EWS RECORD
PEOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY SINCE 1901
Thursday, January 2, 1986
ay
Community
Calendar
Hot Springs Health Program
To Consider Expansion
The Hot Springs Health Program membership will consider
a resolution to expand service to the Mars Hill area at a hear
ing to be held tonight at 7 p.m. at the Laurel Volunteer Fire
Dept. station.
The program currently serves the Marshall, Walnut, Hot
Springs, Spring Creek and Shelton Laurel sectiohs of Madison
County. Members were notified of the hearing last week by
mail.
The program's board of directors have already endorsed the
expansion to provide medical services in the Mars Hill, Beech
Glen and Ebbs' Chapel communities.
County Commissioners Meet Monday
The Madison County Board of Commissioners will hold their
regular monthly meeting on Jan. 6 at 1 p.m. in the Madison
County Court House. The commissioners are expected to
discuss the repair project to restore the courthouse during
Monday's meeting.
Mars Hill Aldermen Meet Monday
The Mars Hill Board of Aldermen will meet on Jan. 6 at 7 ;30
p.m. in the Mars Hill Town Hall.
Hot Springs Board Meets
The Hot Springs Board of Aldermen will meet on Jan. 6 at
7:30 p.m. in the Hot Springs Town Hall.
School Board Meeting Jan. 8
The Madison County Board of Education will hold its mon
thly meeting on Jan. 8 at 10:30 a.m. in the Madison County
Court House.
DOT Board Postpones
Spring Creek Road Plans
The Martin administration has
placel three Madison County road
projects on the back burner accor
ding to a report released by Speaker
of the House Liston B. Kamsey. The
three projects include improvements
to (J.S. 25-70 from the intersection of
N.C 208 to Hot Springs. U.S. 25-70
from Hot Springs to the Tennessee
state line and a new road to be built
from Marshall to the Spring Creek
area
The three local road projects are
among 150 projects approved bv the
administration of former Gov. James
B. Hunt Jr. which were postponed in
the current year bv the new ad
ministration.
Information on the postponements
was included in a report to the House
Speaker prepared by Thomas L. Cov
ington. director of the fiscal research
division of the General Assembly's
Legislative Services Office.
Ramsey requested the report con
cerning the Transportation Improve
ment Program (TIP) after the
Martin-appointed board changed the
Hunt adminstration's program
The proposed road from Marshall
to Trust was one of the big losers
among the postponed road projects.
Originallv planned for a tWfi starting
date, the project was tabled until 1995
by the Martin administration, with no
completion date for the project The
plan approved by the Hunt ad
minstration called for completion of
the road in the 1987 fiscal year.
The proposed Spring Creek road is
also the project which federal in
vestigators probed in obtaining mail
frai(f indictments against former
transportation board member Zeno
Ponder and members ot his family
Ponder has donated right of way to
t-he state for the proposed road
The Martin administration also set
back both U.S. 25-70 projects several
years in approving the new TIP plan
Work from N.C. 208 to Hoi Springs,
originally approved lor 1985. has been
rescheduled to 1987 Improvements lo
U.S. 25-70 form Hot Springs to the
state line, originally approved for a
I9UH completion date, have been set
hack to 1990 according to the report.
The report also indicated that the
Martin-appointed transportation
I ward has cancelled some 18 projects
costing an estimated $13.2 milion that
were previously approved during the
Hunt adminstration None of the
cancelled road projects are in
Madison County
Federal Judge Refuses To Dismiss
Charges Against Ponder
U.S. District Court Judge David
Sentelle refused to dismiss charges of
mail fraud against Zeno Ponder.
Marie Ponder. Leonard Ponder and
Marshall Kanner during a Monday
hearing in Asheville.
Attorney Herbert Hyde asked the
court to dismiss the indictments
handed down on Dec. 4 bv the federal
grand jury. Hyde told the court that
the indictments did not satisfy re
quirements of the mail fraud statutes
because it was not clearly
demonstrated that any false pro
mises were made.
The indictments charge Ponder, his
wife Marie, nephew Leonard Ponder
and business associate Leonard
Ponder with six counts of mail fraud
in connection with land purchases
made between 1982 and 1984.
