Cory Vaillancourt
Officials in the town of Canton have been throwing around the term “Canton Comeback” for a few years now, noting the very visible progress made in economic development and administration.
Duke Energy isn’t the only utility company raising its electric rates this year amidst rising energy costs, but some local electric customers will see a better deal than others.
Duke Energy is proposing a $62 million solar rebate program designed to help its North Carolina customers with the upfront cost of installing solar panels on their property.
On the west side of Jonathan Creek Road in Haywood County sits a parcel of land where crops and cows are being rapidly replaced by bulldozers and cones and piles upon piles of dirt.
A North Carolina Open Meetings Law expert says Shining Rock Classical Academy’s School Board once again violated state laws regarding the notification of meetings.
The day after I stood before the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and watched Missouri Senator Roy Blount introduce “for the first time, ever, anywhere, the 45th President of the United States of America,” on Jan. 20, 2017, I joined half a million people in the day-long Women’s March on Washington.
Disillusionment with the two-party American political system has been around for a long time, but with a polarizing President in the White House and gerrymandered districts that tend to push major party candidates towards more extreme primary election positions, it’s rarely been higher.
“The fastest growing group in North Carolina is neither Democrat nor Republican, but it’s unaffiliated,” said Dr. Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “There’s actually more unaffiliated voters than Republicans in the state right now.”
Just one month before candidates start signing up to run for the 2018 elections, a three judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as partisan gerrymanders that violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Haywood County’s new emergency alert system startled many Jan. 11 with a “shelter in place” notification just after 6 p.m., related to shots fired on Biodome Drive.
A series of water line breakages in Canton during a recent period of extreme cold provoked unusually lengthy complaints from residents determined to point out the obvious, while also pointing fingers.
It was déjà vu all over again in Maggie Valley, where the Board of Aldermen once again passed the controversial Brunch Bill ordinance by a vote of 3-2, just like it was on Dec. 11.
A North Carolina State Bar complaint filed against Waynesville attorney and Mayor Gavin Brown Oct. 11, 2017, that had accused him of violating the organization’s rules of professional conduct has now generated a pair of indictments from District Attorney Ashley Welch.
After receiving 20 applications from candidates hoping to succeed founding School Director Ben Butler at Shining Rock Classical Academy, the Waynesville public charter school’s board has narrowed its options down to four people.
Last week, Shining Rock Classical Academy held an event for “parents and community supporters” to meet the top four candidates in the running to be the charter school’s new director, but there seemed to be some confusion over whether the hiring process would be public or private.
By coincidence, Haywood County Schools has, since about the same time as Shining Rock Classical Academy been readying itself to hire a new key employee as well, but the circumstances couldn’t be more dissimilar.
A years-long effort to find some use for the Historic Haywood County Hospital on Waynesville’s North Main Street appears to be moving forward with renewed vigor, as the building continues to deteriorate.
One of Zeb Smathers’ earliest memories is sitting in the cereal aisle of his grandfather’s downtown Canton grocery store, which wasn’t open on Sundays and didn’t sell booze.
“When the movie Ghostbusters came out there was a Ghostbusters cereal and I remember pleading with granddad,” Smathers said. “Mom would never allow us sugary cereal.”
Last year it was still just a quaint, silly little term — fake news.
Brendan Bishop is more than just the manager of Haywood Vapor, located at the corner of Dellwood City Road and Russ Avenue in Waynesville.
For all of its bluster and bikers and bling in the summertime, Maggie Valley can be one sleepy little town in the winter.
Traditionally, many businesses in the tiny settlement close during the off-season, a habit no doubt acquired during the heyday of Ghost Town in the Sky, the mountaintop amusement park that since 1965 closed every winter as well, until it closed for good a few years ago.
Pristine and nearly untouched by the hands of humans, the Town of Waynesville’s watershed has been hailed as a visionary acquisition by the town since its establishment around 1913.
Employee turnover in local governments is nothing new, but Haywood County’s recent rash of retirements and resignations has resulted in a lingering lack of leadership that hasn’t yet disrupted county operations, but could affect long-term planning if it persists.
