If this were a race, Macon County Schools would win for being the first in Western North Carolina — maybe even the state — to end summer vacation and start classes again.

Teachers returned Monday; students go back Thursday (August 4).

And that’s just too soon, in Sabrina Hawkins’ opinion. The Highlands resident has three school-aged children of her own in the county’s school system.

Hawkins and the North Carolina chapter of the national advocacy group Save Our Summers have filed a petition against the state Board of Education to try to force a later starting date. The case is scheduled for October.

The issue by then would be moot, of course, so pending the trial, Hawkins and the group sought a court injunction to postpone this week’s opening date until August 25. That’s the North Carolina mandated go-back-to-school date for all systems that don’t have a waiver.

A state administrative law judge last week, however, denied the injunction. The trial can go forward, though the group failed in delaying this year’s start date.

So what’s it all about — getting a longer tourist season? Hawkins said no, it’s not about tourism dollars, though she and her husband, Bill, do own and operate the 1880-built Highlands Inn. The lawsuit, she said, is about not taking away that important balance of schoolwork and play for children.

“This has nothing to do with my business,” Hawkins said. “And, I’m not an anti-school advocate — I just feel like they need a long break. What has it been, six or seven weeks off? It feels like we just got out of school.”

Macon County School Board Chairman Tommy Cabe said maybe it’s because he’s from an older generation, but he’s “just fine” with an early August start to school.

“I remember when we were in school, and we had three full months off in summer, but that’s because we worked in the fields,” Cabe said.

Up until 2004, all school systems had autonomy over when to start and end, as long as they met the mandatory number of school days in a year. But a lobbying effort orchestrated by the tourism industry, vying for longer summers and hopefully more family vacations, led to a state law preventing schools from starting back before the end of August.

School systems that see lots of snow days, and thus need the wiggle room of an earlier start date, could get waivers. The law also allows exceptions for individual schools for “educational purposes.”

Macon’s school board in February asked for a waiver to allow remedial intercession periods for students, sessions of intense work to help them catch up when they’ve fallen behind other students.

“The bottom line isn’t to try to get around the calendar laws, it is about student performance,” said Macon County Schools Superintendent Dan Brigman, who added that 62 percent of students in Macon County receive free or reduced lunches. He said that school leaders want to “close opportunity gaps for these children.”

The N.C. Board of Education said OK in April.

In June, Hawkins and the Save Our Summers-NC group filed its petition. A July motion by the state board to dismiss the case was denied, paving the way for an eventual hearing

The case hinges on whether the state Board of Education should have granted waivers to all 10 Macon County schools under the “educational purpose” exception to the law. The school board should not have granted what, in essence, was actually a countywide waiver because that isn’t legal, according to the petition by Save Our Summers.

“It’s simply to try to build in enrichment and remediation opportunities for students,” Brigman said in response. Brigman said that’s the date school always started back until the new law was passed.

In a somewhat surreal meeting last week of Macon County’s planning board, progress on developing regulations for steep slopes were stymied by turn-of-the screw technical discussions and semantic stumbling blocks.

The accuracy of GIS maps, the accuracy of the state’s landslide hazard maps and the meaning of the word “may” dominated the two-hour long meeting. Sorting through the debris, the biggest sticking point on developing a steep-slope ordinance for Macon County is, at least for now, planning board members’ ability to define an “influence zone.”

An influence zone, in theory, means that what you do on your land could be regulated if it impacts or threatens your neighbors.

More technically, and as debated for at least 30 minutes, an influence zone would be any area that “may be subjected to the effects of earth movement” from construction on another piece of property.

“The influence zone completely scares me to death,” Planning Board member Jimmy Goodman informed his fellow members.

Goodman’s fears, however, were expressed well into the discussion, long after the debate started over the meaning of the word “may,” at least as used in this context. Planning Board member Larry Stenger questioned why use “may” — instead just use “shall.”

But the larger question is what happens once the influence zone is determined, in otherwords what regulations would then be triggered?

Ed Haight, a steep-slope subcommittee member, directed the group to another section of the proposal. Essentially, tougher regulations apply if the “influence zone” of a construction site is on a slope greater than 40 percent or a high landslide hazard area — even if the construction site itself doesn’t fall within that treshhold.

If your land lies in the high landslide hazard area or on a slope greater than 40 percent — or apparently if any work on your property “may” impact other property that is — the property owner must consult an engineer or other “design professional” before building.

For property-rights advocates such as Goodman and fellow planning board member Lamar Sprinkle, a local surveyor, such government regulation clearly seemed intrusive. What wasn’t clear is whether the two men were trying to deliberately sandbag the debate over steep-slope regulations by raising tangential issues, at best.

Sprinkle, in an out-of-left-field kind of way that seemed to raise the hackles of longtime planning board member Susan Ervin, among others, veered from Stenger’s concern over the word “may” into questioning the use of county GIS maps to determine property lines when it comes to a proposed steep slope ordinance.

“If you look at the GIS maps, that property line may not be accurately marked,” Sprinkle said.

“What is the point?” Ervin asked.

“If you are going to say what he’s got to do by the line of that map, and it ain’t right,” Sprinkle said, trailing off before Goodman jumped in.

“He (the presumed male hypothetical builder) may have to do geological work on someone else’s land,” Goodman finished.

“Not at all,” Ervin said.

“We’re just trying to do a site plan based on the GIS,” planning board member Al Slagle tried to interject. “It’s a preliminary way to look at it and hold the cost down for the property owner.”

“If that map is wrong, what are you going to do about that?” Sprinkle said.

Ervin asked what his point was, again, and Haight noted the process was “just a screening tool.” He might as well have thrown a pebble in to dam the flooding Mississippi River.

“I’m not arguing,” Sprinkle said before doing just that. “Have you ever been back in the mountains?”

“Yes, Lamar, I have been back in the mountains. Lamar, please tell us what is your point?” Ervin said.

“I’m telling you that if you are telling that man (the hypothetical male builder) that he has to do something based on those maps …” Sprinkle said before his conversation drifted off, then was interrupted by Slagle: “If it’s wrong, he’ll have an option to go to an administrator if he wants to appeal it, and he’ll have an appeals process,” Slagle said. “It is the same in any ordinance.”

Sprinkle, still undeterred, unabashed and unapologetic, then wanted to know about slope percentages in the event the GIS map lines were wrong.

“I’m thinking of all the difficulty a man’s going to have getting a building permit,” Sprinkle said. “Those maps are overlays … and a lot of them are grossly wrong, with lines running through houses.”

Haight asked how frequently that type of error actually does occur.

“You could come down to my office and stay there for about a year and see what I’ve seen,” Sprinkle suggested.

“Well, we’re moving on now,” planning board head Lewis Penland said, but to no avail. His board members weren’t done with the influence zone.

“I get worried when I see the word ‘may,’” Stenger said again, bringing the conversation full circle.

Lawyers for the county, Penland suggested, would work out such technicalities as “may” versus “shall,” and the debate eventually fizzled out without immediate resolution.

The planning board did manage to go completely through a list of definitions for the proposed steep slope regulation. Board members said they want commissioners to let them know if they want an actual draft ordinance written or not.

“I don’t want to sit here and waste my time writing an ordinance if it’s going to be shot down,” Slagle said, adding that was one point he and Sprinkle (who by then had left for another appointment) could agree on.

The planning board is set to meet again July 21 at 5 p.m. to discuss whether they are for or against individual sections of the proposed regulations.

Graduation ceremonies are, by their nature, boring. The bookend of an educational phase is supposed to be a solemn occasion, launching you into the world with the gravity of education behind you. That’s how they’re designed.

And, by and large, most graduation speeches are the same. Not dissimilar to Ben Stein’s signature performance in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” — toneless uninspired droning — it may actually a decent speech, but its pleasant advice quickly fades into the background. It’s a graduation speech. No one remembers it. That’s how they’re designed. Most of the time.

