A large crowd turned out at the Swain County commissioners meeting this week to voice support for the beleaguered Department of Social Services Board.

Supporters said local board members tasked with overseeing the agency have been unfairly criticized following the death of 15-month-old baby and a criminal investigation into an alleged cover-up.

DSS workers failed to heed complaints from relatives that the baby was in danger and later falsified documents to hide any negligence on their part, according to family members of the child and law enforcement documents.

County commissioners called on the DSS board to suspend employees named in the investigation with pay, including DSS Director Tammy Cagle and Program Manager T.L. Jones.

However, the DSS board was deadlocked on the issue after a three-hour meeting last week.

That prompted the commissioners to call for the resignation of DSS board members in a strongly worded statement sent to media outlets the following day.

“The commissioners urge all the current DSS Board members to immediately resign, so that these positions can be filled with people who are not afraid to put the best interests of children and families of Swain County first at all times,” the statement read.

Three of the five DSS board members resigned by week’s end.

But those who spoke out at the commissioners meeting Monday said the DSS board members have been blamed unfairly.

County commissioners were out of bounds in their statement, according to Betty Sandlin, one of several who gave commissioners a dressing down at the meeting. Sandlin called the press statement by commissioners “abominable,” “despicable,” “unethical” and “disgraceful.”

Sandlin said DSS board members are outstanding citizens, dedicated members of their church, and active in civic affairs.

“You had the unmitigated gall to suggest they don’t have any interest in the children in this community,” Sandlin told commissioners. “You made a colossal error in judgment. Many of us are beginning to wonder whether we made colossal errors in judgment when we voted for you last November.”

DSS board members also took to the podium to defend themselves, claiming they have been unfairly denigrated.

“To vilify the DSS board the way you did is absolutely inexcusable,” said Bob Thomas, a DSS board member. “These libelous insinuations are totally irresponsible, unacceptable and downright obscene.”

Thomas said he resigned not because commissioners asked him to but because he was “fed up and frustrated beyond description.”

DSS Board Chairman Jim Gribble, who suffers from a heart condition, said the controversy in recent weeks has taken a toll on his health, including sleepless nights and a loss of appetite.

“This was truly a most troubling episode in my life,” Gribble said.

Gribble said he has no apologies for how the board has handled the recent crisis.

The press statement by commissioners questioned whether DSS board members’ were putting other interests above those of the community at large and of children in particular.

“The board of commissioners feel that the needs of the children should have more priority than the needs of the director or employees,” the statement read.

Gribble said he was offended by the accusation.

“I am deeply, deeply troubled by the loss of a defenseless innocent child,” Gribble said. “I agreed to serve on this DSS board because I thought I could make a difference. I have an earnest desire for the safety and well-being of children.”

Deadlocked DSS board

Four of the five DSS board members met for three hours behind closed doors last week to debate whether to suspend Director Tammy Cagle and the other employees named. When they finally emerged to the waiting crowd — including family of the dead child and family of the social worker accused of falsifying records — they announced they had not been able to reach a consensus and directed any further questions to the DSS attorney.

While it is legal to discuss personnel decisions in private, public bodies such as the DSS board must vote in the open, allowing the public to witness where each person on the public board stands. This is intended to ensure a transparent, accountable and democratic form of government.

The DSS board never formally voted in public, but instead announced it could not reach a consensus.

With only four board members at the table, it would be easy for them to recognize who was on what side, and whether a formal vote would be futile. The fifth board member was out of town.

Board Chairman Jim Gribble would not reveal which of the board members were in favor of suspension and which were not.

Standard protocol

County commissioners asserted that suspending those named in the investigation is crucial to restoring public confidence in the agency and ensuring the integrity of the ongoing investigation.

DSS Board Member Thomas countered that in his eyes people are innocent until proven guilty.

“I refuse to compromise my convictions for the convenience of the situation,” Thomas said.

Thomas said DSS Director Cagle has the support of her staff, witnessed by 25 DSS employees who came forward to speak on their boss’s behalf as the board weighed whether to put her on leave.

Commissioners pointed out in the press statement that it is standard protocol for any government agency to suspend employees with pay during an ongoing investigation, regardless of guilt or innocence.

“It has never been the intention of the board of commissioners to accuse anyone of wrongdoing, but suspending the employees would help authorities with the state conduct an unbiased investigation and have more flexibility to do their job,” the statement issued by commissioners read.

According to commissioners, the state Department of Health and Human Services likewise wanted the employees put on leave with pay.

But several audience members at the meeting challenged that. They said they didn’t believe the state had recommended suspending the DSS employees and asked for proof.

In a public statement, Sherry Bradsher, the state director in Raleigh, said that personnel decisions ultimately rest at the local level. But she added that the DSS board should do what it takes to ensure public confidence in the agency.

“We have offered guidance and a strong reminder to the board of its responsibilities as defined by General Statute, which includes its authority over the director,” Bradsher said.

Gribble said the state made recommendations but no mandates on whether the employees should be suspended.

In the dark

County Commissioner Steve Moon was the lone commissioner who didn’t believe DSS employees should be suspended or that DSS board members should resign. Moon, who is the uncle of the DSS director, chastised the other commissioners for sending out the press statement without his knowledge. He learned of it when watching the news on television.

“Why was this done without telling me? I was totally out in the dark until I saw it on WLOS. No one called me. I had zero input on that decision. I would like to know why,” Moon said.

Moon blamed County Manager Kevin King, but King said he was acting at the direction of three of the five commissioners by sending the press statement. King, along with the three commissioners, were in Raleigh on county business at the time.

Commissioner Robert White was put in charge of calling Moon to let him know. White said he tried to call Moon but couldn’t reach him.

Moon also was upset that the DSS board members weren’t personally notified, but learned from reporters that commissioners were calling for their resignations. Moon apologized to the board members in the audience even though he wasn’t part of the decision.

“I am sorry. I am really, truly sorry it has come down to this,” Moon said, prompting an extended standing ovation from the large crowd. The crowd was so large the meeting was moved into a courtroom instead of the regular meeting room.

Speakers also lashed out at the media, blaming the press for negative publicity of the county.

“They are having a heyday,” Thomas said, coining the coverage a “media frenzy.”

Indeed, newspapers and television stations from across the region have reported on the raid of DSS offices by the State Bureau of Investigation and the investigation into the baby’s death.

Sandlin blamed the commissioners for “fueling a media circus” and portraying a “demoralizing” picture of the county.

“The snap judgment of a few irritated commissioners to make us a public spectacle only served to fuel the media and further hostilities,” Gribble added.

While the DSS board defended its name, family of the Cherokee baby who died reminded the audience why they were here in the first place.

“We are sorry your feelings got hurt, but you guys get to go home to your families, hurt feelings or whatever. When we go home, we are missing a member from our family,” Ruth McCoy, the child’s great aunt, said at the meeting.

While the alleged cover-up at DSS has gotten most of the attention, McCoy said the agency is equally at fault for leaving the baby in an unsafe home despite pleas by relatives to remove her.

“We are here because they didn’t do their job. None of this had to happen,” McCoy said.

Some speakers expressed their condolences to McCoy for the family’s loss.

Vacancies on the board

Following the resignation of three board members, the DSS board is short three members. Of those, one is appointed by the county commissioners and the other two by the state Department of Health and Human Services.

County commissioners voted this week on a replacement, selecting Georgianna Carson. Carson is the daughter of a long-time doctor in Swain County who helped found the hospital.

Commissioners were split on who to appoint, however. Commissioners Moon and White wanted to appoint Paul Crawley, owner of a soda fountain shop, but Commissioner Phil Carson, David Monteith and Donnie Dixon backed Georgianna Carson.

It could be the end of next week before the state makes its new appointments.

“It is always challenge in smaller communities finding people that are willing to serve and volunteer even under normal circumstances,” said Sherry Bradsher, director of state health and human services.

Given the tremendous publicity surrounding DSS in such a small community, appointments will take more careful consideration than ever, Bradsher said. For those who do volunteer, Bradsher wants to understand their reason for doing so, and ability to be in a tough spot.

“We want to be sure the people we appoint are going to be fair and good listeners and make the decisions that are appropriate for moving the agency and the county forward,” Bradsher said.

Timeline of recent events

• Thursday, March 3 — Swain County commissioners vote 4 to 1 for the DSS board to suspend with pay those named in an SBI investigation.

• Tuesday, March 8 — After a three-hour meeting, DSS board members are deadlocked over whether to suspend employees and announced no consensus.

• Wednesday, March 9 — County commissioners call for the resignation of DSS board members in a strongly worded press statement.

• Thursday, March 10 — Three DSS board members resign.

Related documents

• Swain commissioners call for DSS board resignations
• Jim Gribble and Bob Thomas resignation letters
• Public statement by DSS Board Chairman Jim Gribble
• Public statement by DSS Board member Bob Thomas
• Read the warrant

All is fair in love and war, but apparently not in politics.

Former state Sen. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville, is suing his opponent in the last election for violating state campaign finance laws.

The suit claims Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Spruce Pine – who beat Queen in November – misled voters about who paid for a series of television commercials. In a tag line at end of the commercials, Hise said that he paid for the ad, when in fact the state Republican Party did.

If true, it is a violation of the state law known as “Stand By Your Ad,” which requires whoever pays for a political ad to identify themselves. By falsely stating Hise paid for the ad when he didn’t, the commercials got a price discount only available to candidates and potentially curried more favor with voters, according to the suit.

“He’s got to play by the rules and be fair. If he doesn’t, then we have no recourse but to file a lawsuit,” Queen said.

Hise is one of 10 Republican state Senate candidates accused of the same misstep, and one of three being sued for it. Hise said the suit has no merit, however, as did his attorney.

“We deny the allegations of the complaint. We think the lawsuit has no foundation in fact or law,” said Thomas Farr, a Raleigh attorney representing Hise and the other Republicans targeted by the same suit. “We are confident the Republican senators will be vindicated.”

The N.C. Republican Party is also named in the suit, and likewise rejected the accusation.

“We believe this is a frivolous complaint and deny the allegations,” said Mark Braden, spokesperson for the state Republican Party. “We are confident that the N.C. Republican Party and Sen. Hise will prevail.”

The N.C. Republican Party bought $1.4 million worth of television commercials for 10 Senate candidates across the state, all of whom won their seats. Hise got more than most, with $277,000 in commercials advocating him over Queen.

When buying the ads, the Republican Party used an advertising agency called American Media and Advocacy, based in Virginia. The agency arranged for the commercials to air on various TV stations, but when doing so, misrepresented who was paying for the ads, according to the suit.

American Media told the TV stations the ads were being purchased by candidates themselves, rather than by the Republican Party.

“That is not a trivial matter. That is a fundamental violation of the campaign finance law,” said Frank Queen, a Waynesville attorney representing Joe Sam Queen.

N.C. Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin, is among those that ran commercials saying he paid for them when in fact he didn’t, according to the suit. Davis defeated former state Sen. John Snow, D-Murphy, but Snow has not joined in the suit.

Stand By Your Ad

Democrats took a beating in the election last fall, losing control of both the N.C. Senate and House for the first time in over a century.

Despite how it might look, the lawsuits are not a case of Democrats being sore losers, according to John Wallace, a Raleigh attorney representing all three Democrats who chose to file suits.

When North Carolina created the Stand By Your Ad provision in 1999, it was only the second state in the country to make such a law.

The law was inspired by the rise in ugly attack ads. It forced those running ads to clearly identify themselves “so voters can hold the sponsor of the ad accountable,” Wallace said.

The popularity of Stand By Your Ad grew, and a version of it eventually became federal law in 2002.

“I think it is possible it keeps people honest,” said Chris Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University. “It doesn’t allow you to shoot at the opponent and not say who you are.”

Voters often view ads run by the candidate more favorably than ads backed by the party.

“In many markets, it is advantageous to the candidate to purchase purportedly in his own name,” the suit states.

A study of the Stand By Your Ad law by Brigham Young University showed voters put more stock in ads that were endorsed by the candidate himself. Ads endorsed by the candidate instead of a political party may curry more favor among independent voters, according to Cooper.

Cooper pointed to Congressman Heath Shuler, D-N.C., as a prime example. In his conservative leaning district, an ad paid for by the Democratic Party is the last thing Shuler would want, Cooper said. In fact, he bent over backwards to distance himself from the national party.

If Hise wanted to take credit for the ads, the Republican Party should have first donated the money to Hise, and then allowed Hise in turn to buy his own commercials. But for whatever reason, the party chose to control the ad buys.

“There are circumstances in which parities may determine that it is safer, better or faster not to contribute money to candidates,” Wallace said.

In some cases, the party may want control the ad in order to control the message, according to Cooper. Or, the party may think it can do a better job than the candidate.

“You have decades of experience at the state party level so the candidate might prefer that, too,” Cooper said.

If the party had donated the money to Hise and let him buy his own ads, the donation would have showed up on Hise’s campaign finance reports.

Tracking the money

Donations received through September are reported on a candidate’s third quarter fundraising report. During October, a candidate must report any contribution over $1,000 within 48 hours. The disclosure alerts other candidates what kind of spending their opponent has at his disposal.

“Anybody can see the money coming in and out,” Frank Queen said.

But since the money for the TV commercials didn’t come to Hise first, it didn’t show up in his fundraising reports. While the spending was indeed reported by the N.C. Republican Party, it is harder to track outside spending on a candidate’s behalf, known as soft money, as opposed to hard money spent by the candidate himself, Frank Queen said.

Since Queen monitored Hise’s fundraising reports, when a plethora of commercials began showing up in the final weeks of the campaign, he realized that Hise didn’t have the money to be paying for the ads himself.

Queen sent Hise a warning letter, which Hise received through certified mail on Oct. 29, asking him to stop running the commercials with the false tag line bearing Hise’s name.

In the letter, Queen told Hise he was “misleading the voters of the district in which you are running for office.”

“Furthermore, this misrepresentation of who is paying for the advertisement is in direct violation of the Stand By Your Ad laws, which require the group or candidate paying for each ad to specifically identify themselves and to take responsibility for the content of those advertisements,” the letter stated.

But the ads continued to run through Election Day.

Candidates are entitled to cheaper television advertising rates than third parties buying an ad on the candidate’s behalf. By law, candidates buying political ads are entitled to the lowest rate tier that a station offers.

The ads were 20 to 50 percent cheaper under the lower rate tier than it could have had the commercials been bought by its own name rather than Hise’s, the suit claims.

“By falsely representing that it was paid for by the candidate’s committee, they qualified for and indeed paid the lowest rate that was available, lower than they would have otherwise,” Frank Queen said.

While complaints have been filed with the N.C. Board of Elections, the state statute spells out an interesting recourse for violations: the other candidate is instructed to file a civil lawsuit. Thus the suit being filed by Queen is the only mechanism of enforcing the law, Frank Queen said.

What does Queen stands to gain? He won’t get his seat back, but if victorious Hise would be required under state statute to pay Queen an amount equal to the cost of the ads that carried the false tag line, as well as attorney fees Queen incurs in waging the suit.

Hise and the N.C. Republican Party will file a response to the suit in early April, Farr said.

The Smoky Mountain News Intern DeeAnna Haney contributed to this article.

The Swain County Department of Social Services board met for three hours Tuesday night (March 8) to discuss whether employees named in an investigation should be suspended with pay pending the outcome. The board failed to come to a consensus. A vote was not held, so it is not known which board members are on which side.

Only four of the five DSS board members were at the meeting.

The fifth, Robert White, was out of town on county business that could not be rescheduled. White is also a county commissioner.

Had White been there, it seems he would have been the tie breaker — and that the scales would be tipped in favor of suspending the employees. White has already publicly weighed in on the issue at a county commissioner meeting last week, where county commissioners formally called on the DSS board to take action. White seconded the motion and voted in favor of sending a letter to the DSS board recommending the employees be put on leave with pay.

The DSS board has not announced whether they will hold another meeting to settle the issue when White gets back in town. Their next regularly scheduled meeting is not until Monday, March 28, at 5:30 p.m.

The DSS board met Tuesday night behind closed doors since the conversation centered on personnel, which is exempt from open meeting requirements.

Family members of Aubrey Kina-Marie Littlejohn, a 15-month-old who died in January, waited for three hours to hear the board’s decision. Family had repeatedly asked DSS to take the baby away from a great-aunt who was caring for her. DSS is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation for a subsequent cover-up including falsification of records, according to law enforcement documents.

Also waiting outside the meeting were family members of Craig Smith, a social worker directly involved in falsifying DSS records in an apparent cover-up. Smith is the only employee who has so far been suspended. However, in his testimony to investigators he said orders to fabricate records came from higher up.

The state could step in to run the Swain County Department of Social Services if the top leaders are among those put on leave during a probe into an alleged cover-up.

Swain DSS falsified records relating to the abuse and neglect of a 15-month-old baby who later died, according to an investigation by the Swain County Sheriff’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation.

The family of the child have asked those named in the probe, including the DSS director and program manager, be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

“I don’t think it is right for them to keep working,” said Leighann McCoy, one of the family members. “Look at all the lives they have in their hands. Their jobs are a matter of life and death.”

The Swain County commissioners have concurred, although they don’t have authority over DSS employees — that lies with a separate DSS board.

So last week, commissioners formally called on the DSS board to suspend the employees in a 4 to 1 vote at a special meeting. The lone “no” vote came from Commissioner Steve Moon, who is the uncle of DSS Director Tammy Cagle. Family of the child chastised Moon after the meeting for participating in the vote.

Commissioners emphasized that their recommendation is not a reflection of whether they think the DSS employees are guilty of wrongdoing. Commissioners said that suspending the employees would protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.

“It is not out of animosity,” said Commissioner Chairman Phil Carson. “We are just trying to do the right thing during this case and this investigation.”

Swain County commissioners met with the DSS board in closed session for more than an hour Thursday evening prior to commissioners’ vote. The meeting could legally be held behind closed doors since the discussion centered on personnel and a criminal investigation.

The DSS board will meet seperately at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8, at the DSS office to discuss commissioners’ recommendation.

Two-dozen friends and family of Aubrey Kina-Marie Littlejohn, a 15-month-old baby who died in January, waited outside during the duration of the closed meeting to learn what commissioners would do. Relatives say they had appealed to DSS to take Aubrey away from her caregiver, and had repeatedly complained of suspected abuse and neglect. The SBI is investigating whether DSS employees engaged in a cover-up to hide potential negligence on their part.

Deloris Taylor, a friend of the family, said DSS failures allowed Aubrey’s death to happen.

“There should be a full state investigation and DSS should be held accountable. I think they should face criminal charges,” Taylor said.

Taylor said Aubrey’s case should have been given more attention.

“They shouldn’t just shuffle the paper work,” Taylor said.

Several social workers came to the meeting and expressed their dismay that their agency was under attack. They pointed out the many dedicated social workers in Swain County who put their heart and soul into what is a very tough job.

“I think our county should be supporting our social workers a lot more,” said Alissa Lambert, a child social worker at Swain DSS for three years.

Lambert said the job was so stressful that she burned out and had to find another job.

“The stuff we have to deal with on a daily basis is really difficult,” Lambert said.

Lambert asked where the news media was the rest of the year and during their many fundraisers, from selling hotdogs to a softball tournament to a chili cook-off.

“Nobody sees the positive things we do, the hundreds of families we help on a daily basis,” said Tabatha Medford, a current DSS social worker. “I apply myself in my job every day.”

So far, only one of the employees named has been put on leave — Craig Smith, a social worker with the agency since 2006 making $35,000 a year, who was directly involved in falsifying the records turned over to investigators, according to an SBI search warrant.

Smith told investigators he was acting on orders from his boss. His account of events suggested that the director and program manager knew his report was fabricated — namely that the child had been seen by a doctor when in fact she hadn’t.

But Lambert questioned Smith’s story. She said that supervisors can’t check on the accuracy of every statement in every report.

Lambert said anyone the state sends into run DSS won’t understand working in a small town or the unique culture here.

The second-home economy has fueled far more than construction and real estate jobs over the past decade.

“If it’s someone’s second or third home, they aren’t bringing anything with them,” said Doug Worrell, the president of High Country Furniture in Waynesville. “They aren’t moving their furniture.”

As a new economy emerged to support the second-home movement, furniture stores have proliferated throughout the region.

Worrell saw a customer last week who bought a home at Bear Lake Preserve in Jackson County and wanted it furnished by Friday. On the other end of the spectrum, a couple who hadn’t yet closed on their lot, let alone started building, were already browsing for their dream furniture.

A brand-new house also calls for art and décor. Enter the many galleries and boutiques filling downtown store fronts through the region.

“What impact does the second home market have on Main Street? Major,” said John Keith, owner of Twigs and Leaves gallery in downtown Waynesville.

Many second-home owners make a hobby out of decorating their new mountain abodes, and Twigs and Leaves had the sales to prove it. But as second-home construction slowed over the past three years, so did the purchase of artwork, Keith said.

While Keith has no doubt the second-home market will return — few places can beat WNC as a destination for retiring boomers — some galleries have been unable to wait out the downturn. Just last month, Echo Gallery in the upscale Biltmore Village closed down.

No one knows the importance of the second-home economy more than Danny Wingate, the vice president of Haywood Builders in Waynesville.

Haywood Builders nearly tripled its sales over the first half of the decade, peaking at $30 million in sales in 2006. The robust growth was fueled almost entirely by the second-home market, Wingate said.

“Our business was made up primarily of high-end second homes,” Wingate said.

The large number of gated communities popping up in Jackson County spurred Haywood Builders to open a Design Center in downtown Sylva, where people building homes could pick interior features from kitchen cabinets to bathroom lighting.

“It was a platform for us to access the Jackson County market, particularly for cabinetry,” Wingate said. It was a savvy move: Wingate recalled one homeowner who spent $140,000 on cabinets alone.

But that has all changed now.

“We are off substantially,” Wingate said of sales today compared to that boom period.

Last year, sales had dropped to $12 million, a precipitous decline from the peak of $30 million in 2006.

Wingate has a bird’s eye view of the construction industry, with builders constantly funneling through his store, where both prices and customer service beat out his big-box competitors. Contractors who were once among his top 10 biggest clients are now struggling to find work.

“Even our big boys are out of work,” Wingate said.

Time for reflection

The slump in second home growth isn’t all bad, according to Ken Brown, Chairman of the Tuckasegee Community Alliance in Jackson County.

Brown questioned whether the growth rates of the past decade are sustainable. Jackson County saw the largest population growth of any county in WNC among year-round residents, as well the biggest increase in home construction, much of it in the second home market, according to the census.

“It is hard to gauge what kind of an impact that had when you have that many folks building second homes,” Brown said. “It is kind of unprecedented in my time.”

The economic downturn has been like a pressure relief valve on a boiler.

“I think we need to assess just what kind of development we want,” Brown said. “You wonder if that trend could happen again if the economy does pick up. It would put a tremendous amount of pressure on the county.”

Now is not the time for counties to let down their guard on mountainside development or roll back ordinances regulating slope construction, he said. Jackson County passed some of the region’s most progressive and restrictive development regulations four years ago — largely in response to the unparalleled building boom. But that could change given a slate of new commissioners elected last fall.

“We felt like they may try to weaken or water down the ordinances,” Brown said.

So Brown and like-minded citizens in Jackson County have formed a grassroots task force to keep an eye on any moves by the newly elected board of commissioners to undo construction regulations, Brown said.

