Whether you’re a college student in Cullowhee or socialite in Cashiers, stocking up on beer, wine and spirits requires a trip into town. But a WCU Public Policy Institute/Smoky Mountain News poll shows 56 percent of voters in Jackson County support alcohol sales everywhere in the county, not just in Sylva and Dillsboro, compared to 39 percent who would be opposed.

This particular question polarized respondents more strongly than any other issue on the poll, which was conducted by the Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, one of the Southeast’s most respected polling companies. Only 5 percent of those polled were undecided. Most questions saw undecided numbers of around 20 percent.

The poll questioned nearly 600 registered Jackson County voters.

“It’s fascinating that so few people are unsure,” said Christopher Cooper, director of the Public Policy Institute at WCU. “It seems like the kind of issue, if it’s ever on the ballot, that would lead to a high voter turnout.”

The alcohol question sticks out in a poll where most of the questions address trust in government. Clay County — one of the region’s smallest and most rural — recently voted to allow alcohol sales countywide, so it seems to be an emerging issue in Western North Carolina, Cooper said.

Though the area has traditionally been conservative on alcohol sales, a lingering recession may have created more favor for the potential boost in tax revenues that widespread alcohol sales promise.

Jackson County Commissioner Tom Massie, however, doesn’t see the issue as pressing.

“I don’t have a whole lot of people stopping me in the grocery store, on the streets or calling me saying ‘We need alcohol sales,’” said Massie. “It’s not one of those things on my radar screen.”

Massie doesn’t see a trend toward acceptance in Western North Carolina, either. Clay County seems to be more the exception than the rule in the region, according to Massie.

“That’s got a whole lot more to do with tradition and deep-seated beliefs held by the populace,” said Massie.

Though Jackson County Commissioner Mark Jones said there is actually more acceptance of alcohol in general, the primary motivating factor for legalizing alcohol sales countywide is most likely financial at this point.

“It is a revenue-generator at a time when sales are down and economies are tough,” said Jones.

WCU sees opportunity

According to Cooper, the biggest supporters of countywide sales were men, liberals, the more educated and the young.

Those who face a long drive to get a six-pack of beer or a few bottles of wine resoundingly said “yes” to countywide alcohol sales as well. About 68 percent of Cashiers residents clamored for change in Jackson County’s alcohol policy.

Meanwhile, Sylva residents just barely supported countywide sales, with only 50 percent voting “yes.”

Though WCU Chancellor John Bardo was reluctant to comment on the results of a poll conducted by the university, he did say legalizing alcohol sales in the county would have a tangible impact on the college.

The main effect, Bardo said, would be the potential for a viable commercial environment around the university. For now, Cullowhee is short on restaurants and grocery stores, and the total ban on alcohol sales may be to blame.

“People want to be able to go out to eat,” said Bardo. “It’s part of the quality of life they’re looking for.”

Alcohol sales countywide might lead to higher tax revenues for local government, a better business environment in Cullowhee as well as a positive impact on student enrollment.

“More services make the university more attractive,” said Bardo.

Jones agreed that Cullowhee businesses would make a handsome profit if students weren’t forced to drive to Sylva to buy their alcohol.

Moreover, Jones cited the trend of more retired individuals moving to college towns for its culture and activities. Allowing alcohol sales in Cullowhee would enhance the area’s attractiveness to these potential residents, Jones said.

But Massie said the few miles drive to Sylva most likely isn’t a major problem for students at Western. He recalled the days Jackson County was completely dry, when students would make beer runs all the way to Waynesville.

“College kids, if they want beer, and it’s legal for them to get it, they’re going to get it,” said Massie.

Cashiers highly supportive

Commissioner Jones, who manages High Hampton Inn in Cashiers, constantly encounters guests who query him on the nearest place to buy alcohol.

“For convenience, I send them to Highlands [in Macon County],” said Jones. “I’m guilty as charged.”

