WEAVERVILLE TOWN COUNCIL SHOULD BE ASHAMED

The situation in Weaverville -- a trailer park rezoned to accommodate a Super Wal-Mart, the 50-some families told to get out in 180 days and take their "manufactured homes" with them -- is so similar to what happened in Boone a few years back for the building of the Fairfield Inn.

Very precisely similar. Except that the Boone Town Council at the time was shamed into taking action to help the mainly poor, sick, and disabled residents relocate. Lynne Mason, a social worker at that time, became a local hero working on behalf of the displaced, raising money tirelessly from the faith community. It was on the strength of that volunteer work that Ms. Mason was subsequently elected to the Boone Town Council.

Weaverville appears to have thrown its trailer park citizens to the wolves, and the new developers of the property are doing their bit too to increase human misery. They have delivered eviction notices.

It costs a minimum of $1,800 to move a mobile home to a new location. Some of the older ones can't be moved at all. What do people subsisting on minimum wage, or living on Social Security, do?

The Weaverville town council doesn't know and apparently doesn't care. Instead of humanitarian public policy, or any care for the poorest citizens, the people of Weaverville get ... a Super Wal-Mart.

What is wrong with this picture?