In a statement issued by Haywood County moments ago, the resignation of Assistant County Manager Talmadge “Stoney” Blevins was announced.
No effective date was given for the resignation in the statement, which reads in full:
Interim Haywood County Manager, Joel Mashburn, announced that Haywood County Health and Human Services Director Talmadge “Stoney” Blevins is resigning to take a similar position in Buncombe County. Since 2014, Mr. Blevins directed the newly consolidated Haywood County Health and Human Services Agency to better serve all citizens of Haywood County.
On behalf of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners, “We thank Stoney for his service to the citizens of Haywood County for his guidance and leadership,” said Kirk Kirkpatrick, Chairman of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners. “His contributions to Haywood County will have a lasting impact for years to come.”
“I will leave behind many talented and dedicated colleagues; these men and women are true community heroes who make life better for the citizens they serve,” Mr. Blevins said.
Look for more on this developing story in The Smoky Mountain News in the coming days.
When Canton Alderman Dr. Ralph Hamlett recently proposed a parade entry policy that would limit inappropriate speech during the town’s two annual parades — and in effect limit the display of the Confederate Flag — it understandably generated a substantial amount of negative comments.
As the town’s former police chief and also as a woman of faith, Maggie Valley Mayor Saralyn Price said last month that she couldn’t support the town’s proposed Brunch Bill ordinance that would allow alcohol sales to begin at 10 a.m. instead of noon on Sundays.
After submitting applications, one of three men will be selected to fill a vacancy on the Haywood County School board at its next regular meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 14.
The Town of Waynesville solved one problem Nov. 28 by deciding where, exactly, video gaming parlors may in the future be located, but by denying local gambling establishment Nudge City the opportunity to remain in its current location on Dellwood City Road, the town has “created a solution looking for a problem,” according to the business’s attorney, Mark Melrose.
I don’t really want to go into the domestic circumstances that led up to it, but even though I had no car, no money, no work and now, nowhere to live, I walked down our darkened driveway in the middle of the cold starry night with little more than the clothes on my back.
Worse than the dearth of resources, I had no social support structure, and with no real knowledge of the resources available to someone in a short-term housing crisis, there I was, standing in a Maggie Valley gas station mere moments into Thanksgiving Day, in a short-term housing crisis.
An oral history project documenting African American history in the far western reaches of North Carolina is now a book, thanks to Waynesville’s Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center.
“I guess the motivation was because Haywood County just doesn’t have very much documented history of African Americans,” said Lyn Forney, the director of the Pigeon Center.
Although honoring veterans each Nov. 11 is a substantial gesture by the grateful citizens of this country, a new program at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center seeks to recognize that the rest of the year is just as important as well.
Ka-chunk, ka-chunk … Ka-chunk, ka-chunk….
For over a century the sound of wheels on wood have greeted residents of and visitors to the Lake Junaluska Assembly alike as cars, trucks, people and pets cross the bridge over the Lake Junaluska Dam.
Three complementary actions taken by the Haywood County Board of County Commissioners Nov. 20 show that despite changing conditions in the economic development landscape, Haywood County is serious about moving forward with business attraction, expansion and retention.
If you don’t like what you hear, get a second opinion — at least, that’s what the Waynesville Board of Alderman is doing with a report on the town’s aging wastewater treatment plant.
After a series of contentious public hearings almost a year ago resulted in outcry from nearly all quarters of Waynesville, the North Carolina Department of Transportation has officially backed off designs that would have changed the character of one of the town’s most historic and aesthetically significant streets.
The obtuse angles of the intersection at Waynesville’s North Main and Walnut streets may soon become graceful curves — or even a roundabout — by 2020, depending on what happens with the now-underway public involvement phase of the project.
When a policy that would prohibit the display of the Confederate flag in a tiny mountain mill town’s municipal parades was first proposed, it was immediately identified as both a sensitive cultural issue and a thorny Constitutional question that cast the Western North Carolina municipality as a microcosm of the complex national debate over the role of Confederate imagery in society today.