Brent Martin, who lives in Macon County and works for The Wilderness Society in Sylva, said the face of the mountains could change dramatically if the second-home dynamic continues on its current trajectory.

“It will be very interesting to see what this place turns into in another 30 or 40 years,” Martin said.

“I don’t know how we would handle it. The current downturn is allowing us to catch our breath and step back and figure out how to address the next wave of it — because it is certainly coming.”

Although population in Western North Carolina increased only by a modest amount over the past decade, home construction grew at a much higher rate, according to 2010 census data released last week.

The census counts year-round residents. But much of the growth in WNC has come from second homes — and as a result isn’t reflected when looking at population numbers alone.  

Hard data on the number of second homes and the region’s summertime population can be difficult to ferret out. But the latest census shows the growth in housing units has outpaced population growth, confirming the second home dynamic that people who live here year-round witness.

ALSO: See the graphs

“You can definitely feel when summer season is coming back,” said David Francis, a Haywood County resident and the head of the county tax department. “You can just tell from the traffic on a Friday afternoon. Where I really see it is at Ingle’s.”

While long lines and empty shelves at the grocery store are a sure sign that the seasonal population has returned, the summer influx of residents is witnessed in every facet of society, from more trash at the landfill to more people at the emergency room.

Seasonal residents translate into a 15 to 20 percent increase in trash at the Haywood County landfill, Francis said.

The emergency room at MedWest Harris in Sylva sees a seasonal spike in patient volume of 10 to 15 percent during the summer and fall compared to winter, according to numbers provided by Lucretia Stargill, a MedWest spokesperson. Ambulance calls likewise increase in the summer, according to Jim Pressley, the EMS director for Haywood County.

In Maggie Valley, a town full of vacation homes, users at the town library go way up in summer, according to Town Manager Tim Barth. So does the need for police officers. It means the department is slightly overstaffed in the off-season.

“Right now there may not be a lot of people in the Valley. But you can’t just hire police officers for two or three months. That doesn’t work very well,” Barth said.

Running a community with such seasonal population swings isn’t easy. It must have adequate infrastructure to serve the larger population. In Maggie Valley, the sewer treatment plant has a much larger capacity than its year-round population of 1,100 would typically dictate.

“We have to assume that everybody will be in Maggie Valley all at one time, and that is what we have to plan for,” Barth said.

While thousands of seasonal Maggie residents make a wintertime exodus back to Florida, they continue paying a sewer bill of $15 a month while they’re gone, even if their water is completely shut off, Barth said. The minimum monthly bill allows the sewer treatment plant to be keep operating during those months and be in working order when the masses return.

The building surge of the past decade forced counties to grapple with all kinds of infrastructure issues. Ken Brown, Chairman of the Tuckasegee Community Alliance in Jackson County, pointed to the dispute between the Glenville Fire Department and second-home owners on an island in the middle of the lake. The second-home owners wanted the volunteer fire department to provide fire service, even if it meant taking a fire truck across the lake on a barge.

“I thought it was offensive actually they could buy an island then demand the county provide them fire service,” Brown said.

Second-home growth also takes its toll on natural resources, from construction-site erosion muddying the streams to view-obscuring smog from vehicles.

Public lands, which are home to the last remaining Appalachian ecosystems, are also feeling the squeeze. As development spreads across the landscape, it’s pushing up against the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests and encroaching on wildlife habitat. The National Forest Service ranked the Pisgah and Nantahala among the top five forests threatened by periphery development in a 2009 report called “National Forests on the Edge.”

Meanwhile, more people are recreating in the national forests, testing the carrying capacity of the public lands that make WNC such a desirable place to live, according to Brent Martin, the Southern Appalachian director of The Wilderness Society in Sylva.

How many second homes?

Mark Clasby has spent much of the past decade trying to quantify the second-home market in Haywood County.

“It is a very important part of our economy,” said Clasby, the county economic development director.

The potential buying power of Haywood County’s population can make or break whether a new business comes here. Clasby has been trying to pedal a mega commercial site once slated for a Home Depot that was cancelled after the recession took hold. Finding a retailer of that magnitude to fill the void has been tough.

“What they tend to look at when they pick a location is they want to know what the population is,” Clasby said. “We try to make an argument that we have more people here than what census numbers show. What I have to use is unscientific.”

One figure Clasby points to is the number of property tax bills mailed out of the county. In Haywood County, one-third of tax bills are mailed out of the county, indicating the property owner has a primary residence somewhere else. In Macon County — an even bigger second-home market — 54 percent of tax bills are mailed out of the county.

Five years ago, the Downtown Waynesville Association commissioned a study on where shoppers come from. Over 70 businesses throughout town recorded the zip codes of those making purchases, including those who were second-home owners. Second-home owners accounted for 12 percent of shoppers at participating shops the last week in July.

But second-home residents aren’t just here in the summer anymore.

“I think our seasonal folks increase starting in the spring and go into the fall and some all the way through the holidays,” said Linda Schlott, the director of the Main Street Program in Franklin.

And that’s good news for business owners.

“We can see an increase in people on the streets and merchants see an influx of customers when those seasonal visitors are here,” Schlott said.

Some second-home owners actually live here more months of the year than they do in their so-called primary residence. But the absence of income tax in Florida makes it advantageous to claim that state as their permanent residence.

Real numbers at last

The census offers a glimpse into just how many homes in our midst may be second homes or vacation rentals. To census workers, any house not occupied by a full-time resident was designated “vacant.”

In Haywood, 27 percent of homes were deemed “vacant.” In Swain, it was 35 percent. In Jackson, it was 37 percent. And in Macon it was a whopping 42 percent (see chart).

The numbers are even more staggering in quintessential vacation and second-home markets. In the town of Maggie Valley, two-thirds of the housing units were “vacant.” In the town of Highlands, “vacant” homes account for 78 percent of the housing stock.

A small portion of the housing units deemed “vacant” by the census are truly that. There’s a baseline of legitimately vacant houses, such as rentals that are between renters or empty houses where the owner has died.

Statewide, the average vacancy rate is only 13 percent. That average includes places like the beach and the mountains with a preponderance of vacation condos and second homes. For a typical city where these aren’t a factor, like Greensboro or Durham, the vacancy rate is 9 to 10 percent.

In Jackson County, student housing contributes to the high percentage of “vacant” housing units. Several apartment buildings have gone up over the past decade aimed at students attending Western Carolina University. Perhaps too many apartments, said Mark Jamison, a resident of nearby Webster. The university predicted exponential growth of students that hasn’t materialized completely.

“You have an inventory created on suppositions that probably aren’t going to come true,” Jamison said.

Another factor in the number of vacant homes on the census roster is speculative building. During the boom years, the line of prospective second-home buyers seemed endless, prompting developers to build spec houses rather than merely sell off lots. Some contractors would even buy lots to build spec homes of their own.

But when the stream of buyers dried up, those homes were left standing, explained Danny Wingate, the vice president of Haywood Builders.

Sitting idle

The 2010 Census reveled a high number of second homes not occupied by year-round residents. Here’s the percentage of “vacant” homes by county.

Haywood    27 percent

Jackson    37 percent

Macon    42 percent

Swain    35 percent

Total housing units by county:

Haywood    34,954

Jackson    25,948

Macon    25,245

Swain    8,723

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.

Relatives say they warned social workers repeatedly over the course of several months that Aubrey Littlejohn was being neglected and abused.

Called by her middle name by family, 15-month-old Kina-Marie died on a mattress on the floor of a singlewide trailer sometime in the middle of the night on Jan. 10. She was dressed in only a T-shirt despite statements made to law enforcement that the trailer had no heat. It is unclear whether an adult was home.

Social workers in Swain County had been warned by relatives that Kina Marie was in danger but failed to remove her from the home, according to law enforcement records.

“Witnesses interviewed have stated that they called the Department of Social Services and made reports detailing abuse and neglect of the child and received no response from any departmental employee,” according to a search warrant executed against DSS offices.

Relatives told investigators “they had witnessed physical abuse and neglect inflicted on the child and observed no food, a lack of heat and other inadequacies in the home environment.”

The baby had been in the care of a great-aunt, Lady Bird Powell, 38, since last spring. Powell did not have legal custody, however. Other relatives asked Powell for the child, and even the child’s mother tried to get her back, but Powell refused to give her up.

So relatives turned to DSS for help. At least three relatives asked DSS to take the baby away from Powell, and had been to Swain DSS in person.

Kina Marie’s mother, Jasmine Littlejohn, 20, had to part with her daughter last April after being sentenced to a mandatory 90-day drug rehab. Meanwhile, Powell’s 18-year-old son, Hawk Rattler, had died of a drug overdose in March, according to a death certificate. Powell offered to keep Kina Marie while Littlejohn was away in rehab, claiming it would help her cope with her own son’s death, according to relatives.

Kina Marie was six months old when her mother turned her over to Powell. When Littlejohn got out of rehab, Powell refused to give Kina Marie back, relatives said.

Littlejohn was soon back behind bars, however, on federal drug charges for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and is being held as a federal prisoner in the Cherokee County jail.

Whether Powell was getting aid for Kina Marie, such as food stamps or monetary support, is not certain. SBI agents have requested all records of financial support or benefits Powell was getting for Kina Marie from DSS. Relatives say Powell was getting Kina Marie’s food stamps, but that information is not public.

No place for a child

In perhaps one of the most perplexing elements of the case, Powell’s own children were taken away by DSS but Kina Marie was left behind. According to relatives, two of Powell’s own children were removed from her home in August while Kina Marie, who was just a baby, stayed in her care. In November, a nephew living with Powell was also removed from the home, but once again Kina Marie was left there, according to relatives.

DSS records regarding the children and their removal from the home aren’t public.

Dispatch records show that Swain County deputies were asked to escort a social worker to Powell’s home on Nov. 8, but no one came to the door. They went back the following day and were at the home for over an hour, according to dispatch logs.

Relatives said they were concerned that Kina Marie wasn’t growing well and was too small for her age, relatives said. She couldn’t do the things she should have been able to. Relatives suspect she wasn’t being fed properly. She also spent long hours many days strapped into a car seat — whether in the car or inside the house — so she couldn’t move or crawl around, according to relatives and law enforcement documents.

DSS records of one complaint reads as follows: “Reporter states she is very concerned for the baby. Reporter states that the baby is one year old and seems significantly delayed. Reporter states she is always in a car seat and is left in the car alone, even in the heat, while they run errands and drive around all day.”

But there were even more troubling signs. Kina Marie was seen with bruises on her face one day in September. When relatives called DSS to once again report their suspicions of abuse, it finally triggered a home visit by a social worker named Craig Smith.

Powell told Smith that Kina-Marie fell down a set of five stairs. Powell gave Smith two different stories, however, according to his report on the incident.

Powell first said the Kina Marie was sitting in a car seat at the top of the steps. She wasn’t buckled in and fell out when Powell jerked up the car seat. But Powell also said Kina Marie was kicking around in the car seat and made it fall over.

“Ladybird did not take the baby to the doctor because she stated she did not want DSS to be involved,” Smith’s report on the incident says. Smith then told Powell to take her to the doctor. But Powell never did, and Smith never followed up to see whether she had.

Cherokee Indian Hospital has no records of Kina Marie ever being seen by a doctor there, according to law enforcement documents. Cherokee Indian Hospital is where most members of the tribe go for medical care. Whether she was taken to a doctor elsewhere for regular check-ups and vaccinations is not known.

At some point, Kina Marie’s arm was broken. Medical examiners performing an autopsy after her death discovered it, according to a search warrant. The autopsy report is not yet complete.

Following Kina Marie’s death, investigators searched Powell’s trailer and found evidence of drug use. Drug paraphernalia, including pipes, pill grinders, straws and empty bottles were confiscated in the search, along with several items covered in a white powdery residue.

During attempts to revive Kina Marie at the emergency room the night she died, doctors gave her medication to counter possible narcotic exposure based on “previous DSS reports concerning the child’s living conditions,” according to law enforcement records.

According to Veronica Callahan, Powell’s next-door neighbor, there were often lots of vehicles coming and going from the trailer at all hours of the night.

Callahan also said unsupervised children were often running around in the yard and street in front of the trailer. In the fall, she noticed children were sleeping in a tent in the backyard of the trailer. She said Powell would sometimes lock the children out of the trailer.

Sheriff deputies had been to Powell’s trailer on three calls in a six-month period, according to dispatch records. One was for a report of domestic violence in June. In October, deputies responded to reports of a drunk person causing a disturbance. In November, the Swain County sheriff’s office were called to the residence after a report that three boys were missing. The boys were later found under a nearby bridge.

Powell’s criminal record includes misdemeanor child abuse for allowing 5-year-old and 9-year-old child to ride in a car with a 14-year-old behind the wheel. The 14-year-old wrecked, and Powell was charged for endangering their safety. She also has assault charges.

The final hours

The day Kina Marie died, she had been left strapped in a car seat for 12 hours, according to a law enforcement investigation.

“During that time period Aubrey was not removed from the car seat, given food or a drink except for some bites from a hotdog and sips of a soda that Ladybird Powell was eating around 5 p.m. Aubrey’s diaper was not changed during this period,” investigators were told by a witness who was with Kina Marie and Ladybird that day.

Around 10 p.m. she was taken from the car seat and put to bed on a mattress wearing only a T-shirt and diaper.

Powell discovered Kina Marie’s body around 3 a.m., according to dispatch records. The Cherokee Police Department was put on alert that a white truck with its flashers on was speeding toward the Cherokee hospital with a baby who was blue and not breathing. Meanwhile, the dispatcher gave Powell instructions on how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while driving in the truck.

Powell was distraught by Kina Marie’s death, according to a recording of the 911 call Powell made after discovering Kina Marie’s body. Powell was hysterical, screaming and weeping as she held Kina Marie in her arms.

“My baby’s not breathing, oh my God, she’s not breathing,” Powell cried over and over into the phone. Powell stayed on the line with the 911 dispatcher while her husband, James Murphy, drove them to the emergency room at Cherokee Indian Hospital.

They arrived at the emergency room by 3:30 a.m., where medical staff had to forcibly pry Kina Marie out of Powell’s arms.

Kina Marie’s body was a dusky blue color, and her core body temperature was only 84 degrees.

“Infant was limp and very cold to the touch,” according to law enforcement records.

Doctors attempted to revive Kina Marie but were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Cherokee police officers felt the mysterious death should be investigated, but since Powell lived off the reservation the case would fall to the Swain County Sheriff’s office. Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran and Detective Carolyn Posey were roused from bed and arrived at the hospital in Cherokee around 5 a.m.

An investigation by the Swain County sheriff’s office into Kina Marie’s death is still pending, which will determine what if any charges are pressed against the baby’s caregivers.

Waynesville Attorney David Wijewickrama has been retained by Kina Marie’s mother to pursue a civil case against DSS for failure to intervene.

“I am absolutely disgusted and appalled with any social worker that would have left her alone in that trailer with the people who abused her and eventually killed her,” Wijewickrama said.

Wijewickrama said DSS should have heeded complaints of relatives and removed Kina Marie from Powell’s care.

“If a social worker wants to take a child they can take it just like that,” Wijewickrama said. “The statute is so broadly written it gives enormous power to law enforcement and DSS workers to do whatever they want, if they even think they need do. They have authority right then and there. Get the kid in the car, and go.”

Wijewickrama expressed “rage and fury” over the alleged DSS cover-up aimed at erasing evidence they knew of the abuse and failed to act.

“I’m mad. I’m very mad,” Wijewickrama said.

Wijewickrama said criminal charges in Kina Marie’s death should have been pressed by now.

“I am absolutely stunned that based on the contents of those warrants that no one has been arrested,” Wijewickrama said.

Staff writer Quintin Ellison contributed to this report.

Relatives of a Cherokee child who died in January are publicly calling for the suspension of the Swain County Department of Social Services’ director and program manager, as well as other employees named in a State Bureau of Investigation probe into an alleged cover-up at the agency.

Nearly two-dozen family members of Aubrey Kina Marie Littlejohn came to the Swain County Commissioners meeting Monday (Feb. 28) to make their case. Speakers told commissioners that public confidence in DSS has been severely shaken. They said suspending those in charge, including Director Tammy Cagle and Program Manager T.L. Jones, will help repair the agency’s credibility in the community.

“People do feel a little tense not knowing what is going to happen with these same people still sitting in the positions that they are in,” said Ruth McCoy, a great aunt to Aubrey.

Though commissioners have no authority to suspend DSS employees directly, they could implore the DSS board to take action.

Three of the five Swain County commissioners openly agreed to do so, and a fourth seemed to indicate possible support as well.

Only Commissioner Steve Moon, who is the uncle of DSS Director Tammy Cagle, said he disagreed with suspending the employees. Moon argued with McCoy, who was speaking on behalf of the family, who are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Several DSS employees attended the commissioners’ meeting, including Cagle and Jones. The cramped quarters — only two tightly packed rows of folding chairs — created standing room only.

DSS officials seemed to know that questions regarding their employment would be broached. DSS Attorney Justin Greene addressed commissioners at the outset of the meeting, preemptively putting them on notice that the authority to make personnel decisions rests “exclusively” with the DSS board of directors and not the county commissioners.

Commissioner David Monteith was the first to weigh in after McCoy sat down.

“I myself would like to suggest to the commissioner board that these other people who have been allocated in this be dismissed with pay until charges are either brought against or cleared. I think it would be better for the whole county if this would happen,” Monteith said.

Monteith suggested the commissioners write a letter to the DSS board with a recommendation to that effect.

A DSS worker who came to the meeting offered a rebuttal from the audience.

“Excuse me, can I ask something?” she said. “How will the agency run?”

Monteith replied that replacement staff could be sent in from the state level. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, the umbrella agency over county DSS units, has offered to provide support and resources should Swain County need help, Monteith said.

DSS Board Chairman Jim Gribble countered that their board didn’t have the authority to meddle in personnel when it comes to rank-and-file employees.

“The only position the board can appoint is the director. We could appoint a temporary director,” Gribble said.

“I think that would be a start,” McCoy answered.

“Close down the DSS? Is that a start?” Moon asked.

McCoy said the state would send personnel to help run the agency if needed.

“It won’t bring Aubrey back,” McCoy said. “But you are going to see there are going to be more people come forward.”

“No, it won’t bring her back,” Moon said.

It soon became clear Moon was in the minority, however.

Commissioner Chairman Phillip Carson said he supported sending a letter to the DSS board calling for the suspension of employees involved in the SBI investigation.

“In my opinion that would be the fair thing to do until the investigation is over with,” Carson said.

Commissioner Donnie Dixon agreed.

Gribble pointed out that the DSS board won’t meet until the end of March.

“Would they consider a special session?” asked Commissioner Robert White.

Carson turned to Gribble and reiterated the question.

“Would you have a special session?” Carson asked.

Gribble pointed out the DSS board has already made a unanimous decision on how to proceed, and for now that means waiting on the outcome of the investigation before making any personnel changes.

“We felt like the ongoing investigation would yield more evidence on personnel matters than we could obtain by having our own personnel investigation, so we chose not to do a personnel investigation,” Gribble said.

He suggested the commissioners and DSS board meet to talk about the issue behind closed doors.

McCoy said if that happens, Moon should abstain from the discussion and a vote on the matter since DSS Director Tammy Cagle is his niece.

That’s when yet another DSS employee spoke from the audience.

“It is my understanding that our director is not directly involved in the investigation,” the DSS worker said in defense of Cagle. “You would suspend that person, who gives the whole agency direction?”

Carson said he was not passing judgment on guilt or innocence, but was trying to protect the integrity of the investigation.

“It needs to be investigated with no complications,” Carson said. “There is a procedure to investigations and sometimes it is just better to set everyone involved aside.”

Monteith asked whether any DSS employee has been suspended so far. Several DSS workers who came to the meeting began nodding and saying “yes,” but DSS Attorney Justin Greene jumped up and said they could not comment on an employee’s personnel status.  However, the employment status, including a suspension, of a state or county employee is in fact public record under the N.C. Public Records Law, according to N.C. Press Association Attorney Amanda Martin.

Several sources who did not want to be identified have told The Smoky Mountain News that Craig Smith, the case worker assigned to Aubrey’s case, has been suspended. However, Smith claimed to investigators he was acting on orders when he fabricated DSS records (see related article.)

Citizens ask for action against DSS

DSS Director Tammy Cagle and Program Manager T.L. Jones have not spoken to reporters since the investigation became public. Cagle did read a brief written statement at the commission meeting Monday.

“I want to ensure the citizens of Swain County that the staff of Swain County Social Services has been faithful and diligent in our duties to protect children and we will continue to do so,” Cagle said.

Last week, Greene made a similar statement to media.

“We hope this doesn’t dissuade the public from seeking services or making reports to protect the adults and children of this county,” said Greene.

But Angie Rasulo of Swain County said the allegations don’t exactly inspire confidence in the public.

“How are the people going to feel safe?” Rasulo asked.

Rasulo had an appointment at DSS the day it was raided by the SBI. She was told to come back another day. Rasulo shared what she said was a common sentiment in Swain County, that DSS is not responsive to the community. She hopes the agency sees a clean sweep.

“It’s terrible that a girl had to die to make a change,” Rasulo said. “I hope they are held accountable. They need to clean house.”

Gribble said Swain DSS has asked the state to review all pending child protective services cases to make sure they are being handled properly.

Aubrey Littlejohn’s family members weren’t convinced, however.

“How many other families are going to want to go to DSS? People will think ‘Why should we bother because they aren’t going to do anything,’” Leighann McCoy said. “How can you let them get away with this?”

The Swain County Department of Social Services falsified records relating to the abuse and neglect of a 15-month-old baby who later died, according to an investigation by the Swain County Sheriff’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation.

The specific charge being investigated is “obstruction of justice being infamous, done in secrecy and malice, and/or with deceit and intent to defraud.”

The social worker who handled the case, Craig Smith, altered his reports, falsifying a hospital visit and doctor’s exam that never occurred, according to law enforcement statements.

Smith claims he did so at the direction of his immediate superior, Candace Lassiter, according to a search warrant executed by the SBI at the DSS office in Bryson City.

ALSO: Suspicious death of 15-month-old prompts SBI to seize Swain DSS computers

DSS Director Tammy Cagle and Program Manager T.L. Jones met with Smith after he had falsified the reports, according to the warrant. Smith said Cagle told him at the meeting “we have to get everything in order and everything straight.”

The SBI seized computers and records from Swain County DSS offices this week. Workers were put on lock down during the raid and those with appointments to meet with DSS case workers had to come back another day.

Fifteen-month-old Aubrey Littlejohn was in the care of her great-aunt Ladybird Powell when she died on Jan. 10. Abuse and neglect are considered contributing factors, according to law enforcement records, but the investigation is still pending and no charges have been filed yet. The autopsy report is not yet final.

DSS had been to Powell’s trailer several times to investigate claims of abuse and neglect of children in Powell’s custody.

The investigation into Swain DSS was launched after Swain County Detective Carolyn Posey uncovered discrepancies in DSS records and found holes in the accounts from DSS social workers.

Posey had initially been assigned to investigate Aubrey’s death and determine what, if any, charges should be filed.

Over the course of the investigation, Posey encountered delays getting DSS records. When she finally got the reports she found there were missing pages and other things that didn’t add up.