The Nantahala School’s nine-member graduating class of 2011 probably won’t forget their commencement speaker, though.

The school is small — its senior class not even large enough to populate a soccer team — and tucked into a remote corner of Macon County, perched on a winding road that snakes up the mountainous regions of the Upper Nantahala River.

When asked who they wanted to speak at their graduation, they chose Rev. Daniel “Cowboy” Stewart.

He’s the pastor of a small Baptist church in nearby Robbinsville.

Stewart gave a rousing sermon, in which he brought a volunteer on stage, bound them in numerous ropes until they couldn’t move and then placed a bag over their head. It was an object lesson illustrating the prowess of the devil at prowling like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

“The devil is out to destroy you, to tie you up. These people who took drugs, overdosed and died didn’t mean to. They got tied up,” said Stewart, according to an article in the Andrews Journal.

The roaring lion bit was a reference to the Biblical book of 1 Peter, and Stewart’s companion lesson was, by most definitions, memorable.

But it was also, by the Supreme Court’s definition, illegal.

“The courts have been very clear that public schools are places where events must be neutral towards religion,” said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center. “The courts have been stricter in applying the establishment clause of the First Amendment to public schools because this is a captive audience of impressionable children, of young people.”

That would be the clause commonly known as separation of church and state, and the courts have long erred on the side of keeping school-sponsored religious messages out of public schools, said Haynes.

Dan Brigman is the superintendent for the Macon County School District, and as part of his job, goes to all the graduations in the district. He gave out diplomas at Nantahala.

“It wasn’t a revival, but he had some strong encouraging words for the kids to make good decisions,” said Brigman. He conceded that describing the scene might sound strange, but being there, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

As for the First Amendment issue? Brigman doesn’t see one.

“The kids get to choose who the speakers are year by year,” said Brigman, and because Stewart was chosen by the students, he didn’t see a constitutional conflict inherent in the sermon.

And it was a sermon. According to attendees of the ceremony, Stewart himself called his presentation a sermon.

But according to Haynes, students selecting the pastor to pontificate doesn’t absolve the school of constitutional responsibility.

“The end result was the same, that the school was promoting religion, it was unconstitutional. Those kind of attempts to get around the First Amendment don’t work,” said Haynes. “The students can’t vote up or down the First Amendment; it isn’t about how many people are in favor of violating religious freedom.”

He pointed to an illustrious First Amendment opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor — “we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.”

Nantahala isn’t the only school that’s had brushes with godly graduation speeches. Over the last few years, valedictorians in Montana, New Hampshire, Nevada and elsewhere have been muzzled or censored for promoting religion in their graduation speeches.

A judge in Connecticut ruled in favor of a school district there that pulled a public school’s graduation ceremony from a church.

The message from the judiciary has been that religion and school-sponsored events don’t mix.

Some, said Henry, say students are legally allowed to speak on religion at graduation in the same way that they can pray in their own classrooms or hold student-led religious events like See You At The Pole.

But outside speakers don’t get that privilege.

Like Brigman, Macon County School Board Chair Thomas Cabe said he wasn’t concerned by the presentation.

“I didn’t really see any problem with it,” said Cabe. “I’m not super religious, but I‘m sure that those people over there wanted it and I‘m sure that if it’d been any religion it would’ve worked.”

Brigman and Cabe didn’t know if the school had a vetting process for the speaker, if anyone had a look at his remarks before he took the stage.

Brigman said he’d never given such a once-over to a speaker in his time as superintendent.

Other schools in the region aren’t running into the same problem, but that’s largely because most don’t have outside speakers to begin with.

Macon County’s other high schools — Highlands High, Franklin High, Macon Early College and Union Academy — all had non-student speakers, but they were benign secular appointments; a retiring educator, a local businessman, a watercolor artist and the superintendent himself.

Haywood and Swain counties both had only student speakers at their high schools, which sidesteps the potential First Amendment land mine.

It’s not like controversial graduation speakers are a new phenomenon, though. Last year, a Philadelphia school tapped Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback recently incarcerated for dog fighting, to grace their ceremony, causing a small contretemps.

But usually such choices are confined to colleges and universities, where the money to afford anyone worthy of controversy is more readily available. And often it’s their presence that causes a stir, not their remarks.

It should be said, too, that Stewart’s remarks, while allegedly at odds with the Constitution, haven’t really caused a stir in Nantahala.

Brigman said his office has fielded no calls on the issue. The nearby Andrews Journal ran a story on the ceremony and an editorial denouncing Stewart’s choice to use it a platform for a sermon, but the responses those garnered in letters to the editor and Facebook comments were mostly in support of Stewart. And mostly from Robbinsville, where Stewart pastors Cedar Cliff Baptist Church.

“Nantahala graduates decided who to speak so allow them their choice without bashing their choice,” said one Graham County commenter, Tracy Shockley.

But on the whole, Nantahalans themselves have been publicly quiet on the brouhaha.

Haynes’ point, however, remains. Constitutionality isn’t up for a vote.

And, he says, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing environment.

“What’s missing from a lot of conversations in school districts is how many ways religion can come into public schools in an appropriate way,” said Haynes. “It isn’t either we keep it all out or we find ways to promote religion. Those two choices are false choices and unconstitutional choices. There is a better way.”

Daniel Stewart could not be reached for comment.

Macon County’s commissioners want their planning board, if possible, to finish up work on a steep-slope ordinance by August.

Commissioner Bobby Kuppers last week also asked planning board members not to give up on the proposed ordinance, but to see it through as commissioners had requested.

“Let’s finish the conversation,” Kuppers, who serves as the county commissioner liaison to the planning board, urged members.

This after what Planning Board Chairman Lewis Penland wearily described as a long few weeks, in which members have drawn the ire and criticism of local anti-planning advocates. Coupled with less than enthusiastic support of even the concept of a steep-slope ordinance from some of its own members, there have been difficult times, he said.

The steep-slope subcommittee presented its recommendations to the full planning board May 19.

“We need to finish this document,” Penland said. “If we don’t, then two years worth of work (by the subcommittee) would have been in vain.”

The previous board of commissioners sanctioned the creation of a steep slope ordinance and even signed off on guiding principles developed by the committee. But two of the five commissioners are new to the board of commissioners since the last election, Republican Ron Haven and Republican Kevin Corbin.

Corbin said it’s too soon to speak on whether he will support a steep-slope ordinance.

“They have not presented us with anything – it’s still with the planning board, so there’s nothing to approve or disapprove at this point,” he said this week. “They’ve got to go through the process on what the planning board actually wants to present.”

Haven could not be reached for comment before press time.

During the planning board’s meeting in May, member Lamar Sprinkle said of the proposed ordinance, “as a private property owner this scares me to death.”

He added that while he felt that road standards did need to be addressed, there was simply no need to go to the level of detail contained in the proposed ordinance.

Sprinkle, a local surveyor, said he felt the recommendations would “be a detriment to development” in Macon County.

Penland urged members, including Sprinkle, to set aside for-and-against feelings and concentrate on the task at hand — a line-by-line, technical review of the recommendations.

“There’s a time and a place for the other discussions, and we’ll have those,” Penland said.

The planning board reviewed basic definitions contained in the proposed ordinance, and discussed the finer points of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a device similar to Radar that can be used for slope measurements. Members also began discussing the slope thresholds used in the proposed ordinance.

Points from Macon County’s draft ordinance

• Regulations vary, with rules becoming stricter as slopes get steeper. Certain rules would apply everywhere regardless of slope.

• The draft makes use of landslide hazard maps prepared by the N.C. Geological Survey. Areas at risk of landslides must comply with stricter parts of the ordinance even if their slope is not terribly steep.

