DT Fine Art

Let Harry Potter inspire your own magical adventure in Western North Carolina:

Godrics Hollow: This wizardry community was the final home of Harrys parents and the location of their murder and the attack that left Harry with his lightning bolt-shaped scar. Visit Little Switzerland, known for its quaint community, for the same experience. Its about an hour away from Asheville off the Blue Ridge Parkway, but when you get there, youll feel like youre in a far away land.

Little Whinging: This town outside London is the home of Harrys guardians, his uncle and aunt, and his bratty cousin. Its described as a suburb south of the city, so South Asheville would be our area equivalent. You could even go to South Ashevilles Carolina Asheville movie theater to see the new ?Harry Potter? flick.

Quidditch: Want to feel like you are buzzing about on a broomstick during Quidditch, the popular wizard sport? Try Navitat Canopy Tours, where you can soar through the air on a zip-line and not worry about a competitor trying to knock you off.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: No offense to any of the universities in WNC, but the only place around that comes close to the grandeur of this spectacular school is the Biltmore House. Hogwarts is a boarding school, so it was a residence in that sense. Biltmores got a grand dining hall and vast, beautiful grounds surrounding it like Hogwarts. But none of Biltmores portraits talk, and as far as I know, the steps dont move.

Hogwarts Express: This magical train delivers students to the school of witchcraft and wizardry. Take a trip on Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock. Bonus: Death Eaters wont attack this choo-choo.

Butter Beer: The students of Hogwarts indulge in this drink throughout the series. It is nonalcoholic, but that doesnt mean you cant check out one of our local breweries or bars to experience something similar. Try the Thirsty Monk at 92 Patton Ave. They serve a variety of local sips, and boast a great pub atmosphere, especially downstairs.

Hogsmeade: This bustling, ancient village features many shops, restaurants and residence that are the setting for a lot of major magic moments in the book. Its also home to a train station that takes students to Hogwarts. Biltmore Village features the same mix of shopping and restaurants in a historical setting. Trains still run by the area, and it used to house a train stop, as well.

Hagrids Cottage: Harry Potter and company find refuge in Hagrids friendship and in his cottage in the shadow of Hogwarts. The Cottage is similarly secluded on the grounds of The Grove Park Inn on Macon Avenue and is used as a rentable residence.

Carol Motsinger

(07/13/11) The city of Watertown will reorganize its Parks and Recreation Department after learning about years of outstanding bills owed to the city for use of Fairgrounds facilities.

In late May, an audit revealed a pattern of messy bookkeeping and billing practices resulting in tens of thousands of dollars of lost revenue for the city. Joanna Richards has the story.

Logan o Utah State University is a residential campus embedded in one of the state’s most attractive cities, but it lacks the kind of commercial district that acts as an off-campus social anchor in most college towns.

To fix that, USU officials are proposing to partner with a private developer to convert 5 acres of land across the street from the football stadium into commercial space and student housing.

“We don’t have a sense of a living community. This is an idea for a campus town that is close to the university,” said David Cowley, USU vice president for finance, during a Board of Regents meeting Friday on the Logan campus.

The University of Utah proposed a similar idea, but on a much larger scale, for the Rice-Eccles Stadium parking lot. The developers, however, shelved the Universe Project two years ago when the economy soured.

USU’s main campus in Logan is home to about 17,000 students. About a fourth live in campus housing, which is completely full. Cowley had been eyeing 2.5 acres the school owns on 800 East, across from Romney Stadium, as a possible site for future residence halls and he investigated purchasing an adjacent 2.5-acre parcel.

But that land was already under contract to alumnus David Miller and his firm La Veta Financial. Cowley discovered La Veta planned a mixed-use student housing project, so he developed an idea to hook USU’s parcel into that development.

Cowley’s proposed ground lease of the USU property to La Veta would net the university $75,000 a year. “It would be a development of high-end housing, the kind that the university wouldn’t bond for,” Cowley said. “All this housing can feed commercial activity near the stadium.”