For example, one report said that Aubrey had been seen by a doctor and was normal with no signs of injury. But when Posey called that doctor, she found that that the doctor in fact had never seen Aubrey.

Posey had interviewed several relatives and neighbors who witnessed abuse and neglect of Aubrey while in Powell’s care. Relatives said they had repeatedly informed DSS of the situation, made reports and requested intervention but got no response.

Information gleaned from relatives about the baby’s condition and treatment was “in direct contrast to the information provided by the Department of Social Services’ employees: Misty Tabor, Craig Smith, Candace Lassiter, Angela Biggs, T.L. Jones and Tammy Cagle,” the warrant states.

DSS Program Manager T.L. Jones and and DSS Director Tammy Cagle told Posey their agency had only received two reports of abuse and neglect, which Poesy noted was “in direct contrast” to what she had been told by relatives claiming they had made numerous reports.

Posey was aided in her investigation by Danny Cheatham, a private investigator hired by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to assist in the inquiry into Aubrey’s death.

Once Posey and Cheatham discovered what appeared to be cover-up by Swain DSS, they alerted District Attorney Mike Bonfoey, who in turn called the State Bureau of Investigation.

Jackson County commissioners are faced with a dilemma over the new Sylva library slated to open in May: either pony up more money for staff or the library will be forced to cut hours.

The new library is four times bigger than the current one, and as a result needs more staff. It needs another $170,000 to remain open the same 45 hours that it is now. That’s a 35 percent increase over the county’s current funding for the Sylva library of $500,000.

But Jackson County is facing budget shortfalls, not surpluses.

“We’ve been hit pretty hard,” Commissioner Doug Cody said. “We are taking the punches really well so far. We are trying to be creative.”

The new library will have three desks — a main check-out counter, a children’s desk and a reference desk — compared to just one at the current library. The new library also has a large computer lab.

The current Sylva library is so tiny that any of the workers behind the circulation desk can easily pop over to the computer area or the children’s section. They can be reshelving books one minute and fill in behind the counter the next.

But the new library is far more spread out. The computer lab has its own room for example. And the main adult book stacks are on a separate floor from the circulation desk.

As a result, the new library needs twice the staff: the equivalent of 15 positions compared to just seven now.

“If the funding is not increased the hours of operation will have to go down,” said Chuck Wooten, interim Jackson County manager. “I can imagine there would be a lot of pushback from the public to do that.”

More than half of county residents have library cards. The public anted up generously for the new library, a sign of its popular support, Wooten said. Friends of the Library raised $1.8 million in grants and local contributions to furnish the library.

The Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet even commissioned a fanfare to honor the library, specially written by a composer to be performed at the grand opening in June.

“I think it would be very disappointing to the people in this community to not have convenient access to their wonderful new library,” said Karen Wallace, the head of the Fontana Regional Library system. “If we don’t get an operating budget increase, they won’t have the access that the facility warrants.”

Wallace pointed to the $8 million price tag for the new library and restoration of the adjacent historic courthouse.

“It is a big investment to build that facility. To not to be able to use it to its potential would be really disappointing to people,” Wallace said.

Cody and Wooten met with Jackson librarians last week to go over the figures. Cody said commissioners will likely hold a work session on the issue to figure out what to do — one of many hard decisions as part of developing a budget for the coming fiscal year.

“I’m sure there will be some nervousness over the situation, but we just have to drop back and punt and see where we stand on this,” Cody said.

Ideally, the county could increase library hours from 45 a week to 60 a week, Wallace said. The North Carolina Public Library Director’s Association recommends that the main library in a county should be open a minimum of 60 hours.

But doing so would take another $125,000.

Wooten agrees that would be wonderful, but whether it is doable is another story.

“We are really opening our library at the worst possible time,” Wooten said.

Cody said he would like to see library hours increased as well, but probably not until the economy improves.

“I don’t see us initially getting to 60 hours. And conversely I don’t want to see them be open any less either,” Cody said. “If you only operate 30 hours, that is not giving people much opportunity to use the facility.”

Commissioner Mark Jones said the county will obviously have to give the library more money, but isn’t sure whether it will be the full $170,000. Jones wonders if there is any middle ground.

“Can we shave off a little time here and a little time there?” Jones asked. “These are tough times and we have to make tough choices.”

But Mary Otto Selzer, a volunteer with Friends of the Library, said the public wants longer hours, not shorter ones, pointing to the input gathered during focus groups held in conjunction with planning for the new library.

“One of the things we heard loud and clear from people was they would like to see the library expand its hours,” Selzer said. “We need to listen very carefully to our community to address the community’s needs. We hope the commissioners will find a way to at least maintain the 45 hours a week we are currently open.”

Selzer pointed to the current lack of evening hours. The library is never open past 6 p.m. It is only open six hours on Saturday and not at all on Sunday.

“For folks who work and working parents there is not a lot of opportunities to use the library,” Selzer said.

Library use across the country has increased during the recession. Those forced to cancel Internet service at home have turned to public computers at the library. More people are checking out movies instead of going to the video store, reading newspapers and magazines at the library instead of home subscriptions and borrowing books instead of buying them.

The library is also a place used by job seekers and those going back to school, he said.

Indeed, Wallace said the computer terminals are popular with those looking for work, since many jobs require people to fill out online applications. Wallace also said they’ve seen an increase in people who have turned to distance learning for new degrees, which require online exams.

Jones suggested enlisting volunteers. That plan has shown promise for the Green Energy Park, which attracted 45 prospective volunteers to an organizing meeting last week following news that the county would cut its funding. The Green Energy Park houses a collection of artist studios fueled by methane seeping out of decomposing trash at the old county landfill.

“Ask not what your county can do for you, but what you can do for your county,” Jones said.

Coming from behind

While another $170,000 annually is a substantial increase, Jackson librarians point out that the library is severely underfunded today. Part of the increase is merely catching up to where they should be already, according to Wallace.

When compared to surrounding counties, Jackson County libraries are indeed underfunded. Library funding amounts to $15 for each county resident. Per capita, that’s 36 percent below Haywood County and almost 50 percent below Macon County. Jackson’s library funding is 25 percent below the state average for all 100 counties.

Since the Sylva library is so small and antiquated, however, it isn’t used as much as libraries in other communities. Macon County sees nearly twice the library use of Jackson, for example.

Until now, that’s allowed the Sylva library to get by on fewer dollars.

Dottie Brunette, the head librarian in Jackson County, said she would have been hard-pressed to squeeze more staff into the existing library. There simply wasn’t enough elbow room for more people behind the small desk.

Jackson’s librarians are bracing for an explosion in library use when the new one opens, however.

Since a new library opened in Franklin in 2007, library use has shot up 50 percent. When Transylvania and Polk counties opened new libraries recently, they saw even bigger increases. The upsurge wasn’t a mere blip following the opening of a new library, but went up and stayed up permanently.

The stage is set in Sylva for an even more dramatic increase in library use than what was seen in other communities where new libraries opened. The current library is so bad, a smaller segment of the public uses it.

“The library has not been able to meet their needs. If you come to the library and can’t get what you need, after a while you just stop trying,” Wallace said.

Only 50 percent of Jackson residents hold library cards. In Macon County, that number was already 75 percent prior to the new library opening. Additional library use could only climb so high, and indeed most of the increased use in Macon came from existing cardholders simply visiting more often. But in Jackson County, the increase will not only come from more trips among existing users but from brand new users.

Wallace also pointed out that new library construction has been prominent in the public eye.

“I anticipate the numbers may be even higher in Jackson,” Wallace said. “I say that because the building of this library has had a very successful marketing campaign. And this library has been a long time coming.”

Jackson’s libraries are at the bottom of the barrel in yet another category. The volume of books and materials per capita are less than in Haywood, Macon or Swain. Again, there simply wasn’t room for stuff.

“There’s books lying across the tops of shelves because we have no room,” said Brunette.

Out of the blue?

In addition to the extra staffing, the county is on the hook for bigger heating and cooling bills, higher liability insurance and more janitors. County Manager Chuck Wooten estimates the cost of running the building will go up by $70,000 to $90,000, from $50,000 now.

Wooten, who came on board as interim county manager at the same time the new commissioners took office, said he does not know if these calculations were done previously.

“I could not find where there was an estimate of what it would be with the new building,” Wooten said.

An increase in library funding has blindsided three newly elected commissioners as they grapple with how to cut the county’s budget.

“Doesn’t seem amazing to you that this just came up? Why couldn’t this have been figured out when we thought about building the building?” asked Commission Chairman Jack Debnam. “If I got ready to build a building, I believe I would look at how much more it would take to staff and maintain it.”

Three conservative newcomers to the county board ousted their more liberal opponents in the November election, partly on the resounding Republican platform of reducing government spending.

But now this has landed in their laps, they said.

“This should have been anticipated two or three years ago when they started this project,” Cody said. “I am not trying to throw blame on anyone, but when you have a two-story building you effectively have to double your staff to keep people from carrying the place away.”

According to Tom Massie, a former commissioner who lost re-election last fall, the old board was well aware of costs the new library would require.

“We’re not stupid,” Massie said. “We knew it would cost more and we would have to rearrange funds. You do that in every budget year.”

Massie said deciding how to spend limited county money goes with the territory.

“We had our priorities and they have their priorities, and those are the tough decisions they will have to make,” Massie said.

Massie said the new board is learning that the job isn’t as easy as it looks.

“They had all the answers in the campaign,” Massie said.

Massie said the rubber will meet the road over the next few months as the new board develops a budget for the coming fiscal year.

“Come July 1, they are going to own the new budget,” Massie said.

Commissioner Mark Jones, who served on the old board with Massie and is still on there now, also said the increased costs aren’t exactly a surprise.

“We were aware that the new facility, with the size and the fact that it has multiple levels, would take additional staff,” Jones said.

Jones said when the last board embarked on the new library in 2007, they didn’t realize how much the recession would hurt county coffers.

When asked if the new library was a bad idea, neither Debnam nor Cody would go that far.

“I’m not going to go there,” Debnam said, when asked if the library shouldn’t have been built. But said “they should have considered it.”

“Regardless of how anyone feels about it, the library is there,” Cody said. “I have been through it and it is a beautiful facility. I am not going to tell you or anyone else I would have done anything any different. It is great.”

The State Bureau of Investigation raided Swain County Department of Social Services Tuesday, hauling off computers and records in an investigation allegedly tied to the death of Aubrey Littlejohn, a 15-month-old baby who died Jan. 10.

Littlejohn was brought to a hospital emergency room at 3:30 a.m. that day, according to an affidavit filed to establish probable cause by the Swain County Sheriff’s Department. The 15-month-old’s left arm was fractured, and she had a bruise on her forehead. Interviews of people staying at the residence, a singlewide trailer at 187 Kenneth Cooper Road off U.S. 19 between Cherokee and Bryson City, revealed the baby had been left strapped in a car seat for about 12 hours.

“During that time period, Aubrey was not removed from the car seat, given food or drink except for some bites from a hotdog and sips of a soda around 5 p.m. that evening. Aubrey’s diaper was not changed during this time period,” the affidavit stated.

When the baby was admitted to the hospital, she was dressed only in a t-shirt and a urine-soaked, feces-filled diaper.

“Infant was limp and very cold to the touch, skin color dusky blue,” according to the affidavit, which noted law enforcement interviews indicated “abuse and neglect” contributed to the baby’s death.

DSS workers had repeatedly been called to the home where the baby lived over the past year, but failed to remove her, The Smoky Mountain News was told.

That’s what angers David Wijewikrama, an attorney in Waynesville.

“The Departments of Social Services across the state have had needless deaths occur multiple times a year because officials involved fail to follow up and do their jobs in the necessary manner,” Wijewickrama said.

The child had been living with her great-aunt, Ladybird Powell, because the child’s mother, Jasmine Littlejohn, was in jail on unrelated drug charges, he said. While they are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Aubrey Littlejohn lived off the reservation in Swain County. That’s why Swain County DSS was the agency tasked with investigating claims of abuse.

According to Veronica Callahan, next door neighbor of Ladybird Powell, there were often lots of cars and trucks at Powell’s trailer at all hours of the night. Callahan said that children were outside the home as late as 2 a.m., and just this past fall several children were sleeping in a tent in the trailer’s backyard. Callahan said Powell would lock the children out of the house and not allow them back in.

She said sheriff’s deputies and DSS workers were at the house repeatedly responding to complaints.

“It’s horrifying,” said Callahan. “A baby has no voice. I really hope this doesn’t get washed away.”

Tuesday, Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, declined to comment directly on the investigation, but did say: “we remain committed to following through to ensure justice is served in this case.”

Additionally, Hicks said the tribe had hired a private investigator to help provide “a more comprehensive level of information in this case.”  

Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran said his department is investigating the child’s death, but has not yet determined what if any charges might be filed against her caregivers. District Attorney Mike Bonfoey also confirmed the existence of an investigation, but declined to comment further. State and local DSS officials failed to return phone calls requesting comment before press time.

Wijewickrama has been retained by the child’s mother, who, he said, is devastated by her baby’s death while in the care of a relative. She retained him in a civil capacity to look into possible negligence by DSS.

“She’s sad. She is devastated. She wants to see if there is a law that can be passed that forces DSS to immediately remove children if there are visible signs of abuse,” Wijewickrama said. “What makes me angry is that DSS went to the house of Ladybird (Powell) and removed other children. They knew she was abusive but failed to remove 15-month-old Aubrey and provide her a safe placement.”

Staff writer Quintin Ellison contributed to this report.

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.

A lawsuit waged by Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran against the county was shot down in court this week.

Cochran accused commissioners of cutting his pay in 2006 as a form of partisan retribution. State statute protects sheriffs from politically motivated pay cuts, making it illegal for county commissioners to reduce the sheriff’s compensation or allowances following the outcome of an election.

In this case, Cochran argued the all-Democratic board of commissioners retaliated against him after he narrowly beat out a long-time Democratic sheriff.

However, Cochran’s civil suit was thrown out by Judge Allan Thornburg this week following a hearing on Jan. 24. Cochran’s attorney David Sawyer said they plan to appeal the decision to the N.C. Court of Appeals.

The judge did not stipulate why he was dismissing the case, so it’s unclear which of the many defenses put forward by the county was the winning one.

One interesting argument in the case centered around whether county commissioners indeed reduced Cochran’s compensation as he claimed. While it seems like a clear-cut matter — either they cut his pay or they didn’t — it gets a little complicated.

Following an election upset by Cochran in 2006, commissioners put an end to a long-standing slush fund enjoyed by prior sheriffs. Prior sheriffs were paid a flat rate to feed jail inmates and could keep the surplus to use as they pleased, whether it was pocketing the difference or using it to subsidize operations around their office.

When making his case that the lost meal money equated to lost pay, Cochran needed to prove that previous sheriffs made a profit on the meal deal and by how much.

“The problem is we don’t know what that number is,” said Mark Melrose of Melrose, Seago and Lay, who represented the county in the suit.

Melrose said any dollar amount would be “highly speculative.”

The county never made prior sheriffs document what they were actually spending on inmates’ food, but instead dolled out a lump sum with no questions asked.

The lack of records means Cochran could not conclusively show how much previous sheriffs made on the meal deal, and thus how much he supposedly lost when it was taken away.

The previous sheriff got $10 per inmate per day. Sawyer said Cochran has complete records of his cost to feed inmates, so while the surplus made by past sheriffs remains a mystery, it would be easy to calculate what Cochran was due if the old formula was still in effect.

The state statute not only bars commissioners from cutting the sheriff’s pay, but also for reducing his “allowances.” Cochran and the county sparred over whether the inmate meal fund qualified as an “allowance.”

“His contention was that it was an allowance. Our argument was that it was a reimbursement for expenditures,” said Melrose.

Rather than paying out a lump sum, the county now reimburses the sheriff for actual food costs at the jail — but it still counts as a reimbursement, not an allowance, Melrose said.

In a dual claim, Cochran sued the county for breach of contract.  

“Cochran argued there was an implied contract based on the county’s dealing with prior sheriffs, but you can’t piggy back on top of that,” Melrose said.

The county commissioners never “implied” they would continue funding inmate meals the same way they had with prior sheriffs. In fact, government entities legally can’t make verbal promises to do business with someone, Melrose said, but must do business in the open through written public contracts.

The county argued that it had sovereign immunity in this case, meaning it could not be sued for such things. Sawyer said granting the county sovereign immunity in this case renders the state statute moot.

“If soveriegn immunity applies here, it is questionable whether there is any mechanism to enforce that statute,” Sawyer said. “We feel it is an important issue for the Court of Appeals to look at.”

But the county did not hang its hat on that defense alone, and it is ultimately not known whether it was the deciding factor for the judge.

“In order to defend the county, we had to recreate all the events of the food being supplied to the inmates for a long time to see what was the practice, what was paid, how was it paid, was there a profit. It was very fact intensive,” Melrose said.

Mike McConnell, an attorney with the same firm as Melrose, was the primary lawyer for Swain County in the case.

Lowest sheriff salary

Auditors had repeatedly warned the county the meal deal wasn’t exactly kosher and should be ended, but it wasn’t until Cochran came into office that commissioners heeded the advice. The county claimed it was simply time to embrace a new, better way of doing business.

At the time, Cochran asked commissioners for a salary increase if they were going to cut out the meal deal.

When Cochran filed the suit he was one of the lowest paid sheriffs in the state with a salary of just $38,000. He’s gotten incremental raises from commissioners since then, bringing his salary to $47,000, but he is still one of the lowest — if not the lowest — paid sheriffs in the state. His salary is the lowest according to a list of sheriff salaries put out by the UNC School of Government, but it shows no data for a few counties. Only two other counties showed sheriff salaries of less than $50,000.

In the end, the county may have been better off giving Cochran more of a raise to offset the loss of the meal deal rather than paying the costs of the lawsuit. County Manager Kevin King said he did not know how much the county had spent in legal costs defending the suit so far.

“To be honest I have not received any bills yet,” said King.

However, Melrose said the county has been billed regularly for work in the suit since 2008.

“There has been a good bit of billing,” Melrose said. “There have been three or four depositions and court hearings and time spent preparing the case. The legal arguments took a lot of time and research.”

King did not return subsequent messages and emails again requesting the cost of the lawsuit to the county. The county hopes to be reimbursed for court costs, but those amount to less than $1,000, a small sum compared to the legal fees for the attorneys.

“The sheriff is willing to talk with the county at any time and would like to resolve this in amicable but if not the appeal is the only other route that we have,” Sawyer said.

When asked whether the county was pleased the suit was dismissed, King directed questions about the lawsuit to county commissioners. Commissioner Chairman Phil Carson did not return a message.

A group of emergency room doctors has been awarded $1.6 million in a lawsuit against Haywood Regional Medical Center.

Haywood Emergency Physicians was ousted by the hospital in 2006 and replaced with a corporate physician staffing outfit before the group’s contract had expired. The group sued for breech of contract, unfair and deceptive trade practices and conspiracy in restraint of trade.

The case was heard before a three-member panel of arbitrators in mid-January. Much like a judge’s ruling in court case, the decision was binding, meaning neither side had the option of accepting or rejecting the amount of the award.

At the hearing, the hospital failed to produce any evidence that it had a good reason for ousting the ER doctors. As a result, the hospital owed the ER doctors for 18-months of lost income, the arbitrators ruled. The award will come out of the hospital’s bottom line.

Attorney Bill Cannon, who represented the group of doctors, said they were pleased with the amount. The hospital offered to settle out of court two days before the arbitration hearing, but the physicians rejected the offer as too low.

Mark Jaben, one of the ER doctors with Haywood Emergency Physicians, said the reasons given by the hospital leadership for ousting the emergency doctors at the time were “smokescreens.”

“Why did he want us out? It is a really good question I think a lot of people would say it boiled down to wanting power and control,” Jaben said. “We were in the whistle blower position.”

The lawsuit dates back to 2006 when the hospital was under different leadership. The hospital has undergone a massive transition since then, including a nearly clean sweep of top leaders and the governing hospital board.

The hospital failed federal inspections in 2007, causing it to lose its Medicare and Medicaid status and triggering an exodus of private insurers as well. The hospital essentially shut its doors for five months except for the most basic services.

As a result, the hospital leaders who had ousted the ER doctors the previous year got ousted themselves. It became clear that many of the issues raised by the ousted ER doctors — issues hospital leadership tried to silence — were in fact true.

The ER physicians enjoyed an outpouring of community support as well from those urging hospital administration not to get rid of them. But a few who believed the accusations against the group espoused by Rice apologized after the unraveling of his administration.

“People said ‘You were telling the truth and we are sorry we didn’t listen to you,’” Jaben said.

Jaben said it is a shame the community had to go through such a cataclysmic event to realize there were problems at the top.

“The full cost is enormous, well more than just the amount of the award in this one case. We trust that this final action will free the hospital of any remaining vestiges of the old guard and conclude this sad tale,” Jaben wrote in a group statement from the doctors.

Jaben said the hospital board at the time was led down the wrong path by Rice.

“I think boards have a responsibility to verify their information, to verify that things are happening the way they are being told,” Jaben said. “Clearly did not do that.”

While the medical community overwhelmingly rallied to the ER doctors’ defense, the hospital board and administration summarily dismissed their impassioned pleas. The physician community came to the sinking realization of just how little they were valued by hospital administration, Jaben said.

“The physician community had been systematically cut out of the process over the course of many years,” Jaben said.

Jaben said the new CEO Mike Poore has embraced the medical community.

“If you listen to Mike Poore’s language, he understands quite well that there has to be collaboration and cooperation with the medical staff,” Jaben said.

If Jaben could go back and do anything differently, he would have worked harder to achieve that.

“Your success lies in collaboration. At the time we did as best as we could trying to help that happen, but I think there are yet other ways we could have done a better job,” Jaben said.

Yet the records show that Rice’s administration was trying to get rid of the ER doctors prior to their firing. During the course of the lawsuit, Cannon got copies of emails between the hospital and the corporate physician staffing outfit months before the hospital pulled the trigger on firing Jaben’s group. Other evidence shows Rice had the group in his sights long before that, including a phone call from him to one of the ER doctors pledging to get even after the doctors shared a report outlining areas where the hospital needed improvement.

Rice did not return a message seeking comment prior to press deadline.

Poore said the hospital is glad to have this issue behind them.

“We understand that good relationships with all of our 230 physicians are critical in providing the world-class health care our communities deserve, and we’re happy to close this chapter,” said Poore.

Haywood Regional Medical Center is now part of MedWest, an affiliation with the hospitals in Jackson and Swain counties, and has a partnership with Carolinas Medical System out of Charlotte.

Jaben said the team of 10 ER doctors had loved living and working in Haywood County.

“This has been gut wrenching for many of them,” Jaben said. Only four have remained in Western North Carolina. The rest had to move to find work. Even those who stayed are not on the permanent ER staff of a hospital, but either went into another field of medicine or travel for work.

Good things come to those who wait.

It’s an adage Jackson County library users will need to bear in mind this spring during a month-long closure of the Sylva branch during the massive move into its brand-new, first-class digs.

Librarians face the daunting task of packing up 35,000 books in circulation at the current library and arranging them in their new home. It can’t be done while continuing to keep the doors of the library open, according to Betty Screven, public relations chair with Friends of the Jackson County Library.

{gallery}jax_library{/gallery}

Volunteers with Friends of the Library are lining up to help with the operation. In fact, they’ve already started.

