The former CEO of Haywood Regional Medical Center will get $150,000 from the hospital after settling a lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully fired.

David Rice was at the helm during a near meltdown of the hospital in 2008. At the time, Rice publicly said he resigned, but in a lawsuit filed two years later he claims he was forced out.

Settling the suit was a business decision, according to the current CEO Mike Poore.

“We felt that it was best not to spend any more money on attorneys and complete that chapter,” Poore said.

In his suit, Rice demanded 20 months of his salary, back pay for accrued vacation and sick time, bonuses he had been promised and lost benefits. While Rice’s salary was $199,000, benefits included a car and health insurance, extra bonuses and other perks.

Although Rice left in the spring of 2008, he claims the hospital board verbally promised him his salary and benefits through the end of 2009 when his contract expired. In exchange, they asked him to publicly announce that he resigned instead of labeling it a termination.

Rice claims he was tricked, however, and that the hospital board had no intention of keeping its verbal promise. Rice had been the CEO for 15 years.

Many in the community blamed Rice for the hospital crisis back in 2008. The hospital failed federal inspections causing it to lose its Medicare and Medicaid status, triggering an exodus of private insurers as well. The hospital essentially shut its doors for five months except for the most essential services.

Rice kept the brewing crisis a secret, attempting to quietly fix the underlying issues, but it eventually imploded. Observers believe that Rice’s failure to address the citations early on led inspectors to make an example out of Haywood, pointing to other hospitals with more egregious problems that didn’t get shut down.

Regardless, hospital board members and community leaders said they were blindsided and condemned Rice for failing to keep them in the loop.

The hospital leveled a countersuit against Rice. Even though the hospital maintained that Rice resigned, the countersuit claimed there was good cause to fire Rice had that not been the case.

The countersuit claims Rice failed to “communicate with the board, medical staff and administration in an effective and timely manner, or otherwise concealing and distorting material facts and circumstances concerning the operation and affairs of HRMC.”

In the countersuit, the hospital claimed Rice’s actions leading to decertification caused “significant loss of HRMCs patients and revenue placing the future operation of the hospital in jeopardy.”

The hospital shutdown had major economic consequences for the community. For starters, the hospital burned through more than $10 million in reserves it had built up over the years.

Doctors lost business when patients went elsewhere. Many of the nurses and staff were put on temporary unemployment. The county saw a substantial increase in ambulance costs for ferrying patients to hospitals in Asheville or Sylva. Patient numbers still have not fully returned to normal.

Last month, a group of emergency room doctors was awarded $1.6 million in a lawsuit against the hospital dating back to Rice’s reign. Haywood Emergency Physicians were wrongfully ousted by the hospital in 2006 and replaced with a corporate physician staffing company. Rice helped orchestrate HEP’s replacement because he saw them as a threat to his insular power structure, according to the doctors involved.

Settling the suit with Rice marks the final chapter in the saga, allowing the hospital to move forward with its mission, Poore said.

“We are moving forward and focusing on our hospital’s mission of providing compassionate, quality and cost-effective healthcare,” Poore said.

The two sides went to mediation in November. The only ones present were Poore, Rice and his wife, and their respective attorneys.

While out-of-court settlements are not publicly filed in the court record, Poore elected to share the information in the interest of transparency.

Motorists beware: a no man’s land at exit 37 on Interstate 40 may not be plowed and salted in bad weather with the same regularity as the rest of the highway.

The stretch in question lies near the Haywood-Buncombe county line, where a few hundred yards of the Interstate are occasionally overlooked. Plows and salt trucks coming from opposite directions — one crew from Haywood and another from Buncombe — use exit 37 as a natural turn-around point before heading back the other way.

“Essentially the county line is within a few hundred feet,” said Ed Green, the Department of Transportation maintenance engineer for Division 13, a seven-county area that includes Buncombe.

But there is a short stretch of Interstate between the exit ramp and the on ramp — including a bridge over the road below — that gets missed.

“Who does the bridge?” Green said in response. “I am not sure about who does that. At some point, some of them overlap, but they may not do it every time depending on how bad conditions are.”

One crew or the other has to overshoot exit 37 to avoid leaving a gap. Since the bridge has no shoulders, going past the exit in order to hit the bridge and then backing up isn’t an option.

“That’s too dangerous,” said Ben Williams, DOT maintenance supervisor in Haywood County. “The only way to do it is run past it.”

But when Haywood’s trucks overshoot exit 37, they have to continue for several miles to the truck weigh station before they can turn around. If Buncombe’s trucks overshoot exit 37, they can’t turn around until exit 33.

And that’s exactly what they do — most of the time that is, according to Chad Bandy, DOT maintenance supervisor in Buncombe County.

