Holly Kays
What was once a wildfire became an outdoor classroom for students in Western Carolina University’s Natural Resource Conservation and Management Program this spring.
As part of a spring capstone course, 23 students studied four post-fire aspects of the forest ecosystem — forest composition, wildlife habitat, soil and water. Now, they’ve just finished compiling and analyzing the data they gleaned from the 728-acre burned area of the Dicks Creek drainage near Dillsboro.
During a full day of testimony Monday, May 22, the prosecution against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert made its case that Lambert’s administration has operated on a double standard, with one set of rules for him and his supporters and another set for everybody else.
SEE ALSO:
• Cherokee council removes Chief Lambert from office
• The charges
• Tribal members speak
The nine witnesses to take the stand spoke to allegations that Lambert had massively overspent on contracts without proper approval, denied payment for Tribal Council’s legal representation while shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for his own, and interfered with the Office of Internal Audit’s access to the records it needed to fulfill its function. Allegations also included violations of human resources policies and trading of political favors.
The impeachment process set in motion during a February Tribal Council meeting reached its climax this week as Principal Chief Patrick Lambert faced a list of 12 charges during all-day impeachment hearings May 22-23.
The council house was packed to the gills Monday, May 22, as tribal members gathered to watch the impeachment proceedings against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert. They filled the seats, with additional fold-up chairs brought in to line the aisles. They stood in the halls, craning necks to watch the action, and they packed the lobby, where a livestream of the hearing played on a TV.
Dealing with the aftermath of two major storms while preparing for what could be another record-breaking visitor season, trail crews in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have been keeping busy this spring.
“Three major projects are taking place in addition to the normal routine spring cleaning that our crews do, along with storm damage that we’ve had from several different wind events,” said park spokesperson Dana Soehn.
A Georgia developer hoping to build a 388-bed student housing complex in Cullowhee has cleared two of three major hurdles to starting construction.
Cherokee’s only bail bondsman is facing federal charges for allegedly having sex with female clients in lieu of loan repayment, and for allegedly sexually abusing a teenager younger than 16.
On Monday, May 22, the Cherokee Tribal Council will preside over a hearing to consider impeachment charges against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert. Afterward, Council will vote on whether to remove him from office.
In the last minutes of a daylong session Thursday, May 11, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted to set a new hearing date for impeachment charges against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert. The vote scheduled the hearing for Thursday, May 18, but the date was later changed to 10 a.m. Monday, May 22, to accommodate the chief’s travel schedule.
The Cherokee Supreme Court issued a pair of rulings last week that paved the way for impeachment efforts against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert to continue. However, the order left several key points of contention unaddressed, meaning the issue will likely continue to appear on the court schedule.
A court-ordered stay over impeachment proceedings against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert has been lifted following an order filed at 5:09 p.m. Wednesday, May 10.
Two days of hearings in the Cherokee Supreme Court wrapped up today, with the three-justice panel now charged with deciding whether to order a halt to impeachment proceedings against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert until the court can come to a final decision on the lawsuit challenging Tribal Council’s actions.
When it comes to carnivorous plants, Darwin Thomas knows what he’s talking about. It doesn’t take much to get him started on a fact-filled tangent about the plants’ prey preferences, proper care and feeding, or histories. But Thomas, a heating and air technician by trade, didn’t learn any of it by sitting in a class somewhere.
“I read a lot of books, and just talking to people too,” Thomas said. “I’ve not had any education at all in anything to do with this. I just learned over the years. And after 28 years, I think I’ve learned how to grow them.”
From softball fields to health buildings to animal shelters, funding requests have been arriving hot and heavy to the Jackson County Commissioners’ desks as budget season heats up. As the deadline for the 2017-18 budget draws nearer, the pressure to make tough decisions about what gets funded and what doesn’t is increasing.
Two years have passed since developers first got approval to build a student housing complex along South Painter Road in Cullowhee, though not a shovel of earth was ever turned. But the stalled project could move forward this summer if a handful of Jackson County boards give approval.
The Jackson County Commissioners have unanimously approved an easement through county land that will allow plans for a 72-bedroom development adjacent to Cullowhee’s Speedwell Acres Road to move forward.
My pack was plenty heavy as I set out north on the Appalachian Trial from Carvers Gap, but with my phone on airplane mode and three days in the woods ahead of me, my steps felt light. The sun was warm and bright as a friend and I climbed those initial balds, my dog running joyful circles through the grass. The trail soon gave way to still-bare forests whose floors were alive with wildflowers, the sinking sun casting an enchanting glow over the whole scene.
