Woodfin – The Bible says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge,..” Hosea 4:6. I was thinking about that verse this past week as I watched several people at the Woodfin Board of Commissioners meeting show their “lack of knowledge” about a variety of issues they spoke about (see story page 1).
For instance, people don’t understand that the installation of newly-elected commissioners always occurs in December, not in November because the results must be certified by the state. It’s been so long since new commissioners have been elected, it can almost be overlooked. Nothing sneaky or underhanded was going on but some residents accused the board of such.
Accusations
Certain attendees accused the board of staging the lack of a quorum, but why? The outgoing board seemed to be inclined to side with the developer of a piece of property near the Blueberry Hill sub development,
If you’re against the project, would you not want to wait for the new board to be seated, and thus believe the absence of a quorum at the meeting was a blessing, and not a trick?
Ignorance of a subject should be the first sign for people to ask questions, rather than make accusations. Much of the information for these residents is as close as a Tribune newspaper stand, or their computer.
Before you think the entire purpose of this commentary is to sell more papers, please keep in mind that if you wait a week, articles from the previous week’s newspaper are published on our website (Tribpapers.com) free of charge. If you can’t remember, just follow us on Facebook, where posts alert when articles are posted on our website.
The Tribune has covered Weaverville and Woodfin town meetings since 2003, along with other articles about the North Buncombe community. We understand that television news and other newspapers ignore these communities unless something major happens. However, it’s hard to understand why residents ignore the only source of information about the community they live in when it’s as close as their computer. I certainly understand how easy it is to opine about something you don’t have full knowledge of, as I did just that this week.
Rittenhouse Trial
Like most of the country, I’ve been watching the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse closely. Like the rest of the country, I had an opinion on his guilt or innocence. I came down on the side of not guilty, as did the jury. Sure, you can argue that he shouldn’t have been there because of a curfew, but you can also say that about the people he shot.
He received a death threat earlier in the night from one of the people he killed. Rather than turning to his weapon first, Rittenhouse ran from the people trying to assault him before turning to defend himself. He’s a better man than me, but I am older and fatter than Rittenhouse. To say that he is a “white supremacist” is defamation because there is no proof of that in the evidence at the trial.
After the verdict, I was talking to my mom, who was upset that the jury did not find him guilty. I took an extreme exception to my mom’s position. Had she not watched the same trial I had? It turns out she hadn’t. Initially, I concluded that my mom was crazy, when she was just ignorant of the facts. She had only been listening to the mainstream news and thus concluded that he was guilty. When I watched the trial, I came to the totally opposite opinion. When I explained some of the facts left out by the news, she also came to the same conclusion as me.
That’s why when I report on meetings at Weaverville and Woodfin. I try to cover the goings-on the way they happen. I understand that I can’t cover the entire meetings, which sometimes last up to three hours. However, if you can’t be there, or watch the streaming of the meeting, I try to accurately depict the events to equip the public with knowledge about their community.
Lack of knowledge can make you look stupid. Trust me, I know.