Holly Kays
An idea to turn the Jackson County Green Energy Park into a campus for creativity, learning and animal adoption now has some legs after commissioners voted unanimously June 18 to spend $45,000 on a master plan for the project.
Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously June 18 to adopt a $71.67 million budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Twenty-five years ago, a group of residents, conservationists and agency officials met in Macon County to talk about water. At the time, the Little Tennessee River had no conserved land along its banks, and there was no nonprofit organization around dedicated to protecting it — but the gathering sparked a change.
“That conference was really the catalyst for the formation of the Little Tennessee Watershed Association and then later the Nikwasi Land Trust, (both of) which became the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee,” said Jason Love, site manager for the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in Macon County.
The Kituwah Economic Development Board is now ready to start pursuing expanded business opportunities for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians after Tribal Council approved appointments and a compensation plan for the venture last week.
After 51 years standing high on a hill along Patton Avenue in Asheville, a 23-foot-tall statue of Chief Pontiac is coming down.
The reward for information leading to a conviction for ballot tampering in Cherokee’s September 2017 elections has been quadrupled from $25,000 to $100,000 following a unanimous vote from the Cherokee Tribal Council June 7.
The tension that surrounded Jackson County commissioners’ decision to merge its health and social services departments wasn’t hard to sense when the new consolidated board gathered for its first meeting Monday, June 11.
When the Jackson County Commissioners met June 5 to discuss final changes to the proposed budget for 2018-19, they came away with more questions than answers when faced with more than $1 million in additional funding requests. But a 10-minute follow-up June 11 was all that commissioners needed to give the OK to the plan county staff developed to address the crunch.
A month of rain capped off by the arrival of Tropical Storm Alberto has caused massive flooding, landslides and loss of life in North Carolina’s western region, but the mountains west of Asheville were mostly able to escape the devastation experienced in Polk, McDowell, Avery and Buncombe counties.
“I think everyone’s optimistic that we dodged a bullet to have got 20 inches of rain in two weeks and not gotten any more extensive flooding than what we had,” said Joe Deal, agriculture extension agent for Macon County Cooperative Extension.
When you enter Western Carolina University from the four-lane, a green-and-white N.C. Department of Transportation sign is the only thing to say that you’ve officially arrived on the Catamount campus.
Western Carolina University got some good news last week when the state legislature approved a budget bill that includes $16.5 million for the first of two phases to replace its aging steam plant, an ever more pressing need that WCU has been clamoring to address for years.
A referendum vote asking Cherokee voters to OK a tribally owned beer, wine and liquor store off casino property failed on two fronts last week — the question received more no votes than yes votes, and turnout fell short of the percentage required to qualify as a valid referendum.
With the deadline to adopt a new budget drawing ever closer, Jackson County Commissioners are still deliberating how to handle $1 million in last-minute budget requests. That’s on top of an already planned $979,800 public safety increase that’s spurred a 1-cent per $100 property tax increase in the proposed budget.
A 441.5-acre piece of land high in the Plott Balsams is well on its way to being permanently conserved following a unanimous vote from the Jackson County Commissioners to contribute $250,000 to its conservation.
It was 1972, and the world of whitewater paddling was changing. Americans were just about a decade into experimenting with kayaks and it had been only three years since the first whitewater race in the South and the passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. That year’s Summer Olympic Games in Munich would be the first to include whitewater paddling among its events.
Amid all of this, Horace Holden, Payson Kennedy and Aurelia Kennedy decided to start a new rafting business in Swain County, to be called the Nantahala Outdoor Center.
Sylva commissioners voted unanimously during their May 24 meeting to contribute $250,000 to a 441.5-acre conservation project adjacent to Pinnacle Park, but the success of the endeavor could hinge on a vote the Jackson County commissioners will take during a special meeting at 11:05 a.m. Thursday, May 31, at the Jackson County Justice and Administration Center in Sylva.
Before Jackson County commissioners can answer the question of whether Jackson should have a permanent, year-round homeless shelter building, they’ll have another decision to make: if such a shelter existed, who would manage it?
For more than 30 of its 45 years in business, Speedy’s Pizza has served its famous pies out of the same brick building on 285 West Main Street in Sylva, becoming a staple for lifelong residents and out-of-town college students alike.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is hoping to diversify its revenues beyond gaming through creation of a new limited liability company, to be overseen by the yet-to-be-appointed five-member Kituwah Economic Development Board.
Term limits could soon be lifted for the Jackson County ABC Board, pending a final vote from the Jackson County Commissioners.
An investigation into the legality of a lawsuit settlement in which Principal Chief Richard Sneed agreed to pay seven former tribal employees a total $698,000 has been completed, with a May 15 press release summarizing the investigation’s results identifying no wrongdoing.
A proposed property tax increase in Jackson County would pay for increased school safety personnel and community safety resources.
The Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority will look to keep up-front fees for water and sewer hookups high when it adopts its new budget in June, following a divided May 15 vote.
Increased alcohol availability could be on its way to the Qualla Boundary pending the outcome of a referendum vote slated for Thursday, May 31.
