North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 05/24/1994

Good evening everyone I'm why is your case failing now John. Thank you so much for joining us joining me later will be the leader of the state Senate. SENATOR MARK BEST night of Dare County hope you're here to talk about the open legislative short session began today. He is the president pro tem of the Senate so he's got some insight as to what's going on. Short session now I've heard that they definitely plan to make this a short session we think they will try very hard they always do begin to try extra hard this you know short. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. In addition to the legislative session beginning there is this whole thing of basketball playoffs going on right now and we have a feature on an artist from Charlotte who has captured the I of quite a few basketball players and other sports figures and he's a very young man who is really making a name for himself with his sports art. We'll meet him. And also Gretchen Lang is going to be here to cook asparagus. She's an artist in the kitchen you know. Yes she is and she can do it with asparagus you can do it just mean anything anyway.

But for some R this recognition of their craft doesn't usually occur until they are all day or even worse after they die. But the work of this 29 year old Charlotte artist is being praised by some. Some of the top professional sports figures in the world. Reporter Michel Louis introduces us to artist Wilfred Alman. I've been blessed and fortunate. I'm going to get started in a career that most are going to start into that fall in the late 30s or 40s. I call it an honest Hossam. When 40 gallons honest tussle has caused him to successfully stroke his way into the art world. The 29 year old Charlotte native has put the canvas the likeness of Michael Jordan Larry Johnson and other NBA superstars and sports figures five and a half years ago when the Hornets arrived in the Queen City. GELLMAN saw it as an opportunity. He was a recent graduate of the Columbus School of Art and Design. Determined to make his mark he talks about how he approached the Hornets.

So what I did was a painting of Rex Chapman and Rex Chapman was the Hornets first first round pick. So he was a very special player because he was the first player picked out of the draft a year to come to Charlotte. It was the smallest piece Pollitt split up I've done so I've been doing what the smallest most articulate piece. And it got me lending me a big contract that contract involved 41 paintings highlighting each home game during the Hornets first season. Gellman says it was a challenge but he completed his task with flying colors after becoming a hit with the Hornets. GELLMAN added more detail to his work by doing individual portraits of athletes. The piece he is doing now is we're Bradlow hawse forward and sometimes Center for the Milwaukee Bucks. He says this project will probably take a month to complete when he's not in his studio Galban is on the road meeting with athletes and potential collectors. I like being on the road sometimes. Sometimes you know I'm sort of a homeboy. You know

I've always been around all of that around my parents and my friends but I know that it takes. Go on a road in order to to make it in this business. I have a philosophy that says unseen untold. And so the young artist also sees travel as a way to revive his creative juices for what he calls artist block Galban sense he paints instinctively and it's rare for his creativity to be blocked. But he's found a rather unique way of staying inspired. So my head whenever you see me out you know talking to people about doing a painting or a location you see what I have and this is what I call my thinking cap when I may have by myself doing my paintings. I always had it on my head Gelman also takes time to inspire youngsters in his community to stay in school and set positive goals for themselves every day.

We have a kid doing something that. A kid is not supposed to do such as bringing guns to school and there's a reason is a purpose of why they're doing this and so I think it's up because of the lack of self-esteem so our children need to see people and professional positions other than sports sometimes to actually let them know that they can become whatever they want to be in life. I mean no limitations. One of government's goals is to get more of his paintings into galleries. He also wants to showcase his jazz and racing pieces in addition to his sports Art Shell and brightest says the general manager of pope's galleries in Charlotte. What drew you to the spray paint work is particularly exciting to me because of the intensity of the color and the emotion that always comes out no matter what the subject is it always has that same intensity in feeling emotion I feel like in this painting here that come through those colors. You know actually you do those colors.