“A lot of times what we’ll do is go into Haywood County some, and they come into Buncombe County some,” said Bandy.

But occasionally, it gets skipped.

The territory around exit 37 lies on Buncombe’s side of the county line and is technically Buncombe’s responsibility — not Haywood’s. Plow and salt truck drivers coming from Buncombe decide whether to turn around at exit 37 or keep going to exit 33 “as conditions warrant,” Bandy said.

One Tuesday morning in early February there were two wrecks due to ice on the exit 37 bridge — one on each side of the Interstate, according to accident reports by the N.C. Highway Patrol.

That morning, Buncombe crews plowing and salting the road passed over the bridge only every other trip, Bandy said. The other trips, they turned around at exit 37 and didn’t proceed over the bridge all the way to the county line.

Mary Clayton, who commutes daily to Haywood Regional Medical Center from Buncombe County, said ice on the bridge threw her for a loop that morning.

“I didn’t even realize the weather was bad or the roads were bad. Then I hit the bridge and as soon as I hit the ice, well, I lost it,” Clayton said.

In all fairness, there were other weather-related wrecks on I-40 near exit 37 that morning as well, but not on the section that lies in no man’s land.

“There was one, two, three, four, five, six wrecks near the 37,” said Jennifer Hodge, an office assistant for the North Carolina Highway Patrol in Buncombe County.

Four of those six wrecks were due to icy roads, according to the accident reports. Two were on the bridge, which lies inside the no man’s land, while two were just east of it — indicating that the road was icy in other areas too, and that less-than-diligent plowing of the bridge isn’t necessarily to blame.

I-40 is a priority for Buncombe plow and salt trucks. Two drivers are assigned to the Interstate and make continual passes the duration of a snowstorm.

But there’s no log that shows how often Buncombe’s trucks turn around at exit 37, skipping the bridge in the process, versus continuing on to exit 33.

“We don’t keep a record of every trip the truck makes,” Bandy said.

Highway Patrol lodges concerns

Inconsistent plowing at exit 37 hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Between Haywood and Buncombe is kind of a no-man’s land,” N.C. Highway Patrol Sergeant Henley said. “Buncombe handles one side and Haywood handles the other.”

Motorists who commute regularly have noticed in the past that the stretch between the exit ramp and on ramp can be snowier than the rest of the interstate.

It was such a problem last winter that the Highway Patrol held a meeting with Buncombe County DOT maintenance workers this fall to discuss it before another winter hit.

“It was addressed with them and they assured us it would be taken care of,” Henley said.

Bandy said he remembered the meeting, but not that particular topic.

“I mean, yeah, we talked about, you know, a lot of things with snow and ice,” Bandy said.

But he didn’t remember concerns about exit 37 specifically.

“Not that I recall, but there may have,” Bandy said. “I don’t remember that particular one, but it may have come up.”

Henley recalls it clearly, however. He said the Buncombe DOT workers assured troopers that they had a protocol for dealing with exit 37.

However, that protocol remains difficult to ferret out.

Green, who initially said “I am not sure who is doing what out there” pledged to look into it. A few days later, after talking to Bandy, he reported back.

“I talked to our folks and found out they are treating it. They go all the way to 33. Not every time but most of the time,” Green said. “They assured me it was being taken care of.”

When asked whether the Buncombe and Haywood maintenance units call each other ahead of time to coordinate who will do the bridge, the answer was “no.”

“We don’t,” Bandy said. But, “during the event as conditions warrant, we do talk to each other,” he added.

Ben Williams, the maintenance supervisor in Haywood County, confirmed that the two units don’t call each other to coordinate ahead of time.

“Sometimes it depends on who gets there first. If it is there and it needs pushing we’ll do it,” Williams said. “We are very fluid.”

Bandy and Green said it makes more sense to let the plow drivers make that decision on the ground, since it depends on timing of who arrives there first and how bad the road is.

“They are not really going to know until they get there,” said Green.

However, that’s not the impression Henley was given at the meeting last fall when troopers asked about a protocol for making sure the stretch wasn’t forgotten.

“They kind of assured us they had one,” Henley said.

Henley said it would be preferable for crews to decide prior to a storm who would do it.

Bandy and Williams, the maintenance supervisors in Buncombe and Haywood respectively, both referred to each other as friends, and even talked to each other in between interviews for this article. As friends, it may be one reason they don’t feel an official protocol is necessary.

“Ben and his counterpart in Buncombe are good friends, and I am sure they have it worked out,” said Mark Gibbs, the maintenance engineer for DOT’s Division 14, a 10-county area that includes Haywood County.

It could also explain why Williams would send Haywood County trucks into Buncombe County simply to be a good neighbor, despite struggling with not enough money for snow removal in his own county.