A recent ruling from the Cherokee Tribal Court has called the authority of Grand Council into question. Temporary Associate Judge Sharon Tracey Barrett denied a request for a court order stopping Tribal Council from pursuing impeachment against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert, though 84 percent of enrolled members who cast ballots during an April 18 Grand Council session voted to repeal the impeachment legislation.
With an eye to improving student performance and employee retention, Jackson County Public Schools has upped its budget ask to the Jackson County Commissioners — by 25 percent over the allocation given the past seven years.
A fleet of new mountain bikes has come home to roost at Swain County High School, thanks to a donation from Bryson City Bicycles.
In December 2016, the bike shop landed an award from Synchrony Financial that granted it $10,000 to grow the business and another $10,000 earmarked for a community project of its choosing. Bryson City Bicycles was one of only five small businesses nationwide to land one of the Working Forward Small Business Awards, and co-owner Diane Cutler had no doubts about where in the community she wanted to invest that $10,000.
Tribal Council will have to change the date set for Principal Chief Patrick Lambert’s impeachment hearing for the third time — if, that is, the Cherokee Tribal Court allows the impeachment to move forward.
It’s safe to say that the Cherokee Tribal Council is not scurrying to incorporate the decisions of Grand Council into its future actions. Tribal Council held a special-called meeting Wednesday, April 19 — the day after Grand Council was held — in which it set a new impeachment hearing date to comply with a recent order from the Cherokee Supreme Court and shot down an amendment Councilmember Tommye Saunooke, of Painttown, had introduced aimed at recognizing the authority of Grand Council.
It would be near impossible to find someone in Cherokee these days who doesn’t know about the political turmoil enveloping the tribe, or who doesn’t have an opinion about who’s to blame. Last week The Smoky Mountain News ventured over to Food Lion, the Qualla Boundary’s only grocery store, asking tribal members for their take on the whole thing as they walked in to pick up a gallon of milk or returned from a full-scale shopping trip.
Big Cove Road in Cherokee slowed to a standstill last week as traffic backed up for more than a mile, en route to Cherokee Central School and the Grand Council meeting that Principal Chief Patrick Lambert had called for 1 p.m. Tuesday, April 18. The spacious parking lot at Cherokee Central School, where the event was to be held, quickly reached capacity. Some drivers pulled off to park on any patch of roadside grass or gravel available, while others pushed a little further to park at the old high school, where a shuttle would ferry them to the meeting.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians held its first Grand Council in 20 years yesterday, with traffic backing up for more than a mile down Big Cove Road as tribal members flocked to the event, held at Cherokee High School.
When rains finally quelled the flames of 2016’s historic fall fire season, firefighters breathed sighs of relief and mountain residents rejoiced in the newly smokeless air, but land managers were already looking ahead to springtime, when wildfires are typically even more severe and damaging than in the fall.
At the time, the region was plunged in the most severe drought designation possible — even the days of steady rain that ended the fire season made barely a dent in it — and long-term forecasts were calling for a dry future.
The Cherokee Tribal Court has denied a complaint that Councilmember Teresa McCoy, of Big Cove, filed asking that the court restrain the Tribal Council from taking certain types of actions.
More than a year of tension and fighting within the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians government will come to a head this week, with a hearing for impeachment charges against Principal Chief Patrick Lambert slated for Thursday, April 20, and Lambert calling a Grand Council of all enrolled members for Tuesday, April 18, in an attempt to save his position.
But, while some big decisions about the future of the tribe could be made by this time next week, the political fallout will likely take much longer to resolve. Much is uncertain about the events ahead — impeachments are rare, Grand Councils even rarer, and many of the laws pertaining to how they are conducted and what power they have are unclear, at best.
Mill Street will be getting a makeover after Sylva’s board of commissioners approved funding for the lane reduction project in a 4-1 vote.
A key piece of land bordering Panthertown Valley Backcountry Area will be conserved following a pledge from the Jackson County Commissioners to cover any gap between fundraising dollars and land price that still exists by the April 21 closing date.
On the chilly, windy afternoon of April 7, a crew of seven people gathered to install a passel of hefty red maple and river birch saplings into their new home, River’s Edge Park in Clyde. With the help of shovels and a mini-dozer it took just 2 hours to plant the 13 trees, but the work is far from over. Using mostly grant funds and volunteer labor, the town of Clyde intends to eventually plant the riverside park with thousands of trees and shrubs.