I feel the momentum of the of the race horses and the intensity of the crowd the colors just enable you to feel it. Gellman has painted over 200 pieces so far and galleries and Tampa Los Angeles Chicago and of course Charlotte the price were Goldman's Creations has ranged from $500 to some works which sell at $15000. A nice young man talented too. Well Gelman has other odd aspirations as well he plans someday to open an art school not only for people who want to become professional artists but for folks who love to paint just for the fun of it as well. Now spring asparagus it's in season for only a few weeks so if you want to get the full flavor of this fresh green vegetable now's the time. Gretchen's in the kitchen turning asparagus into a light springtime dish that's good. Any time of the day high today we're going to use beautiful spring asparagus and a wonderful North Carolina cheese to make an omelet. And

while I talk to you about those ingredients I'm going to just get started over here. Putting the eggs into my hand. Well talk a little bit more about that a minute now. Asparagus. Beautiful spring vegetable we only have it for about four to six weeks out of the year in nice condition and you can see this is really really beautiful. Some people like their asparagus real small and dainty like this some people like it thicker it's good both ways but either way you want to look for fresh bright green asparagus nothing dry or shriveled or limp. And with the tops as tightly closed as possible that's kind of a nice thing. And what I've done with my asparagus here to prepare it for the omelet because I've just lightly steamed it. Now the critical thing with asparagus is not to overcook and you can see this is kept a really nice bright green color and it's not limp you can see when I pick up a spear that it's. It bends a little bit but it's not limp and soft. And

you just want to steam it to that point you can taste it if you want to see when it tastes right to you and then rinse it or immerse it in cold water to stop the cooking and then just put that aside that's ready to go. Now the cheese that we're going to use today is called Yellow branch cheese and this is a real special cheese This comes from the mountains of North Carolina it's made on yellow brown farm by a woman named Karen Michel are made from Jersey cows milk and you can see that the Jersey milk gives it a really nice rich buttery yellow color. She makes both a plain version and one with a polyp in your peppers Ana which is this one over here. And this is just the most buttery creamy delicious thing that you ever tasted its absolutely wonderful behaves a lot like Havarti sort of soft creamy like that or maybe similar to a pepper jack the one with the hollow pin your peppers. And I've used the plain cheese today and I've got a little bowl of it grated here and I think as this as these eggs cook I'm going to go ahead and just

sprinkle on a little bit of this cheese. Now making an omelette is really really easy. And there are only a couple of things to remember. A lot of people put milk in their omelettes this is not a bad thing but it's good to use water instead because milk tends to toughen the eggs just a little bit. And I've used three eggs for this. This will be enough to feed either two people with dainty appetites or one person like me who can eat a lot of. And you want to just let those eggs cook until they're set and you can see from the edges here that this is starting to set nicely. Add the cheese in there early enough for it to melt and then I'm going to sprinkle on my little asparagus spears that I've just cut you can see that I've just cut these into small pieces and they look really beautiful. It shows the ingredients of this omelet in part for color.

And this is just the most lovely springlike dish that you could imagine. Just put that asparagus on there as that is cooking. And then I'm going to finish it off with a sprinkling of red bell pepper that I've just chopped into little bits. One thing about this is that they're delicate and you don't want to weigh them down you want things to be cut into relatively small pieces and you don't want to put too much in there because otherwise they're kind of hard to handle. And then to finish it just fold one side over the other. And this one is still a little liquid so I'm going to let it finish cooking. And basically as soon as those eggs set up that's done it's ready to serve. I put a little salt pepper into the eggs that's about all the seasoning that it needs. And if you'd like a copy of this recipe send a self-addressed stamped on below to recipes

P.O. Box 1 4 9 0 0 RTP NC 2 7 7 0 9. I'm hungry you hungry. Yeah you know it really amazes me how she manages to just make such a pretty name on TV it makes you hungry now smell it you go Gretchen. Well in just a moment Mitchell Lois will be in with today's statewide news a little later in the program we'll get the inside story about the legislative session from the leader of the state Senate Mark bassline. Don't go away now. Good evening I'm Michel Louis. Here's a review of what's happening across the state. It's

down to business for little North Carolina lawmakers. The General Assembly short budget session convened in Raleigh at noon today. Legislators will be making adjustments to the second year of the state's two year budget. The lawmakers will spend the next month or so trying to decide how one billion dollars worth of unused funds will be spent. North Carolina now is Elizabeth hearty will be closely following this legislative session and she's here to fill us in on some of the priorities facing lawmakers. Legislators are looking at extra funds compared to previous years. This money comes from improved revenue collections and then spend money from state agencies. These funds are available for one time spending. But today House Speaker John Boehner live call some lawmakers to take a more conservative approach when it comes to spending. We will save more money in this budget than anybody did in the state history. As long as we carry with us this simple reminder just because we have it doesn't mean we have to spend it.