Gibbs said he has never asked Williams how the stretch at exit 37 is handled. He travels the section of I-40 every morning on his commute to Sylva. This is the first winter he has been making the commute, but has never noticed a problem.

“Every time I have been through there, there has been very little transition between the two lines,” Williams said. “The coordination of both counties, even though it is across Division lines, seems to work fairly well.”

Remodelers who don’t want to send their old kitchen cabinets, bathroom sinks or screen doors to the dump will soon have a place to send unwanted wares that seem too good to throw out.

Haywood Habitat for Humanity is opening a ReStore shop in Waynesville that will have all the usual trappings of a thrift store — dishes, lamps, sofas, coffee makers and the like — but will also have an inventory of used building materials.

“So if someone takes their kitchen cabinets out, rather than taking them to the landfill, we can put them in our store sell them,” said Kent Stewart, the ReStore manager and past-president of Haywood Habitat. “The proceeds go to building more houses.”

Haywood Habitat builds two homes a year on average for needy families. The hope is that the ReStore will raise enough money within a couple years completely fund a new home, Stewart said. Some donated items may even find their way into a Habitat house.

Thrift stores catering to remodelers have become a signature of Habitat for Humanity groups across the country. Bargain hunters with remodeling jobs of their own can repurpose the cast-off materials from someone else’s home renovation.

“The idea of buying a used sink, particularly if you are putting it in your shed or workshop, would be preferable to going to Lowe’s and having to spend $100,” Stewart said.

The Haywood Habitat chapter has toyed with the idea of such a thrift store for nearly a decade.

“For years we kicked it back and forth like a volleyball. It was one of those things that was a good idea but no one wanted to do the work to make it happen,” Stewart said. “Somebody finally said ‘OK you go do it.’”

Few would be better suited than Stewart to run such a store. As the former owner of the downtown Waynesville Book Company, Stewart is versed in retail business management. After selling the bookstore, Stewart went to work at Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse in Waynesville for eight years, becoming intimately familiar with building trades and materials.

Stewart and his fellow Habitat board members spent months developing a business plan a year ago and are now seeing the vision become a reality.

The store won’t open until the spring, but is currently seeking donations to fill it up with things to sell. For those with large items unable to haul them to the store, the Habitat folks can do pick ups.

Stewart hopes the site won’t become a dumping ground for junk. He hopes people won’t offload their construction debris and call it a donation, because that just means Habitat volunteers will bear the burden of carting it to the landfill.

The new store will serve the dual benefit of filling a vacant store space downtown. Located at the corner of Montgomery and Miller streets across from the Sweet Onion restaurant and the public town parking lot, the space was formerly the basement of the Furniture Village, or before that the old Belk’s department store.

If you have an item to donate, or can volunteer to sort incoming items, call Stewart at 828.400.5786 or e-mail him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

With a clipboard under one arm and a giant measuring spool under the other, Greg West climbed into a county-marked truck last Wednesday, cranked the engine and consulted a large Waynesville map on the seat beside him.

“Today we’re hitting Blink Bonny,” he said, planting an index finger on street in a traditional middle class suburb.

West would spend the next eight hours slowly cruising Blink Bonny’s neighborhood streets, eyeing each house from the curb or even loitering in the driveway for telltale signs of its worth.

If anyone’s home, they might mistake him for a stalker. But in fact West is part of a team of Haywood County property appraisers tasked with assigning a new dollar value to each home, lot and tract of land — a dollar value which in turn will determine how much you pay in property taxes.

It’s been five years since the last countywide property assessment. In the past, you could count on values to go up with each reval, but it’s a different ballgame this time. The volatile real estate market has made it tougher for West and his compatriots to pin down accurate values.

With fewer homes selling, there’s less of a baseline to go by. And just because a home sold for one price six months ago doesn’t mean that’s still what it is worth today.

The county essentially wrote its own computer program to calculate property values, taking dozens of variables into account before spitting out a number. The finely-customized formula carves the county up into 700 neighborhoods of like homes. It was lot of work on the front end — entering not just the number of bedrooms, square footage and whether a home has a garage — but also the school district, proximity to town parks or mountain views.

West’s property drive-by is now a time of reckoning as the three-year process concludes. West and the rest of his team are laying a pair of human eyes on each house to make sure their computer-generated values are right.

The property appraisers are in the home stretch of that task, having visited nearly all the county’s 50,000 parcels from Crabtree to Cruso, from Balsam to Beaverdam, from Max Patch to Maggie.

The verdict so far?

“It’s been fairly accurate. We put quite a bit of work into it with neighborhood delineation. It gave us a pretty good start,” West said.

Testing the formula is not hard. They visit homes in the neighborhood that have actually sold and compare the actual selling price to the computer-generated value.