They have been combing the stacks of the Sylva library outfitting each book with a special radio-frequency identification tag. The new tags will take the place of the traditional barcodes used to check out books today.

Radio-frequency tags allow entire piles of books to be scanned at once, not only making it easier to check books in and out but also to keep track of collections. Librarians can inventory of a whole shelf in seconds without ever taking a book off. Library users will even be able to check out their own books.

The technology is considered cutting edge, but making the transition to the radio-frequency tags is too expensive and time consuming for most libraries to tackle.

The new library, which was constructed as an enormous wing on the back of the historic courthouse, will be more than three times bigger than the current one. The county is spending $8 million to build the library and restore the historic courthouse.

Jackson County Friends of the Library raised $1.8 million to furnish the library — from shelving to armchairs to desks — with $400,000 of that devoted to buying new books and materials. Newly purchased library items will come already equipped with the radio-frequency identification tags.

The new library will have a soft opening sometime in May with a grand opening planned for Saturday, June 11.

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.

Rafting outfitters in the Nantahala Gorge have arrived at a compromise with summer camps and colleges vying for the chance to take kids down the Nantahala River without going through an existing commercial outfitter.

The U.S. Forest Service issues only a limited number of permits for commercial traffic on the river. Camps and colleges that don’t have a permit but want to take their kids paddling have to sign up for a trip with one of the outfitters.

A coalition of summer camps and colleges want to use their own staff, however, which often includes experienced paddlers, and avoid paying a commercial outfitter for the service of a down-river escort. They asked the forest service to up the number of permits issued on the river, setting off a months-long debate over how to balance demand on the Nantahala.

During the thick of summer tourist season, outfitter traffic on the Nantahala is akin to finely tuned, well-oiled clock gears.

An average of 200,000 people a year ran the Nantahala over the last five years — most of that crammed into a mere three months. Between 85 and 90 percent of river traffic is with a commercial outfitter, according to the forest service.

Moving thousands of rafters on and off the river in a day is no small feat given the narrow road, dearth of parking and cramped put-ins and take-outs.

While Nantahala Outdoor Center has its own take-out on its property, the rest of the raft outfitters share two take-outs.

Guides must get their loads of giddy and adrenaline-pumped rafters to the shore, out of their boat, out of their life jackets, then onto a bus — plus the rafts strapped on top — within 10 minutes to make room for the next bus waiting in the wings.

“We all work together to make sure that we are not clogging these places up. We understand the importance to make sure things move smoothly. It is a concerted effort,” said Kevin Gibbs, CEO of Wildwater and president of the Nantahala Gorge Association, an affiliation of rafters.

The same goes for put-ins, which are equally short on space.

The forest service initially considered granting up to 36 new commercial permits — compared to the 16 they have now. Doing so would have also opened the door for new commercial outfitters — not just camps and colleges — to start doing business on the Nantahala.

Rafting outfitters feared an influx of camps, colleges and new commercial guides running their own trips down the river would create an untenable free-for-all.

Guides unaccustomed to the hustle of the river would clog up the works. And guides unfamiliar with the river’s more treacherous spots could also pose safety risks, the existing outfitters argued, pointing to Big Wesser Falls just downstream of the commercial take-out.

“If you miss the take-out, you are going to want to paddle really, really hard to get to shore because there is a very large rapid just below it that no one paddles commercially,” Gibbs said. “It is very difficult, and it can be very dangerous. That is one of our initial concerns.”

Yes to kayaks, no to rafts

After studying the issue for much of the last year, the forest service decided against new commercial permits for raft trips, it announced last week.

But the forest service did make a concession that pleases camps and colleges. The forest service will issue a dozen new permits for guided kayak and canoe trips on the river. The permits will only be good Monday through Thursday, however, avoiding the busy weekends. Group size and the number of trips a year are also limited for those seeking the new permits.

Mike Wilkins, chief forest ranger for the Nantahala District, said the facilities and infrastructure in the Gorge simply can’t accommodate more traffic.

“It is really hard to move lots of people in and out quickly,” Wilkins said.

Both the outfitters and camps say the decision strikes a balance between giving camps more flexibility to take their own kids down the river yet guarding against the type of mayhem outfitters feared.

“I think that Mike listened to everybody’s concerns, not just the folks interested in coming here but the folks who are already here,” Gibbs said.

Wilkins said he wasn’t exactly aiming for a compromise, although that’s what it’s being called.

“I don’t know about a compromise but I was trying to weigh all the factors,” Wilkins said. “I guess in my mind, I wasn’t as concerned about the purely recreational use as the ability to give young people instruction.”

Wilkins didn’t want to deny a summer camp from teaching its kids how to paddle on the river.

After all Sutton Bacon, the CEO of NOC, first learned how to kayak at summer camp.

“We can all personally attest to the value of being introduced to whitewater paddling on the Nantahala at a young age,” Bacon said. “To that end, NOC strongly supports the use of the Nantahala River by a wide variety of groups and camps that expose young people to whitewater paddle sports.”

Gordon Strayhorn, president of the N.C. Youth Camp Association, said the new permits should satisfy camps for the most part. Camps are primarily interested in taking their kids kayaking and canoeing anyway — not rafting, Strayhorn said.

Strayhorn, who is the head of Camp Illahee, said paddling has been part of their summer camp program for decades. “Organized youth summer camps have been using the Nantahala River for more than 60 years and represented the first recreational use of the river, long before permits and outfitters existed,” Strayhorn said.

They have forest service permits on every other river in the region — French Broad, Ocoee, Chattooga, Nolichucky and the Pigeon. The Nantahala was the only they couldn’t run with their own guides but instead had to go through a commercial outfitter, he said.

Strayhorn said the forest service was right to open up new permits on the Nantahala.

River squatters

One logistical concern still troubles the outfitters, however. Unlike the outfitters, camps and colleges don’t have a home base in the Gorge. Where will their van drivers park for three hours while their students run the river? Where will they change into dry clothes afterward?  Where will they use the bathroom?

“Several business owners are concerned these people would come and stop at their outposts,” Gibbs said.

As the largest outfitter in the Gorge and with prime real estate on both sides of the river near the take-out, Nantahala Outdoor Center would likely be a prime target. NOC CEO Sutton Bacon doesn’t want their campus to become a staging area for other groups. Not when parking in the Gorge is at such a premium.

“Of course, we want to be as welcoming as possible, but it is also unfair to expect NOC to bear the entire burden of providing public access for all of these groups, especially if it means there is not enough parking for our own guests,” Bacon said.

That remains one of the biggest outstanding issues: what facilities will these groups use if they don’t go through an outfitters? Bacon said NOC is already getting queries from camps wondering whether they could use NOC as a staging area. But striking deals with up to a dozen individual camps or colleges would be challenging.

Bacon thinks a better solution would be giving an umbrella permit to the Youth Camp Association. NOC could then negotiate usage of its facilities with just one entity. And with one umbrella permit for all the camps, they could better divvy up use on the river to avoid all coming on the same day.

River economics

Outfitters downplayed their financial motive in opposing new commercial permits on the river. But they admitted that there is not an unlimited amount of rafting business on the river.

Wilkins said economic concerns among existing outfitters partly weighed into his decision not to allow new commercial raft companies but instead limit new permits to guided canoe and kayak trips. He realizes the existing outfitters have a lot at stake.

Outfitters made approximately $2.8 million on guided trips on the Nanty in fiscal year 2010, based on forest service data. The number only includes revenue on river trips — not T-shirts, food sales and other purchases rafters likely make.

Outfitters pay 3 percent of revenue made on guided trips to the forest service for a commercial permit.

Outfitters will obviously lose some revenue once camps can take their own kids down river. But Strayhorn said the economic benefits outweigh it.

“I don’t think camps being permitted on the river will negatively impact the economy of the region at all. I think it will improve it,” Strayhorn said.

Summer camps in Jackson, Buncombe, Transylvania and Henderson counties alone have a combined economic impact of $365 million, according to an economic impact study by N.C. State University, he said.

Out in the cold

The decision will essentially put an end to teaching trips the Carolina Canoe Club historically led on the Nantahala, according to Spencer Muse, president of the Carolina Canoe Club.

The Carolina Canoe Club holds paddling workshops and rescue training on the Nantahala River for its 1,000 members. Since participants pay to go on the trips, it counts as a commercial operation and thus needs a permit.

Supportive of the club’s mission, Nantahala Outdoor Center used to let the club do its trips under the auspice of NOC’s permit. But the forest service put an end to that three years ago.

Lacking a commercial permit of its own, Carolina Canoe Club stopped charging its members for the courses so it didn’t count as a commercial trip. But the club can’t indefinitely bear the cost of hosting the trips without being able to charge those who come, Muse said.

Muse said the handful of new permits the forest service has agreed to issue are useless for his group since they aren’t valid on weekends. The club has always done its trips on weekends — since the people going on them as well as the instructors have jobs.

Muse said the club only goes on two trips a year, and would be willing to do them outside the peak summer season, such as early May or mid-September, when crowding isn’t an issue.

“We are only talking about two weekends a year we use the Nantahala,” Muse said.

If they can’t find a solution, the club will likely move its paddling instruction weekends to the Gauley River.

“It is a little odd to have West Virginia be the location for Carolina Canoe Club’s main teaching activities,” Muse said.

How permits on the Nantahala work

Commercial outfitters must have a permit from the forest service to run raft trips on the Nantahala River. The same goes for a guide leading a group of kayakers — or even escorting a single kayaker for a paddling lesson — if money is exchanging hands.

But if your buddy owns a raft and offers to take you and a few friends on a trip down the Nanty and he doesn’t charge you for it, no commercial permit is required.

The number of outfitters on the river has dropped over the years, along with the number of permits. As outfitters have gone out of business, the forest service closed out their permit rather than opening it up to new takers.

Ten years ago, there were 21 commercial permits. Today, there are only 16.

Most permits are held by commercial raft companies, but a few do belong to institutions. Western Carolina University has a permit, for example, and is able to teach paddling to its students on the river without going through an outfitter.

By the numbers

12: outfitters based in the Gorge

16: permits to entities operating commercial trips on the river

200,000: people going down the river each year

90: percent of river traffic that goes through an outfitter

An anonymous letter alleging corruption — including bribery, embezzlement, overbilling and theft of state materials — among contractors hired to do roadside maintenance for the N.C. Department of Transportation in Haywood County has been widely circulated in recent weeks.

County commissioners, law enforcement, state politicians, media outlets and the DOT itself received copies. While the letter isn’t signed, the allegations are detailed and specific — specific enough that it has prompted the DOT to conduct an internal investigation.

“They are some serious accusations that have been made,” said Joel Sezter, head of the DOT for a 10-county area that includes Haywood.

When Setzer got a copy of the letter in late December, he assigned a staff person from his own office to start an internal investigation. But Setzer’s boss has since taken charge of the inquiry, and it is now being orchestrated out of the Raleigh office.

Terry Gibson, the State Highway Administrator in Raleigh, has pledged to get to the bottom of the accusations.

“The allegations do concern us very much. We will not stop until we are sure things are running like they ought to out there,” Gibson said. “We don’t want to hurt anyone that is innocent, but if someone is doing something that is not right we want to deal with it.”

Gibson said he assigned his Chief Engineer John Nance, essentially the second in command over the DOT, to spearhead the investigation. But he has also brought in the Inspector General for the highway department, which acts as an autonomous review body.

“We asked them to make sure it is an independent look,” Gibson said.

Setzer would not speculate on who wrote the letter. But whoever it was has a working knowledge of DOT maintenance operations. The letter mentions the names of several DOT employees and contractors, as well as specific contracts and purchases.

Gibson said chasing down claims in anonymous letters can sometimes be difficult since there is no original source to interview.

But, “This one is so specific that it should help us try to determine the validity,” Gibson said.

How aggressive DOT will be with its internal investigation remains to be seen. However, ignoring the letter — particularly since it was so widely disseminated — would have been difficult.

The letter was sent to all five Haywood County commissioners, who in turn passed it to District Attorney Mike Bonfoey.

“We don’t have the authority to do a criminal investigation as a county board. That’s a law enforcement issue. If they deem it necessary for a law enforcement investigation, that is their decision,” County Manager Marty Stamey said.

Bonfoey, in turn, passed the letter on to Sherriff Bobby Suttles.

“I sent it along to the sheriff for him to act appropriately,” Bonfoey said.

Bonfoey declined to comment on why he sent it to the sheriff rather than the SBI, which would be better equipped to handle an investigation into possible public corruption.

Sheriff Suttles said an investigation of a state agency like the DOT would have to be done at the state level, presumably the SBI, and not his office.

“I don’t see an investigation from the sheriff’s office on it at this time,” Suttles said.

Beside, since the letter was anonymous, there is no clear starting place, Suttles said.

“It doesn’t give you too much to go on,” Suttles said.

Setzer said he won’t hesitate to call for a criminal investigation by the SBI if his agency finds the allegations have any merit.

“If any laws were broken then I will be making a reference to the SBI, but I don’t if they have been yet or not,” Setzer said. “Right now it is hard to know what is accurate and what is inaccurate in that letter, and I don’t want to speculate.”

As Mike Poore waited for an elevator between floors at Haywood Regional Medical Center Monday morning, he gazed out the sixth floor window to see cars circling the packed parking lot hunting in vain for a space.

“That’s a good problem to have,” said Poore, the hospital’s new CEO.

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when the parking lot was nearly deserted. Haywood Regional had lost its Medicare status after failing a federal inspection. An exodus of private insurance companies followed, and daily patient counts plummeted to single digits.

The hospital dried up for more than three months while rebuilding its inner workings. The progress of the past year is astounding, but there remains a long road ahead. The community is pinning hopes on Poore to get it there.

Poore won’t shoulder the entire burden of rebuilding the hospital. But he could make or break the efforts. In the people he hires, the tone he sets with doctors, the course he steers in merger talks, the financial advice he gives the board, Poore holds more sway over whether the hospital succeeds than any single person.

Doctors in particular are relying on Poore’s ability to turn things around. So far like what they see.

“I think Mr. Poore has been a breath of fresh air. He is forthright and accessible and seems to be knowledgeable,” said Dr. Steven Wall, a long-time physician in the county with Haywood Pediatrics.

The sentiment seems unanimous. When asked to reflect on the hospital’s progress over the past year, Poore’s arrival appears high on most doctors’ list.

“I have high hopes for HRMC and the new leadership we have in Mike Poore and the team he is building,” said Dr. Shannon Hunter, an ENT.

Poore and his near sweep of top managers ushers in a new era for Haywood Regional. His style is vastly different from his predecessor, David Rice. Rice was commanding and authoritative, while Poore is cooperative and congenial.

The medical community harbored distrust toward Rice, but see Poore as someone who will look out for their interests.

“I think we’re still in the honeymoon stage, but I believe this administration seems to be a lot more transparent,” said Munoz. “I have heard staff say they can discuss problems and issues much more openly than the prior administration.”

Pam Kearney, a hospital board member, agreed that it’s premature to pass definitive judgment on whether Poore will succeed, since he’s just four months into the job so far. But like Munoz, Kearney believes Poore is promising.

“He seems to get along well with the hospital staff and medical staff. The comments we’ve gotten have been very encouraging, and his interaction with board members is transparent and open,” Kearney said.

Poore, 44, left a job at the helm of a five-hospital system in the greater Atlanta area to come here. He stood out in interviews, according to Dr. Henry Nathan, a hospital board member who helped hire him.

“He seemed to be very committed to wanting to do this. He was excited about the prospect of having this job,” Nathan said. Nathan said it was obvious in the interview that he knew how to run a hospital.

Poore says he was attracted to the job for the challenge and desire to make a difference.

Assembling the best

One of Poore’s greatest strengths lies in the people he’s hired. The hospital has replaced nearly a dozen department heads, vice presidents and manager types in the past year — the majority since Poore came on board. There’s a new chief finance officer and chief operating officer. New department heads are found through the hospital from human resources to nursing to the emergency room. Some jobs, like quality oversight, are still being filled.

Before Poore arrived, the hospital was run largely by Compass, a consulting group hired to rescue the otherwise sinking ship. Compass initially worked in tandem with administrators left over from Rice’s era.

When Poore’s arrived, he began building a permanent team.

“He has brought with him an excellent group of upper and middle managers,” said Dr. Richard Lang, a radiologist. “A lot of the folks he has brought with him he has known in other places. I think they look on this as a challenge and they are doing a great job.”

Poore called on people he knew from the industry for key spots in the cabinet, assembling a team with higher qualifications and experience than HRMC has seen before.

“We came because Mike asked us to,” said chief operating officer Teresa Reynolds. “We have a lot of respect for Mike. He has good business and leadership skills. He has pleasant personality. He is an easy person to get along with.”

Dr. Henry Nathan, a gastroenterologist, said Poore’s ability to attract top talent has been an asset.

“One thing that he brings to the table is his connections and knowledge of so many talented people. He can say, ‘boy, I’d like to get so and so to come work here with us,’” Nathan said.

Poore is quick to credit the longtime employees for helping to pull the hospital through.

“There are a lot of people who were here through the storm,” Poore said. “There are really conscientious smart people who take care of patients every day, and they’ve been here throughout.”

For the big picture of steering a hospital, Poore said the influx of fresh ideas from across the country that are manifesting in his new team certainly don’t hurt.

Poore has also enlisted the help of a recruiter that specializes in health care fields. That helped land one of the most important posts: the chief finance officer. Gene Winters, the CFO, is a dynamic numbers guy who relishes in saving struggling hospitals. He talks about fixing hospitals like most talk about a trip to the grocery store. Winters was attracted to the challenge of pulling HRMC up, but more importantly wanted a good community in which to raise his new son.

“It is a place where I could be challenged and also be a hero, to be honest,” said Winters, who has a connecting door to Poore’s office.

Where to start

Poore’s first day on the job in October was likely overwhelming. Cash reserves were dwindling, patient confidence was still shaky, doctors were sizing up his every move as they decided whether to stay put or jump ship, and staff were walking on egg shells in constant fear of surprise inspectors.

“One of the things I had to do was accelerate my learning. I had to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could,” Poore said. “I set up a learning plan to educate myself from people internally and externally about the hospital about all the information in the hospital.”

Poore ultimately held face-to-face interviews with 120 people in the medical community, the hospital ranks and the community at large. He asked them for their thoughts, ideas and perceptions on what the hospital needed to do. He asked them what landmines to avoid, what needed changing and how he should go about it.

That first move was savvy. It bought Poore face time with people he needed on his side: the hospital board, doctors, key staff, county commissioners and VIPs in the community.

“He was pretty smart. A lot of people come in and make changes, but the first thing he did was interview everyone he could find to find out what we knew and what we thought,” said Cliff Stovall, a hospital board member.

For most doctors, the interview was their first encounter with Poore. When Poore showed up at their office with lunch in hand, it immediately showed a marked difference from the former administration. Past CEO Rice rarely sought opinions from the medical community. In fact, some doctors feel Rice actively discouraged their input and squelched their ideas.

Trust was lacking under the old administration. But Poore’s ability to listen sent a message to doctors and staff that they could trust him.

“He met with just about every physician face to face and asked us what could he do better, how could he help improve things in the hospital,” Lang said. “I was very impressed that he was such a good communicator.”

The interviews those first few weeks set the stage for future interactions. Doctors felt valued and saw that Poore’s door was always open and he would respond to the their concerns. For example, when radiologists brought up an issue in the medical staff meeting two weeks ago, Poore took it seriously.

“He was in the radiology department the very next day when he had more time to spend on it,” Lang said.

The attitude extends not just to doctors but to the rank and file as well. Morale among nurses and staff has improved under Poore compared to Rice, according to Dr. Al Mina, a surgeon.

Mina still remembers the stinging assessment of Rice’s regime by consultants brought in to help rebuild the hospital a year ago. In a lengthy report, the Compass Group characterized Rice’s regime as a “lone ranger” dictatorship that propagated “a culture of fear.”

“In retrospect, unfortunately, I think that was an accurate assessment,” Mina said. “I don’t think Mike runs his ship in a culture of fear. He is open to suggestions, as is his team.”

The approach is one of Poore’s talents as a manager.

“I give people the tools they need to do their job,” Poore said. “I knock down barriers they aren’t able to knock down and then get out of the way and let them do their job.”

Poore said hospital staff are finally getting the opportunity to shine.

“Whereas in the past they felt like they didn’t have the support of administration,” Poore said. “They tried it once and nobody listened to them. What I am seeing now is people are stepping up and saying ‘I have an idea of how we can improve this.’”

When Poore makes rounds in the hospital, he asks employees what’s working, what’s not, and if they need anything. A believer in positive reinforcement, he also asks if there is anyone he should recognize.

When employees address him as Mr. Poore, he implores them to use his first name.

“He’s Mike to the people in the hospital, and that’s hard for them to get used to,” said Cliff Stovall, a hospital board member.

Empowering the rank and file could well be Poore’s biggest legacy.

“I think one of the main things is that we had to change the culture, and he’s gone about that in a great way by being able to communicate and listen,” said Mark Clasby, another hospital board member.

County Commissioner Kevin Ensley, who was the subject of one of Poore’s 120 interviews, feels like Poore is someone he can call with a concern. Before when Ensley heard complaints, he didn’t know what to do with them, he said.

“I just didn’t think by going to David Rice anything would get done,” Ensley said. “I think now if you complained about a certain situation things would get done.”

Taking the fall

Ironically, the hospital’s first chief of staff under Poore is one of the few remaining fans of Rice. The chief of staff is chosen by doctors from among their own ranks to serve as a liaison between them and the hospital and generally represent the doctors’ interests. It’s a duty few envy, given the time it takes away from the doctor’s own practice.

This year, the position went to Charles Thomas, a cancer doctor, who is one of the few who will stand up in support of Rice to this day.

“I do not think Mr. Rice was a bad person,” Thomas said. “I think Mr. Rice was an honorable man who made some errors. It had terrible consequences but he is and was a fine person.”

Thomas remembers the dire straights the hospital was in when Rice arrived in the early 1990s. Rice was the hero then who brought it back into solvency, investing in equipment and recruiting doctors heavily.

“The hospital was almost bankrupt,” Thomas said. “Mr. Rice came here and did an awful lot of wonderful things. There was huge progress.”

Thomas credits Rice with growing the number of doctors in the community, modernizing the hospital and expanding the medical care it offered. Patients and revenue followed. Rice had built a war chest of $19 million in cash reserves the day he left. Rice was saving it to build a surgery wing — including a floor of offices for himself and the administration.

But that money is nearly all gone now, spent to keep the hospital afloat during the year since the crisis.

“I grimly joked we should be grateful to him that the money they saved up got us through,” Thomas said.

Rice’s drive to build ultimately led to his downfall. His energies initially were dedicated to building a quality hospital. But as he amassed more and more power for himself, he pushed aside the interests of doctors, nurses and even patients to make way for his own agenda, according to his critics.

While Thomas is quick to defend Rice, he has also embraced Poore. The two can be spotted regularly over breakfast in the hospital cafeteria.

“He is a good fellow to meet even at 7 a.m.,” Thomas said. “He is bright, energetic, well-educated has a good depth of experience and has a commitment to our hospital.”

Dr. Richard Lang, another doctor who sympathized with or at least understood Rice’s point of view, called Poore an “extremely bright spot” in the hospital’s past year.

