The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority may outsource its search for vacation home renters who are evading the county’s 4 percent tax on overnight lodging.

Lynn Collins, director of the tourism agency, plans to meet with Virginia-based software company VRCompliance over the next month. The company scours the Internet for property listings and helps identify renters in the county who are not collecting room tax.

The company would get a finder’s fee for each offender it tracks down that is brought into compliance, Collins said, but didn’t know exactly what that fee is yet.

Ferreting out people who rent their vacation homes under the radar is such a universal problem, VRCompliance, which stands for Vacation Rental Compliance, saw it as a business opportunity. It created software to search the web for vacation listings, and is now marketing that service to tourism agencies across the country trying to enforce the room tax.

Part of the problem is simply ignorance that vacation home rentals are subject to the overnight tax. Last month, the Haywood tourism agency announced a campaign to inform vacation homeowners that they are required to levy a 4 percent tax if they rent their property.

“That’s where the big money is,” said Ken Stahl, the board’s finance chair.

Stahl said he looked into cross-referencing local cabin addresses with the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s income tax records, but the department has not been willing to cooperate in the past.

And, even if the agency identifies properties skirting the tax law, the consequences — a fine or legal action — are still not enough to convince some to pay. While some are unaware of the law, other lodge owners are knowingly ignoring it, apparently collecting the tax from patrons but not passing it along to the county.

“Many of the hotels and motels feel that nothing is going to happen … because nothing has happened in the past,” said Marion Hamel of the Haywood County TDA.

During its meeting last Wednesday, the tourism board discussed other ways to enforce the tax law.

“We just got to have teeth,” said County Commissioner Michael Sorrells.

Among the options discussed were printing repeat offenders’ names in the newspaper and pulling their information from the board’s website and publication.

The county has previously used liens to bring people into compliance and mailed letters threatening legal action. Those who owe taxes also receive monthly bills.

“They know they’re not paying,” said Julie Davis, the finance officer for Haywood County.

The tax on overnight lodging is used for tourism promotions for the county. Haywood County collected about $135,198 in occupancy taxes this July — almost $10,800 less than the same period last year.

Stahl said the economy and a decline in tourism are responsible for the decrease.

“People say it’s not a double dip recession, but it sure feels like it,” he said.

Two million dollars in grant money is coming to Haywood Community College for laid-off workers to find a new place in the workforce.

The money is part of a grant from the Department of Labor that’s been handed out across the state. HCC got the funding by going in with nine other community colleges to try for money from the advanced workforce training pot.

“As one of 10 community colleges in the NC Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, HCC will participate in the creation of a new learning model to place the unemployed, dislocated workers and others in viable advanced manufacturing jobs,” said HCC President Rose Johnson in a statement.

The funding is geared towards training in advanced manufacturing, giving the unemployed an avenue into the more skilled sectors of manufacturing.

Schools in the alliance will share a total of $18.8 million over a three-year period.

Local and regional manufacturing outfits such as Sonoco Products, Consolidated Metco and West CATV Supplies are also a part of the project, along with Workforce Development Boards and JobLink centers across the state.

In total, the money will help unemployed workers in 17 counties, including Haywood and Buncombe, where A-B Tech also got a cut of the grant, though its share was much smaller at $357,645.

Across the country, only 32 community colleges were awarded funds from the $500 million grant allocation, though 200 applied.

A large component of the programs funded by the grant will obviously be designed to retrain low-skill workers, but the colleges will also be working with the industries these students are likely to end up in, assessing their needs and tailoring the programs to meet them. Online learning will also be given a boost by the money.

Elsewhere in the state, Robeson, Beaufort County, Craven, Fayetteville, Nash, Edgecombe, Davidson County and Surry community colleges are a part of the alliance that won the funds.

Officials at HCC said it was a bit too early to announce with certainty exactly what the influx of cash will fund; the awards were only handed out last week.

But a committee was scheduled to meet over the weekend to discuss just where the money should go.

There are, however, restrictions on what can be done with it. The federal grant can only be used to retrain workers and improve their skills, not for other college projects like building repairs.

Haywood County commissioners sent a message to Raleigh lawmakers this week to abandon the notion of merging small community colleges.

The plan to merge some administrative functions at small community colleges was floated by some Republican lawmakers as a cost-cutting measure earlier this year, but has been met with stiff resistance across the state.

“It concerns me,” Commissioner Mark Swanger said. Haywood Community College could lose local control of its college, like which courses and degrees to offer.