In Blink Bonny, West’s first test of their formula was a 3.5-acre tract. The computer pegged its market value at $77,800. It recently sold for $77,500, a mere $300 difference.

“Our formula fell right on the money,” said Ron McCarthy, a property appraisal consultant with RSN Appraisal assisting the county with the revaluation.

McCarthy downplayed any role luck played. They are just that good, he said.

“Luck is the residue of design,” McCarthy quoted.

But to make sure, West pointed his car a couple of streets over where a home had recently sold. The computer formula put the home at $315,000 but it sold in real life for $365,000. Suddenly things weren’t looking so rosy. West set out to uncover the discrepancy.  

He pored over the county’s data sheets for the home and found the culprit. It had been given a quality grade of average — a “C” on a scale from F to A+.

But this three-story house sported stacked stone, beadboard ceilings in a wrap-around porch, octagon attic windows and other classy features. Compared to the brick ranch homes on the rest of the street, a “C” rating was too low.

He changed the quality to a B+. Running the formula again but with the corrected data, it came up within a few thousand dollars of nailing the real selling price.

West was relieved. The formula itself wasn’t wrong — just the data that was plugged into it. With several dozen variables factored into the formula, if any of them are wrong, the value it spits out will likewise be wrong.

And that’s precisely West’s job during the drive-bys: to ensure the underlying data for each house is right.

Does the home have a new garage or deck? Has it fallen into disrepair? Is it junked up with a sofa on the front porch? Has the gravel driveway now been paved?

At one home, West did a double-take after spying a second-story over the garage with curtains and blinds visible inside the window.

“Looks like they added a bonus room,” West said, something his sketch of the home in the county’s records didn’t show.

West recalibrate the home’s square feet, triggering a higher value.

Three doors up, West’s keen eye struck again. A brick patio near the front door seemed in mint condition — no moss stains on the pavers, which you’d expect with a ‘70s era house. Either they had recently invested in a pressure washer or the patio was new.

West lifted his tape measure from the back seat and climbed out of the truck. He rung the bell and met a particularly helpful homeowner who not only confirmed that the front patio was new but volunteered that there was another new patio out back. Both would boost the home’s value.

“He had a keen eye to notice that,” McCarthy said of West’s detective work. “That’s why we do the drive-by.”

McCarthy put his own skills to work at the next house in a just-for-fun blind match-up against the computer formula. He sized up the house from the car window, glanced at the sketch of its footprint and threw out his best guess. He was just a few thousand dollars off from the computer-generated value of $300,000.

That likewise bodes well for the county’s modeling — the computer formula came up with the same value as a seasoned appraiser on the ground.

Yet there’s all sorts of factors that might lead appraisers to tweak your home value during the drive-bys. If the neighborhood is uniform — homes of same quality and condition — it’s an easy day.

“If it’s in-town homes on quarter-acre lots, you can just go bam, bam, bam, bam,” West said.

But there’s usually more variation than that.

New windows and a freshly shingled roof? This could earn you brownie points for your home’s condition, and a slight bump in value. Sagging gutters and mildewed sills could bring you down a notch.

“This is like the quality control,” McCarthy said of their work.

The labor intensive process can seem never ending, and indeed as soon as this reval is finished they county will soon start ramping up for the next one another four or five years away.

Attention Haywood County property owners

Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county reflecting the new and current market value of your home.

In North Carolina, counties are required to reassess property values every few years. The revaluation — or “reval” — is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share come tax day.

Don’t assume that your property taxes will go up or down just because your property values do, however. Haywood County commissioners won’t set the actual tax rate until June. The tax rate is then applied to your property value to determine your tax bill for 2011.

With a clipboard under one arm and a giant measuring spool under the other, Greg West climbed into a county-marked truck last Wednesday, cranked the engine and consulted a large Waynesville map on the seat beside him.

“Today we’re hitting Blink Bonny,” he said, planting an index finger on a traditional middle class suburb.

West would spend the next eight hours slowly cruising their neighborhood streets, eyeing each house from the driveway for tell-tale signs of its worth. If anyone’s inside, they might easily mistake him for a stalker loitering at the curb.

West is part of the team of Haywood County property appraisers tasked with assigning a new dollar value to each home, lot and tract of land — a dollar value which in turn will determine how much you pay in property taxes.

It’s been five years since the last countywide property assessment. In the past, you could count on values to go up, but it’s a different ballgame this time. The volatile real estate market has made it tougher for West and his compatriots to pin down accurate values.

With fewer homes selling, there’s less of a baseline to go by. And just because a home sold for one price six months ago doesn’t mean that’s still what it is worth today.

The county essentially wrote its own computer program to calculate property values, taking dozens of variables into account before spitting out a number. It was lot of work on the front end and involved carving the county up into 700 neighborhoods of like homes.