The Regents approved the arrangement, along with another proposed USU partnership with the private sector. Officials are entering into an agreement with developers to build commercial space along Brigham City’s Main Street. The school owns a former Kmart building west of the former Indian school slated to become a new campus.

That building is fronted by a parking lot that Cowley proposed leasing to Orvieto Investments, which would build a structure to house a Verizon store and two eateries.

Regent Brent Brown pointed out these businesses would be the new frontage buildings and suggested imposing height restrictions to keep them from obstructing the view from the street of the former Kmart.

Posted: July 16
Updated: Today at 9:31 PM

AMY CALDER: The varied faces of pawning

By Amy Calder acalder@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

If you want to get a taste of how the economy is treating people, you might take a trip to JRs Trading on lower Main Street in downtown Waterville.

Animals Keeping Cool (7/12/11): Animals at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson find ways to stay cool as the temperatures rose through the 90s. STAFF VIDEO BY THOMAS P. COSTELLO

BY MICHAEL W. MCCONNELL

After sending up a budget in February that would only add to government spending and deficits, President Obama has now come around to the view that “it is a moral imperative to tackle our debt and deficits in a serious way.” Both sides have to make sacrifices, he says. It is time to “eat our peas.” The president’s evident purpose is to put the blame on Republicans for failing to come to an agreement.

But the absence of any written budgetary documents and the closed-door nature of the negotiating sessions make it impossible to tell which side is being “serious” …

Miami-Dade County#x92;s new mayor proposed Wednesday to eliminate nearly 1,300 county jobs, squeeze concessions from county workers, and pare back services, including closing 13 public libraries and mothballing two county fireboats.

To close a $400-million budget gap for the coming year, Gimenez , who campaigned on a promise to cut taxes and rein in a bloated government, proposed a county spending plan for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 that slashes the county#x92;s property-tax rate by 11.8 percent.

The move #x97; which would lower county tax bills this year for virtually all property owners #x97; would reverse the wildly unpopular rate hike that was pushed through last year by his predecessor, Carlos Alvarez, provoking the largest recall of a local elected official in US history.

In coming weeks, it will become clear whether residents, who have been clamoring for lower taxes, and county commissioners, who are sensitive to county unions and other key constituencies, have the stomach for the service cuts that go hand-in-hand with a smaller budget.

With Miami-Dade#x92;s current labor agreements set to expire Sept. 30, Gimenez is pressing unions to embrace substantial concessions, including increasing employees#x92; contribution to health care insurance to 10 percent of their gross salaries from the current 5 percent. He is already announced that he#x92;s imposing that extra cost on the county#x92;s non-unionized workers. The move comes even as county employees have been hit with a new requirement to kick in 3 percent of their salaries toward the Florida Retirement System, a burden previously funded fully by the county.

And the mayor#x92;s proposed budget calls for cutting county positions to 26,361 from 27,647, a reduction of 1,286. While 402 of those positions are currently vacant, the mayor#x92;s budget envisions about 890 layoffs of workers.

The mayor, who has been focusing on hammering out a proposed budget since taking office July 1, will present his plan to county commissioners, who ultimately decide on the shape of the county budget and the property-tax rate and fee structure that is adopted.

County commissioners are set to meet Tuesday to set a preliminary tax rate. The county commission will hold two public hearings on Sept. 8 and Sept. 22 to set the actual tax rate and settle on the new budget.

#x93;The massive double-digit property tax rate hike that my predecessor spearheaded last year #x97; and which I voted against as a commissioner #x97; must be rolled back,#x92;#x92; Gimenez said in a statement to commissioners released Tuesday along with the proposed property-tax rate. #x93;That tax rate hike came at precisely the time that our residents were adjusting their own living and spending habits to conform to this challenging economic reality.#x92;#x92;

While Miami-Dade has been hit particularly hard by the housing and financial crises, the idea of combining government employee layoffs and concessions with service cuts to fill a budget gap is a familiar theme that is playing out at municipal and state governments around the nation as they struggle with declining revenue. Indeed, cuts in government jobs are a major reason that the US job market remains so bleak, as modest hiring in the private sector fails to compensate for the massive losses in government jobs.