“We need to keep local control,” Commissioner Kevin Ensley said. “We tailor-make our community colleges to the needs of our community.”

Ensley cited courses offered by HCC to prepare students for jobs in paper making technology and engineering at the paper mill in Canton. HCC also created a new degree in low-impact development to help answer the demand for more sensitive mountainside construction.

HCC’s ability to respond to needs in the community could be compromised under a merger plan, Swanger said.

The plan would merge administration of community colleges with less than 3,000 fulltime students. It would save relatively little — only $5 million, which amounts to less than half of 1 percent of the state’s community college budget — said Laura Leatherwood, vice president of student and workforce development at Haywood Community College.

Leatherwood brought the resolution to county commissioners this week.

“There’s a reason they call it a community college,” Swanger said.

Commissioner Bill Upton said he was concerned about jobs that could be lost if administration was consolidated with another community college.

Haywood County is inching closer to exiting the landfill business, with plans to hand over the county’s White Oak landfill operations to a private company who will sell space to out-of-county haulers.

County commissioners will vote next month whether to enter into a contract with Santek Environmental to run the landfill.

The county would pay Santek a flat fee of $127,000 a month to run day-to-day operations of the landfill. Santek would also make money by selling space in the county’s landfill for trash from other places. Trash would only be accepted from other places in Western North Carolina, not other states.

Santek would get to keep the money from selling space in the landfill. If and when the landfill hits a threshold of 396 tons per day — including the county’s own trash as well as trash from elsewhere — the county would get a 5 percent cut of the money made by selling landfill space.

At that point, the county would no longer pay a flat fee and instead pay $22.25 per ton.

Once Santek hits the magic number of 396 tons a day, economies of scale would kick in, allowing Santek to reduce what the county pays to dump its own trash as well as share a cut of the revenue from selling landfill space.

The landfill currently takes in about 150 tons of trash a day from households and businesses in Haywood County. Trash from other places would exceed the county’s own volume of trash if Santek hits the 396 tons-a-day mark.

If hired the company will answer to the county’s current Solid Waste Director Stephen King.

David Francis, the county tax administrator who has also been spearheading the landfill project, laid out the proposed contract with the Tennessee firm at a commissioners’ meeting last week.

The central selling point made by Francis is the cost savings to the county. The county is projecting a yearly savings of $417,136 if Santek takes over the place.

That number includes some operational savings, but also includes about $1.1 million in what they’re calling “capital improvements,” big projects like new truck scales and a new scale house, a wheel wash station and mechanisms to keep the public off the face of the landfill.

In the past, the necessity of such improvements has been debated, but Francis says that he sees the measures, especially those limiting access to the active face, as essentials.

“Putting that drop off there prevents the public going out to the face of the landfill. I think it’s a genuine public concern,” said Francis, who recalled a 2009 incident in which a man died while dumping his trash. “I don’t think it’s a wish list, I think it’s a necessity.”

Of those improvements, the county would contribute $75,000 to the wheel wash, which Francis said will stop complaints from the N.C. Department of Transportation about the trash and mud tracked back into the environment from trucks departing the landfill.

Extra equipment like new heavy machinery and trucks are not included in the calculations.

Though talk of cost savings often means job cuts, county staff said part of the deal with Santek is that hourly employees at White Oak would be offered jobs with the new company at their current pay scale. King would also stay on and other employees would likely be brought in by Santek to make the upgrades and run the dump.

The greatest savings, however, are not in operations, but that day years in the future when the landfill is eventually closed down, said Julie Davis, county finance director.

Closing the landfill and maintaining it for years after its closure is an expensive proposition, and the county is currently on the hook for it.

“Currently, the county has a liability for these costs of over $5 million,” said Davis.

The county also has to pay to expand new sections of the landfill as the existing cells fill up. The county just spent $4.5 million opening up a new section of the landfill.

Under the new contract, Santek would build all future cells to house the county’s trash. And after reaching the 396 ton-per-day threshold, it would be responsible for closure and post-closure costs.

Getting to that threshold, said Francis, would likely take several years of trucking in out-of-county trash, something that raises the hackles of opponents to the plan.

Selling landfill space

White Oak now takes trash from this county alone, but under Santek, any of the 17 other western counties can find a home for their trash there.

Francis and King assured commissioners that the outside trash would be only household and commercial — nothing hazardous, nothing toxic, no construction trash — and nothing from other states.