With Highlands a lot closer than Sylva, guests and residents alike often opt for the quicker trip when they’re thirsting for beer, wine and liquor. Jones said he cannot gauge how many thousands of dollars in potential tax revenue Jackson County loses each year in the process.

Some businesses in Cashiers are allowed to sell liquor, but only if they are established as a private club. Because these venues are required to purchase alcohol only from a Jackson County store, every restocking requires a drive down the mountain to Sylva or Dillsboro.

“It would save a lot of time, gas and trouble and expense to have an ABC store [here],” Jones said.

Though Jones supports countywide alcohol sales, he said he would rather see citizens petition to put the issue on the ballot than for the commissioners to get involved.

Massie, too, said he’d like to see a vote by the people, though he did not have a strong opinion on the matter.

“I’m not a teetotaler so it doesn’t bother me one way or another,” said Massie.

Still Massie, Jones and Commissioner Brian McMahan said they are all concerned that Jackson County ranks in the top 10 in North Carolina for alcohol-related accidents.

Though towns benefit economically from alcohol sales, there’s always a price to pay. “The trade-off is what are the social problems and liabilities that come with the sale of alcohol,” said Massie.

“Any time you have alcohol sales, you’re going to have that problem,” said Jones, adding that part of the tax revenues from alcohol sales do go toward law enforcement and education.

For McMahan, having widespread alcohol sales would probably not be worth the risks. McMahan said he would neither support legalizing alcohol sales in the county nor putting the issue on the ballot.

“The present system works, and there’s no need to change it,” said McMahan.

Sylva not swayed

Cooper has two theories to explain why Sylva voters were more reluctant than others to welcome countywide sales.

Of the alcohol tax that stays locally, Sylva shares half of the tax revenue from alcohol sales with the county and keeps the other half.

Allowing alcohol sales everywhere obviously means fewer people driving into Sylva or Dillsboro to buy their beer, leading to a direct decline in the town’s revenues. Sylva voters might have taken that into account when a higher number of them opposed countywide sales.

Cooper’s other theory is that alcohol is already widely available to Sylva residents.

“If you live in Sylva, what do you care if there’s alcohol in Cashiers?” said Cooper.

Massie, who represents Sylva on the county board, has another conjecture altogether. While elected officials and town employees are well-aware of the alcohol’s impact on revenues, that’s probably not driving your average Sylva resident to vote “no.”

“Sylva has a concentration of some of the biggest churches in the county,” said Massie. “That’s what I’m thinking is the reason.”

Eight-year-old Devon Heenan stood with her arm extended in the parking lot of the Ingles in Cashiers. With her cell phone camera, she and a friend were taking pictures of the summer sun in hopes of seeing a sky ship or UFO like her mother Glynis Heenan.

The night before Glynis Heenan saw a bright light in her backyard. She thought it was the moon and stepped outside to have a better look. Instead, she said she saw a circular sky ship with radiating rainbow colored lights.

“The first thing you do is feel afraid,” Heenan said. “It’s amazing how afraid you can be of what you don’t know.”

But Devon Heenan wasn’t afraid. She turned her head from the sun and snapped another picture. When she looked at the screen, she saw the outline of a ship in front of the sun.

The picture Devon Heenan captured finally pushed Mary Joyce and Evelyn Gordon to create a forum where people from across Western North Carolina could report similar sightings and information.

“That’s the picture that started the whole thing,” Joyce said.

In 2008, Joyce and Gordon launched www.skyshipsovercashiers.com. Since then, the website has gained international attention and got the duo a speaking engagement in Laughlin, Nev., at the 2010 International UFO Congress, the largest UFO conference in the world.

In front of an audience of more than 900, Joyce and Gordon presented a log of UFO and spiritual sightings in Western North Carolina.

At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 13, the women, along with eyewitness Glynis Heenan, will share their conference presentation and answer questions at the Jackson County Senior Center, 100 County Services Park in Sylva.

“This isn’t about us,” Gordon said. “It’s about helping the world.”

Seeing UFOs is commonplace for the women. Gordon claims she receives telepathic messages from them, which Joyce then transcribes. The two have delivered letters to presidents and foreign dignitaries.