• The proposed ordinance establishes an “influence zone” that includes both on-site and off-site land that might be influenced by land-disturbing activities. At a minimum, the influence includes the “grading envelope” plus an area defined by a line located 35 feet beyond the grading envelope.

• A design professional, typically an engineer, is only required or the steepest or potentially most hazardous sites.

• The proposed ordinance does not contain any language that precludes building on any site in Macon County, no matter how steep or potentially hazardous it may be.

Crafting a sliding scale

Basic rules would apply to every building site in the county, regardless of how steep the slope is. Those include:

• Graded or structurally stabilized slopes cannot be higher than 30 feet.

• Fill slopes must have a minimum compaction of 92 percent standard proctor density and must be benched.

More stringent measures are required on the highest risk sites. Construction sites are placed into one of four categories, three of them dependent on how steep the slope is, and one dependent on the landslide risk.

• The least steep slopes or no slope at all — less than or equal to 30 percent — are only required to comply with the general requirements. No additional action required.

• Intermediately steep sites — having slopes greater than 30 percent but less than 40 percent — may be approved by the county slope administrator as submitted if they meet certain conditions.

• The steepest sites — with slopes greater than 40 percent — require the services of a design professional such as an engineer to prepare plans, specifications and a written report for development of the site.

• Sites classified with moderate to high risk on the state landslide hazard map even though they may have minimal slopes, may be in the path of hazardous debris flows. These sites also require the services of a design professional.

In Swain County, free condoms aren’t particularly controversial. But the words “free condoms” on a billboard certainly are.

At least that’s the position of Swain County commissioners, who ordered the announcement to be whitewashed last week after apparently fielding calls from concerned constituents.

The billboard on U.S. 19 a few miles from Bryson City that once heralded physical exams, low-or-no-cost family planning and free condoms at the Swain County Health Department now advertises only the first two services and a white rectangle where the contraceptive message once was.

Swain County Manager Kevin King said he took the decision to patch the offending phrase after being approached by several commissioners who wanted the words to come down. He then polled the other commissioners by phone on the issue, and when he got the go-ahead from all five, gave the order to Allison Outdoor that the words “free condoms” had to go.

There was no meeting called, no minutes were held and no vote was had on the issue, but King said the decision was made under the auspices of administrative tasks. There are some tasks, he said, that county staff can do without commissioners’ blessing, or without a formal vote.

“I mean, do they call a special meeting for us to go check the mail or call for an ad?” asked King. “Anything that’s an administrative type of thing, it’s just handled by the staff.”

And billboards, he said, count as administrative.

Frayda Bluestein doesn’t necessarily agree. She’s the associate dean at the University of North Carolina’s School of Government, and local government is her specialty.

“I don’t understand how that’s an administrative decision, frankly,” said Bluestein. “I can see how it would be an administrative decision of the health board.”

The health board, however, wasn’t consulted on the issue.

Health Department Director Linda White said she tried that route. When given the choice to either cover the message or replace it with another, she asked King to write a letter to the health board about the issue.

“I asked them to submit a letter to the board of health, and their concern was it was going to be too long a period of time before the health board was going to meet,” said White. “Because the billboard said ‘Swain County’ on it, they felt that they had the authority to remove it.”

King confirmed this, adding that since the decision was made administratively by White to put the sign up anyway, surely the health board didn’t need to be involved now.

“She said she had full power over the billboard and what went on the billboard, but now when the commissioners do get involved, she’s wanting us to write to the health board,” said King.

When asked why commissioners felt authorized to act on the sign, rather than waiting for the July meeting of the board of health, King said that the health department was a county department just like any other. That means the commissioners are in charge. And anyway, they get the bills and they sign the checks for things like advertising.

Bluestein said that this is a fair point. It’s really purse-string power that the commissioners hold.

“The health board has a lot of direct authority under the statutes, but they rely on the county for funding,” said Bluestein. “But again, if that’s the way they get the authority to intervene in that, it must be done in open meetings.”

In other words, a phone poll doesn’t really cut it.

Commissioner Robert White said he thought the decision should’ve been official, too, though he thinks the entire situation has been blown a bit out of proportion.

“If it wasn’t on the agenda, if it wasn’t in a regular meeting, then essentially it didn’t happen, legally,” said Commissioner White. “I’m opposed to it, but if the commissioners vote for it, then I have to support the commissioners’ position.”

Linda White said she was surprised by the maelstrom of controversy swirling around the sign. The health department has been giving out free condoms and offering low-cost contraception for decades, but never has there been such upheaval about it. On her end, said White, she’s only fielded a few calls about the sign.

“I’ve had two negative comments submitted directly to me by phone and I’ve had five positive phone calls,” she said. “Not too many people have contacted me directly.”

Of the two anti-sign calls, only one opposed the idea on moral grounds. The other was a Henderson County woman complaining that federal funds helped pay for it. If Swain County had a problem with unplanned pregnancies, she said, then Swain County should pay for trying to fix it.

And, according to Linda White, Swain County has a problem with unplanned pregnancies.

“There are a lot of unplanned pregnancies, as well as a lot of sexually transmitted diseases, and I think it’s important to realize that this billboard is in no way directed towards teenagers,” she said.

And that’s an idea that has been at the center of the firestorm: teenagers having sex.

According to a poll done by the health department itself, more than half of students in the county between the ages 15 and 19 have copped to being sexually active in some capacity. And some are concerned that the offer of free condoms would encourage more to jump on the bandwagon.

County Commissioner David Monteith, who led the charge to change the billboard, said he was concerned about the message the sign was sending.

“It’s like Swain County is promoting this [condom use] for anybody and everybody,” said Monteith, who is firmly against premarital sex. “It’s just my opinion that it should not be up there. I think we’re promoting the wrong thing to young kids.”

Linda White, though, remains baffled by any supposed links between offers of free condoms and encouraging premarital sex.

“I have pondered that for many days and cannot connect the wording of the billboard with premarital sex,” she said.

The health department, she said, has a sizeable chunk of people using their family planning services, but not too many of them are teenagers. In fact, the percentage of teens getting in on birth control and other contraceptives is smaller than other age groups.

“We have quite a few individuals and most of them are in their 20s and 30s,” said Linda White.

Commissioner Robert White doesn’t really have a problem with the billboard. He did OK the patch when King asked him, but only because King said that was the wish of the rest of the board.

“I have no problem with it. I can’t speak for the rest of [the commissioners], but there was no vote taken or whatever about that sign, but if there was I’d have voted against it,” said White, especially given that the advertising contract on the sign was only for two months.

Bryson City resident Denise Tyson said she was actually pleased when she saw the sign, taking it as a signal of progressiveness in county leaders.

As the mother of a teenager, she said she’s not worried it’s going to spur him towards sexual activity.

“My 15-year-old son looked at that sign and his perception was there are free condoms available in this community. That doesn’t necessarily give him permission to practice sexual behavior,” said Tyson. “I’m the first to say that practicing abstinence is a very effective practice among teenagers. We promote that in my household, along with an education about what it means to practice safe sex.”

Still, detractors argue, shouldn’t parents have to option to tell their kids — or not tell them — about condoms, rather than be subjected to the words on every drive to town?

After last week, Swain Countians no longer have to worry about it, and the health department will be turning back to the newspaper, health fairs and word of mouth to get the word out about those two pesky words.

About two years ago, a sting was set to take place at a party in the Hickory Knoll area outside of Franklin. Inside the house, the Macon County Sheriff’s Department was told, there was a 47-year-old woman — the former wife of a doctor, with three children of her own — who was boozing it up, and maybe even getting high, with a group of underage kids.

