 2013. This group was concerned that too much bond buying by the Fed might destabilize the economy.                        The Fed ended up approving open-ended purchases of $85 billion a month in Treasury securities and mortgage backed bonds to maintain its level of bond purchases.                          The minutes covered the Fed's Dec. 11-12 meeting. In a statement after the meeting, the Fed said it planned to keep a key interest rate at a record low even after unemployment falls close to a normal level — which it said might take three more years.                    As long as the outlook for inflation is mild, the Fed said it could keep short-term rates near zero at least until unemployment drops below 6.5 percent. The unemployment rate in November was 7.7 percent. On Friday, the government will release the rate for December.                      The statement was approved 11-1. Jeffrey Lacker, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, objected for the eighth straight time this year. Lacker has said he thinks the job market is being slowed by factors beyond the Fed's control. And he says further bond purchases risk worsening future inflation.


65 Percent Of Americans Believe That 2013 Will Be A Year Of Economic Difficulty - Michael Snyder - January 3rd, 2013 -  Do you believe that economic trouble is coming in 2013?  If so, you have a lot of company.  According to a brand new Gallup poll that was just released, 65 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of "economic difficulty" while only 33 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of "economic prosperity".  Gallup has been asking this question for a lot of years, and the percentage of Americans that are anticipating economic difficulty in the year ahead has not been this high since the early 1980s.  And without a doubt, there are a whole lot of reasons to be deeply concerned about the economy as we head into the new year.  But it isn't just 2013 that Americans are pessimistic about.  According to the new Gallup poll, 50 percent of all Americans believe that the best days of America are behind us, and only 47 percent of all Americans believe that the best days of America are ahead of us.  Those are very sobering numbers.  Half the country believes that it is only downhill from here for the United States.  Unfortunately, they are exactly right.  Things are rapidly going to get worse for our economy and for our nation as a whole.  We are going to start reaping the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions, and the pain is going to be immense.                          Gallup asked some other very interesting questions as well.  The following are some of the other results from the poll...                      -68 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of rising crime rates.                         -57 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year in which American power will decline in the world.                        -82 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year in which taxes in the United States will rise.
So why are so many people so pessimistic as we enter 2013?                           That is a good question.  I think that a lot of people are starting to wake up and are realizing the gigantic problems that are staring the U.S. right in the face.                         Even our friends over in Europe can see what is happening to us.  We are like a former athletic champion that is now clearly on the wrong side of "middle age" and is exhibiting obvious signs of decline.  We still like to think of ourselves as "the champ", but the truth is that we are fat, lazy, broken down and bankrupt.  The following is a brief excerpt from an article that appeared in a major UK news source the other day...

Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits - New York Times - By REED ABELSON - January 5, 2013 - Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers...                  Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.                         In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.                     In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.                          The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.                         Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.                       The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

Happy New Year Middle Class: The Fiscal Cliff Is Going To Rip You To Shreds - The Economic Collapse Blog - Michael Snyder - December 30th, 2012 - The middle class has quite a gift welcoming them as the calendar flips over to 2013.  Their payroll taxes are going to go up, their income taxes are going to go up, and approximately 28 million households are going to be hit with a huge, unexpected AMT tax bill on their 2012 earnings.  So happy New Year middle class!  You are about to be ripped to shreds.  In addition to the tax increases that I just mentioned, approximately two million unemployed Americans will instantly lose their extended unemployment benefits when 2013 begins, and new Obamacare tax hikes which will cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars over the next decade will start to go into effect.  If Congress is not able to come to some sort of a deal, all middle class families in America will be sending thousands more dollars to Uncle Sam next year than they were previously.  And considering the fact that the middle class is already steadily shrinking and that the U.S. economy is already in an advanced state of decline, that is not good news.  You would think that both major political parties would want to do something to keep the middle class from being hit with this kind of tax sledgehammer.  Unfortunately, at this point it appears that our "leaders" in Washington D.C. are incapable of getting anything done.  So get ready for much smaller paychecks and much larger tax bills.  What is coming is not going to be pleasant.
So what happened?                          Weren't the tax increases only supposed to be for the wealthy?
Well, that is what the politicians always promise, but it is always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.                     In this day and age, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy are absolute masters at avoiding taxes.                         For example, Facebook paid approximately $4.64 million in taxes on their entire foreign profits of $1.344 billion for 2011.                         That comes out to a tax rate of about 0.3 percent.                             Overall, the global elite have approximately 18 trillion dollars parked in offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.                       Keep in mind that U.S. GDP for 2011 was only slightly above 15 trillion dollars.


10 things you'll pay more for in 2013 - From satellite TV to baseball tickets, here's what you'll be shelling out more cash for this year. - CNN Money - Melanie Hicken - January 4, 2013


Lincolnton Furniture Company, praised for bringing jobs back to US, closes - Charlotte Observer through the Miami Herald - Cameron Steele - January 4, 2013 -  Lincolnton Furniture Company closed abruptly Thursday just one year after it was hailed by President Barack Obama as an example of the recovering U.S. economy.                       Furniture-making operations stopped indefinitely and only a few people will remain employed moving forward, company financial officer Ben Causey said.                     “I don’t know where it’s going to go exactly; we’re still evaluating our situation,” Causey said. “We just didn’t have any choice at this point.”                The company was not receiving the orders it needed to sustain its operations, Causey said.                     “We needed more orders is really what it boiled down to,” he said. “We thought they would materialize.”                  Owner Bruce Cochrane, a fifth generation furniture-manufacturer, formed the company in 2011 with a $5 million investment and the hope he could make a profit off people who wanted to buy furniture made in America.                         It was a move that caught the attention of North Carolina officials and those in the White House. Last year, Cochrane sat with the first lady during Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address. He also joined the president and other business leaders in a discussion about how to create more jobs at home.                  Attempts late Thursday to reach Cochrane were unsuccessful. Causey said company officials were thankful for the support they received from the community over the past year-and-a-half.
U.S. case goods maker Lincolnton Furniture closing - Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, January 4, 2013


Henredon to close upholstered furniture plant in Mount Airy, N.C. - Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today - January 4, 2013 - MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — Henredon Furniture is closing an upholstered furniture plant here, according to a report in the Mount Airy News. More than 100 people will be laid off as a result of the closing, which will take place over several months.                  The 102,500-square-foot facility is owned by Furniture Brands International, Henredon's parent company.                     The Mount Airy plant's operations will be moved to a 334,000-square-foot facility near Hickory, N.C., leased by the company, the report said.


The Giant Currency Superstorm That Is Coming To The USA.