A better relationship

A pivotal moment for the hospital’s future is whether new doctors come here, and that could largely depend on whether they like Poore. Dr. Steven Wall with Haywood Pediatrics said Poore proved helpful in recruiting a new pediatrician recently. Poore spoke to prospective doctors enthusiastically and ultimately helped land one, Wall said.

The relationship between doctors and a hospital can be tumultuous or indifferent, cooperative or combative, one of admiration or mutual dislike. Under Rice, it was strained at best. Many doctors lived in fear of retaliation for speaking out.

Rice couldn’t exactly fire a doctor — they aren’t employees of the hospital. But doctors rely on the hospital for space and equipment to perform surgeries, deliver babies, run tests, take MRI’s and generally care for their patients beyond office visits.

Should a hospital pull a doctor’s privileges to practice there, it would effectively run them out of the community. Many doctors feared Rice might ruin their reputations in this manner if they expressed concern over the direction he was steering the hospital.

Rice once appointed a committee of doctors to recommend the best software to implement electronic medical records hospital-wide. When he didn’t like the top picks, he disbanded the committee, appointed a new one stacked with his own people and chose the system he wanted all along.

Doctors who were upset by Rice’s policies were barred from going over his head to the hospital board. Rice conveyed the attitude that everyone was dispensable and didn’t seem to care if doctors or nurses walked, chalking them up to a poor fit with the hospital anyway.

The broken relationship between the hospital and administration needed fixing, Poore said.

“There was no basic level of trust in the organization,” Poore said. “I told the medical staff I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to let me earn your trust.”

Poore also found the lack of communication troubling. The organizational structure was permeated with what he calls “silos.”

“There were silos where the executive teams did not communicate,” Poore said. “They felt these are my departments and I take care of them and these are your departments and you take care of them.”

While Rice controlled the flow of information, Poore encourages it.

“We are constantly receiving emails from him with information about what’s going on with affiliation, with inspections, with specific guidelines. There is much more communication,” said Dr. Munoz, the pathologist. The emails from Poore average twice a week, but Munoz can’t remember ever getting one from Rice.

Poore keeps staff informed by holding what he calls town hall meetings three times a year. It’s not an uncommon practice — West Care’s CEO Mark Leonard holds them with each shift every quarter. But Rice rarely took the podium in front of employees for a state of the hospital report.

Poore has been willing to take his show on the road as well. In the aftermath of the crisis, Haywood County commissioners demanded that hospital leaders to make regular progress reports at their meetings, a practice Poore continued after taking the helm.

“We haven’t even asked him a couple times and he’s just showed up,” said County Commissioner Chairman Kirk Kirkpatrick. “I am impressed with his willingness to come before the board of commissioners and explain exactly what is going on with the hospital in a matter of fact and truthful way.”

Surgery center

Poore has already proved willing to cooperate with doctors on a major front: a new surgery center. The hospital has long needed a makeover of its surgery wing.

For years, several doctors tried to make the case for a joint venture with the hospital and physicians. They would share construction costs and run it together as business partners. But Rice preferred to go it alone, with the hospital building and running it all on its own.

“There was a huge wall,” said Dr. Chris Catterson, an orthopedist. “We got shot down very quickly. That’s not the case now.”

Unlike Rice, Poore is open to the idea of a joint venture, and not just because the hospital no longer has money to go it alone.

“It is important to me to make sure we have physicians involved,” Poore said.

The hospital and interested doctors are splitting the cost of a feasibility study. It will determine whether there’s enough demand in Haywood County for a surgery center, and if so, what model would work.

Who’s Poore?

Poore set out in college to become an orthopedic surgeon. He had been a heavily-recruited football player in high school but tore up his knee. A series of surgeries landed him in the care of doctors and nurses and the halls of hospitals during an impressionable time, driving him to combine his new-found admiration of health care with his love for sports.

But in college at Auburn, the dreaded organic chemistry course frustrated his plans to become a doctor.

“It kicked my tail,” Poore said. “I started looking around for another career, but I really liked health care.”

Perusing course catalogs, he signed up for classes in health administration instead. What sealed the track was a summer internship at the university hospital. Poore found he loved walking through the doors of a hospital each morning.

“It’s the people in the hospital. There is a different culture there. They go into the health field because they want to help other people. It’s that culture that I love,” Poore said.

Poore made the dean’s list for the next three semesters.

“I was so on fire after that,” Poore said. “I knew that was what I wanted to do.”

Poore got his first job as a hospital administrator at the age of 22. It was several years later before Poore refined his definition of a hospital administrator, though, when his kids were little and asked him what he did at work.

“I told them my job was to take care of the people who take care of people,” Poore said.

Poore’s bible when it comes to hospital leadership is called Hardwiring Excellence by Quint Studer. Poore buys copies in bulk, passing them out to each hospital board member and his management team. The book lays out five pillars of a hospital that must be keep in sight at all times.

During his first month at HRMC, he shared the five pillars with the entire staff during a series of town hall meetings. Poore’s talk on the five pillars has also become a requisite part of orientation for every new hire.

Poore likes the community so far. His three children attend local schools. His wife, Penny, has a seat on the hospital foundation board.

Poore was well-liked at the hospital he left. His going away gift from his old employees occupies prime real estate on his desk along with a photo of Poore driving his antique Corvette in a hometown parade with a bouquet of balloons.

During his first weeks on the job, Poore was talking to a doctor back home about the challenge he faced here convincing the medical community to trust him.

“He said ‘I’ll come up there, I’ll tell them,’” Poore recounted.

People have been impressed not just by Poore’s attitude, but his skills as well. He has been invaluable in talks with larger hospital systems about a possible merger with HRMC.

HRMC was well into talks with other hospitals when Poore was hired. Poore’s first brush with the affiliation team was during such a talk with a prospective partner.

“I can remember sitting across from him and thinking ‘This guy knows what he is talking about,’” said County Commissioner Chairman Kirk Kirkpatrick, a lead player on the affiliation team. “He immediately added a lot to our committee.”

Poore, with the help of his CFO Gene Winters, has made big strides on the financial side as well. HRMC is not only breaking even, but making a few cents. It’s an area everyone is watching.

“You also have to be impressed with the bottom line,” Lang said. “Nothing has overtly changed except the management, and yet we have stemmed the flow of losses every month and are showing a small profit. It won’t be enough to keep us going for 10 years, but it is real progress.”

(To comment on this story, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Last February, a crisis landed on the doorstep of Haywood Regional Medical Center.

After failing federal inspections, the hospital lost its Medicare and Medicaid status, followed by an exodus of private insurance companies. The hospital effectively shut its doors aside from delivering babies and treating dire emergencies.

The community was scared, confused and angry, confronted with the very real scenario of losing their only local hospital. The future looked bleak and the road ahead a long one.

But a year later, the hospital has bootstrapped itself back into solvency.

Patient count is approaching pre-crisis levels. The hospital employs only 20 fewer people today than a year ago with the equivalent of 748 full-time staff. And after nine months of financial losses, the hospital is not only breaking even but slowly putting money back in the bank.

The hospital’s cash reserves plunged so low during the past year that it had less than a month of operating revenue left. Another few weeks, and the hospital wouldn’t have been able to keep the lights on or make payroll.

“I don’t think people realize how close to the brink this hospital was,” said Mike Poore, the hospital’s new CEO. “We had no backup plan. Our reserves had been depleted. There was absolutely no margin of error. Any bump in the road could be bad. We could have tripped and fell.”

While the hospital’s Medicare status was restored in the nick of time, it was an amazingly fast turnaround.

“That was a huge thing to address the issues and correct them and get it back so quickly,” said Dr. Chris Catterson, an orthopedist. “To my knowledge we are the fastest to ever turn that around.”

The medical community has mixed feelings on whether the hospital is better off today because of what it went through. For critics of the former CEO David Rice, the crisis seems like the only way to shake the hospital free of his hold. Rice had co-opted the hospital board and intimidated the medical community. He had amassed an untouchable level of power over the hospital.

“If you’d tried to get rid of David Rice a couple weeks before the crisis, there would have been a firestorm,” said County Commissioner Kevin Ensley.

The crisis awakened the hospital board and county commissioners to the problems within the administration, said Dr. Luis Munoz.

“It is sad it had to go through that, but I think quite honestly no change would have occurred if we had not been decertified,” Munoz said. “I think the road we were heading down before 12 months ago was not a road most of us wanted to travel. I believe we are headed in much better direction now.”

But whether it was worth the financial hit the hospital took in the process remains to be seen, Munoz said.

Like many doctors, Munoz was depressed last year. The hospital they’d invested their careers around, the community their families had grown to love, the patients they dedicated their waking hours to — all of these were thrown into turmoil and jeopardy. Today, the future is a far rosier place.

“We aren’t in debt and we are generating a profit and are a very viable entity and are getting busier on a monthly basis. I would like to think that is a trend,” Munoz said. “If that’s the case, we may not be out of the woods but we are sure headed in that direction.”

Many doctors believe the hospital will come out better.

“The hospital has become an even stronger entity,” said Dr. Charles Thomas, a cancer doctor and the hospital chief of staff. “I do think we have become a bit of the band of brothers, as Shakespeare said. I think there is the mentality that we came through this together. We have a lot of camaraderie and a very tight team relationship.”

As hospitals struggle under the economy, the crisis suffered by Haywood Regional might actually position it to weather the storm better than most, said Dr. Shannon Hunter, an ear, nose and throat specialist.

“I think what makes us stronger is a sense of pride and ownership in our community hospital,” Hunter said.

Many argue that the hospital pulled through the crisis thanks to the doctors who stuck by it. Only four left, all with bona fide excuses like moving closer to family, going back to school or pursuing a fellowship.

“The fact that we lost so few during the crisis is a testament to our desire to serve this community,” Hunter said.

Munoz agreed.

“We really struggled last year to figure out ways we could keep going, but it is a testimony to the support the medical staff has with each other that we weathered the storm and didn’t bail out,” Munoz said.

It wasn’t easy, however.

“Certainly the first half of the past year was pretty rough, trying to scramble for a place to do surgery and a place to take care of Haywood County citizens,” said Dr. Al Mina, a surgeon.

In an amazing show of generosity, neighboring hospitals like WestCare and Mission opened their doors to Haywood doctors, giving them somewhere to treat their patients.

“It is funny how you find out who your friends are when you have a crisis,” said Dr. Henry Nathan, a gastroenterologist who was put on the hospital board after the crisis.

Restoring confidence

A big challenge facing the hospital was restoring confidence in the community. Doctors had braced themselves for the worst, wondering how long it would take for patients to trust HRMC again and whether they would go out of business in the meantime. The hospital dug in for a long tough slog to restore confidence.

“I think it is a little bit at a time. I am a realist to know you can’t just flip a switch and everyone change their opinion,” Poore said. “It is one patient at a time.”

The return of patients to the hospital has been better than most doctors or the administration could have hoped.

“I think that has turned out as good or better than I thought it might,” Nathan said. “It could have been that we had a hard time to get our patients to come back and use our hospital, but it doesn’t seem to have been too difficult.”

Nathan said the community has shown it values a local hospital and prefers to get their care close to home.

A nearly clean sweep of upper level management has helped the public perception of a makeover. The former administration bore the brunt of blame for the hospital crisis. They were lambasted by consultants hired to remake the hospital. The media, the public and medical community quickly followed suit.

With nearly a dozen new vice presidents and department heads already hired or in the process, the public perceives major change. There was a similar sweep of the hospital board, with only three of the 10 board members held over from the old administration.

Some in the community never lost confidence or doubted the quality of care provided at HRMC, Mina said. Those who did are coming around.

“I think they are getting more comfortable with it but not completely restored,” Munoz said.

But in some ways, the job of instilling confidence will never be finished.

“When you have a bigger institution within 30 minutes from here, you always have something to prove, so that might be part and parcel of what we have to do,” Mina said.

Residents of Haywood County enjoy a high percentage of doctors trained in the United States. The percentage of doctors here that graduated from American medical schools rather than abroad is among the highest ratio in the country.

Another factor is the strong referrals from family doctors to specialists practicing at HRMC, whether for gall bladder surgery or hip replacement, Nathan said. Patients will typically take the referral advice from their primary care doctors.

Patient numbers

Inpatient numbers — those admitted to the hospital overnight — hovered around 70 per day this month. It’s on par for February of last year before the crisis hit, but that month had been a slow one and makes for a less than ideal comparison. It will take a consistent census of 75 to 80 patients to truly claim a return to pre-crisis numbers.

There’s another factor skewing the numbers. Of the 70 admitted patients Haywood Regional had as of Monday, a dozen were registered to a new mental health wing. That wing wasn’t here last year, flawing the comparison. Remove the mental health patients from the equation and the hospital hasn’t fully rebounded.

A testimony to the low numbers: an entire wing of the fifth floor remains closed. Even prior to the crisis, however, patient count would ebb and flow, prompting the closure of a floor.

The hospital is outfitted to handle 137 patients — that’s with every crib in the nursery filled, every labor and delivery room and every bed in ICU.

Meanwhile, outpatient surgery is still off by about 15 percent over this time last year, as are emergency room visits. Of course, hospitals everywhere are seeing a similar trend due to the economy as people put off care they can’t afford.

Poore has been grappling with how to weigh the numbers.

“One, are we measuring the same thing as was measured last year? Two, how much is a hangover from decertification? And three, how much is the economy?” Poore said. “The difficult thing with stats like this, is you don’t know what you don’t know. You are trying to prove a negative — you are trying to prove who’s not coming to you.”

Building a better way

Doctors are united in a feeling that the decertification a year ago was overly harsh and undeserved.

“For whatever reason, it seemed extreme,” said Dr. Chris Catterson, an orthopedist. “If I thought HRMC was a bad hospital or I weren’t happy with the way my patients were treated, I wouldn’t be here.”

Thomas, HRMC’s chief of staff, believes the hospital was penalized for picky things.

“The quality of patient care, the commitment and compassion has never been a question and has always been a priority and always been well done,” Thomas said.

Despite the hard feelings over the situation, doctors are proud of how quickly the hospital turned things around. They overhauled patient procedures, hired a new slate of administrators, appointed a new hospital board, put nurses through rigorous training, and passed new inspections.

“It is pretty miraculous,” Nathan said.

Doctors unanimously cited improvements in the system of checks and balances that govern patient care as one of the top accomplishments of the past year.

“Over the last several months I have noticed a huge improvement overall in the morale of employees and nurses, and in putting together systems for patients being our number one goal,” said Mina.

Thomas said there is universal intolerance among nurses and doctors for anyone who doesn’t follow procedures.

“I think that has permeated our staff,” Thomas said. “I think there has been a marked dedication, people attending lots and lots of 7 a.m. meetings.”

Some might argue HRMC is the least likely place for a patient mishap or error — just like the safest place to stand in a lightning storm is somewhere lightning has struck before.

Since the decertification, HRMC has passed three subsequent inspections, one earlier this month.

“The surveyors were highly complimentary,” Nathan said. “We can be proud of that. It doesn’t mean you can let down. As Poore says, you have to be ready every day to get a spot inspection and not just get ready when you know they are coming.”

Value where it counts

A leading contributor to the crisis was overtaxed nurses who weren’t careful enough in administering medication, the main sticking point cited by inspectors. At a management level, the system of checks and balances wasn’t working. Nurses knew this, but when they took complaints to their superiors, their concerns were squelched or buried.

Add to that a large number of traveling nurses, pinch hitters in essence. There had been an exodus of nurses from HRMC blamed on an oppressive climate created by management. The hospital had turned to a greater number of outside nurses contracted to fill shifts on demand but who weren’t as familiar with the workflow procedures.

Even more nurses left during the decertification, forcing the hospital to rehire large numbers in the past six months.

There is an industry wide shortage of nurses, posing an even greater challenged. But luckily, that is Poore’s forte. Poore came from Atlanta, considered one of the most competitive markets for nurses.

“But I had waiting lists for nurses to get into our hospital,” Poore said. Poore focused on creating an environment where nurses would want to get up in the morning and come to work.

As far as that last point, wages were raised at HRMC for the experienced nurses. One problem plaguing HRMC was nurses coming there to start their career, then jumping to higher paid jobs once they got a few years experience. So that upper bracket was targeted with pay increases to keep them from jumping.

By December, HRMC was no longer contracting with agencies to supply nurses.

“That was one of the key issues,” said Munoz. “You have to rely on nursing staff that is permanent and not in constant transition. That is a big plus.”

Poore claims the hospital didn’t lower its standards to hire so many so quickly. In fact, one thing working in his favor was the high number of nurses who still lived here but had left to work at neighboring hospitals. With the old regime gone, they were willing to come back, which gave hiring numbers a boost.

There was still a fair share of new grads, so Poore created for the first time a position dedicated solely to nurse training.

Another big push was to empower nurses and make them feel valued.

“They’ve worked very hard to make the nurses able to do their job with less impediments,” Nathan said.

Recruiting doctors

One of the top challenges that lies ahead is recruiting new doctors to the community.

“Our challenges are like anyone else’s in the country. There is a growing demand and not enough doctors,” Poore said.

The list Poore rattled off included orthopedics, urology, general surgery, cardiology, pulmonology and family practice. The list has no particular order. The hospital is recruiting them all simultaneously.

Recruiting is endless for any hospital. Despite the obvious cloud over the hospital the past 12 months, six new doctors relocated here, from an orthopedist to a pediatrician to a family doctor.

But it would be natural for any doctor to be leery of coming here given the events of the past year, especially since so few hospitals have ever lost their certification.

“That bad rap is going to last a little bit and is going to hurt our recruitment efforts,” Munoz predicted.

Dr. Henry Nathan said the right doctors, especially those looking for somewhere to raise a family, will realize the value of making a community like Haywood County home.

“Ultimately we just need to find the physicians who want to live here,” Nathan said.

Thomas thinks every doctor should want to come here.

“We are a growing, prosperous, desirable community,” Thomas said. The hospital is in a great building, is well equipped and faces no debt.

Fresh out of school, doctors already have large debt. Setting up a new practice and building a patient base can be more than they want to bite off, making a small community like Haywood a hard sell.

“Some of these doctors come out of medical school with a debt of $200,000,” Lang said. “With their overhead they cannot afford to practice. We have to fix this and make it possible for them to practice economically.”

One draw for young physicians coming here could be stepping into an active and tight-knit medical community.

Poore has heaped accolades on the medical community since arriving at the helm in October. When asked in a recent interview about surprises he has confronted since his arrival, he cited the dedication of the medical community.

“Often times they are so busy with their practices they don’t get as involved in the hospital as this staff does,” Poore said. “I’ve never been in a hospital that had such an involved and committed medical staff.”

(To comment on this story, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Jerry Span stared down the sign post for Old Settlers Trail. The temperature registered a mere 6 degrees, and the 17 miles of frozen trail stretching before him through a remote corner of the Smokies loomed large in his mind.

As the outdoor director for Fontana Village, Span’s job was leading hikes. This one had been on the schedule for months, but only one other hearty soul showed up.

“We can do this,” Span thought, hitching up has backpack and thinking of the body heat that would warm his limbs once he got moving.

The hike was one of 75 Span pledged to guide this year in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When he pitched the idea of “75 for the 75th” both his boss at Fontana Village and the park service applauded.

But less than two months into the taxing project, the realities of the intensive schedule were starting to sink in. The hikes criss-cross every corner of the park. Cataloochee one week, Fontana the next, with a jaunt up Deep Creek squeezed in between. With only 52 weeks in a year, Span had to double up on two hikes a week for much of 2009.

The line-up leaves little wiggle room for canceling a hike and still meeting the goal of 75. Thus the onward-and-upward mantra at Old Settlers trailhead earlier this month.

Span has just one comrade in arms for all 75 hikes — Cheryl Morgan, a local woman. But Span didn’t expect many takers for the full line-up. He mostly hopes to be an inspiration for people to kick their hiking up a notch.

In particular, it will help those striving for their 900-miler status: an elite title for those who have hiked all 900 miles of trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“The logistics of doing all 900 miles is a nightmare. I’ve talked to a lot of people who say they’ve been working on it for 15 years, so this helps with logistics,” Span said.

“For people who had been thinking about starting, this gives them an incentive.”

The hikes include a shuttle service, making transport to far-flung trails on the Tennessee side of the park easier to get to. It also helps with long trails, which are hard to accomplish solo if you have to hike back out the same way you came. Those on Span’s hikes will benefit from two vehicles, allowing a shuttle between the trailhead and terminus. The cost of the hike if you ride along in the van is $15 per person.

The hikes are organized through Fontana Village and its hiking club, called Fontana Hiking Club. Span organized the hiking club last year, attracting people from across the region for guided treks.

Mapping out the year of hikes was a challenge in and of itself. Longer hikes were more suited to summer when there’s more daylight. Span studied each trail description before penciling it in. Take Eagle Creek, for example, with more than a dozen stream crossings.

“We put that in the summer because we definitely don’t want to be getting our feet wet in the winter,” Span said.

With the worst of winter hopefully behind them, Span is looking for participation on the hikes to ramp up, especially as attention surrounding the park’s 75th anniversary culminates moving toward summer. If Span is still around, just look out for the 100th.

One of three hospitals courting Haywood Regional Medical Center and WestCare for a partnership has dropped out of the running.

That leaves Mission Hospital of Asheville and Carolinas HealthCare System, a 23-hospital conglomerate based in Charlotte, still in contention. Both have submitted formal proposals, kicking off the next round in the lengthy affiliation process.

WestCare and Haywood Regional have each appointed blue-ribbon committees to steer the process. They will hold a joint meeting Monday (Feb. 16) to review the proposals and kick off discussions of which one is best. The formal proposals are a follow-up to talks held with the entities last summer.

While there’s only two left at the table, others would likely be interested in a partnership with Haywood Regional and WestCare. But invitations were only extended to the three. A fourth was ruled out following the discussions last summer, and others were ruled out earlier in the process.

It could be another six months before WestCare and Haywood Regional have made their decision. They have to weigh what each brings to the table, from medical expertise to a cash infusion, said Mike Poore, CEO of Haywood Regional.

An affiliation could follow a tier of options: an outright merger, a long-term lease, a year-to-year contract or some sort of loose partnership.

While playing Novant and Carolinas against each other would certainly give the home hospitals leverage in the negotiations, Haywood and WestCare still have plenty of bargaining power. If neither proposal meets the standard they want, they can simply choose none of the above, said Haywood County Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick, an integral player on the steering committee.

“If either is not beneficial to both Haywood and WestCare then we have to reconsider,” Kirkpatrick said. “It would be bad business not to.”

If neither of the large entities works out, Haywood and WestCare could still pursue a partnership of their own without hitching up to a larger entity.

“I feel like we have a qualified and competent CEO at Haywood and West Care. If they can put something together for the benefit of the entire community they will,” Kirkpatrick said.

Conservative times

Novant will not say exactly why it pulled out, although the economy is a likely culprit. Novant operates Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem and a host of smaller hospitals across the state.

A spokesperson for Novant said the hospital was honored to be a top contender, but could not over extend itself at the moment.

“After careful evaluation, we concluded that we needed to focus on our current commitments to capital projects,” said Freda Springs, media spokesperson for Novant.

Novant is building brand-new hospitals in Kernersville and Brunswick County, both in the ballpark of $100 million. Springs said the hospital would not comment further.

Neither Poore nor Mark Leonard, WestCare’s CEO, had additional insight as to why Novant dropped out.