The first count of the indictment
I
h
charges that fonder and the others
formed a trust to speculate in
Madison County real estate in I9H2.
The indictment charges that Fonder,
as a member of the state transporta
tion board, had inside information on
future road improvements planned
for the county.
In presenting his argument to the
court. Hyde said that the law does not
require land purchasers to inform
sellers that the state is expected to
improve the property. He added that
the indictment fails to allege that
Ponder violated his trust as a
member of the transportation board.
Ponder maintains that he purchas
ed the property in order to give the
stale a free right-of-way for the pro
posed Spring Creek-Marshall road.
In 198-4. a state investigation of the
land purchases cleared Ponder of
wrongdoing
SBI Director Criticizes U.S. Attorney's Handling
Of Zeno Ponder Mail Fraud Case
By TOD!) COIIKN
The News and Observer
In August, 1984, two state prosecutors ended an in
vestigation of Zeno H. Ponder by announcing they had in
sufficient evidence to indict the Madison County
Democratic leader on a charge of misusing his position
on the state Hoard of Transportation.1
On Dec. 4- almost 16 months later- a federal grand jury
in Asheville indicted Ponder, 64. his wife. Marie: his
nephew, Leonard Ponder: and business associate Mar
shall Kanner on six counts each of mail fraud
The separate state and federal investigations focused
on the same 19.5-acre tract in Madison County that
Ponder bought in 1982 while on the transportation board.
The purchase was negotiated less than two months before
the board approved the construction of a long-promised
road through the property
Ponder bought the property through his attorney.
1-arrv I^eake. from O.O. and Jane Davis of Madison Coun
ty. He later gave the state free use of 2.5 acres for right of
way for the road. The road would connect the western
part of Madison County with Marshall, the county seat
The federal indictment accuses Ponder and the three
others of sending deeds through the mail as part of a
scheme to buy land in Madison County on which or near
where they knew the state would build or improve roads
Ponder said recently by telephone that he was not guil
ty and that the federal indictment had been politically
motivated. U.S. Attorney Charles R. Brewer, chief
federal prosecutor in Western North Carolina, is a
Republican.
He said that Republican U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, who
recommended Brewer to be a U.S. attorney, has an
nounced during his re-election campaign last year that he
wanted the U.S. Attorney's office to observe Ponder
closely.
"I charge that that is political harassment." said
Ponder, who was appointed to the transportation board
by Demoql-atioc Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.- Helms' 1984 op
ponent. Ponde% who served on the board from 1981 to
1984. is the brother of Madison County Sheriff E.Y.
Ponder and a former chaorman of the county Democratic
Party and the county Board of Elections.
Brewer denied Ponder's accusation and said he had ob
tained "a good, legitimate indictment."
He said that while both investigations had focsused on
the same property, federal prosecutors developed the
case "outside of anything the state had done."
"We did not take anything the state gave us and use it
as a basis, of a federal indictment." he said.
Brewer would not comment on the state's investigation
or compare thf dificulty of obtaining an indictment under
federal and slate law.
The indictment was based on the federal mail fraud
statute, which makes it a crime to use the mail as patr of
a scheme to defraud That law is not available to state
prosecutors
A violation can occur without someone having actually
gained or lost something as a result of a fraud. Brewer
said. Merely scheming to defraud, he said, might be
enough to obtain a conviction- as long as the mails were
used to advance the scheme.
The state investigation was headed by Wake County
District Attorney J Randolph Riley, a Democrat, and
District Attorney James T. "Tom" Rusher of Boone, a
Republican whose district includes Madison County.
They began their probe at the request of a legal adviser to
Hunt.
Hunt's office made the request in June, 1984 after lear
ning that the transportation board had approved con
struction two years earlier of the road that will pass
along the 19 5-acre tract.
Riley said he was not familiar with the federal indict
ment or federal mail fraud law- or with how evidence
gathered by federal investigators may have differed
from evidence. obtained by the state.
But he added that it was "not uncommon for a given set
of facts to provide a basis for prosecution under the
statute of one jurisdiction but not of another."
Under one state statute considered in the state in
vestigation, prosecutors would have had to find evidence
that Ponder had profited from his position on the
transportation board or had engaged in a land transac
tion with the Dept of Transportation while he was a
board member.