The plan that night was twofold: enforce a judge’s order to remove the woman’s youngest daughter and hand her over to her father, Dr. Scott Petty; discover if there was evidence supporting allegations the woman, Elizabeth “Liz” Marie Mills, was having sex with one of the boys partying in the house.

His name, cops had been told, was Joseph (not his real name, which has been changed to protect his identity). Joseph was a Mexican-American either 14 or 15 years old, and a student at the local high school. Mills reportedly met the boy while working for Meridian Behavorial Health Services in Franklin, an agency tasked, among other things, with helping troubled youths and adults.

Although exactly what happened next is the subject of heated dispute, the outcome isn’t: the sting never came off. Instead, it fell apart after angry words were exchanged between a private investigator hired by Mill’s ex-husband and Macon County’s chief detective.

The girl was taken out as ordered. But any case against Mills involving sex with a minor, at least as far as the Macon County Sheriff’s Department was concerned, pretty much ended on that June night in 2009. Though, technically, the case remains open, because there is no statute of limitations in North Carolina on felonies. And having sex with an underage boy is a felony crime. Even though in this case, the young man was apparently a more-than-willing participant in whatever, exactly, was or was not taking place between the two.

Mills, contacted via cell phone in Florida this week, declined to comment.

The Sunny State intervenes

On March 23, Florida cops busted Mills, now 49, for unlawful sexual activity with a minor — having sex with Joseph. The boy’s aunt, after a fight with Mills, reportedly called the cops and told of an inappropriate relationship between her nephew and the North Carolina woman.

Mills, some time after the big party in Franklin that either did or did not take place, depending on whom you believe, hitched a horse trailer crammed with personal belongings behind her black 350-Chevy dually truck. She moved the 500 miles south to Florida. This move came after the boy went to the Hernando area to live with family members.

Joseph’s move to Florida seemed to coincide with one of his frequent brushes with juvenile law authorities.

Mills told her daughters (then ages 14, 17 and 20) she was leaving Franklin to attend massage therapy school in Florida. And she did, at least for a year or so. By September of last year, however — with Joseph’s mother’s permission — Mills had ensconced herself in a bedroom of the family’s house with the boy, police told Florida reporters.

Joseph’s mother, not identified here by name to further protect the boy’s identity, was arrested the same day as Mills for child neglect. It isn’t clear whether the mother was charged in connection with allowing Mills to move in with Joseph, or whether her arrest involved the other children living in the house. Joseph has a younger brother and two younger sisters.

Florida authorities told reporters that Mills admitted to having begun a “romantic relationship” with Joseph in March 2010, and of having had sex with the boy “several times,” according to published reports. Mills did not admit to having had sex with Joseph in North Carolina, though she told police they’d met “during a group therapy session in North Carolina in 2008 when he was 15.”

Chalk it up to the angry aunt, or to providence in general, but a case against the woman North Carolina authorities couldn’t, or wouldn’t, prosecute is now making its way through the Florida court system.

Prosecutors from Florida have contacted private investigator Danny Cheatham, the man hired by Mills’ ex-husband to look into her activities. Cheatham indicated Florida authorities might well ask him to come testify against Mills, something he said he’s willing — even eager — to do.

That is, if the case against Mills in Florida does actually make it to court. Investigator Russell Suess, who works for the prosecutor there, Brian Trehy, said he was limited in what he could say, but noted the case against Mills has not been formally filed. The prosecution, Suess said, is reviewing the facts.

What’s not clear is whether the delay in a formal filing is an unusual or routine procedure in that state. In North Carolina, such hesitation might indicate the prosecution had some concerns about whether the cops involved had fully dotted all the necessary i’s and carefully crossed each of the t’s.

In the meantime, Mills is out of jail on $5,000 bond. She’s forbidden by court order to see Joseph.

A promising future derails

Being a doctor’s wife comes with certain financial perks. After Mills and Petty moved to Macon County, Mills spent most of her time on their 92-acre spread tending to horses. Petty, her ex-husband, is a radiologist at Angel Medical Center in Franklin.

Petty and Mills met at a private high school in Charlotte, and began dating during college. They were both bright people, with what, at the time, must have seemed an array of possibilities before them. He was at Duke; Mills was at UNC Chapel Hill. When they turned 22, they got married.

Once the children were born, Petty and his wife battled about how to best raise them.

Petty played the part of disciplinarian; Mills, he said, was the children’s “friend.” In perhaps one of the few hints of the trouble that was to come, Petty described a woman who perhaps had difficulty with her role as an adult functioning in an adult world.

“She was unable to parent the children as they entered their teens, instead she treated them as friends and equals without normal boundaries and rules,” Petty said.

Mills’ possible confusion over, or dislike of being, an adult wasn’t helped, perhaps, by a petite stature — the Florida mug shot she glares out of, the muscles in her face tensed and hard, recorded her height as just 5 feet tall, and her weight as 100 pounds.

After Petty and she finally called a spade a spade and formally ended the marriage after 23 years, Mills dropped about 35 pounds, going from a comfortable weight for her height and build to very, very thin. She got tattoos.

And, Petty said, she found a new interest: Joseph.

Meridian tightlipped

Mills hadn’t needed to hold a job since living in Chapel Hill, where her husband, after finishing up at Duke, went to medical school and completed his medical residency. Mills, for a short time back then, had picked up some extra cash working at a local animal shelter.

When the couple split, Mills needed money. With barely any work history to boast of, she turned to her one and only employment asset: a psychology degree from those years at UNC. Mills applied for, and got, an entry-level position at Meridian Behavorial Health Services, a multi-county nonprofit mental-health provider.

Meridian’s Franklin office is housed in an inconspicuous, single-level building on Macon Avenue, within spitting distance of the county courthouse and a few blocks from Angel Medical Center, where Petty worked.

Mills’ job largely seemed to consist of ferrying kids about to various appointments.

Petty, passing Meridian on his way to work, would sometimes see Mills out front smoking cigarettes among a group of boys. In that group, though he couldn’t know it then, was Joseph. There was gossip at the hospital, too — Petty wasn’t the only one who was noticing that the doctor’s former wife seemed a bit too chummy with the group she was tasked with monitoring.

Joseph and some of the other kids from Meridian were soon “working” at Mills’ home, Petty said, cutting grass and painting walls. His daughters told him of parties, and he and his new wife, Meg, started witnessing the same behaviors firsthand.

The newly married couple was fixing up the “big” house he’d bought his former wife out of, while she moved down the mountain into a smaller farmhouse they’d also owned. Mills was busy making plans to build yet another house on the 20 acres of property she’d gotten in the divorce.

The situation had grown increasingly strange.

But who could say what exactly took place behind closed doors, when Joseph — the charge of Meridian Behavorial Health Services — and Mills, the agency’s employee, disappeared inside.

Meridian Executive Director Joe Ferrara did not return a voice-mail message seeking comment.

Building a case, or a fabrication?

Joseph, at least from a distance, looked like a big, tough adult guy, even when he and Mills first met and he was just 14 or 15 years old. Joseph had tattoos. He boxed at a local sports club. His language, even by the lowest of teen standards, was remarkably foul. Later, when deputies tried to interview the boy about whether he was a victim of sexual abuse — twice — his response was succinct each time: “Fuck you,” they reported him as replying.

The neighbors thought, for a while, that he was “just” a Mexican laborer helping Mills keep up the horse farm. At least they did until the touching between he and Mills grew excessive, Petty said. A neighbor, scandalized, told the doctor that Mills and Joseph would ride around together on an ATV, cuddling, even groping.

The neighbor complained he’d seen Mills in the yard “dry humping” the boy. Petty, who was becoming increasingly anxious about his youngest daughter, who was still in the farmhouse living with Mills, was spurred to action. He wanted full custody, and he’d do almost anything to get his daughter back.

