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kmherald.com Volume 126 eo Issue 38 ¢ Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Mounties down Cavs Health Quarterly | eww, Rotary Spaghetti
Burns here Friday! Heart Health
Sports on 1B inside Today! Info on Page 4A
Anti-casino
group may send
telegation to D.C.
gu DAVE BLANTON
dave.kmherald@gmail.com
Opponents of
a proposed Na-
tive American
casino may soon
be taking their
case to Washing-
ton, D.C., where |
they’re hoping to |
get an audience
with Department
of Interior and " a
Bureau of Indian “+ —
Affairs officials Cynthia Forcade talks about the
over the matter, legal process of a Native Amer-
Members of ican tribe putting land into trust
the Kings Moun- for the purposes of building a
tain Awareness Casino. The group met Saturday
Group met Satur- 10 discuss how it could reach
day at a church Out to more people in the com-
near downtown munity and to officials in the
to share updates Nation's capital.
about their cause
and discuss how it can continue to reach out to
members of the community in what it sees as a
important fight to preserve the way of life in
Kings Mountain and the surrounding area.
Adam and Cynthia Forcade, the two chief
spokespeople for the group, said they’ve re-
quested a meeting with federal officials as the
Catawba Indian tribe’s application for putting
nearby land in trust is pending. They intend to
See ANTI-CASINO, 3A
Moss Lake
repairs / Smart
Meters on
today’s agenda
Kings Mountain City Council will meet
Wednesday, today, at 5:30 p.m. at the Pub-
lic Works Building. Il
Councilmen will be asked to approve a
budget amendment for $175,000 to make
emergency repairs at Moss Lake Dam.
They will also hear an update on the
Smart Meter billing policy.
It PAYS to be a
Mountaineer!
— Former county manager -
David Dear: casino “positives
far outweigh negatives”
(Ed. note — It has been a year
and the fate of a proposed
casino/resort in Kings Moun-
tain is still undecided by the
US Bureau of Indian Affairs.
David Dear; former county
manager and a leader in the
Cleveland County Economic
Development Partnership,
says he enthusiastically
awaits the announcement of
the project. “The facts speak
for themselves, the positives
far outweigh the negatives.”)
By DAVID DEAR
During my 37 years of ex-
perience in the local govern-
ment business, I have never
DAVID DEAR
had the opportunity to partic-
ipate in a project that has the
potential to positively impact
a community and region the
way the proposed Catawba
Indian Resort can.
This project is so large
This artist's rendering shows the proposed Catawba Indian Nation resort and casino that would be built in Kings Mountain.
and far reaching in scope that
it will energize our entire re-
gional economy.
The Cleveland County
Economic Development Part-
nership and its member or-
ganizations have been
~ extremely successful in the
last 10 years at bringing new
businesses and industrial
plants to Cleveland County.
Recent unemployment
data suggests that for the first
time in recent history, Cleve-
land County unemployment
closely resembles our state
unemployment levels at ap-
proximately 6.5%. Even with
all our successes, the unem-
ployed and underemployed
population in our area re-
See DEAR, 4A
$10,000 prize goes to
Steve and Eileen Sanders
DAVE BLANTON
dave.kmherald@gmail.com
Hundreds of donors to the
Kings Mountain Historical Mu-
seum came together Saturday
evening to dine on good food,
bid on a number of valuable
items in both silent and tradi-
tional auctions, and of course to
find out which lucky ticket-
holder was the winner of the
$10,000 grand prize.
That lucky donor is Steve
Sanders, who museum officials
described as surprised and very
happy upon hearing the news a
little later that night. Sanders and
E rT SEAnEY
“Historical Museu
TSS
‘Liberty
Mountain’
tickets on
sale now
Tickets went on sale
Monday at the Kings
Mountain Little Theatre box
office on a first come, first
served basis for the new his-
torical drama, “Liberty
Mountain” based on the
1780 Revolutionary War
Battle of Kings Mountain,
by playwright Robert
Inman. Only a seat reserva-
tion guarantees a seat. The
performances are expected
to sell out.
The play dates are Oct. 4,
10 and 11 at 3 p.m. and Oct.
5 and 12 at 3 p.m. at Joy
Performance Center, 202 S.
Railroad Ave. Tickets are
$15 for all seats with $2 dis-
counts for groups of 10 or
more. Season ticket pack-
ages are available for further
discounts and additional
benefits. Reservations are
suggested.
Present season ticket
holders (KMLT and GSCT)
See LIBERTY MOUNTAIN, 7A
Town Hall
meeting
Sept. 23
Board of Education
member Danny Blanton and
parent Robert Queen will
conduct a Town Hall meet-
ing Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 7
p.m. at the old Piedmont
School, now the Lawndale
Community Center in
Lawndale.
“We invite anyone and
everyone with any concerns
about education to attend
this informal meeting," said
Blanton. He said some con-
cerns have surfaced from
parents and the group will
air and address them and
those attending will be given
opportunity to speak.
Queen will serve as mod-
erator of the meeting.
Tuesday's town hall
meeting is the second meet-
ing about community con-
cerns and schools in recent
months. Neither of the meet-
ings was called by the Board
Photo by DON CRAWFORD
Steve Sanders and his wife, Eileen, celebrate at the Kings Mountain Histor-
ical Museum Tuesday as winners of $10,000 in the Museum's big
raffle/fundraiser that was held Saturday night. For the first time, the mu-
seum's goal of 300 tickets sold at $100 each was raised for benefit of pro-
grams that will benefit the public. Sanders bought a ticket last Thursday
after reading a story a bout the event in The Herald.
of Education.
Blanton suggested at the
initial town hall meeting that
a suggestion box be placed
at each school for any staffer
to make suggestions about
school improvements and/or
complaints. He said the
board of education has not
acted on his recommenda-
tion and no report /minutes
of the first meeting were on
the agenda of the school
board.
Now
Open on
Fridays!
his wife Eileen weren’t present
for the dinner and drawing, and
museum representatives said it
was their first time buying a
ticket for the annual reverse raf-
fle.
“He was elated,” said David
Dilling, a member of the board
of directors for the museum. “In
fact, he and his wife went to high
school with me. So I called him
personally because I wanted it
to seem credible.”
and other delectables.
This was also the first year
the museum’s biggest fundraiser
of the year sold all of the avail-
By night’s end the annual raf-
fle awarded scores of smaller
door prizes to other ticket hold-
ers, who learned of their fate
over a dinner of roast beef,
shrimp, chicken, croissants, fruit
See SANDERS, 4A
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