Opponents to the plan have voiced concern that the county’s landfill — built at great expense to county tax payers — would get filled up with trash from other places too quickly, leaving the county with nowhere for its own trash a few decades from now.

The landfill was thought to have 30 years of life left, and Santek has contractually assured the county that it will still get 30 years out of it.

But the question hanging in the air from commissioners is how is that enforceable?

Santek will give the county up to $1.5 million in performance bonds that they’ll meet that three-decade goal, and the county will likely hire an engineering firm to regularly check that it’s not filling the place too fast.

The concern remains, however, that it would result in a too-little-too-late scenario. Sure, the cash would be nice, but siting the White Oak landfill was an onerous task. Finding another suitable landfill location would be nigh upon impossible, even with a few million in hand.

Francis said they won’t let it get that far.

“We’re going to do this year on year,” said Francis. “One of these things as a county that we’re not going to let happen is get to year 21 and say, ‘Man, we’re out of space.’”

Commissioner Michael Sorrells, however, wanted a clearer explanation of how such a situation would be prevented.

“That’s a very important issue to the public that we are protected in that 30-year life, and I think that probably needs to be explained more thoroughly how that’s going to be done,” said Sorrells.

Commissioner Kevin Ensley questioned the savings to the public. Davis estimated that the county would save $29.1 million at White Oak over the 30-year life of the contract. But would those savings be passed on to the citizens?

The answer was yes and no.

The $92 fee per household tacked on to residential property tax bills each year probably wouldn’t go down. But it probably wouldn’t go up, either.

Francis said that to keep running waste like the county is today with privatization, the cost to households could jump to $150. That, however, includes that $1.1 million in “capital improvements.”

One population who will not be saving in the plan is residents of Waynesville and Canton. Those towns will no longer be able to haul their trash to the centrally-located transfer station but will have to truck it directly to the landfill in far-flung White Oak.

The cost of trucking that waste out to White Oak will now fall on towns. But that will happen whether Santek comes in or not.

The transfer station in Clyde, known as the Materials Recovery Facility or MRF, would still be open to the general public wanting to drop bulky items or metal without driving to White Oak.

County Manager Marty Stamey emphasized that joining with Santek shouldn’t mean giving up total control at White Oak, but he maintained that the county couldn’t continue running it alone without upping the costs for consumers.

“We needed a public-private partnership,” said Stamey. “We didn’t want somebody coming in here and strong-arming us. We needed a good fit and Santek is that good fit for us.”

A public hearing is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19, at the next commissioners’ meeting. The issue will likely be voted on at the board’s Oct. 3 meeting.

Want to weigh in?

A public hearing on whether to contract with an outside firm to run Haywood County’s landfill, including selling space in the landfill, will be held at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19, at the historic courthouse.

Haywood County business owners who have been dodging the 4 percent lodging tax will now find themselves facing a crackdown, although some dodgers may not even be aware of their crime.

The lodging tax applies not only to hotels, B&B’s and traditional overnight stays, but also to those who rent out vacation homes or rooms for fewer than 90 days.

A flyer will be included in every property tax bill this year explaining the 4 percent tax vacation home owners should be levying and remitting to the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority.

Many second-home owners who rent their houses on the side for a little extra money often don’t even know that they have to pay, said Lynn Collins, executive director of the TDA.

Collins and her team trawl Websites such as Trip Advisor, Home and Away, and VRBO, which all advertise vacation rentals, complete with address, photos and customer reviews.

Mostly, when people realize they have to pay, they’re pretty good about getting compliant, said Collins.

Collins calls the push to bring in the money an awareness campaign, but her group isn’t just trying to reach the unknowing. They’re going after folks who have simply stopped paying outright, not only by the standard methods of levying fines but also pursuing delinquents through court.

Determining why business owners don’t pay is a little tricky, especially motel owners who know they should and simply don’t.

“It’s a combination of things. Some of it has to do with the economy, some of it has to do with awareness,” said Collins. “For the people who have perhaps quit paying or quit filing, we don’t know.”

For those who use the economy as an excuse to not pay, the reason falls pretty flat.

“This is not coming out of their pockets,” said Collins.

The businesses are simply acting as a pass-through from customer, who pays the extra tax on their overnight room bill, and remitting it to the TDA.

Many businesses, she posits, may not consider the tourism tax quite as mandatory as across-the-board taxes like sales and income tax.