On the advice of his attorney, Monty Beck, a former assistant district attorney, the doctor called private investigator Cheatham. Petty was very clear in his instructions. He wrote, according to the case file made available to The Smoky Mountain News:

“I am interested in knowing who has access to my children, particularly my 14-year-old. I want to know how long and what kind of relationship my ex has with this boy Joseph who she used to (or still does) work with through Meridian Health Services. Is it legal? Sexual? Immoral or inappropriate? Does it break laws or Meridian’s rules of conduct? Who are the other people we see at my ex’s house? Is my ex doing drugs? Drinking and driving? Exposing my children to dangerous persons? Allowing or assisting my children or the children she ‘cares’ for professionally to break the law (drugs/alcohol/etc.)? My ex is destroying my children because of her lack of boundaries, rules and parental ethics. Who lives there?”

The answer to most of those questions, Cheatham said, was yes — Mills was having, at the very least, inappropriate relations with Joseph. She was providing underage kids beer and cigarettes, and he could prove it. Or, he could if local law enforcement would only get on board, and go inside that house with a search warrant and seize underwear, sheets, and other items. Then, Cheatham was sure, they’d find DNA evidence.

Cheatham is no fly-by-night, wished-he-had-a-badge-but-doesn’t private dick. He’s a former U.S. Marine and experienced cop. Born in Andrews, he grew up and later worked for two decades in Florida law enforcement agencies, including as a real live badged-up official detective. He came back to Western North Carolina to help care for his mother after his father died, and ended up getting licensed by the state as a private investigator.

It’s not easy being a freelancer. Cops and other duly sanctioned law-enforcement authorities are suspicious of people hired by clients to build cases, and mountain people, as a rule, don’t enjoy Floridians, even those with roots to this region, because they are suspicious — rightfully so, sometimes — that move-ins might just think they know how to do things better. And, the truth is, on occasion they do.

Cheatham, at least in this one meeting, was unassuming. But, if you are screwing around on your mate, or generally getting up to no good, he should scare the hell out of you.

This is the guy people in the western part of the state are calling when they want to build cases: custody cases, divorce cases, you name it. And it’s not just the disgruntled private Joes and Janes of WNC who are tapping Cheatham: The Cherokee tribe recently relied on the investigator to help investigate Swain County’s Department of Social Services after an Indian child they’d been notified to keep safe instead died.

Cheatham uses every trick in the book, and he does so legally under the auspices of the great state of North Carolina. GPS units on cars (“you’ll never spot us these days in your rear-view mirror”), videos shot using night-vision capabilities, undercover infiltrators armed with a camera that looks like a shirt button. For $45 to $150 an hour on average, you get what you pay for. And, sometimes, you pay a lot: before it was all said and done and Petty begged off because, he wrote, “we are absolutely broke,” the doctor shelled out more than $20,000 to investigate his former wife.

The case unfolds

The investigator and his staff went after the case hard — from May 18 through June 24 of 2009 they tracked, trailed and spied on Mills. One of their best vantage points proved to be Petty’s home on the hill above the farmhouse. But they also tracked Mills going into nearby Rabun County, Georgia, to pick up Joseph from his home, and followed the woman and boy around Clayton, Ga., and Franklin.

A few highlights from the case file Cheatham’s agency, DC Investigations, built for Petty:

“June 3, 8:41 p.m.: Investigator Winthrow observed and videotaped Ms. Petty’s (Mills) SUV parked in front of the Peking Gourmet restaurant in Clayton, Ga. Joseph and Ms. Petty were already in the restaurant eating when we got there.

“8:57 p.m.: Investigator Winthrow observed and videotaped Joseph and Ms. Petty exit the Peking Gourmet Restaurant. Joseph was eating an ice-cream cone. After he took a bite from it, he put the ice cream up to Ms. Petty’s mouth. Ms. Petty ate part of his ice cream while he held it.

“June 5, 10:20 p.m.: Subject and two small children arrived at subject’s vehicle. Subject started loading the children into vehicle. Approximately two minutes later, Joseph also arrived at vehicle and walked around to the passenger side where he met subject. The two of them engaged in a kiss on the mouth and then got into vehicle.”

A young female investigator working for Cheatham insinuated herself into the household. Identified as Investigator Medford in the case file, the woman showed up at Mills’ door May 23 pretending she’d had a fight with her boyfriend and that he’d put her out of his car.

She was convincing — after that, Joseph began texting the investigator, and eventually she’d be invited to his going-away party to Florida: the night the sting that was to be didn’t happen.

Cheatham met with the Macon County Sheriff’s Department on June 23.

“During the meeting, investigators … provided evidence they had acquired on subject, Elizabeth Petty. The plan for the sheriff’s department to raid the ‘going away’ party that subject was going to have for Joseph the next evening was also discussed, as well as, the plan during that same party, for subject’s daughter … to be taken from subject’s custody,” the file states.

The investigators and sheriff’s department investigators agreed to meet at 7 p.m. the next evening at the sheriff’s department.

The next night, when the private investigators showed up, Cheatham said the deputy on duty informed them Macon County Chief Investigator Brian Leopard wasn’t scheduled to work that evening. The private investigators, afraid according to Cheatham that young juvenile offenders going in and out of the sheriff’s department would spot them and blow their cover, left. They went to the parking lot of Smoky Mountain Hosts, a visitor’s center south of Franklin on U.S. 441, where they got a call from Leopard. The Macon County chief detective told the private investigators to meet him at the sheriff’s department, and, Cheatham said, Leopard told him angrily: “‘We’re going to meet when I say, how I say, or we’re not going to meet at all.’”

Cheatham called the meeting off.

So what happened?

Dr. Petty was stunned when he took the call from Cheatham and learned the sting wasn’t going to happen. Petty remembers Cheatham’s voice was shaking, and that the private investigator sounded upset and angry.

Still, there was that order from the judge for Petty’s youngest daughter to be removed from the house, and the doctor wanted her back. That, he said, was more important than anything else going on that night.

Petty met Brian Welch, the sheriff’s department’s attorney, at the sheriff’s offices to get his daughter. That part, at least, of the plan was executed without a hitch. Petty asked if anything was going to happen concerning his former wife, and Welch told him, he said, “we’re not going to do anything.”

“I was so mad, and so shocked. But then I needed to pay attention to my daughter — nothing else was done,” said Petty, who ended up getting full custody of his youngest child when Mills signed her over without protest.

Later, he said, he tried again to get deputies to do something, anything.

“We never got a straight answer from anybody,” Petty said.

Petty and his wife’s efforts haven’t been limited to deputies: Petty contacted District Attorney Mike Bonfoey, the Macon County Department of Social Services and the State Bureau of Investigation, sending detailed letters to each outlining his beliefs that his former wife was having sex with an underage boy.

“It wasn’t even investigated,” the doctor said, who eventually sent an open letter to various media outlets in the region, also to no avail.

So where has all this left him? In a word, angry. Actually, two words: very angry. And disillusioned with the system, and unbelieving that nothing, absolutely nothing, had been done.

Without answers, Petty and his new wife have been left to speculate, to formulate conclusions of their own:

• Perhaps the sheriff’s department was protecting one of its jailers, a young man then engaged to another of Petty’s daughters. Petty says the deputy was in the house on multiple occasions when, the doctor said, his ex-wife was partying with kids, and when Joseph was there.

• Maybe the investigators saw someone else on Cheatham’s surveillance videos, someone they wanted to protect — an undercover agent, or a kid from a prominent family.

• Perhaps in Macon County, nobody cares if boys might be sleeping with older women, particularly a foul-mouthed, punk kid who isn’t particularly appealing, frankly, in his role as a possible victim.