Under another state statute, which makes it a felony to
obtain property or services with intent to defraud, pro
secutors would have had to show that an intentional
misrepresentation of a fact on which someone had relied
in disposing of property
Brewer said federal prosecutors, to btain a conviction,
will have to show a "general intent to have a scheme and
artifice to defraud somebody."
Riley said that simply attempting to obtain property by
false pretenses also might constitute a state crime under
common law established I $ state courts. Prosecuting
such a violation would require at least "some substantial
evidence of preparation to follow through with that
crime." he said
Rusher and Riley ended their investigation in August.
1984 without seeking an indictment.
They said Ponder s gift of the right of way to the
Department of Transportation did not amount to the sale
i Continued on Page 8
Lawsuits May Change Nuclear Dump Site Schedule
B> MONTH B VMi.M.I.
The Newt and Observer
With a decision expected next
month on whether North Carolina will
remain in the running for the nation's
first high-level radioactive waste
burial site, some enviornmenta lists
?re worried that the government
might open the repository earlier
than oriitkially planned ;
Because of lawsuits filed by states
under consideration to be the first
site, concerns have been raised that
the government might make the se
cond site the first
By mid-January some sources say
Jan l?- the U.S. Dept. of Energy will
looking for The pluton is a deep,
massive underground deposit of
granite that stretches for miles, part
of which could be hollowed out for a
repository.
In all. 236 sites in 17 states in the
Southeast and upper Midwest are
under evaluation for the second
repository. All those sites have
massive underground formations of
crystalline rock such as granite,
qtiartz and gneiss: 60 of the rock
bodies are completely or partially in
North Carolina,
No slate wants to be named the site
of a repository because spent fuel
rods from atomic reactors and waste
from the i>rodurtion of nuclear bombs
would be stored there for thousands
at year# while they slowly lose their
lethal radioactivity
Three Western and South-Central
sites are under consideration to be
the l
the mid-1990s
By then, according to current
timetables, the first site will have
been chosen The first repository is
scheduled to begin operation in 1998.
the year in which the federal govern
ment is under contract with electric
power companies to begin accepting
their high-level waste
But some enviornmenmtalists are
wooried that the pending lawsuits.;
combined with the government's
need to have a repository in operation .
in time to fulfill its contracts, could
prompt federal officials to rearrange
their plans ? , |
The energy department was sup
posed to narrow the list of possible
crystalline rock site* last month, but
postponed the decision
Janet M Hoyle. who heads a North
Carolina group called the Blue Ridge
Bnviorn mental Defense League, is
about what the postponement
Jl
of
year, and thai it also had been
discussed during a recent meeting in
Boston of groups representing
residents of all 17 states that are part
of the crystalline rock evaluation
The rationale for such a move, she
said, is that the energy department
may be bogged down by lawsuits over
ils search for the first site. In addi
tion. the federal taw authorizing ttje
searcj for high-level repositories, the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act. "has been
followed more closely in the second
round than in the first," she said.
That means what has been the
search for the second site could belter
survived a court chaHenge and pro
ceed with fewer impediments she
said. She said time was important
because the- government was con
tracted to accept some utilities' high
level wastes by Jan. 31. 199R
using all the crystalline sites in the 1
nomination process for the first 1
repository- but we don't intend to do 1
that." Quirke said
"Our plan right now. and our in
tent. 4s to follow through with the first
repository search and then go about
looking for the second repository."
In 1983. federal officials began
evaluating nine sites in six, states
Louisiana. Texas. Washington.
Nevada. Mississippi .and Utah- for
selection as the first repository
Three of those sites in Texas.
Washington and Nevada- remain in
the running.
again, applying more sophisticated
techniques than had been used
tefore.
He said the energy department has
"a fair amount of confidence" that
the new screening would yield the
same three sites. He also said that
we do not expect lengthy delays
through court action."
Sites that are not selected for the
first repository could be considered
for the second repository along with
the crystalline rock bodies. Quirke
said. z't i. *? , t
It is not yet certain that a second
repository will ever be built in
crystalline rock in North Carolina or