And, said Collins, the tourism authority hasn’t been as staunch about enforcing the laws in the past, which will now change.

Collins said that businesses who begrudge the tax should recognize that its buying them a range of marketing services, even for small, by-owner vacation rentals.

“They get a free listing on the TDA website, they get a free listing in the TDA visitor’s  guide, they get a free listing in the state visitor’s guide and travel website, so there’s a tremendous amount of marketing being done on their behalf,” said Collins.

Regardless of the benefits, paying up is just the law.

“We’re losing a lot of money and it’s not fair to the folks who are following the law and paying the tax for some of their peers to not be doing it,” Collins said.

Four decades of tradition have built the foundation for the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, which will launch into its 41st year on Sept. 2 and 3 at Stuart Auditorium in Lake Junaluska.

More than 200 dancers and musicians grace the shores of Lake Junaluska to entertain spectators over the Labor Day weekend.

Open tent shows will kick off each evening of entertainment at 5 p.m. Shows on the main stage in the 2,000-seat auditorium will start at 6:30 p.m. and end after 11 p.m.

The festival offers the chance to experience a broad range of musical and dance styles. Masters of traditional bluegrass instruments such as the banjo and fiddle will show of their skills, and more unorthodox and unusual instruments such as the dulcimer, harmonica, Native American flute, bagpipes and even spoons and a carpenter’s saw will provide the weekend’s music.

Buck dancers, square dancers, ballad singers and other traditional performers will round out the thoroughly Appalachian lineup.

The festival finds its history in Festival Director Joe Sam Queen, who teamed up with a local fiddler to celebrate the mountain music and dance of his grandfather, who had recently died.

Those first festivals were held in the gym of what is now Waynesville Middle School.

“My grandfather, Sam Queen, made mountain music and dancing such a big part of this community’s life, we wanted to carry on this family tradition and share it with the community just as he had done,” said Queen.

So he gathered local talents to keep the traditions alive, and they proved popular with local crowds.

The audiences began to grow and eventually outpaced the meager space offered by the gym.

Today, the performances garner more than 1,500 visitors each night.

But though the festival has grown in size, the traditions that inspired its inception still inform the festival today. Each festivalgoer, for example, is still given a free slice of watermelon to munch on while enjoying the show.

Tickets are $12 at the door and $10 in advance. Children under 12 are admitted free. For more information, call 828.452.1688.

Performers List — 2011 Smoky Mountain Folk Festival

Senator Joe Sam Queen- Master of Ceremonies

Friday Sept. 2

5:00 Open Tent Show

Stoney Creek Boys

6:30 — Mountain Tradition

Lee Knight

Honey Hollar

7 p.m. — Cole Mountain Cloggers  

George & Brook Buckner

Roger Howell

Rodney Sutton  

7:30 — UNC A Smooth Dancers

The Trantham Family

Mack Snoderly

8 p.m. —  Dixie Darlin’s

Laura Boosinger

Spirit Fiddle/ Robin Warren

8:35 — Green Valley Cloggers

Phil & Gaye Johnson

Cockman Family

9:15 — Southern Mountain Smoke

Ken Harrison

Joe Pendland

9:45 — Bailey Mountain Cloggers

Ross Brothers

Bryan McDowell

Stony Creek Boys

10:15 — J Creek Cloggers

10:30 — Southern Mountain Smoke

Stoney Creek Boys

Also expected to perform: Don Pedi, Karen “Sugar” Barnes, Bobby Hicks

Hazel Creek, and Mike Lowe        

Saturday, Sept. 3

5 p.m.— Open Tent Show

Whitewater Bluegrass Co.

6:30 — Fines Creek Flatfooters

Helena Hunt & Tracy Best

Ken Harrison

7 p.m. — Southern Mountain Fire-Smooth

Betty Smith

Mack Snoderly

7:30 —  Stoney Creek Cloggers

Phil & Anne Case

Hominy Valley Boys

8 p.m. — Southern Appalachian Cloggers

Trantham Family

The Cockman Family

8:45 — Appalachian Mountaineers

Paul’s Creek

Spirit Fiddle/Robin Warren

9:15 — Smoky Mountain Stompers

Joe Pendland

Whitewater Bluegrass

William Ritter

10 — Southern Mountain Fire Cloggers  

Mike Pilgram

Whitewater Bluegrass Co.

*All performers are volunteer; therefore schedule could change without notice.