West’s property drive-by is now a time of reckoning as the three-year process concludes. West is laying a pair of human eyes on each house to make sure their computer-generated value is right.

The property appraisers are in the home stretch of that task, having visited nearly all the county’s 50,000 parcels from Crabtree to Cruso, from Balsam to Beaverdam, from Max Patch to Maggie.

The verdict so far?

“It’s been fairly accurate. We put quite a bit of work into it with neighborhood delineation. It gave us a pretty good start,” West said.

Testing the formula is not hard. The first order of business with each of his daily drive-bys is to visit any homes in the neighborhood that may have actually sold. He compares the computer-generated value with what it actually sold for.

In Blink Bonny, West’s first test of their formula was a 3.5-acre tract. The county had pegged its market value at $77,800. In the real world, it recently sold for $77,500. A mere $300 apart.

“Our formula fell right on the money,” said Ron McCarthy, a property appraisal consultant with RSN Appraisal assisting the county with the revaluation.

McCarthy protested any role luck played. They are just that good, he said.

To make sure, West pointed his car a couple of streets over where a home had recently sold. The computer formula put the home at $315,000 but it sold in real life for $365,000. Suddenly things weren’t looking so rosy. West set out to uncover the discrepancy.  

West pored over the county’s data for the home and found the culprit. It had been given a quality grade of average — a “C” on a scale from F to A+.

But this three-story house sported stacked stone, beadboard ceilings in a wrap-around porch, octagon attic windows and other posh features. Compared to the brick ranch homes on the rest of the street, a “C” rating was too low.

He changed the quality to a B+. Using the same formula, but with the corrected data, it was now within a few thousand dollars.

West was relieved. The formula itself wasn’t wrong — just the data that was plugged into it

With several dozen variables factored into the formula, if any of them are wrong, the value it spits out will likewise be wrong. Thus West’s job during the drive-bys is mostly to ensure the data for each house is right.

Does the home have a new garage or deck? Has it fallen into disrepair? Is it junked up with a sofa on the front porch? Has the gravel driveway now been paved?

At one home, West spotted the telltale sign of a finished bonus room over the family’s garage: curtains and blinds over an upstairs window. The homeowners had added finished square feet, and that updated data triggered a higher value.

Three doors up, West’s keen eye struck again. A brick patio at the side of the house looked remarkably clean and lacked any sign of chipping and cracking you would expect for a patio dating to the home’s construction. Either they had recently invested in a pressure washer or the patio was new.

West lifted the tape measure from the back seat and climbed out. He rung the bell, and a particularly helpful home owner revealed that not only was the front patio new but there was another new patio out back. Both would boost the home’s value.

“He had a keen eye to notice that,” McCarthy said. “That’s why we do the drive-by.”

In a blind match-up between McCarthy and the computer formula, he sized up a house from the car window, glanced at the sketch of its footprint and threw out his best guess. He was just a few thousand off from the computer on a $300,000 house.

That likewise bodes well for the county’s modeling — the computer formula came up with the same value as a seasoned appraiser on the ground.

Yet there’s all sorts of tweaking that might lead West to adjust your home value during the drive-bys. If the neighborhood is uniform — homes of same quality and condition — it’s an easy day.

“If it’s in town homes on quarter-acre lots, you can just go bam, bam, bam, bam,” West said.

But there’s usually more variation than that.

New windows and a freshly shingled roof? This could earn you brownie points for your home’s condition, and a slight bump in value. Sagging gutters and mildew-stained flashing could bring you down a notch.

Views are particularly tricky. When the majority of a neighborhood has mountain views, the view factor is already built in to the baseline of home values.

If you are the lone house without a view, you will see your value reflect that.

Of, if you are the lone house with a view in a  neighborhood that otherwise lacks them, plan on a requisite bump up.

Attention Haywood County property owners

Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county with your new property value reflecting the current market value of your home.

In North Carolina, counties are required to reassess property values every few years. The revaluation — or “reval” — is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share when paying property taxes.

Don’t assume that your taxes will go up or down just because your property values have, however. Haywood County commissioners won’t set the actual tax rate until June.

Haywood County cyclists – and would-be cyclists – will soon be able to breathe a little easier and peddle a bit more freely, thanks to a comprehensive plan in the works to address a range of cycling issues.

The plan, spearheaded by local group Bicycle Haywood N.C., will look at a number of issues facing the area’s cyclists including safety, accessibility and awareness among both cyclists and drivers.

The idea got its genesis when members of the newly formed group decided last year that Haywood was lacking in formal communication among cyclists, the community and local and governmental organizations that could be working with them, like the Department of Transportation and the Haywood County Recreation and Parks department.

So, said George Ivey, the group’s vice chair, they sought out funding and approached the various groups about codifying a bicycle plan for the county, the first in Haywood and one of the few targeted towards the state’s more rural areas.