Explanations

Jane Kimsey, the director of the county Department of Social Services, is so constrained legally about what she can and cannot talk about, her interview with The Smoky Mountain News largely consisted of handing over copies of the law governing DSS, complete with yellow highlighting of the fact her agency can only investigate caretakers. Mills, we are left to extrapolate, wasn’t an actual caretaker of Joseph — any investigation on that front was up to law enforcement.

District Attorney Bonfoey made the point that what Mills has been charged with in Florida would not even be a crime in North Carolina, because the age of consent there is 18. In this state, it is 16.

But what about possible crimes committed in Macon County when Joseph was 14 or 15?

Bonfoey emphasized he and Assistant District Attorney Ashley Welch, who is married to sheriff’s department Attorney Brian Welch, weren’t going to talk about this particular case, because it remains an open investigation.

“There may be information that comes out that allows us to investigate the matter here,” Bonfoey said.

Bonfoey, speaking generally, said law enforcement needs victims to cooperate, though of course his office has prosecuted sex cases without victims’ cooperation. Or, short of that, prosecutors require an eyewitness to the crimes willing to testify.

Welch has been the assistant district attorney in Macon County for six years. She has had 50 jury trials, losing only two, which Bonfoey said indicates defense attorneys underestimate her ability to put together cases and win them.

Welch wanted to know if there are insinuations that she didn’t take the situation seriously because it involved a possible male victim instead of a girl victim.

“A crime is a crime is a crime, when you are age 13, 14 or 15, you’re not mature enough to consent,” Welch said, adding that she was personally offended anyone would believe she might think otherwise.

Answers, or evasions?

At 44 and in his third term as the sheriff’s department’s leader, Macon County Sheriff Robert “Robby” Holland has grown comfortable in responding to questions from reporters. Affable, quick to build and maintain personal relationships with those tasked with covering him, he’s almost unflappable in an interview. Holland is difficult to put off stride and worm beneath the polish.

But if Holland has a weak spot, it’s for kids. Protecting children is a source of pride with him, forming the base of his successful political career.

The Republican sheriff is a former juvenile officer with experience in investigating sex crimes and other serious criminal charges. Like private investigator Cheatham, he grew up in Florida before coming to WNC. His family is from Macon County.

Holland was the lead investigator on a particularly horrific case in which a young Franklin woman killed her newborn in February 2000 and dumped the baby in a Dumpster (the baby’s body was subsequently compressed into a 8-inch by 6-inch bail of trash at the county landfill). Holland and wife, Marci, who worked then for the Macon County Department of Social Services, helped get state legislation passed so young mothers could safely surrender infants without fear of criminal charges.    

The ensuing publicity helped launch Holland’s political career. While there have been a few missteps along the way, Holland has largely spent the past nine years without serious taints on or questions about his administration.

In the interview with The Smoky Mountain News about this case, Holland includes Chief Deputy Andy Shields, Attorney Welch and Chief Investigator Leopard. The Macon County Sheriff’s Department has just sent out a news release announcing an arrest in a year-old homicide, and his cell phone occasionally buzzes as reporters call in, eager to get more information.

“I don’t want it to look in the paper like we didn’t care, and that we didn’t do our job — I am confident that my officers did what they should,” Holland said. “I, along with my chief investigator, chief deputy, staff attorney and members of the District Attorney’s Office, have reviewed this case, and I stand behind the decision not to file charges at this time due to the fact we continue to not have enough information to pursue a successful prosecution of this matter. This case remains open and any new information that is received will be investigated and, if appropriate, criminal charges will be pursued.”

Why didn’t you bust Mills?

“Because,” Holland replied, “nothing was ever substantiated.”

Why was nothing substantiated? Isn’t that law enforcement’s job?

Because this isn’t CSI: Crime Scene Investigation television, though the reply is more politely expressed than that. But, the sentiment of the exchange is accurate. Chief Investigator Leopard said five detectives were assigned to the case when he was initially notified of the allegations, but that subsequently, the facts as presented by Cheatham had proven not true.

Sheriff’s Attorney Welch added that prosecutors instructed the department to independently corroborate allegations in the case, and not to rely on the private investigator’s findings.

That’s because, Holland said, “Mr. Cheatham is a hired hand of Mr. Petty.” Cheatham was retained to build a case that would help win Petty custody of his daughter.

Chief Investigator Leopard added, the private investigator “wanted to run it. … He was concerned about getting her (Mills) charged with a felony, so that (Petty) wouldn’t have to pay so much alimony.”

The big party, the sheriff’s department leaders were asked?

“There was absolutely no big party going on,” Leopard said.

“Another outright lie,” Petty said later. “There was a party — they even setup a roadblock just down from the house and busted multiple people leaving the party, including Joseph for possession of drug paraphernalia and under-age drinking, and my daughter … who they let go with a warning.”

Leopard confirmed they stopped one of Petty’s daughters, but denied they picked up Joseph.

What about the young jailer engaged to Petty’s daughter? Why not interview him, and besides, why is he still an employee if he witnessed and failed to report possible crimes?

That’s not the situation as they understand it, Holland said. The jailer, newly hired if even at that point actually on the force, indeed came to his superior and reported a run in at his then future mother-in-law’s with a drunken juvenile. The jailer did nothing wrong.

Holland doesn’t mention the head of the jail is his brother, Capt. Tim Holland. Perhaps there’s no relevance.

Petty again disputed the sheriff department. There’s proof, he said, of the young jailer being involved more deeply in the situation than Holland acknowledged:

“I have pictures of (the jailer), Joseph, and my daughters lying on top of each other on Liz’s (his former wife’s) couch,” the doctor said. “He was there for most or all of the parties and he was there on a daily basis watching the relationship between Liz and Joseph unfold.”

Petty also said Leopard told him that he wouldn’t interrogate the young jailer involved because he “wouldn’t want to mess up his relationship with his future mother-in-law.”

Why did the sheriff’s department fail to meet Cheatham when agreed? Cheatham left the sheriff’s department for fear, he had said, of being spotted by young thugs reporting in to probation officers. The private investigators were supposed to meet their public counterparts, Macon County’s detectives, at the sheriff’s department.

Macon County’s top law enforcement officers, however, dispute even that point, noting that the probation officers are located in the administration building, a couple miles away in downtown Franklin. No juveniles were likely to be at the sheriff’s department that night.

It is possible that Cheatham, who lives in Waynesville, could simply not know where the probation officers in Franklin work. That doesn’t surface as a possibility during the interview with the sheriff and his employees, however.

Then, the situation that night between the sheriff’s department and the private investigator hired by Petty grew increasingly complex, Holland said.

After leaving the sheriff’s department, Cheatham moved over to the Smoky Mountain Visitor’s Center and called deputies to meet him there.

Holland said an undercover drug buy by the sheriff’s department, coincidentally, had just taken place at the visitor’s center in an unrelated case. That’s why the cops were late, and why they couldn’t meet there.

The sheriff said his chief detective did not share this explanation with the private investigator because it wasn’t Cheatham’s business, and doing so wouldn’t have been appropriate. And the sheriff’s department certainly wasn’t going to risk blowing that drug-buy operation, or risk the safety of undercover officers involved, on the orders of a private investigator telling them where to gather. Or follow his directions about how to conduct a raid, either.

“You have to have probable cause,” Holland said.

And Attorney Welch added, “We would have been sued for violating her (Mills’) constitutional rights if we’d gone in the way Mr. Cheatham wanted us to.”

In this situation, without Joseph’s cooperation, there was no case to be made, the sheriff said.

“Do we believe there was some inappropriate activity going on? Yes, we do. But we have to have more than our feelings,” Holland said.

“There was no case here, ever, based on the information we had,” Welch added.

One additional note: After Joseph took off for Florida, Attorney Welch said the sheriff’s department called police there and asked them, apparently with no success, to try to get the boy to cooperate.

“We asked, would you interview him, because he refused to talk to us twice,” the attorney said.