Haywood Community College can now boast a national champion after Daniel Jones took the title at the Stihl Collegiate Timbersports Championships in Oregon over the weekend.

Jones defeated five other collegiate champions from around the country. He won the standing block, cutting through a upright log in just more than 30 seconds, and also took first place in the single buck, peeling cookies from a felled 19-inch tree with a large, crosscut hand saw. In that event, he posted a 13.97 second time, which rivals even the speediest professional lumberjacks. His performance there would have won him eighth place in at the professional tournament, which ran alongside the college match.

In the other two events, underhand chop and stock saw, a chainsaw competition, Jones took second.

Jones won the prize with an overall score of 22. Events are judged solely on time.

He isn’t the first woodsman to bring a national title back to HCC. The team also produced a national champion in 2007.

As the only team sport at a college known for its forestry program, HCC has a strong timbersports team, which includes both men and women.

Jones recently graduated with two degrees from HCC, and his top rank at the collegiate final has won him a place on the professional circuit and a few other prizes.

Before the competition, Jones thought he would wait a few years to save for proper equipment before moving into the pro series. He will now be able to make the transition next year.

Pat Smathers is what you might call a born politician.

His first campaign was pitching Terry Sanford’s 1960 run for governor and John F. Kennedy’s bid for the White House. He was posted on a busy corner in downtown Canton by his politically active father, bedecked in a vest adorned with campaign buttons and matching straw hat.

“I was 6 years old,” recalls Smathers. “They had me standing out, handing out campaign literature, I guess because who’s going to be mean to a kid? That’s the first time I really understood politics.”

Today, Smathers is a lawyer, with an office on Main Street in downtown Canton, and on the waxing end of his 12-year tenure as the town’s mayor.

He has seen the small mill town through epic floods of 2004, a buy-out of the paper mill, the town’s centerpiece and largest employer, and more recently, an economy trending decidedly downward.

He’s leaving office to tend to his law practice, which he now shares with his son, and devote some time to the renovation of the long-vacant Imperial Hotel, a downtown icon whose restoration he’s bankrolling.

Though his political life may have started at the tender age of 6, his career in politics got off the ground in the mid-1980s when he won the post of chairman in the Haywood County Democratic Party.

After that, he held various party offices and following an unsuccessful bid for state senate in the ‘90s, he started his stint as mayor in 1999. He also ran as the Democratic candidate for the lieutenant governor position in 2008, which he lost.

He didn’t really intend to be the mayor, or indeed stay the mayor for more than a decade, says Smathers. But he really loves the town. He just couldn’t say “no.”

Sitting in his office, it’s easy to see that Smathers is truly proud of Canton, and he knows how to work that angle. He’s a seventh-generation Haywood Countian on both sides, and he’s got the black-and-white family photo hanging above a leather couch in his office to prove it.

The glad-handing required of any politician came easily to Smathers, and from the beginning he saw himself as a salesman, with Canton as his product.

“The role of the mayor is really principal spokesman for the town and the promoter for the town,” says Smathers, who looks the part of a quintessential Southern lawyer, complete with summer seersucker suit.

He’s spent the last 32 years as a lawyer, salesman of a point of view, and it has helped him in his role as town promoter.

One of his main jobs, as he saw it, was going to a lot of meetings. State meetings, regional meetings, local meetings, economic development meetings — if there’s a meeting, Canton should be there.

“You need to know what’s out there. You need to know what’s going to be happening five years from now. If they’re talking about plans for economic development or things that may be happening, you need to be there to say, ‘Hey look, what about putting that in Canton?’” says Smathers. In other words, it’s his job to be perpetually on the hard sell.

And that he was, which didn’t always make him popular. He’s quick to say that he came to the job with an agenda for changing the town, and that didn’t always sit well with some.

Some of his projects, such as better power poles in town, came to fruition.

“We could’ve won a contest for the ugliest power poles in the state. They were horrible,” he says with disdain.

Others, like a major visitor’s center on Champion Drive or a leg of the Great Smoky Mountains Railway, did not. When the county was embroiled in a debate on where to build a new courthouse, batting it from one site to another, Smathers didn’t pass up the chance to suggest “why not Canton?” — even if it would mean designating Canton as the county seat instead of Waynesville.

His prowess at politicking, however, did come in handy during one of the town’s darkest times: the floods that inundated it in 2004.