The mayor#x92;s ax calls for cutting his own office budget by 20 percent. Gimenez took office announcing he had on his own initiative cut his $310,000 salary and benefits package in half.

He is also asking county commissioners to cut their budgets by 10 percent #x97; a move that is sure to spur controversy among the 13 elected officials, who tap their office budget to dole out support to favorite causes. Particularly controversial: The mayor is seeking to eliminate a long-standing county practice that allows commissioners to roll over to future years any unspent funds in their office budgets.

In total, the mayor#x92;s proposed budget for next year is $6.115 billion, down 19 percent from the current year total of $7.558 billion. That reduction includes cutting construction spending 39.5 percent, to $1.674 billion, from $2.768 billion this year, as major county construction projects at Miami International Airport and other areas near completion.

Under the mayor#x92;s plan, the county#x92;s operating budget #x97; which includes day-to-day expenses such as salaries and services as opposed to capital projects #x97; would be cut 7.3 percent to $4.441 billion, from $4.790 billion this year.

Gimenez says that confronted with tough choices, he is focusing on preserving core services. That means, for example, the Miami-Dade fire department, whose tax rate isn#x92;t getting cut as steeply as others, is being salvaged from deeper cuts it would have had to make. But the public library budget would be hit hard, with 13 libraries closing.

While the cuts are widespread, the mayor is proposing to retain programs that serve senior citizens and children at current levels. In prepared remarks to county officials Tuesday, Gimenez advocated #x93;protecting vital programs for our most vulnerable residents #x97; the elderly and children.#x92;#x92;

July 14 (Bloomberg) — China may maintain growth of about 9 percent this year, avoiding a hard landing, as spending on low-cost homes and developing inland provinces counters the impact of Europes debt crisis and monetary tightening.

Investment by local governments and private businesses helped drive a 9.5 percent gain in second-quarter gross domestic product from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing yesterday. That was faster than estimated as growth in industrial output and retail sales accelerated and copper and aluminum production reached records.

Investment accounted for more than half of the nations expansion in the first six months of the year and may offset threatened weakness in exports in the second half. At the same time, dependence on fixed-asset spending highlights limited progress in shifting to a more consumption-driven model that would play a bigger role in supporting global demand.

I would be willing to increase my exposure to the Chinese economy, said Fred Hu, chairman of Primavera Capital Group in Beijing and former Greater China chairman at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., adding that there are attractive opportunities with consumer goods, financial services and manufacturing stocks. Equity valuations and investor sentiment have become overly bearish as markets got spooked about a hard landing.

Industrial amp; Commercial Bank of China Ltd. has very strong profit growth with valuations converging to those of its Western peers, which doesnt make sense, Hu also said.

Stocks Rally

Chinese shares tumbled from their high in mid April to late June in part on concern that measures to rein in consumer and property prices would cause a jump in bad loans and drop in growth rates. The Shanghai Composite Index remains down almost 9 percent from the peak after rallying the past three weeks. It gained 1.5 percent yesterday after the economic data.

The second-quarter increase in GDP compared with a 9.7 percent gain in the previous three months and the median estimate of 9.3 percent in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The expansion came even after the central bank boosted lending rates five times since mid-October and lifted bank reserve requirements to a record.

The economy is on track to grow about 9 percent this year — a hard landing in 2011 looks very unlikely, said Chang Jian, an economist at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong who formerly worked for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the World Bank. Investment will remain the driver for growth this year and in the next couple of years as rebalancing is a gradual process.