The sheriff’s department’s leaders said they’ve called Florida authorities again following news of Mills’ arrest. They hadn’t heard back from their Florida counterparts as of the beginning of this week.

To describe Petty as being frustrated by the explanations offered falls somewhere short of the truth. In an email, Petty noted:

• “We presented video, audio, written and eyewitness evidence to the Macon County Sheriff’s Department that strongly supported our allegations. Our concerns were not based on alimony payments … but on a concern for my daughters, concern for Joseph and the other young males … and hoping to live in a place where sex between adults and children was not tolerated.”

• Petty also said there were other possible eyewitnesses involved: the neighbor, and the young jailer, “who had direct eyewitness knowledge.” Also, he said, personnel at Franklin High School had expressed concerns about the relationship between Joseph and Mills.  

• Petty and his wife firmly believe, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, that a double standard governed officers’ and prosecutors’ reactions.

“If Liz was a 47-year-old male, and Joseph was a 14- 15-year-old girl, the adult would already be tried and convicted,” Petty said. “‘A crime is a crime’ … actions speak far louder than words.

“Because of their inaction, Liz continued doing and enabling the same things that we alleged until she was arrested in Florida … the victim and his family should sue Macon County for failing to protect him, and green-lighting Liz to continue her sick and very destructive and abusive behaviors.”

If you visit Macon County, keep your head down — there’s a war over property rights in progress.

In this community of 33,922 people that presses hard up against the Georgia border, a place with a long history of attracting hardliners, militants and people whose politics are unabashedly to the right of the mainstream Republican Party, development has led to two distinct groups of people battling about what’s best to do.

One of those groups would set some controls, put brakes on what, to date, has been virtually unchecked growth. The other group — a very organized set of people, unlike the first group, which is simply a loose affiliation of planning supporters — wants nothing remotely resembling rules or regulations passed.

The latest battle was fought last week over a proposed comprehensive plan, a set of recommendations for long-range land use to help guide future development. The Macon County Planning Board — a lightening rod for members of the Property Owners of America, which drummed up an opposition turnout for a public hearing on the recommendations — compiled the plan with assistance from numerous citizen subcommittees.

Much of the plan is not particularly controversial. There is one recommendation to support “a proactive Economic Development Commission.” There’s another that seeks to ensure law enforcement services grow proportionally with the population.

But there are also land-development recommendations, including one that might put the planning board to work on regulations for construction and development on slopes. And a suggestion the county consider developing a stormwater runoff ordinance.

“They will NOT stop!” an emailed flier sent out before the public hearing, by the Property Owners of America, proclaimed. “There are people in all levels of government who want to control you, me and everything we own and do! Even though the economy is strangling, they never stop trying to expand the size and scope of government and regulation. If you love your freedom – PLEASE attend!”

Loretta Newton, a member of the group, told commissioners at the hearing she opposes the recommendations because “plans can turn into policies.”

“Let me be clear,” she said. “I’m against all zoning and against all regulations of steep slopes and it is for a very fundamental reason. Our property rights are derived primarily from the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment. I encourage you to effectively accept the current regulations we already have in place.”

Bill Vernon echoed those thoughts, though he did so in the context of claiming general support for planning — certain kinds of planning, that is, but not this kind of planning.

“Planning for sewer and water (is) a smart thing to do. Planning to accommodate growth,  … I think we could have had a good plan here,” Vernon said. Then he argued that “land-use provisions” is really “just a new word for zoning.”

“And I came away thinking, this is just chock full of hidden agendas,” Vernon told commissioners. “The economy has tanked. The last thing we need is a bunch more regulations. Keep the regulations off our backs.”

The 164-page comprehensive plan took nearly two years to complete. There were community meetings, surveys and a multitude of subcommittees to the planning board involved. County commissioners have the ultimate say on whether the plan is adopted. The previous board of commissioners sanctioned the plan, directing the planning board to tackle it. Two of the five commissioners are new to the board since then.

They will hold a meeting at 6 p.m. May 31 to review and discuss the plan.

Supporters of the plan urged the five-member commission board, a 3-2 Republican to Democrat lineup, to move forward with planning for growth.

“This comprehensive plan is a moderate, thoughtful look at the future and is the work of hundreds of Macon County citizens over several years,” said Bill Crawford, a Macon County resident who represents WNC Alliance, a regional conservation group. “The alliance supports and commends the plan as an example of good government.”

And Kathy Tinsley, who grew up on a dairy farm in Macon County, also urged commissioners’ support.

“This shows such foresight and responsibility and just care for all of us that you’ve shown in the development of this document,” she said. “As elected leaders, I very much urge you to adopt this comprehensive plan — I am sure this is a step in the right direction.”

The same for and against crowd (about 70 people turned out last week) can be expected to assemble again as Macon County heads toward considering steep-slope rules. A steep-slope subcommittee late last week brought recommendations to the planning board, which is now considering whether to endorse the proposals.    

Guiding principle of Macon’s comprehensive plan

“Work together as Maconians to create a dynamic plan that will guide long-term growth and development within the county. Through taking the initiative to plan now, we insure the integrity of our mountain heritage will be preserved, welfare of the citizens will be maximized, our natural environment will continue to flourish, and the economic vitality of Macon County will be sustained, all in ways that benefit the current population as well as generations to come.”

At Macon Barber Shop, you can get a haircut for $10 and a shampoo for $5, but the talk is free for the asking.

In between snips of her scissors and reaching, on occasion, for the electric razor used to get that nicely topped-off look her clients have sported for more than four decades, Frankie Bowers tried to find the right words: About how it's really important that everyone, including communities such as Franklin, get the top medical care available. But also about how saddened many in the community feel about losing the local part of "local hospital."

Last week, in the latest of a handful of consolidations that have reshaped Western North Carolina's hospital industry this decade, Angel Medical Center agreed to move under the Asheville-based Mission Health System umbrella.

"It really does make me sad," Bowers said. "It's been a good hospital for Franklin, and the Franklin people have benefited from it. I have very mixed feelings — I'm not against it per se, but things just keep on changing."

George Hasara, a longtime-ago-move-in to Macon County, has a different take. Hard at working kneading dough at his Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub, he was friendly but direct in his assessment of the deal, which will see Mission take over management of Angel.

Mission is the sixth-largest health system in North Carolina. This means the community could benefit from more competitive bidding and pricing, more access to capital, and other perks that come with being a big guy in a medical world that is geared toward big guys with deep pockets.

"If it improves services and helps lower costs, it's a win-win for everyone," Hasara said, then hesitated and added that the "if" is an important element of his assessment.

Angel Medical Center had its inception in a clinic established by Dr. Furman Angel in 1923. The construction of the current facility, in large part, was made possible through community contributions. Angel was, in every sense of the word, a local hospital — formed by the community, built by the community and patronized largely by people living in that community.

Although Angel is a small hospital averaging just 16 inpatients a day, it is still a major economic player in the community. It has an operating budget of $800,000 a week. It employs 430 people, with salaries that are a cut above average wages for the county.

Angel leaders have stressed the agreement signed with Mission last week merely formalizes an already existing partnership.

"I don't think doctors, patients or employees will notice anything any different today over any other day," Angel CEO Tim Hubbs said.

But most people in Macon County believe the move defines a different path for the hospital, a place that has played a central role in so many people's lives here.

And, not just a central role for people native to the area — take Sue Dalgleish, owner of The Attic on Palmer Street, a place for bargain and antique hunters, who has been a Macon County resident for 17 years. She got here like so many in this community, by way of a lengthy stop in Florida. Dalgleish grew up in western Pennsylvania.

Her mother was pivotal in helping that community establish its own hospital, getting a business owner in Pittsburgh to donate the needed property. Dalgleish, like her mother before her, believes in the importance of community.