Sophia Calhoun was 9 years old the day the world changed. Her mother died, leaving her dad to care for Calhoun and her younger sister. When her father passed away four years later, the two girls were officially branded orphans, wards of the state.
On virtually any college campus, they’re there — students who have recently exited foster care, are homeless, wards of the state, or orphaned. And most of the time, they’re invisible, blending in with the student body at large and keeping their struggles wrapped in a tight armor of privacy.
A new initiative at Western Carolina University, however, will reach out and serve those students in a way that no other college in the state is doing.
From the moment April’s Tribal Council session began — 8:30 a.m. sharp on the sixth — the Cherokee Council House was packed. Tribal members filled the seats and stood against the walls leading out to the lobby, where chairs in front of a TV broadcasting the meeting inside quickly reached capacity. Faces bearing expressions of sadness, or anticipation, or grim resignation, they waited for the action to start.
Ron and Chrissy Hill were all set for their retirement in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, having bought a house and moved themselves north from their longtime home in Macon, Georgia. Then they took a quick visit to Haywood County, and things changed pretty quickly.
“We came over here for the weekend, and I said, ‘OK, this is it,” said Chrissy Hill, 57.
A new health sciences building at Southwestern Community College would allow an additional 288 students to prepare for in-demand health careers in Western North Carolina, and while the Jackson County Commissioners are excited about the project, paying the $19.8 million estimated price tag will be a challenge. In the 2016 master plan that first conceptualized the building, the cost was pegged at $16.3 million, but construction costs have since risen, and the county has several other major capital projects that it’s also pursuing.
The race for Cherokee Tribal Council will feature 45 candidates competing for 12 seats around the horseshoe table when the new session begins in October.
A plan to turn two-lane Mill Street in Sylva into a one-lane road will soon move forward if town commissioners vote to fund the project during their next meeting, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 13.
A new river park in Dillsboro is no longer just a proposal after the Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously April 3 to approve an economic development deal between the county and Western North Carolina Outdoor Development, a company owned by Jackson County businessman Kelly Custer.
The last known footprint of the slant-eyed giant Judaculla is not easy to get to.
First, there’s the drive to Wolf Laurel Trailhead, which takes about an hour to reach from Robbinsville up a steep and rutted U.S. Forest Service road that winds past tumbling waterfalls and an intersection with the Appalachian Trail before reaching the parking lot. Then there’s the hike — 3.5 miles of steep uphills offset by rocky downhills pieced together with the occasional stretch of level ground, often while traversing a narrow ridgeline with slopes falling steeply to either side.
On Aug. 9, 2014, an encounter between Officer Darren Wilson and 18-year-old Michael Brown on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, left Brown dead and the entire nation in the midst of a riotous public debate over whether the shooting was a product of racism or self-defense.
With an April 3 vote on a proposed river park in Dillsboro just days away, all five members of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners are leaning toward approving the project after listening to an hour of public comment March 20.
The Jackson County Commissioners got some food for thought during a meeting last week exploring the possibility of consolidating some of the county’s health and human resources services into a single department.
The widow of former Vice Chief Bill Ledford is refusing to move after Tribal Council’s January vote to strike the portion of his will that left her the house, and now a May 1 date in the Cherokee Tribal Court will determine the final outcome.
When Ed Sutton first came to Cherokee in November to break ground on a new trail system, his directive was clear.
“We told him his marching orders were just make it great. Make it awesome,” said Jeremy Hyatt, Secretary of Administration for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The fundraising deadline is drawing nearer for an effort to conserve 15.9 acres adjacent to Panthertown Valley, and the Jackson County Commissioners have indicated a willingness to chip in toward the more than $80,000 still needed.
Three seats will be up for grabs in Cherokee’s 2017 Tribal Council elections, with incumbent councilmembers from Big Cove, Snowbird and Yellowhill not signing up to run for re-election as of the March 15 filing deadline.
A proposed river park development in Dillsboro drew a crowd of roughly 75 people to a public hearing March 20, with 20 people delivering comment on the issue and prompting the Jackson County Commissioners to postpone a final decision until they could fully research all the questions that were asked.
Harris Regional Hospital Emergency Medical Services is asking the Jackson County Commissioners to make changes to its service that would cost about $200,000 to implement.
Every August since 2010, the Blue Ridge Breakaway has pulled in tens of thousands of dollars for Haywood County businesses, but for the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce — which organizes the event — the cost-benefit analysis isn’t so glossy. Ridership has been declining, costs have been climbing, and event planning has consistently eaten up large swathes of staff time — leading the chamber’s board to cancel the event for 2017 and consider axing it permanently pending further review.