“That is for them to explain if they choose to explain it,” Leonard said.

The letter from Novant announcing its withdrawal was only two paragraphs. Poore speculated, however, that is was likely the economy.

“They are like everybody else, trying to look at the economy and trying to decide what the future is going to be and none of us really know that,” Poore said.

If hospitals are reining in their resources, the deals on the table today might not be as good as they would have been two years ago, or two years from now. But Poore said there is no way of knowing that.

Poore’s bottom line: “This hospital is going to survive and thrive no matter what the affiliation is.”

Secret for now

For now, the public is largely in the dark about the nature of the proposals, or even what type of affiliation WestCare and Haywood are willing to entertain. WestCare and Haywood won’t release the letters sent to Mission, Carolinas and Novant inviting them to make a pitch — which would likely shed light on exactly what the home hospitals hope to get out of the deal.

They also won’t make public the proposals that came back from Mission and Carolinas. Carolinas and Mission don’t want their private business information shared, and might not have sent proposals if they thought they would be made public, Poore and Leonard said.

“Although we are bound by confidentiality agreements to not give out details of the proposals, we will continue to let the community know about the evaluation process and where we are in it,” Leonard said.

The process is fraught with complexity, with each entity forced to share inside details of their operations to accurately size each other up, but wishing they didn’t have to. While Haywood and WestCare shared information with Carolinas and Mission so they could craft their pitches, it’s not being swapped with each other. For now, the two are still technically competitors.

Another factor in play is anti-trust laws. If Haywood and WestCare joined, especially with Mission, they could be subject to anti-trust regulations.

“We are trying to deal with a pretty complicated situation. There are a lot of moving parts,” Poore said. “We have been very forthright — as much as we can — during the whole process.”

Many in the medical community have expressed concern over an affiliation with Mission, fearing it would steal local specialists and siphon the most profitable operations away to the flagship in Asheville. Mission has insisted it wouldn’t do that, and they are still considered in the running.

“It will be premature to say one organization has a lead over the other at this point,” Leonard said. Besides, the decision rests in the hands of WestCare’s and Haywood’s hospital boards, he said. They likely have a long way to go before reaching a final decision.

Depending on the arrangement, Haywood Regional Medical Center could face an added layer of scrutiny, and a significant one at that. If the arrangement takes the form of merger or long-term lease, final approval rests with county commissioners.

Haywood Regional is a public hospital, and state statute gives final authority to the county’s elected leaders rather than the appointed hospital board. The statute also requires all proposals for an affiliation — not just the one the hospital says it wants — to be made public so county residents can see for themselves the options on the table. It also requires two formal public hearings to provide for public input.

Poore said once the hospital gets further along with its own decision, it will begin following the state statute requiring public involvement.

Why affiliate?

Health care conglomerates, often organized under one flagship hospital, are increasingly common. On the other hand, rural hospitals flying solo are increasingly rare.

“The growing demands of providing healthcare have jeopardized the mission of small rural hospitals,” said WestCare CEO Mark Leonard.

Smaller hospitals are struggling to stay relevant in the rapidly changing world of health care. Doctors are more specialized, while equipment is more sophisticated and expensive. Theoretically, a larger patient base — achieved by pooling patients from more than one county — can justify the cost of providing the service. Those who don’t band together but opt to compete can end up unable to provide an advanced level of health care.

The economy has exacerbated the challenges, as more patients fail to pay their medical bills or turn to the emergency room for basic treatment, Leonard said.

Mountain bikers face a long, steep climb in their fight to see more trails opened to tires in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

One of the major hurdles facing the sport is stereotypes, said Kent Cranford, a mountain biker and owner of Motion Makers bike shop in Sylva.

“People have images from TV that somebody is going to come jumping over their head or screaming by with tattoos and piercings all over,” Cranford said. “This is not a Mountain Dew commercial. Most people are effectively hiking on wheels. They want to get out in the backcountry and see the wilderness, too.”

Mountain biking would allow people to see more of the park, a lot of which is out of bounds due to distance.

“As big as that park is, penetrating in 20 miles is not something you can do without staying overnight,” said Timm Muth, a mountain biker who lives near Sylva. “But on a bike 10 miles in and 10 miles back out is very doable in a day, and it would make the park more accessible to a lot of people.”

Pam Forshee, a mountain biker in Franklin, said she rarely visits the Smokies now.

“There is nothing for me other than hiking. If I could go over there and hike and bike and camp for the weekend it would be heaven,” said Forshee, who runs Smoky Mountain Bicycles in Franklin with her husband, Dave.

“I don’t understand why the national parks have not allowed bicycles in the park all these years. We have as much right to be on the trails as anyone else.”

Cranford is a member of the International Mountain Biking Association, which has been lobbying for bike access in national parks for years. Cranford thinks they are steadily chipping away at the barriers shutting out bikes.

“It is wrong thinking to think a trail can just be this, or just that. It is all of our land,” Cranford said.

But many of the hikers and nature lovers who currently enjoy the trails of the Smokies don’t want to see mountain bikes join the mix. Reasons include wear and tear on the trails, the risk of collisions and what many consider a more intrusive form of recreation.

Greg Kidd, senior program manager with the National Parks Conservation Association Asheville office, agreed that nearby national forests provide ample opportunity for mountain bikers and a host of other recreational uses including like hunting and kayaking. But parks aren’t the place for such a smorgasbord.

“The fact is that national parks are a place apart. They are designed for a different kind of experience,” Kidd said. Besides, “The park doesn’t even have the resources to maintain the trails as currently used.”

Horses and bikes

Mountain bikers pushing for access in the Smokies often point to horses on the trails and ask: why them and not us? Horseback riders are allowed on approximately half of the park’s 800 miles of trails, with the greatest percentage being on the North Carolina side of the park.

“I think it is unfair they grandfather horses into the park and won’t allow bikes as well,” Muth said. ”Certainly any trails that are already open to horses should be open to mountain bikes. Mountain bikes have much lower impact on the trail surface than a horse.”

The mechanics of a horse hoof versus a bike tire are quite different. The horse rotates its hoof as it makes contact with the ground, gouging up the trail bed in the process. The loose soil is then more vulnerable to erosion. Mountain bikes, on the other hand, compact the soil and harden the trail’s surface, helping it stay put.

“Horses kick up the terrain a lot more than bikes do,” Forshee summed up.

But Kidd disagrees with the bikers’ line of thinking.

“Certainly there is no question that horses have an impact on the trail. But if we increase the types of uses — like bicycling — that would certainly just exacerbate the problem,” Kidd said.

Not to mention the sheer number of mountain bikers compared to horse owners, Kidd said.

“Arguably with the growing popularity of mountain biking, the amount of potential mountain bike use on those trails would dwarf the amount of horse use,” Kidd said.

But the flip side is mountain bikers would help take care of the trails they ride, Cranford said.

“That is the upside. If they let mountain bikes in, they work on trails,” Cranford said. “Ask the forest service how they feel about mountain bikers and they’ll tell you they love them because they come in like crazy to work on trails.”

Sharing the trail

Mountain bikers aren’t surprised when they encounter a backlash.

“You often have different user groups who want to be selfish and keep places to themselves,” Muth said.

But Forshee pointed to the arrangement at Tsali — where trails are designated for mountain biking and horseback riding on alternate days — as proof it can work. Even sharing the same trail, it could work, she said.

“It is a matter of using caution and proper etiquette,” Forshee said.

That etiquette calls for bikers to yield to horses, and for good reason, Muth said.

“I’ve seen guys go flying by a horse within a couple feet. They say ‘I’m not going to ride into the horse,’ but that’s not the point. You are going to scare the heck out of them,” Muth said. When they get spooked, they could buck their rider.

Instead, mountain bikers should always come to a stop, get off their bikes and offer a greeting.

“The talking helps because the horses recognize you are another person. When you are on a bike they can’t figure out what the heck all that stuff is,” said Muth.

Muth generally says “hello” then asks the horseback riders how to handle getting past. If they have skittish horses, they might ask the bikers to scoot off the trail while they navigate by.

“They are very appreciative of this,” Muth said of his approach. “Different user groups need to take the time to understand what each others needs are out there.”

While most of Muth’s encounters are friendly, there have been exceptions. In an extreme case, he came upon hunters at Tsali who stood across the trail with their guns and wouldn’t let him pass. On another occasion, his wife and son ran into a hunter who was put out by the their presence and fired shots into the air as they rode away.

Safety first

An oft-heard argument by those opposed to mountain biking is the fear of collisions.

“Part of what is fun about mountain biking is moving at a fast clip. If a bicyclist comes screaming around a bend on a trail and an unsuspecting hiker happens to be walking up that trail, that could lead to some very serious issues,” Kidd said.

Muth said there is always that chance, and has actually seen a few near collisions.

“I love to fly fast downhill and you could run into problems if you come around a blind curve and there are three or four people standing on the trail,” Muth said. “Mountain bikes need to be conscious that when they come around a blind corner they should expect there could be somebody standing there.”

By the same token, hikers should assess the vehicles at a trailhead for clues as to who is on the trail that day. If there are three or four cars with bike racks, it should signal to hikers be cautious — or pick a different trail, Muth said.

“If I know it is hunting season and there are three pickup trucks at the trailhead with gun racks, I say ‘you know, maybe I will go somewhere else,’ as much out of consideration for them as safety for myself,” Muth said. “There is plenty of room for everybody. You just have to be conscientious that everybody has a right to be doing different things.”

Not any time soon

While optimistic, bikers acknowledge they may have a long road ahead of them in their fight for access in national parks.

Bob Miller, a park ranger and spokesperson for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, said the park has no plans in the near future to tackle the mountain bike issue.

That was pretty much the answer mountain bikers were bracing for.

“I don’t think we are going to see much in the way of trails opened up,” Cranford said.

Although a proposed rule change would make it easier for parks to open trails to mountain bikes — namely by removing the requirements for a taxing analysis — Miller said the park would take the issue seriously and opt for a thorough and comprehensive review even if it wasn’t technically required.

The top issues to weigh: would mountain biking degrade the national park experience of others using the trails and would mountain biking harm the ecosystem, Miller said.

Another question is whether the park could afford the additional ranger patrol and rescue operations that would go along with mountain biking in the park, or afford the extra trail maintenance.

Miller said such a study would be done only in the context of a parkwide planning process, not a piecemeal approach of opening a trail here and there. Overlay that with drawn out public comment periods, and you have one massive undertaking.

Miller said the Smokies has broached the subject anecdotally, but never had what you would call a formal request to take on the issue.

“The fact is we are surrounded by some pretty nice mountain bike areas already,” Miller said.

But Muth said the mountain bike trails in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests don’t offer enough diversity, particularly by way of easier mountain bike trails. There are few options for beginners or even intermediate riders.

Mountain bikers say they aren’t advocating for a wholesale opening of all trails in the park, admitting there are some trails that simply aren’t suitable.

“I don’t think bikes should be on the Appalachian Trail,” Cranford said by example. Others would be too steep, too narrow, too rocky.

“Most of the trails there wouldn’t even be fun to ride,” Cranford said.

Likewise, Kidd isn’t opposed to bikes carte blanche.

“I think if a trail is appropriately designed and designated specifically for mountain biking use, I think there is a potential for mountain bikes to find a place in the park,” Kidd said. “As for bike use in the backcountry, we would likely find that incompatible as a blanket statement. But that’s not to say there is not a single trail in the park where it would not be appropriate.”

Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, 62, was found dead of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in a car near his Parrotsville, Tenn., residence, days before he was to begin serving an 18-month prison sentence for large-scale moonshine operation.

An incident report filed by the Cocke County Sheriff’s Department says that Sutton was discovered dead in his 1982 Ford Fairmont when his wife, Pam Sutton, returned from running errands.

Sutton, an infamous moonshiner, had been trying to outrun revenuers for more than three decades now. Popcorn grew up in Maggie Valley and called it home for most of his life, but had largely taken up residence in his later years in Parrrotsville, Tenn., the rural and sparsely populated country around Newport.

Still, Popcorn has retained close ties to Maggie Valley, and the town is often viewed as the main stomping ground of the mountain’s most infamous ‘shiner.

“Maggie Valley lost a friend and an ambassador,” said James Carver, a long-time friend of Popcorn’s and a Maggie Valley native. “We have a lot of people come to Maggie Valley that want to meet Popcorn.”

Popcorn has never been secretive about his tendency for making moonshine. He often bragged that he “ran more whiskey than Jack Daniel.” He detailed his brew-making exploits in the book “Me and My Likker,” and in a self-produced video “The Last Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make.” He’s even been known to autograph Mason jars of moonshine.

So it’s no surprise that the law eventually caught up with him. What finally brought him down, however, was a fire at his own home in April 2007 when a still exploded. Stills are known to do that, despite Popcorn’s expert craftsmanship in making them. The fire tipped authorities off that Popcorn was still at it, and wasn’t merely producing the occasionall jar here and there but cranking out hundreds of gallons.

He was handed down light charges at the time, netting nothing more than probation. He apparently got right back to work.

But so did the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who launched a full-scale investigation, including undercover agents that struck deals to buy large quantities of moonshine from him. In March 2008, they raided his home and seized 800 gallons of the illegal liquor, three stills with 1,000-gallon capacities, hundreds of gallons of moonshine-making ingredients such as mash and many guns.

Sutton could have gotten as much as 15 years in prison, but got off with a surprisingly light — relatively speaking — with just 18 months.

Popcorn ran an antique shop in Maggie Valley as recently as a few years ago, where one could supposedly buy a jar of moonshine it they asked the right way. Local authorities allegedly looked the other way, chalking it up to Popcorn being a community fixture.

Popcorn’s attire rarely varied: overalls, a flannel shirt and gray brimmed hat, occasionally adorned with a squirrel tail. His thick shaggy beard and slight frame completed the prototypical image of a backwoods mountaineer.

Popcorn’s nickname dates to a barroom brawl between himself and a popcorn machine. It took his money, but didn’t produce popcorn, eliciting a few swift blows from Sutton to crack open the machine. Aside from his white lightening, Popcorn was known for his crass language and feisty manner.

“If he liked you he liked you, and if he didn’t, you better stay away,” recalled Carver.

While some revile the folkloric status Popcorn has achieved, denouncing him as a common criminal, few can argue that Popcorn was a bridge to the past, a window on a vanishing part of Appalachian culture.

“He comes from the old era,” said Maggie Valley Police Chief Scott Sutton, describing Popcorn Sutton as the last of his breed. “Popcorn was unique. There aren’t any more ... not in his form or fashion, that’s for sure.”

— Julia Merchant contributed to this article

Following a prolonged debate, the national forest service wants to close a system of four-wheel drive trails in the Tellico Off-Road Vehicle area outside Andrews.

The playground is famous among four-wheel drive enthusiasts, but rutting of the trails by tires has led to serious erosion problems, polluting creeks and rivers with muddy runoff. The cost of fixing the eroded trails is out of reach for the forest service.

“Our analysis indicates that on-the-ground conditions are worse than we first thought,” said Marisue Hilliard, supervisor of National Forests in North Carolina. “The trail system has extensive damage and contributes unacceptable levels of sediment into the Tellico River and its tributaries.”

After years of turning a blind eye to the problem, the forest service was spurred into action two years ago under threat of a lawsuit by environmental groups.

“It’s clear the upper Tellico watershed is the wrong place for an off-road vehicle area,” said DJ Gerken, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental law Center. “After years of discussion, we are glad the agency ultimately took a hard, honest look at this problem. It’s not surprising that, faced with the mounting evidence of dirt and mud polluting streams throughout the watershed, the agency concluded the best way to meet the standards and protect water quality now and in the future is to close the system.”

Given the steep terrain, high rainfall and proximity to creeks, Hilliard said it would be “extremely difficult” for an off-road vehicle playground to exist at Tellico without causing sediment. Hilliard said the trail system is in violation of both state water quality standards and national forest standards, with sediment visibly running off trails and into the river in hundreds of places.

The forest service engaged in study of the issue over the past two years to weigh the pros and cons of possible solutions. In the meantime, emergency measures closed the worst of the trails, and suspended use during winter when the freeze-thaw cycle combined with heavy rain exacerbates the erosion.

The forest service got 1,500 public comments on the issue. Five other alternatives were considered. The forest service has proposed the most extreme measure of closing the trail system altogether.

Environmental groups are likely surprised by their success in the matter.

“Our goal was never to shut down the trail system but simply to have the agency follow the law and protect the resource,” said Ben Prater, Conservation Director with WildSouth. “The Forest Service has made the responsible choice to close down the system to do that.”

Trout Unlimited, in particular, has been calling on the Forest Service for years to invest the resources needed to maintain water quality in the Tellico River.

“We believe the forest service is right to be concerned about its ability to remediate and maintain this trail system in the long run,” said Squeak Smith, spokesman for the North Carolina Council of Trout Unlimited.

Under the proposal, about 10 miles of forest service roads in the area would remain open. The decision is not yet final. The forest service is accepting another round of public comment first.

A Jackson County task force has entered the nitty-gritty stage in its quest to fix traffic congestion on N.C. 107 in Sylva.

The group has begun compiling a long list of possible solutions to the congestion. Once complete, it will turn the list over to the Department of Transportation to assess whether and how much each idea could help.

The solutions fall into one of two categories. One is to alter the design of N.C. 107 to handle more traffic. The other is to divert cars off N.C. 107.

Jackson County is split into two basic camps of how to solve traffic congestion on N.C. 107. One advocates building the Southern Loop, a cross-county highway that would bypass the main drag of N.C. 107 and tie in with U.S. 23-74 north of Sylva. Initially conceived as a large-scale freeway, road planners now say it could be a boulevard or even simple two-lane road.

The second camp wants to redesign the existing N.C. 107 and use smaller side roads to handle some of 107’s traffic.

Just how much congestion the task force is tasked with solving has been the subject of debate over the last several months (see related article.) The latest prediction claims there will be around 1,000 to 2,000 cars too many using N.C. 107 during the peak commuter hours by the year 2035.

The projection was formulated using DOT models and growth formulas, and massaged with help of the task force.

Some members of the task force remain concerned over the growth assumptions plugged into the model. The pace of growth witnessed over the past 25 years may not hold true for the next 25.

“Then this overage you are trying to address may not be accurate,” said task force member Susan Leveille.

Those in favor of the Southern Loop want to make the future congestion look worse to justify the road, Leveille said. Likewise, those who don’t want to build the Southern Loop want to downplay future congestion.

Diverting traffic

The name of the game is figuring out how to deal with 1,000 to 2,000 more cars than the road can handle. That’s where the brainstorming process and solutions pitched by the task force come in.

Those opposed to the Southern Loop hope to shows the overage can be handled without building a new highway. Those in favor of the Southern Loop claim the only way of dealing with that many cars would be building the new bypass.

The Southern Loop isn’t the only way to divert cars off 107, however. There are other ways to lighten the load. One is a system of smaller network roads: a system of shortcuts, more or less.

Another option for lightening the load doesn’t involve the roads at all. For example, if more students and faculty lived in Cullowhee, they wouldn’t be driving up and down N.C. 107 to get to campus. The county could enact land-use strategies to encourage more residential development around Western, according to Pam Cook, a DOT transportation planner working with the task force.

“That would be something that only elected officials can change, but that can certainly be evaluated,” she said.

Another option to get cars off the road is a commuter bus between Sylva and Western Carolina University in hopes of decreasing cars on the road.

When it comes to altering the design of N.C. 107 to handle the traffic overage, solutions being pitched include rerouting intersections, adding lanes and congestion management strategies.

Some solutions, when packaged together, can actually result in exponential improvements. For example, an intersection redesign could increase carrying capacity by 2,000 cars and an extra lane by another 2,000, but when done together could carry an extra 5,000.

“We’ll try to strategically group those,” said Ryan Sherby, community transportation coordinator for 10 western counties.

A whole category of solutions falls under the umbrella of congestion management. Congestion management can streamline traffic and increase what the DOT calls the “carrying capacity” of the road. But the congestion strategies might not be included in the numbers game aimed at coping with the projected overage, Cook said.

But the techniques are being considered. A team that specializes in congestion management visited Jackson County and performed a cursory analysis of N.C. 107 last year at the behest of the local DOT. The report from their visit is not yet out, but could be promising, Cook said.

“They may not solve all the deficiencies but would certainly make things operate more smoothly,” Cook said.

Cook said the team would like to make a second visit to examine a few options more closely.

The public can join in the brainstorming as well. Anyone with a solution they think the task force should put on the list to run by DOT can contact Sherby at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.586.1962, ext. 214.

Stop-and-start process now rolling

Jackson County task force members are excited with the new stage of their work. The task force was formed six years, but faltered for much of its existence due to a revolving door of DOT staffers, including long windows with no staff person assigned to the task force at all.

“I feel like we are just getting started with what I thought would be happening five years ago,” said Susan Leveille, a task force member and representative of the Smart Roads coalition. “We have been sitting listening for such a long time, and for a long time we had a void of nothing. I am very glad that we finally have an opportunity for input that seems to be genuinely part of the process.”

The current DOT staffer assigned to the task force marks the fourth since its creation, and each one essentially started again from scratch upon taking over. But the latest at the helm, Pam Cook, appears to be in for the long haul and the task force is finally showing concrete progress.

Cook said every solution pitched in the brainstorming stage will get evaluated.

“Every thought needs to be considered. Some can just be considered by discussion, some thoughts will be evaluated through a model, others we’ll have to go out into the field and see if it is feasibly possible to connect this road and that,” said Cook, who specializes in community transportation planning. “There is not a bad idea.”

The Jackson County transportation task force has spent the past several months signing off on a projected traffic count for the future, namely the year 2035. Until road planners had a projection in front of them, they didn’t know what kind of overage they were dealing with, and whether the problem was a small one or big one.

“One of the driving forces behind any road in the future is the traffic projection for 2035, which is our horizon year right now,” said Ryan White, DOT project coordinator in Raleigh. “If we add no signals, no connecting roads, no bypass, in 2035, how is N.C. 107 going to operate? We have to establish there is truly a problem and that will show there is some type of improvement that is needed.”

White is coordinating the planning process for the Southern Loop, which is on a parallel track to the task force. While the task force brainstorms its solutions, the DOT is engaged in the planning process for the Southern Loop. If and when the Southern Loop is chosen as the best solution, the DOT will have a head start on the otherwise lengthy process of building a major new road.

The congestion projected for 2035 turns out to be only mediocre rather than terrible, according to Ryan Sherby, community transportation coordinator for 10 western counties.

Traffic models pinpointed the main drag of N.C. 107 from Lowe’s to the intersection has more cars than it can handle — about 1,000 to 2,000 too many during peak commuter times. The intersection of N.C. 107 and U.S. 23-74 was flagged as a problem area of its own.

“It pretty much showed what we all expected,” Sherby said.

But there are other areas in the county that will be experiencing traffic congestion by 2035 as well, including part of Main Street and Centennial Drive on the WCU campus.

Southern Loop planning has stalled somewhat in a quest for the best traffic projections. The numbers massaged by the task force were considered more up-to-date than the ones the DOT was using, so they are redoing their models accordingly. When done, White will know not only the volume of cars, but theoretically how they are moving along the road.

“We can see how cars are driving and turning,” White said.

The prospect of an outpatient surgery center in Haywood County has drawn support from 14 doctors willing to pitch in on a feasibility study to get the ball rolling.