And, like Bowers, she's saddened by Angel's management agreement with Mission.

Angel, Dalgleish said, had really worked on its image, and the general perception in the community of the medical institution's services was positive.

"What I hate to see is the profit motive (driving decisions) in the entire health industry," she said.

And, Dalgleish is truly afraid Mission might mess up the food. Angel, remarkably, serves up hospital food the community raves about — it even caters, according to Dalgleish.

"You've never eaten there? You have to eat there," she said, adding that people go to the hospital not only for medical needs, but to eat breakfast or lunch — the trout is reputed to be out of this world, and the cheese biscuits are excellent, too.

Angel Medical Center in Franklin, one of the last, small independent hospitals in the state, is now part of Mission Health System in Asheville.

After months of negotiations, Angel last week came under Mission’s management umbrella — likely a temporary arrangement on the road to full merger. The move does not come as a surprise. Angel has had a close partnership with Mission for years.

Angel CEO Tim Hubbs equated the deal signed last week to getting engaged after years of dating.

“I would call it the engagement period. I think in short order we might say ‘Let’s go ahead and get married’ but we haven’t set that date yet,” Hubbs said.

Hubbs would not say what would trigger an acquisition by Mission, only that it would be based on certain outcomes being realized over an undisclosed length of time.

While the deal falls short of a full merger for now, most of the benefits of affiliation will be realized right away, Hubbs said.

The move will be financially advantageous for Angel. The hospital can get bulk rates on medical supplies, push for higher reimbursement from insurance companies and get better deals on equipment or contracts thanks to the buying power and leverage that comes with being part of a larger institution like Mission.

Mission already came to Angel’s aid on the monetary front two years ago, when the hospital was about to see its interest rate on some $14 million in debt jump substantially. The debt dates back to renovations and expansions over the years, Hubbs said.

SEE ALSO: The passing of an era? Residents in Macon County say goodbye to independent hospital 

Faced with pressure from the national credit crisis, the bond holders reassessed Angel’s risk level and planned to adjust the interest rate accordingly. Mission stepped in a guaranteed the debt, akin to co-signing for a loan, and allowed Angel to keep its interest rates reasonable, Hubbs said.

Tapping new capital is not a reason for the affiliation, Hubbs said, although at some point that may be a possibility.  

Small hospital challenges

A very costly undertaking for hospitals, and one that has driven other small, independent hospitals around the state to affiliate, is the transition to electronic medical records. The cost of computers and software to go from paper charts to integrated electronic patient records is astronomical, according to Janet Moore, the marketing director of Mission Hospital.

Moore said small rural hospitals have it tough these days. They usually have a high percentage of patients on Medicare and Medicaid, which pay less than private health insurance plans. There’s also a higher percentage of people who can’t pay and have to be written off.

“It leaves them in a real bind,” Moore said.

Mission can provide expertise in the increasingly complex world of hospital management. Picking the right medical code in the maze of billing bureaucracy can make a substantial difference on how much insurance companies or Medicare reimburses for a particular service.

Mission also has experts that can help Angel with best practices, from preventing falls to reducing infections among hospitalized patients, Moore said. It is not just a matter of patient safety, but Medicare and Medicaid won’t pay for infections or injuries picked up during a hospital stay.

“The federal government has said, ‘We are not paying for that anymore.’ They say, ‘That happens in your hospital you eat the cost,’” Moore said.

Another benefit: Angel can now lean on Mission’s reputation when recruiting doctors to locate in Franklin.

“I do think if you are recruiting a physician and you can be part of Mission’s system, it does feel differently for them than just a solo hospital,” Hubbs said.

That’s what inspired Transylvania County Hospital in Brevard to sign a management contract with Mission recently as well.

“What they are looking at is how do they continue to attract specialists and doctors to come there and live and work,” Moore said.

A few doctors affiliated with Mission already hold satellite office hours in Franklin, providing access to specialties otherwise not available in the community.

“We have been able to bring specialists and subspecialists to enhance what the community already has,” Moore said.

Despite fears to the contrary, Mission does not plan to siphon care out of Franklin and send patients to its flagship in Asheville.

“We’re looking forward to working more closely with Angel’s leaders, physicians and staff to help ensure the continued delivery of quality care close to home by this outstanding community hospital,” said Ron Paulus, CEO of Mission Health System.

The hospitals in Spruce Pine and McDowell County both saw both their revenue and the number of doctors practicing in their communities increase substantially following their mergers with Mission.

Angel has long partnered with Mission, both formally and informally. Angel serves as a western base for Mission’s emergency medical helicopter. The two recently embarked on a joint spine center.

Last year, Angel’s board made public that it was pursuing a formal affiliation with Mission. The terms of the contract signed by Angel’s board of directors last week are not being made public. Both institutions are private and not required to disclose details of the deal.

Hubbs would only say that the contract is long-term, longer than just a few years. The financial terms are private as well, such as the management fee Mission may be getting or benefits Angel expects in return.  

Mission facing challenges

The deal comes amidst debate over Mission’s presence in the region. Detractors claim competition from Mission amounts to a monopoly and should be reined in. Supporters counter that Mission is merely trying to provide the region with access to the best health care possible.

State regulators are reviewing Mission’s anti-trust regulations to determine whether they should be tightened or loosened. Meanwhile, a bill has been introduced by Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin, that would bar Mission from expanding pending a state-commissioned study. If it passed before Angel inked a deal with Mission, it could have derailed it, but not now.

“There is nothing in the bill that would create an unwind situation,” Hubbs said.

The bill could still hurt Angel from realizing the full benefits of the affiliation. It aims to limit how many doctors Mission can employ, for example, undermining its ability to recruit new doctors to Franklin.

The loss of autonomy, whether perceived or actual, is a likely side-effect of a merger. Two other hospitals that have merged with Mission — namely McDowell County Hospital and Blue Ridge Regional Hospital in Spruce Pine — have preserved a balance of power, however.

The local hospitals kept their own board of directors, although some board members are now appointed by Mission. The local hospital board has hiring and firing authority over the CEO, but the CEO also reports directly to Mission. In essence, the CEO has two bosses. And if he got conflicting orders?

“That has never happened,” Moore said.

Moore said Mission has never expected the CEO to make decisions that benefit Mission to the detriment of the local hospital, thus it’s never been an issue.

That’s what Angel is counting on as well.

“The focus of this agreement is to maintain, enhance and increase access to health services here locally, while maintaining local input,” Hubbs said.

Macon County’s proposed budget manages to keep taxes at 27.9 cents per $100 valuation — the second-lowest rate in the state — yet give employees a 3 percent cost-of-living raise.

“They have worked hard to do their job without complaint as they continue to help us hold the line on spending while delivering essential county services,” Macon County Manager Jack Horton said in support of the proposal.

Commissioners have started a series of work sessions on the proposed $42.4 million budget, which Chairman Brian McClellan described as probably involving more “tweaks” than large adjustments.

He said he has not decided whether to endorse a pay raise, but is waiting to hear discussions on that possibility by the other four board members.

“It has been three years since there’s been a raise, but on the other hand, inflation hasn’t been very high, either,” said McClellan, who is a financial advisor in Highlands.

Commissioner Ronnie Beale said he would support a pay raise for employees if the numbers proposed hold up at the end of commissioners’ work sessions. Additionally, Beale said, he’d like to see Macon County’s deputies’ pay be brought up to the same level as their counterparts in the region.

Horton noted Macon County “finds itself in an enviable position compared to many counties in North Carolina. The county is in sound financial condition … our fund balance is stable and allows the county to have in reserve an amount equal to three months of operating expenditures. This provides a strong degree of confidence in terms of being prepared for unexpected emergencies or a shortfall in revenues due to circumstances beyond our control.”