The legislative budget includes big money for a Smart Start program funding for event for Mason highway and a play race for state senate had fought their budget by the end of the week. Thank you Elizabeth. We will have crews at the legislature every day during the General Assembly short session and we'll bring you the highlights each night right here on North Carolina now. North Carolina convicts would pay back to society a portion of what they've taken away under a new plan being proposed. The state department of correction has recommended that a portion of the earnings from prison industries and the inmate welfare fund go to the North Carolina Victims Compensation Fund. Corrections secretary Franklin Freeman says that 5 percent of the correction enterprise net profits and a portion of the earnings from inmate purchases should be given to crime victims needing financial assistance. A study starts this week to investigate possible links between businesses and the cancer rates among neighbors and workers in southeast North Carolina. The state's central Cancer Registry will spend at least three months looking for cancer

clusters in parts of New Hanover Brunswick Columbus and Bladen county's registry director Tim Aldrich says a Wilmington environmental group wants a review of the risk of cancer among workers at the Brunswick nuclear plant near Southport and the General Electric nuclear fuel processing plant near Castle Hayne. State and Federal investigators are randomly stopping truckers in the southeastern portion of our state to catch drivers not complying with new federal fuel regulations. Authorities are cracking down on commercial vehicle drivers who are using non-taxed fuel. The non-tax diesel fuel has higher sulfur levels and doesn't contain any pollution ingredients non-tax fuel is usually dyed blue and limited to off road use. Violators can be fined a minimum of $1000 or $10 per gallon whichever is greater. Today was the warmest day so far this year across North Carolina. There were a few clouds across the state

but temperatures reached into the mid 80s in the mountains high 80s in the Piedmont near 90s on the coast. Tonight the clouds will remain over most of the state. Temperatures will drop into the 50s in the mountains and lows will be in the mid 60s for the rest of North Carolina. Tomorrow the entire state is expected to see cloudy skies with a chance of showers. Highs will reach into the low 80s in the mountains near 90s. The other coast. Denny's restaurant chain has agreed to a 45 million dollar settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve hundreds of racial discrimination claims in one case a group of young blacks were told they had to pay a cover charge when they stopped at a Denny's in San Jose. In another case six black Secret Service agents were the night service at a Denny's in Maryland. The chairman of Denny's parent company Jerome Richardson says there was never a calculated effort to slight black customers. But he says Denny's does have a

perception problem. Richardson is also the owner of the NAT National Football League's Carolina Panthers. In addition to the monetary settlement Dennys must hire a civil rights monitor and give employees race sensitivity training. The chain must also show in its advertising that all races are welcome in their restaurants. North Carolina continues to make its mark on the movie industry. Filming began today in Guilford County for a made for television movie starring Julie Harris Veronica Hamel Richard Kiley Tom Gibson and Jessica Bowman. It's scheduled to air on ABC later this year. The executive director of the Winston-Salem Piedmont triage Film Commission says parts of the movie will be filmed all around the triad. The stock market finished slightly higher today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose almost 3 points to close at thirty seven forty five point seventeen gainers led to climbers by four to three. Volume was moderately heavy as two hundred eighty one million shares were traded. The Standard Poor's 500 index was up over one and a half points

and the Nasdaq composite index rose six and a half. And now for some stocks of North Carolina interest. It was just a couple of months ago that lawmakers spent seven weeks in Raleigh haggling over the tough crime issues

affecting our state. Now they're back at it this time for the short budget session lawmakers hope this session will live up to its name and actually be short. Senator Mark bass tonight is President Pro Tem of that body he joins us now from the legislature. Senator thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Just a quick. Clarification sort of for the man on the street can you sort of define this long session short session thing for people who might not understand it in a simple way for the person on the street the long session includes any type of request that you can imagine coming from local government state government special interest people members of the assembly through them as that vehicle. All the different agencies the executive branch an additional branch. It's sort of free for all the anything can be presented to the individual members and they in turn will introduce a bill be it money or be it something of substance itself. Now we have some isolations of what can occur in the short session a sort

session hopefully will not extend over a couple months. The long session the full session about six months generally in the short session. That being a two month period we have rules that can be introduced such as a bill that passed from one chamber to another chamber would be eligible for consideration this year any appropriation bills there are bills that require money to be spent Darvell are yes they're eligible for the ration. And we have shortened that timeframe when we were reviewing them this year in order to hopefully conclude the budget component of this session. As quickly as possible maybe in three weeks is something we've had conversation in. It's my understanding that there's more hope than usual for a truly short short session this year about a month or so as you say. What's different about this year that might allow that to happen. Well we recognized in the previous session that I