Quarterly Pick-up

Fixed-asset spending, excluding rural households, rose 25.6 percent in the first half from a year earlier, yesterdays report showed. GDP growth was 2.2 percent in the second quarter from the first three months of the year, the statistics bureau said, picking up from 2.1 percent in January to March.

Leaders from the Group of 20 have said a consumer-led China economy would help address global imbalances in spending and saving that could lead to another financial crisis. Excessive dependence on fixed-asset spending has restrained Chinese living standards, led to lower job creation and energy efficiency and contributed to environmental damage, Bank of Japan researchers Tomoyuki Fukumoto and Ichiro Muto wrote in a study this month.

Chinese investment is financed in part by a cheap cost of capital, with policy makers keeping interest rates far below the return on capital, according to the BOJ working paper.

The benchmark one-year deposit rate is 3.5 percent, while the one-year lending rate is 6.56 percent, a spread that gives lenders the incentive to ramp up credit. With the consumer-price inflation rate at 6.4 percent, the return on deposits also leaves households savings eroded.

Subsidy for Lending

To bolster the role of consumer spending, China needs to embrace wage gains and address the distortions in the cost of capital, Fukumoto and Muto wrote.

Anastasopoulos heads Rancho Bernardo Recreation Council

By Elizabeth Marie Himchak

Nick Anastasopoulos is once again serving as Rancho Bernardo Recreation Council president, an office he has held six times before.

 More Images »  Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope (Parks and Recreation) &– In our opinion, all of the other comedic actress should just stay home on Emmy night, because Poehler&’s performance in Parks and Rec&’s third season was so brilliant and gut-bustingly funny that no one else can hope to compete. Not only does Poehler bring the funny each and every week, she also makes Leslie so darned likeable that you root for her even as she goes on a Type-A rant against her more lazy coworkers. Our favourite moments are when the director clearly just kept the camera rolling as Poehler improvised various lines, such as when Leslie told Ann about all of her terrible breakups. &“One time I was dating a guy for a while and he got down on one knee and he begged me not to call him again&… One guy broke up with me while we were in the shower together&… Sky-writing isn&’t always positive.&”Photograph by: Handout, Handout

Call it coincidence, call it premeditated, but the decision to repeat the defining episode of Parks and Recreation (Citytv, NBC, 8:30 p.m.) on the same day the Emmy nominations are announced is apt. Parks and Recreation is coming off a tear, with a brace of TV Critics Association nominations and a GLAAD Media Award, and it’s poised to get more attention when the Emmy short list is announced Thursday morning. Amy Poehler was nominated last year, and it’s not hard to imagine she’ll be mentioned again Thursday, along with Rob Lowe, Nick Offerman and the show itself.

Still, awards are one thing, consistently entertaining TV is another. And Thursday’s episode is a bounty of entertainment. It’s low-key – no slapstick, no canned laughter or toilet humour – and yet it’s brisk and fast, like a deftly written stage play.

The set-up is simple enough: The town of Pawnee is finally celebrating its harvest festival, after weeks of slow-building tension. Naturally, when everything looks as if it’ll come off without a hitch, it all goes wrong.

At the heart of it all is Poehler’s ever-optimistic Leslie Knope, Pawnee’s parks commissioner, noted for boundless enthusiasm and sudden, quotable kernels of homespun wisdom.

Community (Citytv, NBC, 8 p.m.), sharp and cutting where Parks and Rec is gentle and benign, is also one of TV’s finest sitcoms, and a potential Emmy contender. Thursday’s outing is a repeat in which the group debates whether to admit Señor Chang (Ken Jeong).

Emmy perennial 30 Rock (Citytv, NBC, 9:30 p.m.) repeats an outing in which Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) tries to impress the owner of Kabletown.

The remaining stragglers in Expedition Impossible (CTV, ABC, 9 p.m.) struggle their way up Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and discover that there’s snow on them thar hills.

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