Although most of the messages are personal – secrets only known by Joyce, Gordon and the recipients – Gordon and Joyce will share portions of the more generic messages with audiences.

The three women also will tell of spiritual sightings in the area such as 30-foot hologram of Jesus and a man with the face of Jesus wearing a maroon space suit.

Military actions, missile silos and nuclear power plants attract alien activity, the women say.

According to Joyce, what may draw the aliens to Western North Carolina in particular is a secret underground facility at Balsam Mountain.

The facility goes six stories deep into the earth and has electromagnetic equipment that can erase memories, the women posted on their website.

“We’re seeing a lot of activity in North Carolina period,” Gordon said.

Gordon and Joyce have known each other since the 1980s when a mutual acquaintance suggested they meet. The two have been a team since, and Joyce has written books Gordon has helped promote. They moved to Western North Carolina 12 years ago from Florida.

Joyce lived within eyesight of Kennedy Space Center, and every time a rocket launched, her Cocoa Beach apartment would vibrate. She’d see UFOs guiding the rockets through the upper atmosphere and into space, she said.

Joyce said an unnamed NASA insider she knew said all astronauts who’ve been to space have seen UFOs. The group’s website includes testimonies from law enforcement officers, a security watchman, a man who was in the Navy, among others.

For more information, visit www.skyshipsovercashiers.com.

Hear it firsthand

“Sky Ships and Cosmic Spirituality” will take place 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 13, at the Jackson County Senior Center, 100 County Services Park, Sylva.

“The only reasonable verdict here is for Sheriff Ashe,” Patrick Flanagan told the jury. “He did not commit any wrongdoing here.”

The eight-person jury in the Bryson City federal courtroom agreed, taking slightly less than an hour to clear Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe on five complaints that alleged he used his position and influence to interfere with the business operations and free speech of David Finn, owner of Blue Ridge Public Safety. Blue Ridge Public Safety is a private security force hired by upscale developments in the greater Cashiers area to patrol their communities.

The case pitted two of Jackson County’s leading law enforcement officers against one another in the federal district courtroom of U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger.

Finn’s lawyer, Frank Contrivo Jr., spent three days calling witnesses, reviewing subpoenaed phone records, and otherwise building the case against Sheriff Ashe.

Ashe’s lawyer, Patrick Flanagan took only a few hours to offer a defense.

His message was simple: The only evidence that Ashe had interfered with Finn’s contracts was circumstantial, and Ashe’s own testimony that he had not used his office to put Finn under duress was credible.

Finn first sued Ashe in 2007, accusing the sheriff of using his position to scuttle the sale of Blue Ridge Public Safety to an Asheville buyer named John Hale.

The complaints alleged that Ashe, working in concert with a lawyer for an influential group of Cashiers-area residents, inappropriately shared information that led to a slew of investigations into Finn’s business, which holds security and patrol contracts worth more than $1 million.

The day before Flanagan called his defense witnesses, Contrivo withdrew the leading claim driving the case thus far –– that Ashe had actively participated in ruining the sale of Blue Ridge Public Safety to John Hale for $1.5 million.

With that claim off the table, the case came down to whether Ashe interfered with six existing Blue Ridge Public Safety contracts and on whether he infringed on Finn’s First Amendment right to free speech.

According to Finn, Ashe was motivated to disrupt the business of Blue Ridge Public Safety because of a disagreement between the two men over proposed legislation that would have given company police broader powers, including jurisdiction on U.S. highways adjacent to the communities they patrol.

An important component of Contrivo’s case for Finn was the extent to which Ashe communicated with Cary-based Lawyer Mark Seifert and his clients. Seifert created and represented two groups: the Committee of Sapphire Homeowners and the Sapphire Association of Concerned Citizens Committee.

Seifert testified that he was hired by Cashiers property owners in 2006 to investigate Finn and that his goal was to put Blue Ridge Public Safety out of business.

