Consultant not sold on Gastonia’s plans for downtown convention center, hotel
Gastonia’s super-secret-deal $16,000 contract consultant backs off his own report. Could it be that Atlantic Hospitality Advisors are worried about the possible business connection back to “Big Plan” Palenick?
We have to give a lot of credit to councilman Kirlin for wanting to explore this issue in more detail.
(Gastonia City Councilman, Dave Kirlin)
Tonight’s Gastonia City Council meeting will be televised (Gaston County Access Channel 16 on the TW cable). We hope Mr. Palenick wears some makeup.
The consultant’s fees for this market study don’t appear to be too well-earned. Most of the data looks to be lifted from several earlier studies of the Gaston County area and accessible data from both the Economic Development Commission and the Census Bureau. So, taxpayers footed the bill to tell the Gastonia City Council what they already knew?
You can read some of the fiction yourselves right here:
The report is a 2mb file and might take a bit to download. Pretty hefty you must admit for $16,000.
Mr. Palenick’s “revised” plan that will be discussed at tonight’s meeting:
Belmont PD: Purse snatchers targeting senior citizens
Another spillover effect of having more traffic for economic development? The Walmart Effect hits the Reid neighborhood. Lincoln Street connects back to Wilkinson down by the Auto Zone near Pack Brothers. It is an easy cut-through road.
We hope that the people of our community neighborhoods can feel safe – certainly makes a case for more police wouldn’t you think?
Belmont bags Phone Books
Keep Belmont Beautiful, a local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, hosted its annual phonebook recycling drive through the month of January.
On January 31, representatives of KBB counted almost 16,000 phone books at area schools.
Belmont Central was the top collecting school with 11,287 books, most of which were stacked neatly in the gym and in the entrance hallways to the school.
Piza parties were awarded to the winning classes in each school and top collectors will be awarded certificates and KBB t-shirts.
Top collectors this year were:
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JB Page: Sarah Neil, 130 books; Carson O’Brien, 100 books; school total-1,418
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North Belmont: Chance York, 365 books; Audrey Williams, 342 books; school total -2,486
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Belmont Central: Jordan Lathe, 7,188 books; Tyler Grigg, 2,015 books; and, Lindsey Johnson, 201 books; school total -11,287
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Belmont Middle: Yash Patel, 75 books; school total -625
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South Point: 42 books total
(KBB photo)
The Belmont Front Porch 