reach in some agreements benefit all people of this state obviously financially. Members can get back home to their families or businesses or whatever they're involved in. That's certainly important but we realize that we need to conclude it for other reasons as well. There's a great deal of work that occurs outside of the session itself in studies and commissions. We were not able to do that at. You know that helping you. Now Senator go ahead I'm sorry. Oh that's you. Yeah. We were not able to review and be part of the study process that we normally are so we negated that portion of what we were involved in this year by concluding the session early. We can get back to the other works of preparing a legislation that will be advanced in the upcoming full session or be in a case of the sort of short session. We're back to work working on things that we should be doing well out in session

just started today what's the mood of the members as you say were you were just in town a few months ago for the crime session which went on a little longer maybe than everybody had hoped it would. What's the mood of the members as as this started today. Well this one. I guess you could say members have been here and he has So you have to remember that they didn't just come in two weeks ago. They've been here since a short session. The special session is sales. Many people are working on different issues but whether or not we're in session so you have a major a large percentage of the membership that's in and out of this system of government hours regardless of being in session or not. People are very hopeful that they can conclude it quickly. It's a bit upbeat at this time. Always is when we come together for the opening of a session and it is hopeful that we can conclude we did something a little differently this year in that we did pass an agreeable German resolution that spoke to the 1st of January at 4 o'clock that's something we've not done in the past in the past where you use a.

A day that we construct agreeably so towards the end of the session and that can be until late July or August so whenever it may be. But we passed this one in the previous session so that's helpful. OK I understand there's a little more money available for this session then people might have thought a few months ago how did that come about. It came about of calls of the healthy growth that's occurring in this state. Businesses are doing whale. And when that occurs you'll have revenues that will be available not just to the business community and to the individual but to government is waled government is the tax and agencies of businesses do whale and people in the state do whale government does whale and we do have a lot more money than we've previously had. Can you name a budget item or an issue that is pretty general agreement on and also maybe another one that there's a lot of disagreement on where there might be some some tough battles ahead. Well salary increases for teachers is a priority. Personally I'd like to see a little more of an increase with Marriott tied to it in the teaching community. We certainly have an increase that is significant in the community colleges as well

in the greater university there's a smaller component that will increase those dollars for professors in the public school arena. It's not as strong as some of us would like to see it but it's certainly a lot more helpful than it has been in the past. The monies that will be spent for technologies of the future. There's a lot of debate a lot of conversation whether or not the information highway is prepared and ready to expand those funds prudently. A lot of questions still remain to be answered. We all realize that is certainly the wave of the future. North Carolina is a leader in that field. We want to continue to send that signal that we're going to be but we want to expend those funds properly. So our committees are given a good scrutiny at this time. The same thing applies to technologies in public schools. We realize that small component a small amount is being requested by the governor in this time. It is not the amount that it should be of the future as we compete against the States and internationally. And ologies is the future.

Senator I'm sorry we do need to wrap it up that point thank you so much for giving us your time today and we'll keep an eye close eye on the session and see just how long it does take to wrap up this short session. Thank you so much. Thank you very much John. Now we'd like to get your response to North Carolina now enjoys suggestions as well. Simply call our viewer a comment line at 9 1 9 5 4 9 7 8 0 8. Or write us at P.O. Box 1 4 9 0 0 RTP NC 2 7 7 0 9. You can fax a message to 9 1 9 5 4 9 7 0 4 3. Or try our Internet address at AOL period com whatever you do please give us a daytime phone number in case we need to reach you. Oddly I think Center best moment said that they might wrap up the session by July 1st rather than January 1st that would be a long shorts at most definitely. Well we do hope you'll join us tomorrow night we'll have a feature on one of

North Carolina's favorite sons Andy Griffith. He'll talk about being back in North Carolina working in his wonderful career and will visit the North Carolina Zoo again the plains picnic. We had some really great success with the zoo they've been having a great year and it's a lot to see. All right well until then. That's all for now. I'm wondering Kate's Bailey. I'm John Bryson thanks so much for joining us again.