Thirty-six hours of rain from Tropical Storm Frances slammed the town, leaving it largely underwater. Nine days later, Tropical Storm Ivan brought another deluge. The mill closed, the sewage plant failed and wastewater flowed into the Pigeon River and through town. Every downtown building was filled with a layer of destructive water. Town facilities alone, says Smathers, sustained $10 million in damage.

“I was terribly concerned,” he says, remembering that time. “A lot of people — probably most of the people in Canton — don’t realize what a perilous situation we were in. We could’ve been a ghost town.”

Of his long mayoral career, he pinpoints that catastrophe as the nadir.

“That was probably the most difficult time, I think, for me as mayor was that period of time during the floods,” says Smathers. “I go back and look at it and try to figure out how I got through all that. It was hard. I was just being pulled every which way. I must have been running on adrenaline 24 hours a day.”

Not only were the floods an unmitigated disaster, but he was also studying for his master’s in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College and mourning the death of his mother.

Still, though, his propensity for promotion won through. He saw the flood as a tragedy, yes, but also as a way to get a lot for Canton that it would never otherwise get.

When politicians in Raleigh called on him to pitch Canton’s need to the state and the nation, he saw his moment.

“I went down there and I stated the cause,” he says, and he brought home a lot of money not only to fix the millions of dollars in damage sustained by the town and its businesses, but fix other infrastructure problems and set the stage for Canton to emerge from disaster into a new era of economic development.

Smathers has a way of speaking in talking points, directing the conversation to highlight his favored themes and not letting the topic drift until he’s hit his key premises. He starts a lot of sentences with, “well, number one….” It’s a practiced rhetorical technique that has no doubt served him in the courtroom and behind the mayor’s desk in times of crisis.

Longtime Waynesville Mayor Henry Foy offered his town’s support when its neighbor disappeared underwater.

“He was mayor of Canton during its most critical times, the most critical situations that I can remember in my lifetime,” says Foy. “He had the flood and he had the restructuring of Champion (paper mill). Those were very critical issues for Canton and I think he did an outstanding job.”

Smathers himself attributes much of Canton’s success in recovery and growth to the town board, town manager and state representatives. And he hasn’t always gotten along with the aldermen, having seen three very disparate sets of elected leaders pass through town hall over the last 12 years.

“I think over the years, we’ve had some very frank discussions on the board about various issues,” says Smathers. “But you can’t take things personal. Nobody is going to agree with me all the time, and I’m not going to agree with everybody else all the time.”

To those who lament Canton’s decline since its mill heyday, Smathers aggressively pitches a more optimistic view. It has long been one of his goals to get young people to come here and come back after college or job training. And, he claims, it’s happening.

“Yes, we’ve lost a lot of businesses, but look, Canton is growing. People don’t realize just the changes that have occurred. Not everything has been successful, there’s been some things we’ve tried that have not worked out. We started on a very active self-improvement plan, and we did some things just to show people, well, you can change.”

Charles Rathbone owns Sign World WNC, one of the businesses that’s popped up since Smathers took office.

“Pat Smathers has always shown that he had Canton in his heart,” says Rathbone. “And you know, a lot of times a lot of the ideas that he had were not well-accepted by the different board members, but he was always looking to improve the image of downtown Canton.”

Smathers has struggled to bring back the once bustling town, where downtown was flush with grocers, dime shops, hat and shoe stores, watch repairmen: all the trappings of healthy, small-town America. Finding a new downtown economy has been his goal, and the number of filled storefronts these days shows success in that direction.

Reflecting on the last three terms, his major regret, says Smathers, is that he didn’t write more sympathy cards when long-time community members died.

The community — its history and tradition particularly — do genuinely seem to be in Smathers’ heart, pumping through his blood.

He’s vacating the mayor’s chair, yes. And his office will now just be the seat of Pat Smathers, lawyer.

In the November election, his name won’t be on the ballot. Mike Ray, a former town alderman who served with Smathers is running unopposed and will take up the mayoral torch.

But, says Smathers, don’t be fooled. He’s not going anywhere, and he hopes to still be involved in public life, just from the other side.

“It has been very rewarding to be the mayor, it’s an honor. If you take a small town like Canton, especially for someone like me who grew up here, the people in this community know me, they know the good and they know the bad,” says Smathers, by way of goodbye to his constituents. “Everybody has warts. And if the people that know you best are going to let you serve for 12 years, it’s an honor.”