In what appears to be the culmination of a strange saga that has played out from Haywood County to Raleigh since last spring, members of the North Carolina Republican Party voted to ban four Haywood County activists from party activity.
Haywood County’s high-performing public schools will soon see a new leader after Dr. Anne Garrett announced Nov. 13 that she plans to retire March 1, 2018.
Elections in Canton, Clyde and Maggie Valley resulted in some tight races and new faces falling into voters’ good graces, but the outcomes in Haywood County’s three smallest municipalities couldn’t be more different as one moves forward, one stays the same and one still seeks to fill some holes.
When the Nudge City video gaming parlor popped up in an old auto dealer’s lot on Dellwood City Road earlier this year, it quickly caught Elizabeth Teague’s eye.
New standards and stricter definitions for manufactured homes in Waynesville could make it easier to develop manufactured home parks, under proposed changes that will soon go before the Waynesville Board of Aldermen.
The Lake Junaluska Assembly prides itself on being a place of transformation and renewal for all people, but over the next year, the hallowed local institution will itself undergo transformation and renewal as it searches for a new leader.
The passing of Clyde Mayor Jerry Walker Oct. 30 has not only left a huge hole in the Clyde community, but also in its government.
Thunder, lightning, fog and torrential downpours on an off-year municipal Election Day in Haywood County’s smallest municipalities doesn’t bode well for high voter turnout, but with showers now evacuating the area in favor of bright sunshine, there’s still time for that to change.
At 11:10 a.m. this morning, just 17 of Maggie Valley’s 1,092 registered voters had shown up to vote at town hall; adding in the 56 early votes already received, that spells turnout of only 6.68 percent.
In Canton, just three voters in the Beaverdam 1 precinct had made it to the polls by noon; two early voters submitted ballots before Election Day, giving that individual precinct in Canton a turnout rate of 4.42 percent.
Both polls were visited before lunch, but officials at Beaverdam said they don’t usually get much of a lunch rush, and voters in general tend to vote after work, or after dinner and not first thing in the morning.
Polls across North Carolina close at 7:30 p.m. tonight. For more information including registration and polling locations, visit www.ncsbe.gov.
Look for more election coverage throughout the day on www.facebook.com/smnews/ or on Twitter @SmokyMtnNews.
Polls are open across the state and across Western North Carolina for balloting in this year’s municipal election cycle, which features several contests throughout the region that can and will change the composition of some local government boards.
In Haywood County, voters in the Town of Canton can choose from among four candidates – Carl Cortright, Brent Holland, James Markey and Kristina Smith – to replace outgoing Alderwoman Carole Edwards and outgoing Alderman Zeb Smathers, who is running unopposed for mayor. Cortright and Markey are unaffiliated, while Holland and Smith are Democrats.
Maggie Valley voters also have two aldermanic seats to fill from among five choices, but the two incumbents who currently hold those seats would like to keep them; aldermen Clayton Davis and Mike Eveland will attempt to defend their seats from challengers Allen Alsbrooks, Jasay Ketchum and Brooke Powell. Alsbrooks and Eveland are unaffiliated, and the rest are Democrats.
Important elections are also taking place in Bryson City, Dillsboro, Forest Hills and Franklin.
For more information on voting, including voter lookup, polling place information, or to contact the county board of elections in your area, visit www.ncsbe.gov.
After a career spanning more than 14 years as the executive director of Haywood County’s Economic Development Council, Mark Clasby told EDC board members Nov. 2 that this year would be his last.
The South’s oldest Labor Day parade birthed a controversy this year that the parade’s founders probably didn’t foresee, but the nation’s Founding Fathers probably did.
For the second meeting in a row, consultants presented the Waynesville Board of Aldermen with some unpleasant realities about the town’s critical infrastructure.
After weeks of public comment, opposition by religious leaders and appeals by the local business community, a controversial “Brunch Bill” ordinance passed the Canton Board of Aldermen/women Oct. 26.
Planning board officials recommended and the Canton Board of Aldermen/women approved plans that will bring an additional 7,000 square feet of retail space to the town’s rapidly growing Champion Drive corridor just south of Interstate 40.