Haywood Regional Medical Center will split the cost of a $40,000 study with interested physicians. It could lay the groundwork for a joint venture between the hospital and private doctors in the construction of a surgery center down the road.

A surgery center would be more convenient for patients, who now have to navigate floors of the hospital for even the simplest of outpatient procedures like cataracts and colonoscopies.

A new surgery wing was well on its way to a ground breaking early last year. Architects were in the final phase of the design, with interior color palettes already selected. But the entire project came crashing down when the hospital lost its Medicare and Medicaid status after failing federal inspections in early 2008. Savings squirreled away to pay for the surgery wing were spent instead to keep the hospital afloat until it rebounded from the crisis.

While involvement from 14 doctors in the feasibility study might sound unwieldy, Haywood Regional CEO Mike Poore welcomes the broad interest. The threshold for the venture to be successful is between eight and 10 physicians, so it’s good to have so many, Poore said.

“It is important to me to make sure we have physicians involved,” Poore said.

The attitude marks a change from the former hospital administration, which excluded participation by physicians. For years, surgeons tried to make the case for a joint venture with the hospital to build and run a surgery center, but to no avail. Former CEO David Rice, known for his top down control of the hospital, wanted a surgery wing under the exclusive domain of the hospital rather than a joint venture preferred by the overwhelming majority of doctors.

A joint venture provides a better business model for doctors, who want more autonomy and to build equity in their own practice.

“I think it creates a better relationship between the hospital and physicians and helps with the recruitment and retention of physicians in the community,” said Dr. Chris Catterson, an orthopedist.

Stand-alone surgery centers are such common fixtures these days that the lack of one means some doctors wouldn’t consider coming here, according to Dr. Al Mina, a surgeon.

Mina said that a surgery center will streamline the process for patients. Check-in will be quicker. Families will have a better waiting area. Parking would be closer.

It’s also cheaper for the patient. Under the strange formulas used by insurance companies, the co-pay is lower for the same operation at a free-standing surgery center versus a surgery wing attached to a hospital, doctors explained.

“It’s important not just to have a fancy new building that people feel comfortable going to, but the out-of-pocket cost to the patient is lower from their insurance company,” said Dr. Richard Lang, a radiologist.

A stand-alone surgery center would also be cheaper to build than trying to shoehorn a wing onto the hospital, Mina and Catterson said.

The project being pushed by Rice had a price tag of $16.5 million. It not only included a makeover of the surgery wing, but also a new main entrance and lobby for the hospital, new offices for hospital administration and “shell space” for future expansion of the hospital. The new wing would have had an over-built foundation that could support up to seven stories in the future.

Poore is no novice when it comes to launching surgery centers. The consultants selected for the study, called Stroudwater Associates, did a similar study at the hospital in Georgia from which Poore moved from.

The consultants will evaluate the demand for a surgery center, factoring in demographics and HRMC’s market share.

“You don’t want to spend millions building one and find out you don’t have the volume to support it,” Catterson said.

The meat of the study will examine possible business models, such as how much will be owned and run by the hospital versus the doctors. Poore said he expects the consultants to develop a tier of options.

One final question is where to build it.

“There is no predetermined location. Part of the study is to take a look at possible locations,” Poore said.

Once the consultants get started, Poore expects the study to take less than two months.

The Haywood Regonal Medical Center Foundation had $400,000 in donations in the bank for the surgery support wing prior to when the crisis hits last year. A hospital board member asked at last week’s board meeting what will happen to funds raised for the surgery center.

“The surgery center has been put on the backburner, so donors can donate their funds elsewhere or their funds can be held,” said Robin Tindall-Taylor, Foundation director.

A design has been finalized for a new $3 million visitor center at the North Carolina entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park outside Cherokee.

The new visitor center will focus on the cultural history of the park, from early Native Americans to Appalachian heritage. The park has thousands of artifacts collected from people who once lived in the park, but they are locked up in storage since the park has nowhere to display them. The new visitor center will finally put the public in touch with some of these implements of early life, from spinning wheels to farm tools to moonshine stills.

“We are going to be using those artifacts to tell the story of the people who lived here,” said Kent Cave, a park ranger who supervises visitor outreach with a specialty in Appalachian studies. “This is a fulfillment of a dream and of a promise.”

Cave said the original plan for the park dating back to the 1940s called for a cultural heritage museum on the N.C. side of the park, while the visitor center on the TN side focuses on ecology and natural history of the Smokies.

The cultural heritage theme will dovetail with the Mountain Farm Museum already in place at Occonaluftee, where visitors can see old farm buildings and demonstrations of early life.

“You aren’t just talking about the stuff, you are out there with it,” said Bob Miller, spokesperson for the park. “You can feed the chickens and talk to people about what they are seeing. This will be an extension of the farm.”

Miller said the park will judiciously select which artifacts go on display, since the park has far more than the new visitor center can possibly hold.

“A tiny portion of this stuff will be on display, just like at the Smithsonian where only a tiny portion of what they have is displayed for the public,” Miller said.

The current visitor center at Occonaluftee is old, cramped and doesn’t do justice to the most visited national park in the country.

Nearly 2 million people crossed into the park via the entrance on U.S. 441 last year, passing by the doorstep of the visitor center. Only 350,000 people ventured inside, but far more might stop in if it offered more in the way of exhibits.

The old visitors center was constructed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corp with the intention of serving merely as a ranger station. It is only 1,100 square feet, while the new one will be almost 7,000.

The old visitor will be converted to classroom space. The new visitor center will be constructed beside it. The parking lot will be reconfigured, along with the entrance off U.S. 441.

“We are extremely excited about having a new state-of-the-art facility,” said Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson.

Ditmanson lauded the fundraising that will pay for the entire cost of the new center.

The Great Smoky Mountains Association, which operates bookstores in the park, has committed $2.5 million for its construction. The Friends of the Smokies will provide the $500,000 to design and create all the maps, exhibits and displays.

The visitor center will meet national certification standards as an environmentally friendly building under LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

“The new Center is being designed be as energy efficient and sustainable as we can make it,” Ditmanson said.

Some of the environmental designs being considered are

• Geothermal Heat and Cooling: The heating and cooling system will take advantage of the constant 55 degrees temperature of the earth, by pumping water into the ground though tubing where it will gain or give off heat, increasing the efficiency of the system.

• Passive solar: The orientation of the building and the select placement of windows will allow plenty of sunshine into the building and also provide heat. Working with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Park has taken solar measurements where windows are to be placed, to be sure they are sized correctly, to allow just the right amount of light, and offset the need for heat.

• Rain water cistern: A cistern will be collect rain water from the roofs. The water will be filtered and then used to flush toilets.

• Water Saving Fixtures: Bathroom fixtures will use waterless urinals and water saving water faucets and toilets.

• Recycled Materials: Everything from roofing materials, to cabinets, siding, and structural supports will be made of recycled materials.

• Landscaping: Natives plantings will be used that will not require extensive watering after they become established.

Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver threatened to sue Maggie Valley Alderman Colin Edwards during a town meeting this week.

Edwards attempted to speak out against Shiver’s request for a $200,000 loan from the town. But Shiver objected and refused to let Edwards finish speaking.

“I raise my objections,” Shiver said, cutting Edwards off. “Gentlemen, lady, I mean no disrespect but there are serious issues of conflict we have raised through our attorneys. I think in the next few weeks you will see some legal action.”

Edwards is part owner of Caroline-A-Contracting company, which built a retaining wall at Ghost Town. Edwards’ company filed a lien against Ghost Town after it failed to pay its full bill. Ghost Town in turn contested the claim, saying the retaining wall cracked. Edwards said the crack is due to a leaking water line in the hillside. Shiver claims it’s due to faulty work.

Shiver asked the town to bar Edwards from voting on the loan and from participating in any discussion on Ghost Town. However, while Edwards and Shiver may not get along, Edwards does not meet the litmus test for a financial conflict of interest that would bar him from voting. The only reason Edwards could be legally barred from voting is if he stands to gain financially from his vote, which he doesn’t, according to state statutes and Town Attorney Chuck Dickson.

Shiver claims that Edwards cannot render an impartial vote on anything pertaining to Ghost Town, however, and if he does so, Ghost Town will be denied its right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Edwards said he intends to vote, however, and will vote “no” to the loan.

“They are just bullying, and I don’t bully real good at all,” Edwards said. “I am an elected official for Maggie Valley. I will vote and they can charge me if they want.”

Before Shiver cut Edwards off at the meeting, Edwards questioned the validity of Shiver’s claims that the park’s roller coaster was on track to pass inspections and open for the season. Edwards said he called the state’s chief amusement ride inspector before the meeting and learned that Ghost Town has not yet requested an official inspection.

Shiver said he would “not tolerate nor allow phone calls” by Edwards to the state amusement ride division. Shiver suggested Edwards was trying to sabotage Ghost Town by calling the state.

The Smoky Mountain News had called the same state ride inspector earlier in the day and was given the same information as Edwards — that Ghost Town has not yet made a formal request for ride inspections, for either the chairlift or the roller coaster. The information is public record and can be requested by anyone.

That said, there have been lots of verbal communication, emails and progress updates on the rides, according to Jonathan Brooks, Elevator & Amusement Device Bureau Chief with the state.

“I know they are working very diligently to put something together for us to come up and start inspecting. I know they are making headway,” Brooks said. There is still a big checklist for the roller coaster before it’s ready, however, Brooks said.

More than 200 state and local dignitaries gathered for a ceremony atop Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park last week.

The event kicked off the celebration of the park’s 75th anniversary, bringing together communities from North Carolina and Tennessee to pay homage to the shared triumphs and tragedies that led to the park’s creation.

“Welcome to your national park,” Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson told the audience in his opening remarks.

The words couldn’t hold more true for the Smokies. While every national park belongs to the people, the Smokies’ unlike others was occupied land at the time of the park’s creation. It was riddled with family farms and rural communities, complete with churches, schoolhouses and hundreds of cemeteries. Even the steep mountainsides were integral to survival as communal hunting and fishing grounds and an open range for livestock.

As many as 7,000 people were pushed out to make way for the park, according to leading historians. It marked the first time in history the power of eminent domain claimed land for recreation purposes.

The historic sacrifice bonds neighboring communities to the Smokies more so than in other parks. Ditmanson asked those in the audience to stand whose family heritage stems from lands taken by the park, and at least two dozen rose, among them Alice Aumen of Cataloochee Ranch in Haywood County; Lynn Collins, director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority; and Luke Hyde, owner of the Calhoun House in Bryson City.

“For those who gave so much, a heartfelt thanks,” Ditmanson said.

Ditmanson said the park is indebted to the families uprooted so the park could be created.

“Time has healed many but not all wounds. There are still many who wished it turned out different,” Ditmanson said.

Many now realize, however, the park saved rather than destroyed their heritage, Ditmanson said.

“The park saved the mountains and preserved their beauty,” Ditmanson said.

Ditmanson heard this sentiment reflected during a speech a recent Cataloochee Reunion, an annual gathering of hundreds of people with family ties to Cataloochee Valley, a section of the park in Haywood County.

“’We can’t trust other people’s grandchildren,’” Ditmanson recalled of the speaker’s words. “Everybody laughed, but people got it. Somebody’s grandchildren would have sold out and it wouldn’t be the beautiful place it is today.”

Hard-fought battle

The Smokies is the “people’s park” in another sense. The idea for a national park in the Smokies rose from the vision of local leaders who fought nearly two decades to bring it to fruition. Park proponents first had to convince the nation the Smokies was worthy of national park status and esteemed enough to join the ranks of only a small handful of Western icons at time like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.

Meanwhile, they had to convince people at home that national park tourists would provide an economic engine, justifying the sacrifice of those losing their land.

And finally, the park fathers had to raise the money to buy all the land. Of the $10 million estimated cost, $1 million had to be raised within towns and cities neighboring the park.

“We have to remember the many people whose foresight and vision made this possible,” N.C. Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, said during last week’s ceremony. “Let us pause to honor the many men and women whose vision, commitment and love for the mountains has made the Great Smoky Mountains National Park a treasure for future generations.”

The preservation of grand landscapes and vast wilderness is important to the human psyche, Ditmanson added.

Indeed, the best part about the celebration for many in attendance was the blue sky, spring air and crisp, long-range views of the Smokies at their finest. The parking lot sits above 6,000 feet, offering unrivaled vistas.

“I don’t think you can get any closer to heaven than where we are sitting here today without being in heaven,” Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks said when he took the podium.

Hicks said the park has preserved his ancestral landscape, which holds spiritual and cultural meaning for the Cherokee.

“The park helps keep us whole from any other people moving in on the historic landscape of the Cherokee,” Hicks said.

George Ellison never knows when a Horace Kephart pilgrim will come calling. But invariably, they will come — creaking up the wooden stairs that have smooth depressions worn into the treads from years of use — to Ellison’s second floor office where his writing desk overlooks Main Street in Bryson City.

Crude bookshelves tower around him, boards of various sizes straddling cinder blocks, packed cheek to jowl with an extensive library of nearly every book in print and out on the Southern Appalachians. The finish, if there ever was one, has long since worn off the wooden floor boards, and his writing chair is nearly threadbare.

Just around the corner 100 years ago, Kephart would have been found in a similar upstairs office, hunkered over a writing desk, penning passages on the wilderness and backwoods people who carved a hardscrabble living out of the mountains, and in his later years, tirelessly cranking out advocacy pieces calling for the creation of a national park in the Smokies.

Ellison himself first came to Bryson City more than 30 years ago on a quest of his own to learn about Kephart. Ellison was commissioned to write the introduction for a republishing of Kephart’s famed Our Southern Highlanders.

Little was known about Kephart then. What moved him to come to the Smokies and embark on a life in the wilderness among the mountaineers was a mystery. And much of his life still remains an enigma despite the best research by Ellison and other Kephart scholars.

After arriving in the mountains from St. Louis in 1904, Kephart took up residence in an old blacksmith cabin at an abandoned copper mine in Bone Valley, a sparse settlement high above Hazel Creek in what is now part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Kephart not only immersed himself in the rugged mountain landscape, but in the unique breed of people he coined “mountaineers.”

“I became more absorbed in the study of my human associates in the backwoods. They were like figures from the old frontier histories that I had been so fond of, only they were living flesh and blood instead of mere characters in a book ... They interested me more than the ultra-civilized folk of cities,” Kephart wrote.

These were a “people apart” living in the “back of beyond,” according to Kephart, and he strove to become one of them.

“He knew how to immerse himself. When he went into a room, he didn’t try to assert himself. He asked for recipes or told a joke,” Ellison said. “He had time. He lived with them. If they didn’t say what he needed that time, well maybe they would next week.”

Over-reaching or spot on?

Kephart’s critics claim he painted the region with a broad brush in his acclaimed Our Southern Highlanders. While the characters in Kephart’s tales may have existed true to form, what about the mountain equivalency of landed gentry, living in painted clapboard houses with front porch columns, who wore starched white collars on Sunday and set their tables with china, and who sent their children off to college?

Instead Kephart’s characters were those living in steep hollows in poorly chinked cabins, wearing tattered overalls and threadbare socks, and relying on moonshine as their sole source of cash.

“He decided to take the qualities that many people would find offensive — pride, independence, suspicion of outsiders, clannish behavior, a propensity for violence, feuds — and romanticized them and made those qualities admirable,” said Gary Carden, a writer and Kephart scholar who lives in Sylva. “He compares them to clans of outlaws in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland. He was looking for the brigands and outlaws.”

While portrayed as poor and uneducated, Kephart’s backwoods characters typically triumph over their more educated counterparts. They show wit and cunning, strength and ingenuity in the face of adversity, and a wry sense of humor. They overcame a harsh environment to survive where others couldn’t.

Duane Oliver, a descendent of the very first settlers on Hazel Creek where Kephart took up residence, doesn’t fault the portrayals.

“He was a superb writer and historian,” said Oliver, 77. “He really loved these people and felt for them living on the backside of nowhere.”

Oliver hardly fits the stereotype promulgated by Kephart. His father was alternately an accountant, storekeeper and postmaster around Kephart’s old stomping grounds. Despite his early years in a one-room school house, Oliver studied in Europe and mastered in Greek and Roman art.

Oliver said Kephart’s writing wasn’t intended as a documentary on mountain culture.

“When you go to a place you find the colorful people to write about. The problem is when you read his book you think those are the only people who lived there, that everyone was ignorant and made moonshine,” Oliver said. “What my mother always said about him was he just wrote about the drunks.”

The people he chose to describe, however, he did so accurately.

“They were true to form,” Oliver said.

The problem, however, is that the outside world believed Kephart’s broad brush applied to all mountain people.

“The characters that emerge from Our Southern Highlanders are not representative of mountain life and folkways as a whole,” said Jim Casada, a popular outdoor writer who hails from Bryson City and is yet another Kephart scholar. “I think he fell into the trap of writing to sell.”

It’s no secret Kephart spiced up his writing. Ten years after Our Southern Highlanders was first published in 1913, Kephart added several chapters at the behest of a publisher: one on feuds, one on a bear hunt and three on moonshining. After all, it was the era of Prohibition, and the nation was fixated on alcohol.

“They said ‘Now you’ve got it Horace. We can sell this,’” Carden said.

A master observer

There’s one point on which Kephart critics and admirers agree: Kephart deserves accolades for his study of mountain dialect.

“He had a great appreciation for mountain talk,” Ellison said. “He had a wonderful ear.”

Kephart filled reams of pages in his journals with examples of the unique local vernacular. When it came time to write Our Southern Highlanders, Kephart produced rich and lively dialogue thanks to his years of careful notes. He clearly admired mountain talk and countered the notion that it was somehow less sophisticated. He in fact argued that it was more sophisticated. For example, Kephart recorded nine different phrases used by the same man when Kephart greeted him. His casual reply when Kephart asked what he was up to was alternately conveyed as “santerin’ about, brougin’ about, spuddin’ around, shacklin’ around, loaferin’ about, cooterin’ around, prodjectin’ around and traffickin’ about.”

“And yet one hears that our mountaineers have a limited vocabulary,” Kephart wrote.

Even Carden admits Kephart’s skills as an anthropologist were excellent.

“His assessment of people was rational and scientific. He treated them as a species to be studied,” Carden said.

Kephart’s depiction of mountaineers offered invaluable insight for government surveyors and appraisers orchestrating the massive upheaval of people to make way for the park.

“They were very well-versed in Kephart. They all had a copy of the book,” Carden said.

Even in the 1940s, when the creation of Fontana Lake would again force the exile of people from their homes, farms, churches and schools, Tennessee Valley Authority employees gleaned insight from Kephart’s pages before they embarked.

“They were cautioned they had to work with the local people, Appalachian people, and that they were a different people,” Carden said. “They were all given a copy of Kephart so they would understand who they were dealing with.”

Local color goldmine

When Our Southern Highlanders published, locals could have been offended by Kephart’s characterizations and cast him aside. But they didn’t know to do so, Carden said.

“The number of local people who read the book was so paltry,” Carden said. “Kephart had a distinct advantage. He knew they wouldn’t read it. They weren’t going to write a retort. They couldn’t contradict the portrait because they didn’t know it existed. He had a free hand. He could take liberties, and he admitted that.”

His audience was the literate elite of the time, “wealthy people like the Rockefellers who shared his concern that the wilderness was vanishing,” Carden said.

There was an en vogue school of writing in the early 20th century known as “local-color” writing. Authors played to regional eccentricities, peppering their books with real people and anecdotes that played up differences in attitude and speech. If his intention was to capitalize on that literary era, Kephart had stumbled into a goldmine.

Fitting in at first couldn’t have been easy, however. Ellison believes Kephart ultimately proved himself useful to his remote neighbors.

In a place with no doctors, Kephart knew enough first aid to set a broken arm or treat a goiter. He could write letters and address envelopes for those who couldn’t read. If Kephart was on a walk and encountered someone fixing a tub mill, he would stop to help, Ellison said.

Kephart was an excellent cook, indoors and out. He earned a place on many a bear hunt and fishing trip by the graces of his outstanding culinary skills over a campfire. Kephart’s book on backcountry cooking, Camp Cookery, was one of his most popular.

A profound expertise of firearms also got him a long way.

“He was a noted authority on guns and even had at least one patent on a bullet design,” Casada said, calling him “a true pioneer in ballistics.”

And he was, of course, an expert on outdoor living. Kephart’s book Camping and Woodcraft has been in continuous print for nearly a century, remaining the most popular outdoor how-to book ever written. Casada, who has a Ph.D. in history, wrote a lengthy introduction that appears in today’s editions of Camping and Woodcraft.

Casada believes Kephart learned by trial and error, partly from his youth in the rural West and his weekend escapes outside St. Louis as an adult. Casada thinks Kephart was an introvert, and therefore took to the woods as escape.

“He loved being in a backcountry camp around the old-time hunters and fishermen, but he also savored solitude. A lot of his time was spent in one-man camps in the ‘back of beyond’ as he put it,” Casada said.

‘A losing battle’

Critics of Kephart usually derail him for being an outsider — or outlander, as Kephart himself would say.

“There is a great distinction between being in the mountains versus of the mountains,” said Casada.

Casada has been chastised and threatened by Kephart’s descendents, demanding he cease his negative portrayal of Kephart. But he won’t.

“I am not an iconoclast, but I am not willing to ignore the past,” said Casada. “It is not that I am a great foe of his. I greatly admire him and empathize with him. I also find decidedly repugnant parts of his character.”

Chiefly, Casada finds fault in Kephart’s alcoholism and the fact he left a wife and six children behind in St. Louis when he moved to the Smokies in 1904. While Casada extolled Kephart’s outdoor skills in his introduction to Camping and Woodcraft, and later nominated Kephart to the American Camping Hall of Fame, Casada said he cannot forgive Kephart for abandoning his wife and children.

While Kephart’s flaws are more widely known today than even a decade ago, Casada believes Kephart’s elevation as a folk hero will win out.

“We are fighting a losing battle to reflect what the man truly was, someone of wonderful abilities but also with great shortcomings,” Casada said.

Casada and Carden can’t seem to shake Kephart from the pedestal he’s been placed on. This year Bryson City is throwing its first annual Horace Kephart Day. Casada offered several times to be a speaker for the event but was ignored. Carden was unable to garner a spot on the program either.

“A tremendous number of mountain people speak reverently of Kephart, almost as though he was a prophet,” Carden said.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina General Assembly embedded glowing praise for Kephart in a resolution honoring the 75th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

But others still harbor a deep resentment, not only for doing mountain people an injustice in his portrayals but for his hand in creating the park.

“Every time I had my hair cut in Bryson City I would say ‘Tell me about Kephart,’ and the barber would cuss the whole time he was cutting my hair,” Carden said. “I discovered that a lot of local people had a grudge against Kephart. They held him responsible for the fact that their grandparents had lost their land, that they had to move out for the park.”

Indeed, that’s what Commodore Casada, now 99, thought to himself whenever he saw Kephart walking down the street.

“There goes that feller that’s for the park,” Commodore remembers thinking. He was a public character in town, so nearly everyone recognized him, although he walked around with his head down, seemingly sullen most of the time,” said Commodore, the father of Jim Casada.

The grips of alcohol

Kephart’s tendency to over-imbibe was well-known in Bryson City, according to Jim Casada, who gleaned first-hand accounts over the years from those who knew Kephart, particularly the owners of the boarding house where he lived in town for years.