Contrivo alleged that Ashe and Seifert “were singing a duet” as they worked in concert to manufacture claims against Blue Ridge Public Safety that hurt the business and ruined contracts. He showed through phone records that Ashe and Finn had had extensive contact with one another –– nearly 150 calls amounting to 30 hours of conversations.

“What we’ve seen in the past three days is a snapshot of the nightmare experienced by Mr. Finn’s business,” Contrivo told the jury in his closing argument.

Flanagan, who served as a captain in the U.S. Army JAG Corps, presented an argument that was repetitive, process oriented and clinical. He focused on the fact that not one witness testified to Ashe’s direct participation with Seifert or even to the fact that Ashe had spoken ill of Blue Ridge Public Safety.

“What we didn’t hear at all –– there was no evidence, no testimony –– was that the sheriff has ever made a derogatory comment about Mr. Finn or his company,” Flanagan said.

In contrast, Contrivo at times raised his voice to cajole the jury and at other times spoke in a barely audible whisper to contribute to the gravity of the moment. He tried to paint a picture of Ashe as an expert at behind the scenes deal-making who managed to get away with a crime by staying at arm’s length from it.

“We hear about a man who was turf conscious, jealous of his power, and jealous of what he perceived as a threat to his power,” Contrivo said, pointing at Ashe.

Contrivo asked the jury for $200,000 worth of damages to cover Finn’s lost contracts and legal fees. The jury wasn’t convinced. They cleared Ashe on each charge and entered zeroes in the spaces on the verdict sheet that asked for award amounts.

After the trial, Ashe said the verdict upheld his faith in the system.

“This has been a long process that needlessly burdened the taxpayers of our community,” Ashe said. “The quick verdict of the jury attests to what we have asserted from the beginning of the matter.”

Ashe also indirectly expressed his dismay that he had spent so much time over the past two years embroiled in the civil suit.

“There is no business more important than the people’s business, and I am proud of the confidence that the good people of Western North Carolina have shown in me and our deputies,” Ashe said. “I look forward to many more years of public service, and it’s time to get back on task.”

Neither Finn nor Contrivo responded to requests from comment on the case after the trial, so it is not clear whether they plan to appeal the verdict.

Flanagan said a potential appeal could take two forms. In the first scenario, Contrivo could make a motion to Judge Reidinger to set aside the jury’s verdict in his final judgment, which will be entered in the next few weeks.

A second approach would be for Contrivo to file an appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. within 30 days of the final judgment being entered.

Each weekend, Carol Austin figures out what meals her family is going to eat during the upcoming workweek. She shops for groceries and fills her vehicle’s gasoline tank before Monday morning.

When the well heeled are in need of a pampered retreat in Western North Carolina, they often look toward the Old Edwards Inn and Spa in Highlands.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

A lawsuit over deed restrictions that could prevent a controversial high-rise condominium near Highlands from being built is past due for mediation.

By Michael Beadle

Growing up in South Carolina, Robert Lathan remembers how just about everything and everyone was named after Wade Hampton — schools, parks, hotels, towns, and especially children. More than a century after Hampton’s death, this wealthy landowner, Confederate general, governor and senator of South Carolina continues to cast a long shadow on the lands and the people he encountered — including the Cashiers community in Jackson County.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

As residents in the Cashiers area pull together to address their community’s needs through the creation of a civic association, members of some of the region’s established grassroots groups weighed in on what makes such an organization successful.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Members of the Cashiers area are organizing a new civic association to direct the community’s future.

The formation of the association is an outgrowth of a planning project a group of Louisiana State University students undertook last year. The students, led by LSU landscape architecture professor and part-time Cashiers resident V. Frank Chaffin, studied the area in terms of demographics, land use and projected growth. Their semester-long study resulted in the recommendation of aesthetic-yet-functional element such as the creation of a public park and preserving in-town wetlands.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Approximately 80 workers will be laid off from Cashier’s Consolidated Metco plastics plant beginning in January in the largest downsizing in Jackson County since the Ashley Company furniture plant closed in 2002.