The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee has taken the protection of the historic landscape one step further with the recent purchase of a century-old general store in the Cowee community in Macon County.

By Jennifer Garlesky • Staff Writer

A complaint filed against the Macon County School Board over questionable campaign actions has the school district in hot water with the North Carolina Board of Elections.

The benefits to private development of the Siler Road project in Macon County figured prominently in early planning documents and meetings, but were later toned down. Here’s a time line.

The N.C. Department of Transportation is mulling four options for a new road in Macon County that would facilitate future development, but some members of the community wonder why a fifth option — simply improving the existing road — isn’t on the list.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

A property transfer tax that could potentially bring nearly a million dollars a year to county coffers is meeting fierce opposition in two Western North Carolina counties where the tax will appear on the November ballot.

A public hearing Monday on a $64 million bond for various construction projects in Macon County attracted relatively few naysayers.

Voters in Macon will get to weigh in on the slate of construction projects in a countywide vote on Nov. 6. Each component of the bond package will be a separate item on the ballot. The biggest share of bond money is for new schools. Other components include recreation, a new library in Highlands, a new senior center, and a new community college building.

After years of debate over stray animals in Macon County — namely the lack of anywhere to take them — county leaders decided last week that it’s time to build a county animal shelter.

Along with the shelter will come two animal control officers to pick up strays and enforce animal control laws, as well as one office staffer. It will cost the county upwards of $250,000 a year, but county commissioners said it is an issue the county has dodged for too long.

Macon County will be the first in Western North Carolina to test the idea of a new tax on real estate transactions.

Commissioners voted unanimously Monday night to put the new property transfer tax on the ballot in November, along with a $64 million bond package for sundry building projects. Voters will get to pick and choose which, if any, of the bond projects they support — schools, a new recreation center and parks, community college expansion, a library in Highlands and county buildings. As a separate item, voters can approve or veto the idea of a property transfer tax.

Unlike most town and county governments in Western North Carolina, Franklin’s elected leaders had the foresight more than five decades ago to pass zoning regulations.

County commissioners, planners and planning board members from the state’s seven westernmost counties will meet this month in a first-of-its-kind attempt to discuss land management on a regional level.