From my Upstate SC photoset on Flickr.West Asheville co-op faces eviction; calls community meeting
by Brian Postelle, Mountain Xpress
April 6, 2009
The Haywood Road Market, which has a history of financial struggles, now might have to leave its location of six years.Thinking fondly back to my own co-op days; I wish you the best of luck for the continuing success of your endeavor.
April DeLac, president of the co-op’s board, said the market received an eviction notice from Bledsoe Building owners West Asheville Development in late March after the market had been late on paying February’s rent.
DeLac noted that the co-op’s money woes stretch back further than two months.
“We’ve been a struggling co-op for a long time,” she said. “There’s been financial issues almost the entire history.”
Those financial issues include not only late rent payments but also a series of personal and business loans extended over the years to try to help the market reach a sustainable level, says WAD partner and West End Bakery co-owner Krista Stearns.
“This has been years in coming,” Stearns said. “And it was a very hard decision to make.”
Stearns’ husband Lewis Lankford, also a member of WAD, said the co-op’s poor payment history led to the decision not to renew the market’s lease in January, switching to a month-to-month status, and eventually to the eviction notice, which is effective the end of May.
But Lankford, himself a founding board member of the co-op, said that empty shelves and declining business also gave a dim forecast of the market’s future.
“The decision was reinforced by going in and seeing the condition of the store,” he said. “It didn’t have the feel of anything except something that was going away.”
For DeLac, however, there are still options on the table (granted, those options include moving or closing shop for good). The co-op will hold a member’s meeting — with the public invited — on Tuesday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m. at the Bledsoe Building to try to figure out the next step.
I now live in a community with no food co-op, and feel the lack significantly. Starting a food co-op in this area proved to be an impossibility, but at least I got to meet cool folks like Ted Christian in the process.
Nonetheless, it is one of those things I didn't get accomplished, and any mention of co-op failure and/or disinterest, just plain makes me sad. :(
~*~
Lately, Cripchick has been inspired to write more, and her poetry soars through the stratosphere, way into heavenly terrain. She is very gifted. Check out her wonderful poetry! 
Also, you might want to visit the First Asian Women's Carnival!New to my blogroll is YouTomb--an extremely-welcome free-speech project tracking one of the most maddening modern phenomena of Blogdonia (often fussed about in extremis here at DEAD AIR), the removal of videos from YouTube:YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.This is one of those hypnotic websites, so be careful. You can get lost in data over there.
More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.
Count me in as one who adored the First Lady's fabulous J Crew cardigan, worn during her trip to London this past week. (photo at left)
She looked SMASHING (as British broadcasting legend David Frost always enthused about his favorite female guests).
Not at all surprising that the press is glued to her every fashion move. She is beautiful and radiant.
And when she spoke proudly of her working class roots, she made me proud, too.