An effort to conserve 441.5 acres of land in the Plott Balsam Mountains adjacent to Sylva’s Pinnacle Park has met resistance from a majority of the Jackson County commissioners, with the commission’s three Republican members expressing hesitation during a May 15 work session on the topic.
In popular culture mules get a bad rap, cast as stubborn, ornery and even mischievous.
But Danny Gibson, animal packer for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, spends more time with mules than just about anybody around, and he’s quick to jump to their defense.
The announcement that 20,000 gallons of sewer capacity will soon be released in Cashiers has spurred interest from homeowners and businesspeople alike, and the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority Board is pondering whether to bump up its sewer plant construction schedule as a result.
Finger-pointing over who’s to blame for unpaid bills following a business relocation project in Jackson County has transitioned to the legal realm.
Two defendants in a marriage fraud case set to go to trial Monday, May 14, have opted to enter a guilty plea instead.
Nantahala Brewing Company will move forward with opening an outpost in Sylva after the Sylva Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to allow the business to use public parking rather than building its own.
Jackson County voters went for a mixture of something different and stay the course when they cast their Primary Election votes May 8.
It’s been a full morning on top of a full week, and I’m tired when I file into the fluorescent-lighted classroom Tuesday afternoon. A large, laminated topo map of the Cashiers area is sitting on the table when I arrive at my seat, a dry erase marker and protractor tool arranged on top.
A pair of party-line votes May 7 triggered the next step in consolidating Jackson County’s social services and health departments, creating a new board to oversee the combined department and approving a new position to manage it.
A resolution seeking to reverse a ban on non-Cherokee media outlets — enacted by the Cherokee Tribal Council Thursday, April 5 — was withdrawn from the agenda when Council convened for its May 3 meeting.
Cherokee attorney Robert Saunooke will no longer be allowed to practice law on the Qualla Boundary following a recent ruling from the Cherokee Tribal Court.
In 2013, Western Carolina University cut the ribbon on 7-mile trail system zig-zagging an otherwise unbuildable piece of university property. Over the five years since, the trails have become an indispensible resource for mountain bikers — as well as trail runners and hikers — in the Cullowhee area, and last fall a trio of WCU employees set out to back up those observations with hard numbers.
Sylva residents won’t see a tax increase this year, but despite the proposed budget’s 15 percent spending increase over 2018-2019, purse strings will remain tight.
Mountain Projects is now moving into a newly renovated building on Asheville Road in Waynesville, thanks in part to matching contributions of $150,000 that Jackson and Haywood counties approved in April.
Following the May 2017 impeachment of then-Principal Chief Patrick Lambert, tribal member Lori Taylor lost her job with the Tribal Prosecutor’s Office when charges were filed against her alleging disorderly conduct. Now, nearly a year later, the case has gone to trial with a six-member jury taking less than half an hour to return a verdict of not guilty.
An effort to conserve a 441.5-acre block of land adjacent to Pinnacle Park in the Plott Balsams is now looking much more feasible than when the possibility was first discussed nearly two years ago.
On the Appalachian Trail, everybody’s story is the same, in a sense — the chill of the cold, the heat of the sun, the constant challenge of placing one foot in front of the other toward the trail’s end in Maine.
But the stories are just as different as they are similar. Thru-hikers are retirees, recent college grads, folks in the middle of a career change. They’re Appalachian natives, West Coast wanderers, foreign travelers. They’re silly, serious, talkative and silent.
During a recent public comment period, water and sewer customers in Jackson County told the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority that they don’t want to see their rates go up to allow new customers to pay lower up-front fees.
Following a 383-2 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation transferring the property to the tribe, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is one step closer to gaining ownership of 76 ancestrally important acres in Tennessee.
The Cherokee Tribal Council voted unanimously to formalize rules governing who has final authority over procedures in the council house, but the ordinance elicited criticism from some who feel it doesn’t do enough to protect the rights of enrolled members to address their elected officials.
Plans are moving forward for an extensive renovation of the Jackson County Health Department building, with County Manager Don Adams hoping to have an architect contract ready for commissioners to approve at their May 7 meeting.
After January’s split vote to merge the social services and health departments into one consolidated department, the Jackson County commissioners are moving toward appointing a board and hiring a director to oversee the new department.
With a whole world of mountain beauty to explore, summer leaves no time to waste indoors.
The combination of a stress-filled week and the dawn of a perfect, sunny and 70-something degree day worked like a drug, a magnetic compulsion to leave the dark indoors in search of a sunlight-swathed trail to melt my anxiety away.
Mid-April is standout wildflower season here in the lower elevations of the mountains, so I grabbed the newly minted trail guide sitting on my desk for guidance on where to go. Wildflower Walks & Hikes: North Carolina Mountains, is the latest title from Swain County-based guidebook author Jim Parham, and with 59 hikes organized by location, habitat and peak season, it wasn’t hard to find an outing to match my criteria: low enough elevation to feature April wildflowers, dog-friendly and as close to Waynesville as possible.
For the two Democrats running to serve as Jackson County’s next clerk of Superior Court, the results of the May 8 Primary Election will decide who takes the seat in December.
During the May 8 Primary Election in Jackson County, two Republican candidates for county commissioner will race for the right to appear on the November ballot.