U.S. Senator Richard Burr, R-N.C., didn’t don kid gloves when addressing a cross section of Haywood County business leaders representing agriculture, tourism, banking, construction and professional sectors last week.

“Here’s the hard, cold reality. We’ve got to cut an additional 6 trillion in spending. That’s to get on a glide path so that 30 years out we can balance our budget,” Burr told about two-dozen businessmen at a private lunch at the Waynesville Inn.

The magnitude of what must be cut is staggering, and the results won’t be pretty, Burr said.

But, Burr said this juncture provides a rare critical mass to reform the corporate and business tax structure, something he hopes to see passed by Congress in coming months.

“All the tax loopholes, all the credits, all the deductions — gone,” Burr said.

Bad news for big corporations, but great for small business owners like those in the room, Burr said.

Burr sympathized with those who have fruitlessly tried to borrow capital to expand their businesses in recent years.

“You almost walk away and say ‘Gee, they’d lend it to me if I had enough money to where I didn’t need it,” Burr said.

But don’t blame the local bankers, Burr said. They are merely acting on orders from the banking regulators harping on debt-to-capitalization ratios.

Meeting with Burr was a little like sitting down with an economic analyst. He talked about currency and trade, foreign investment, the still frozen credit market, lack of capital, sovereign debt, how a new tax code could effect business’ bottom line. Europe’s financial crisis perhaps topped the list.

“Dominoes will fall from what happens in Europe. Nobody is smart enough to know what they are going to hit,” Burr said.

Burr was quick to joke and banter with those at his table as they introduced themselves.

“I should have given the caveat that for any brokers in the house, don’t trade based on my predictions. I don’t even take my own trading advice,” Burr told Larry East, financial advisor with Wells Fargo.

Summer is slowly turning to fall, school doors are opening for another year, and another hallmark of the season is just around the corner: the Haywood County Fair.

Aug. 23 to 29, the Haywood County Fairgrounds will come alive with events, contests and vendors, as well as the rides and fairway foods that are requisite at every county fair.

A new feature this year will be a draft-horse and mule pulling contest scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27. Horse and mule teams will attempt to pull a dead sled with 500 pound weights added after each successful pull. Teams may enter in one of four classes: light horses, light mules, heavy horses and heavy mules.

FULL LIST OF EVENTS HERE

Saturday also will give the county’s youngest performers a chance to shine at the new youth talent competition, held at 3 p.m. For youngsters more grammatically inclined, a spelling bee could be the venue to show off their skills. For the artists, there’s Saturday’s pumpkin-decorating contest and if you prefer eating food over painting it, an ice cream-eating contest is also on the ballot.

Throughout the week, the fairway and fair facilities will be full of attractions such as local craft vendors, farmers touting their prize vegetables and a petting zoo for the younger crowd. Standard fair fare will be available for hungry patrons, but if funnel cakes aren’t cutting it, a fish fry on Friday afternoon, barbecue lunch by the Haywood County’s Future Farmers of America and a local farm lunch on Sunday morning will offer more substantial dining options. They do cost extra, however, and the luncheon requires tickets. Oh, and don’t forget the cakewalk and cake judging on Saturday morning.

The fair isn’t forgetting its musical heritage, either. In addition to the youth talent show, a hoedown is scheduled for Friday evening, with entertainment peppered throughout the rest of the week. Sunday afternoon, the Smoky Mountain Jubilee will cap off the week’s festivities. Local favorites Balsam Range and other Appalachian acts will perform and the evening will be emceed by former State Sen. Joe Sam Queen.

A fair, of course, isn’t a fair without animals. And in the livestock competition arena, dairy and beef cattle, sheep and goats, horses and even pigs will parade their skills and conformation. Kids with canine friends can show them off at Saturday’s dog show. There will be a game of kid-and-canine musical chairs, a chance to do some tricks for treats and an agility demonstration by trained dogs.

Horses also will prove their pulling skills in a series of horse pulls, along with the more mechanical truck pulls and tractor pulls. The tractor event will give fairgoers a unique opportunity to see some old-fashioned tractors in action. Only pre-1960 models will be allowed to compete in the antique contest.

The fairgrounds will be open on Tuesday for competitors to drop off exhibits, but will be closed for judging until 5 p.m. Wednesday. Gates will open at 9 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Sunday’s festivities will start at 11 a.m. Exhibits can be picked up Monday. Fair admission is $2 per person, or $6 per car.