The plan is founded on what the group calls its five “Es:” engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation and planning.

Ivey said that while engineering is an important component — encompassing things like designated bike lanes and racks in downtown areas — educating the public about bike safety while cycling and road awareness is just as vital.

One of the goals of the plan is to educate drivers to get accustomed to bikes on the road, and show residents that cycling can be a viable option for them in a number of different ways, as a commuter, a recreational rider or anything in between.

“I think the plan’s going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” said Ivey. “For some people, it may be a way for their kids to commute to school. For adult commuters, hopefully it will make it a lot easier for people to commute to work or the bank or the post office.”

Haywood County Recreation and Parks Director Claire Carleton agrees. She said that, from a recreational standpoint, the benefits of a bike plan could be brilliant for Haywood County families.

“It would be such an asset for the citizens living in Haywood County, as well as tourists,” said Carleton. “If it connected with local greenway trails and the plans that we have for that, it would provide such a wonderful network for families to take part in.”

And because there are such multi-facted uses and benefits of cycling in Haywood – and because of the challenges presented by the region’s geography and topography – Ivey said his group isn’t trying to get too specific in what they want. Instead, it is working with a plethora of outside groups and citizens to come up with a plan that provides residents with the most flexibility and usability.

Currently, the group is accepting applications for someone to spearhead the planning efforts, which will begin in April. But Ivey said he’s hopeful that the collaboration and cycling interest will continue happening long after the plan is in place.

“None of us expect every single road to have bike lanes, but we do want to have those options nearby,” said Ivey.

And according to Carleton, that meshes beautifully with the comprehensive plan drafted for her department several years ago that highlighted the need to move towards more cycling-friendly planning, both in terms of road building and growth corridors, as well as emphasis on education and increasing cycling use and awareness.

The plan is being funded largely through a grant from the French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organizations, along with matching pledges and a smaller grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.

Bicycle Haywood N.C. meets to discuss the plan at 6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at the Waynesville Inn at the Waynesville Country Club.

More information can be found at bicyclehaywoodnc.org.

For Darcy and Kevin Sisson, living in Waynesville makes perfect sense.

She works in manufacturing in Asheville, his employer is Swain County’s Nantahala Outdoor Center. Waynesville offers the couple a central location, a town large enough to have an active civic and social life of its own, and quality schools for their kids. Throw in lower tax rates than one finds in Buncombe County, and you have the ideal locale for such a family.

The couple and their three children represent a growing segment of the population in Haywood County, according to Mayor Gavin Brown and Mark Clasby, Haywood County’s economic development director. Haywood County is, more and more, becoming a bedroom community.

Last month, Brown and Clasby pinpointed the change during a meeting of the county’s Economic Development Commission. And in doing so, additionally pitched the idea that “bedroom community” should no longer carry the stigma the words once did.

Commute becomes part of day

“To be honest with you, it’s worked out better than I thought,” said Darcy Sisson, noting that she’s started using the commute time to make calls for work or catch up with friends. “They always know between five and six, I’m usually in the car,” she said.

Sisson emphasized that she and her husband might work elsewhere, but Waynesville is home. And for them, that doesn’t just mean the place where you lay your head at night.

“We try to be involved in the community,” Sisson said. “We have our friends there, we belong to the Haywood Fitness Center and things like that, we do a lot of stuff downtown. That’s really where our life is.”

According to statistics compiled by the Employment Security Commission, three quarters of Haywood County residents commute outside the county to work. This doesn’t exactly classify the whole of Haywood County as a textbook bedroom community, but with three quarters of residents working elsewhere, it does make the county into at least a partial bedroom community. If true, this means Haywood County faces different challenges than the county has faced before.

Brown sees it less in terms of sheer statistics, and more as a social descriptor of the community’s changing face.

“It’s not a number so much as a description of what your community is,” said Brown. “It’s just more a reflection of the way our economy has changed in the world and in the United States in general. Some people would see it as bad, I know. And they do. And there’s logic to that.”

But he sees this as an opportunity to engage people who have, for whatever reason, chosen to live in Haywood County, even though their work is elsewhere. Doesn’t that make them prime candidates for a larger degree of community involvement and devotion, the fact that they’ve chosen to call the county home?

Where the action happens

Haywood County is centrally located, right in the heart of big employers in Cherokee, Sylva and Asheville. So if people choose to live here, the challenge lies in getting them to engage in the community, have a stake that will keep them there, even if their out-of-county job changes.

“It’s the stability factor that’s important to me,” Brown said. “The last thing you want is some generic community that people are moving in and out of all the time.”

The key, he said, is to provide services and quality-of-life options that entice people to come and stay because they love the community, not because they work in it.

So things such as local art groups, quality health care facilities and better options for fitness, dining and civic life are all an important part of getting commuters to put down roots.

“If we provide those kinds of things, then people choose to not make their job the primary thing in their life,” Brown said.

By DeeAnna Haney • SMN Intern

All it took was a knack for guitar playing and a single visit to Nashville, Tenn., to spur a lifelong passion in one Tuscola High School senior’s life.

Singer/songwriter MacKenzie Leigh Wilson recently released her first extended play record in January featuring four original songs. With rhythms as bouncy and lively as her personality, the record is just a small taste of what Wilson has to offer.

The young musician moved to Western North Carolina from Charlotte two years ago when her father Chuck Wilson, a minister, transferred to Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church.

Although Wilson describes a childhood full of singing in church and community choirs, she admits she never considered pursuing it as a career. But a family vacation to Nashville for her 16th birthday ignited inspiration to try her hand at songwriting.

Since her fateful visit to Nashville, Wilson has written more than 60 songs.  

“My mind is constantly spinning with new song ideas,” Wilson said. “That’s what I love so much about songwriting, you can write anywhere, anytime.”

She often writes songs when inspiration hits, and will sometimes not write for weeks at a time, she said. Other times, she may write multiple songs in one week. One thing is certain — she writes best when alone without distractions.

Even though Wilson started playing guitar at age 15, she didn’t find a true love for the instrument until she started writing her own material. Her guitar instructor, Larry Watson, was immediately impressed by Wilson’s raw talent and dedication to her music.

When it came to “teaching,” Watson only provided a little guidance on music theory and chord progressions.

“When you take someone like MacKenzie who’s already talented, you don’t have to do a whole lot because they grab it really quick,” Watson said.

Taking her talent to the stage, Wilson has performed locally, is a member of Summit choral group at Tuscola High School and won the local talent competition “Haywood Idol” in 2009.

But you won’t catch Wilson performing many covers of other musicians. While she admires and draws inspiration from many famous names — including Michelle Branch, Sara Bareilles, and Loretta Lynn — Wilson seeks to set her writing style and vocals apart from others.

“There’s something about when you’re playing your own songs and when you’re singing your own song, it’s just so different than just covering someone else’s,” Wilson said.

With an evident country twang and soulful, upbeat melodies, Wilson’s overall musical style is a country-pop hybrid sound akin to a mix of traditional Patsy Cline and contemporary LeAnn Rimes. She also draws inspiration from folk, bluegrass and classic rock to create her unique sound.

Wilson’s songs typically aim to reflect who she is as a person and where she is in life, with themes of young love, heartache and growing up.

“I am much more honest with my music than I am in real life — it’s much easier for me to put things in a song than it is to just sit down and talk to someone,” Wilson said

With the help of Watson, Wilson decided to explore creating an extended play record at Crossroads Records in Arden. Known mainly for bluegrass recordings, Crossroads Records has produced albums for such popular artists as the Kingdom Heirs, The McKameys and The Greenes.

Having never spent time in a studio, Wilson had no idea what to expect of the project and began knowing only which four original songs she wanted to record.

Wilson first recorded a base track with raw vocals and guitar, then the studio band built on the original to complete the sound. She went back and added her own harmonies.

The four songs range from ballads to energetic country, offering a balanced sound each with strong commercial appeal. The most popular so far, Wilson said, is “She Plays You,” a fresh take on the story of the girl who wants to be noticed.

“I kinda say that that’s like my anthem because I’m the girl who goes home and plays guitar, not the girl who is out chasing boys,” Wilson said.

And just like the lyrics from her slower, more emotional song, “Tennessee,” Wilson says, “Carolina’s in my heart but it’s time for a new start.” She plans to attend Belmont University in Nashville in the fall of 2011 and hopes to major in songwriting. She wants to take piano and mandolin classes while she is there.

But Wilson’s main goal in Nashville is not to achieve fame and fortune. Instead, she is most excited about being able to interact and work with fellow songwriters and hopes to learn new techniques and become stronger in her craft.

Of her future, Watson predicts great success.

“She is an extremely talented person and no one person could take the credit for anything she’s done,” Watson said. “I was just fortunate enough to get to help her.”

Wilson believes in the importance of having an identity as an artist and hopes to gain more sense of her own as she continues to write, perform, record and evolve. In the meantime, she intends to finish her senior year and enjoy being a high school student.

“I’m just like every other high school girl out there, I’m just the girl who goes home every day and writes songs about it,” Wilson said. “I want to stay that girl.”

Property owners in Haywood County will soon learn how their home and land values weathered the recession.

Every home, lot and tract of land in the county — all 50,000 of them — have been reappraised to reflect the current real estate market.

Some will see their property value go up compared to the last countywide appraisal in 2006. But a good number will find their property values have gone down. Start watching your mailbox in March for a notice from the county with new property values.

While the county isn’t yet saying what folks should expect — whether property values as a whole went up or down — it’s not rocket science to make an educated prediction.

“I would think the normal market price is going to drop, on some properties as much as 30 percent,” according to Bruce McGovern, real estate broker and owner of McGovern Property Management and Real Estate Sales.

Of course, it will vary by the type of property. Higher priced homes are more likely to drop, while median priced homes have held their value better and may see increases.

What’s likely to take the biggest hit?

“Vacant subdivision lots have come way down,” McGovern said. So has land.

McGovern pointed to 40 acres he just sold for $160,000 — far less than the $400,000 it was initially listed for four years ago.

But it’s not necessarily a bad thing, McGovern said. WNC was a victim of an inflated real estate market five years ago. Now, values are more realistic.

“I think it is a true adjustment that needed to be done,” McGovern said. “We need to have correct appraisals on property.”

Final countdown

A team of four county appraisers is still wrapping up the two-year process with a final drive-by of every piece of property. Snow in December and January set this final step back a few weeks, said David Francis, director of the county tax department. Francis said his staff has been working long hours, including Saturdays, to get it wrapped up.

“It is a complicated process,” Francis said. “It is something we take extremely seriously. We want to make this as accurate and as fair as possible.”

In North Carolina, counties are required to conduct a periodic mass appraisal of real estate — called a revaluation, or “reval” for short. Property taxes are based on property values — the more your property is worth the more taxes you pay. The reval is intended to level the playing field, bringing the county’s assessed value of your property in line with the true market value so everyone is paying their fair share come tax day.

Haywood County commissioners will set the property tax rate in June, which is related to but not contingent on the results of the reval.

This reval will be a different story compared to the last reval in 2006 at the height of the mountain land rush when property owners saw their values double, triple or even quadruple.

The county actually postponed its revaluation from 2010 to 2011 because the real estate market was still in flux, making it difficult for appraisers to determine new market values for property accurately.

Haywood County is one of the first mountain counties to wade into a reval since the real estate crash.

Swain County did a reval two years ago but tossed it out rather than enact it. Swain is now shooting for 2012 instead. Macon County was on schedule to do a reval this year, but postponed it until 2013.

Jackson County is still in limbo about whether and by how much to postpone its reval.

Haywood County has landed a $1 million grant to turn the methane pouring off a no-longer-used landfill into energy.

The money comes from the N.C. State Energy Office as a part of their Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan, which offers funding for local projects aimed at energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy conservation in transportation and greenhouse gas recovery projects like the one pitched by Haywood. The $20.9 million pool of money is part of the federal government’s stimulus package.

The county tried for funding in the grant’s first round last year, but was turned down. When the state announced it would open up a second round of applications, county officials resubmitted, this time with much better results.

According to David Francis, Haywood County tax administrator and solid waste committee member, getting such a large chunk of the change was a very lucky break for the county.

“We got lucky,” said Francis. “There was only $2.5 million out there in the second round.”

The funds will go to a project already on the county’s agenda – reclamation of the methane currently rising off the county’s closed Francis Farm landfill, located on the outskirts of Waynesville. Twenty-one methane vents were recently installed at the landfill to direct the escaping gas and point it skyward, instead of horizontally, where it was killing off plants.

Since methane takes the path of least resistance, steps had to be taken to direct the gas and protect the surrounding landscape, Francis said.

Methane is a byproduct of decomposing trash. The volatile pollutant contributes to global warming, so capturing it in some way is far better for the environment than merely releasing it into the air. Under this plan, it would be directed through pipelines connecting the 21 vents and hopefully pumped to the county’s nearby school bus garage, where it will either provide direct heat or power a generator to heat the facility.

Francis said the award is a real boon to the cleanup efforts at Francis Farm, which were being funded out of the county’s pocket. Past commissioners had not set aside funds to properly mothball the old landfill, which requires a measure of environmental remediation.

“This was part of the plan all along to do this,” said Francis. “How this grant helps us is it gives us the funds to do this.”

County Manager Marty Stamey echoed Francis’ sentiments, saying that the grant would provide a needed measure of relief to the county’s budget.

Now, the county will only pitch in $123,000 to complete the project, plus the savings gained through cutting heating costs at the bus garage.

“It’s one of the best grants we’ve ever gotten,” said Stamey.

The system is planned to be in place by Dec. 31.

Jackson County began capturing the methane from its closed-down landfill several years ago. There, energy from the methane is used to heat greenhouses and fuel blacksmith and glassblowing operations. Artists and growers rent studio and greenhouse space at the Green Energy Park, but the project has continued to run a deficit, causing Jackson's commissioners to question its viability.