“Every time he got a letter from his wife you could count on him going on a weeklong drunk. He wasn’t troublesome. He would go in his room, stay in his room and get drunk,” Casada said.

Everyone assumed his wife’s letters were importuning him for money, given the passel of kids she was raising on her own, Casada said.

Whether or not Kephart sent money, we’ll never know, Casada said. It’s likely Kephart didn’t have much to spare, despite being a regular contributor to numerous outdoor magazines. Kelly Bennett, the owner of a downtown drugstore and park proponent, bought Kephart a suit for a trip to Washington, D.C., to speak on behalf of creating the park.

Kephart once wrote he had little use for money “beyond what is needed for books and guns and fishing tackle.” Disdain for a lifestyle that revolved around money was a recurring theme for Kephart. “People seem to get no satisfaction out of anything but chasing after dollars without let-up from year to year,” Kephart wrote in his ever-popular book Camping and Woodcraft.

Why Kephart left his life in St. Louis and sought out the Smokies will always be a mystery.

“You can’t put someone on the couch 100 years later and psychoanalyze him, but something happened in St. Louis, perhaps a concatenation of traumatic events, and he never got over it,” Casada said.

Kephart had garnered national fame as head librarian of the St. Louis Mercantile Library for more than a decade, but his growing penchant for extended camping trips, and possibly his drinking habits, led him to lose the job.

Around the same time, he had a falling out with his wife. There are minor hints of infidelity on his wife’s part, but they are far from conclusive.

At the same time, it seems city life had become oppressive.

“He said he was running from what he called ‘the maddening cities of babble,’” Carden said.

The mid-life crisis even included a “half-hearted attempt” at suicide, according to Ellison, who attempted to piece the story together. Ellison would find a line from a letter here, a newspaper account there. There were just enough morsels to postulate a theory, but not enough to know definitively — the perfect combination for yet another rollicking debate among Kephart scholars.

Kephart wrote a short autobiography in the 1920s, but it offered little insight into the traumatic personal events that precipitated his flight to the Smokies. Kephart wrote simply: “my health broke down,” and on another occasion called it “nervous exhaustion.”

Kephart wrote he was “looking for a big primitive forest where I could build up strength anew and indulge my lifelong fondness for hunting, fishing and exploring new ground.”

Ellison believes Kephart thought back to a pure time in his life, his childhood in rural Iowa.

“He got it in his head that if he could find a place where life was being lived as it had when he was growing up, he could go there and put his life together,” Ellison said. “He probably did find one of the few places in the early 20th century that met the requirement that he was looking for. I think it was probably dumb blind luck that he found the place he needed.”

True intentions

Whether Kephart set out to exploit the backwoods people of the Smokies for characters in a book will never be clear. Was his motive merely to start a new life, or find a place to launch his writing career?

Ellison believes Kephart always wanted to be a writer. In fact, he had been writing for magazines for a decade prior to his move to the Smokies. Kephart offers his own account of his motives in the following passage in Our Southern Highlanders:

“When I went south into the mountains I was seeking a Back of Beyond. This for more reasons than one. With an inborn taste for the wild and romantic, I yearned for a strange land and a people that had the charm of originality. Again, I had a passion for early American history; and, in Far Appalachia, it seemed that I might realize the past in the present, seeing with my own eyes what life must have been to my pioneer ancestors of a century or two ago. Besides, I wanted to enjoy a free life in the open air, the thrill of exploring new ground, the joys of the chase, and the man’s game of matching my woodcraft against the force of nature.”

But Carden wonders whether Kephart concocted the image of himself as an explorer as a clever bit of revisionist history. It made a better story for the public, not to mention a book publisher.

“I began to feel early on that he hadn’t come to be like Thoreau and back nature into a corner and reduce it to its lowest means,” Carden said. “Kephart said he had picked this place on a map as being one of the most remote sections of the United States and had come here to live. But I got the distinct feeling he came here to die.”

Carden points to the first-hand account of Granville Calhoun, the “squire of Hazel Creek,” who initially put Kephart up in an extra room in his house.

When Kephart disembarked from the train at Hazel Creek, Calhoun claims he not only couldn’t walk but kept falling off the mule. Calhoun and his wife nursed Kephart back to health. Kephart’s symptoms as described by Calhoun sound vaguely like severe withdrawal for a serious alcoholic, and the subsequent recovery like a period of detox.

Accounts claim that Kephart stayed sober for his three years on Hazel Creek, and didn’t return to the booze until taking up residence in town.

Perhaps Kephart knew, and perhaps he got lucky, that the Smokies would have a nearly instant and profound affect on him, both physically and spiritually.

“What ever happened to him saved his life,” Carden said. “He stopped drinking and got healthy, started hiking and was excited and enthusiastic about everything he saw. This place virtually saved his life.”

Officials at Ghost Town in the Sky continued to pressure Maggie Valley leaders this week to pony up a $200,000 loan to help the beleaguered theme park get up and running.

In a special meeting Monday (April 27), Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver said the loan could make or break whether Ghost Town reopens this summer.

“We are in a tedious and precarious time. We wouldn’t be here unless we were at the end of our rope,” Shiver said. “My whole livelihood is at stake and my whole future is at stake.”

Town aldermen expressed reservations about putting taxpayer money on the line. While hotel, restaurant and gift shop owners in Maggie are lobbying for the loan, aldermen said they also have to consider the average residents not engaged in the tourism business.

“We are looking out for the entire valley — all the taxpayers. Your side is one-sided, our side is broad,” Alderman Mark DeMeola told Shiver. “We have a lot of responsibility. We have more to answer to than just the business community.”

Shiver argued that if the town’s tourist economy goes under, the whole town will suffer. DeMeola said he recognized that, which is why the town was willing to entertain his pleas in the first place.

“You have an undertaking in your hands that a community is teetering on,” DeMeola said. “You deserve our utmost respect and the respect of the entire valley.”

DeMeola suggested holding a vote to gauge public sentiment since it is their money on the line.

“If the voters say ‘Yeah,’ I say ‘Man, go ahead and do it,’” DeMeola said.

Shiver questioned the wisdom of a town-wide vote, however. Voters are not an accurate reflection of the town’s taxpayers, he said. Many of the hotel and restaurant owners pay taxes but don’t technically live in the town limits and therefore couldn’t vote, Shiver said.

Alderwoman Saralyn Price suggested holding a public hearing instead so everyone could weigh in, whether they are a voter, town taxpayer or none of the above.

“I represent the people and I want to see what they think,” Price said.

Town Manager Tim Barth said a public hearing was in order anyway if town leaders intend to consider the loan request. State statutes require the town to hold a public hearing before granting an economic development loan to a private enterprise. The earliest one could be held is in two weeks.

Shiver said the park could use the money much sooner, as they need money to get open by May 22.

Alderman Phil Aldridge said the “eleventh hour” request has given town leaders little time for due diligence.

“Everything I’ve ever done in life, I have pros and cons and I write them down,” Aldridge said.

The town’s attorney, Chuck Dickson, recommended getting detailed financial statements and a business plan from Shiver before moving forward.

“If I were lending money to someone I would want to act like a bank and want as much financial information as possible, extremely detailed, every single thing I could find out about the ability of the borrower to repay,” Dickson said.

DeMeola agreed.

“It may not be a service to you speed-wise to do this, but we need ample time for the town to have everything detailed,” DeMeola told Shiver.

Shiver said a business plan for pulling through bankruptcy is in the works and could be shared with the board. Shiver said Ghost Town’s owners and investors have pumped millions in personal assets into the park already.

“I don’t have any more money to put up,” Shiver said.

Shiver couldn’t say whether the park would pull through bankruptcy even if it did land a loan from the town.

“I am not speculating,” Shiver said in an interview following the meeting.

Shiver said the park is moving toward opening day. Ghost Town in the Sky held a job fair over the weekend, attracting hundreds looking for seasonal work. Shiver said tickets are selling online and advertising is under way.

Where they stand

Mayor Roger McElroy was the only alderman to say he wholeheartedly supports the loan, pledging he would vote for it.

“There are too many motels and business people that really can’t make it without Ghost Town,” said McElroy. “When Ghost Town was down before we couldn’t buy new sheets or new towels. We had to scrimp by.”

The same goes for other tourism-dependent businesses, McElroy said.

Ghost Town was closed from 2002 through 2006. The park’s original owner — who ran the park for 40 years — shut it down, partly due to old age and partly due to crumbling infrastructure and failing rides that required a major capital investment to restore. The park sat dormant five seasons until the current owners came along and reopened it in 2007.

Meanwhile, Alderman Colin Edwards was the only one to say he was wholeheartedly against the loan.

“I want Ghost Town to succeed, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want to lose $200,000 of the taxpayers’ money and have to go up on property taxes,” Edwards said in an interview after the meeting. “I want some security they will pay this back and they cannot give us that security.”

The loan is equivalent to 6 cents on the town property tax rate for one year (see info box).

Price, DeMeola and Aldridge were neutral in their comments, postponing judgment until hearing from the public.

If the town did agree to a loan, strings would be attached, they said. Town aldermen want to ensure the money would only be spent on operations, like making payroll for hourly workers, DeMeola said. Shiver countered that some workers are salaried, pointing to his human resources director who happened to be sitting in the audience.

Getting paid back

Ghost Town was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March after being unable to keep up with payments on its $9.5 million in mortgage on the property. Bankruptcy filings revealed another $2.5 million in unpaid bills to small companies, from souvenir purveyors to contractors to ride engineers.

Town leaders wanted to know how they would be paid back should the park go under.

Shiver said the town would be in line behind a $9.5 million mortgage on the property, but in front of everyone else owed money. Ultimately, however, the bankruptcy judge would decide where Maggie ranks in line. There are a few debts in addition to the mortgage that would most likely rank ahead of Maggie, such as back property and sales taxes and bankruptcy attorney fees. Other lenders being courted to put up money are also being promised they will be first in line behind the $9.5 million mortgage.

“I am out every day trying to get additional financing,” Shiver said.

Shiver said the assets of the land, rides and buildings are worth well over $9.5 million, but if the park was liquidated through the bankruptcy process there’s no guarantee it would fetch enough to pay everyone back. Edwards said all they have is Shiver’s word.

“They ain’t got no payment plan to pay us back. We’ve not seen nothing in writing,” Edwards said.

Want to weigh in?

Maggie Valley leaders will hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, on whether to give Ghost Town in the Sky a loan of $200,000.

Those who want to submit comments but don’t want to speak at the hearing can submit them in written format at any time. Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with “Ghost Town” in the subject line, or mail to Vickie Best, 3987 Soco Road, Maggie Valley, NC 28751.

Ghost Town in the Sky revealed last week that it was driven into bankruptcy by the threat of foreclosure from BB&T, which holds outstanding debt on the property to the tune of $9.5 million.

In a bankruptcy hearing in federal court April 15, CEO Steve Shiver said the theme park has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the intention of returning to solvency. To do so, however, the Maggie Valley theme park must pull off a summer opening, Shiver said.

If the park is unable to open, more than 200 small businesses and companies would likely be left holding the bag on around $2.5 million in unpaid bills racked up by Ghost Town, including electricians, plumbers, building supply stores, souvenir and soda vendors, newspapers and billboard companies.

“I cannot emphasize enough the need to reopen the park to have the cash flow to pay everybody back,” Shiver told the handful of creditors who showed up for the meeting.

Shiver asserted the park was aiming for a May 22 opening, but offered few specifics on how the cash-strapped theme park would be able to ramp up in time.

If reorganization doesn’t work and BB&T forecloses on the park, it’s doubtful the sale of the Ghost Town would net enough to pay back the long list of businesses owed money, which stand in line behind BB&T’s $9.5 million.

“If BB&T forecloses, nobody gets paid except BB&T,” said David Gray, an Asheville bankruptcy attorney representing Ghost Town.

Shiver said he and the other owners of the park have invested personal money into the park to the tune of $5 million, which they stand to lose as well if Ghost Town doesn’t pull through. The same goes for numerous private investors who have equity shares in the company, Shiver said.

Shiver said financial troubles went back to the large capital investment required after buying the park in late 2006. The park, created in the 1960s, had been sitting dormant for five years. It had to overhaul the dated rides, prop up rundown buildings and bring infrastructure like electrical wiring and water lines up to code.

Beyond these short-term needs, the park needed fresh attractions that would appeal to today’s tourist audience, Shiver said.

To do all this — plus be able to pay its mounting stack of bills — Ghost Town was seeking an $18 million loan last year, Shiver said. When the credit crunch hit last fall, the lender pulled out at the last minute, he said. That left park owners scrambling for another source of money. Shiver said they chased a high-interest loan of last resort known as a “mezzanine loan,” but pulled out when it seemed too risky.

“At the eleventh hour, they wanted an additional payment to be sent overseas with no guarantee and we said ‘No guys, we don’t trust you,’” Shiver said.

When the last-ditch loan fell through, the park was forced to file for reorganization bankruptcy, Shiver said.

Under oath

When creditors had a chance to ask questions of Shiver under oath, Mike Plemmons of Plemmons Plumbing and Heating in Waynesville, questioned a line of credit the park owners set up to funnel up to $500,000 into the operation.

“Will any of that be used to pay the creditors?” asked Plemmons, who is owed nearly $8,000.

Gray explained the line of credit will bypass those owed money and be used to get the park up and running.

“The whole concept is to save the debtor to pay the creditor,” Gray said. “If it operates, it generates money, it pays.”

But an attorney representing the interests of Mountain Energy of Waynesville, which is owed $14,600, questioned whether the park could operate at a profit even if it gets open. When the new owners reopened the park in 2007, it brought in $5.5 million. That year, the park had a positive cash flow, Shiver said. In 2008, however, revenue dropped to $4.4 million, and the park lost money that year, Shiver said.

Mountain Energy’s attorney asked Shiver what the break-even point was. Shiver said that information would be forthcoming when Ghost Town files its reorganization plan, a detailed business plan required by the bankruptcy court mapping out the park’s road to recovery.

“We’ll detail that fully in the plan,” Shiver said.

BB&T holds two notes on the property: a $6.5 million mortgage stemming from the original purchase of the property and a $3 million loan that funded upgrades. The initial mortgage is backed by a USDA Rural Development loan guarantee. If Ghost Town defaults, the guarantee would kick in to cover 70 percent of BB&T’s $6.5 million mortgage, courtesy of federal taxpayers.

Arnold Skelton, president of tourism brochure distributor Mountain Information Center who is owed $2,500, asked Shiver why the loan guarantee didn’t kick in already.

Gray explained that the guarantee would be triggered only as a last resort.

“BB&T has to proceed with legal collection outlets. BB&T has to attempt to collect and come up with a deficiency before the guarantee kicks in,” Gray said.

Shiver thanked the creditors for their cooperation as Ghost Town tries to get back on its feet.

“Thank you all for being there,” Shiver said.

More than 40 artists will race against the clock this weekend, crafting a piece of art from scratch in just one hour during the annual Quick Draw event in Waynesville.

Quick Draw will be held from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at the Waynesville Inn and Golf Resort (formerly Waynesville Country Club.)

The event is insanely popular with audiences, who get a sneak peak into the creative process. Nothing brings art to life quite like peering over an artist’s shoulder while they work. Participating artists run the gamut: wood carving, porcelain, wet felting, fiber art, basketry, metal sculpture and painters of all mediums.

Artists set up their personal workstations throughout a sprawling banquet room where spectators can roam at will.

While a few artists give off an air of “don’t talk to me, I’m busy,” most are prone to chat it up with spectators as they prowl from station to station. The artists’ mini-studios for the night are interesting to see in their own right, containing all their tricks of the trades, whether it’s a welder’s soldering iron or a painter’s arsenal of brushes.

The event can be a little nerve-racking for artists, who typically mold and remold their artwork to perfection over days. Whether the Quick Draw painters forgo mixing just the right hue of green or potters declare “good enough” on the curvature of a sugar bowl, it is usually lost of the spectators who fawn over the pieces. Although artists are forced to succumb to the pressures of the clock, the artwork they produce is one-of-a-kind and stacks up well against any piece found in a store-front gallery.

When the bell rings signaling the close of the hour-long art session, a social hour affords spectators one last chance to check out the finished products and scope out their favorites pieces before a live auction begins.

The auction raises thousands of dollars each year to promote arts in the county. The money is used to min-grants to art teachers in the schools.

Tickets are $35. For more information, go to www.wncquickdraw.com or call 828.456.6584.

By Becky Johnson & Julia Merchant • Staff writer

Haywood Regional Medical Center and WestCare announced plans to join forces under a newly created parent company. In addition, they will enter a management agreement with Carolinas HealthCare System, a large hospital system based in Charlotte with 25 hospitals under its wing in North and South Carolina.

“We will gain access to the knowledge and expertise of an organization that has a proven track record of helping hospitals improve their bottom line and grow services in communities,” said Mike Poore, the CEO of Haywood Regional Medical Center.

The decision to enter a partnership with each other and a management contract with Carolinas HealthCare System was approved by unanimous votes by both the HRMC and WestCare boards in separate meetings Monday night (April 20).

The arrangement stops short of a complete merger of HRMC and WestCare. The hospitals will not merge their assets or balance sheets. However, daily operations from a revenue and expense standpoint will be managed jointly.

WestCare CEO Mark Leonard compared the arrangement to the partnership entered into by Harris Regional in Sylva and Swain County Hospital in Bryson City. Both continue to function somewhat independently, although daily affairs are managed as a single unit.

“The two organizations remain separate and district but there was a new parent,” Leonard said.

The primary advantage of a management contract with Carolinas HealthCare is an economy of scale to get better rates and prices on everything from insurance reimbursements to the cost of medical supplies.

“They can go to suppliers whether it is for linens or medical equipment and say, ‘We represented 2,000 or 3,000 beds and we want a better price or we go somewhere else,’” said Dr. Richard Lang, an HRMC radiologist.

Health care conglomerates, often organized under one flagship hospital, are increasingly common. On the other hand, rural hospitals flying solo are increasingly rare. Smaller hospitals struggling to stay relevant in the rapidly changing world of health care are increasingly partnering up.

“I believe this makes really good sense for medical coverage for this section of Western North Carolina, to keep a viable system available to the people here,” said Cliff Stovall, HRMC board member.

HRMC and WestCare will retain autonomy in some areas of operation, but will give up autonomy to the joint parent company in other areas.

“They are going to delegate much of their roles to this (new) board,” Poore said of the current WestCare and HRMC boards.

Exactly how much control would remain with the individual hospitals has yet to be worked out.

“All the details now have to come together,” said Mark Clasby, HRMC board member.

Hammering out the details of both the joint operation between WestCare and HRMC, along with the details of the management contract, could take another six months.

“There is a tremendous amount of work and due diligence that will have to occur,” Leonard said.

WestCare and HRMC will have just one CEO down the road, but neither Leonard nor Poore were concerned about that.

“I think both of our boards have made a brave decision to ensure not only that we keep the services that we have, but that we grow for the future,” Poore said. “It would be selfish of me not to go forward with this because it’s what’s best for the community.”

Other administrative functions, from payroll to purchasing, could also be consolidated, or could even be taken over by Carolinas as part of the management contract.

It is not known yet how much say Carolinas HealthCare Systems will have on the daily operations of the hospital or how much influence on long-range goals and strategies.

“What the trustees and physicians have heard is that Carolinas does not micromanage local leadership and local governance,” Leonard said.

When HRMC first began exploring the prospects of an affiliation with other hospitals, an outright merger was not out of the question. But leaders of the process soon realized there was little to be gained by the loss local control resulting from merger, not even the hoped-for cash infusion to upgrade equipment or expand the hospital.

“During this process, we found out even with a merger there is no cash infusion,” Clasby said.

Retaining autonomy is one reason a management contract was attractive.

“I think that’s one of the things that the board felt strongly about is that it kept control locally and got outside help to improve services,” Poore said. “The management company has really no powers or authority that are not expressly given to it.”

Haywood County Commissioner Mark Swanger said the management contract appears to be the best of both worlds.

“Under the contract, we still retain our independence, but yet we gain many of the benefits that a merger would provide. At this point I think it’s the best of the possibilities,” Swanger said. “I think it will improve healthcare, and I think it will improve the financial health and stability of both WestCare and HRMC.”

WestCare and HRMC said that patients will not be forced to leave their own county to get health care services they currently enjoy at home. Each hospital will still strive to provide the full array of medical care they do now rather than integrate clinical operations, such as cardiologists only operating in Haywood or hip replacements only being done in Sylva.

“I think it is unlikely that we would have that kind of consolidation. Our communities are 26 miles apart. Those kinds of consolidations work when you’re in a very close proximity,” Poore said. “We don’t have any plans to merge services on a local level. I think what would be more likely is that we would work together to create new services.”

That is particularly the case when it comes to highly specialized care, where there could be just one center to serve patients across the counties. Some services are too specialized to offer currently, but the larger patients base that would come with a joint affiliation could help recruit specialties the area doesn’t currently have, Poore said.

Poore says hospital staff, particularly front line staff, will see little if any change in their jobs.

Mission Hospitals in Asheville was the runner up in a quest for a management contract.

“Mission put forward an excellent proposal, but I believe the judgment was that Carolinas has the experience that no other group could match,” Swanger said.

Mission said while it appreciated the opportunity to make a pitch, it was disappointed in the decision.

John Maher, vice president for services at Mission, said that patients in the western counties have a high level of confidence in the health care provided at Mission. During the negotiation process, Mission conducted a survey in the western counties and found that 66 percent of patients preferred Mission over the other entities being considered for a management contract.

Further, Mission’s vision of an integrated comprehensive health system across the region is compromised by the decision to go with Carolinas, Maher said.

Maher also questioned how many jobs may be lost by Carolinas taking over the administrative functions of the hospitals. Those details, of how much Carolinas HealthCare would assume control of, are unknown.

“The language of the operating agreement has not been fashioned yet,” said Gail Rosenberg, spokesperson for Carolinas. “It is going to ba number of weeks before it is as to what pieces and part would be part of that.”

Leonard said he does not expect the referrals of patients to Mission from the western counties to change.

“We have a lot of respect for the folks at Mission, the specialists and sub specialists in Asheville. They do an excellent job for our communities,” Leonard said. Doctors will still have the freedom to refer patients to whomever they pleased, despite Mission not being selected for the affiliation.

“I don’t see the referral patterns changing whatsoever. Mission is a very excellent hospital,” Lang agreed.

When most business owners cast their eyes about the office — noting the reams of white paper spilling off the printer, the blinking lights on computers not shut down at the end of the day, the drafty crack under the front door — they know intuitively their workplace falls short in the green arena.

But figuring out what to tackle first and biting off manageable goals is usually so daunting, they do nothing. The Haywood County Chamber of Commerce hopes to change that with the launch of its Green Initiative. The program will help businesses “go green” with an easy-to-follow plan.

“We know that green-collar jobs and green businesses are the way of the future,” said Laura Leatherwood, director of Community & Economic Development at HCC. “We don’t want to be behind the eight ball. We want to be in the forefront. We want people who move here and set up businesses here to realize we support a green lifestyle.”

The momentum of a green community will hopefully feed on itself.

“As Haywood County becomes more recognized for its sustainability efforts, it will be able to recruit other business with similar goals of practicing sustainability,” said Dr. Rose Johnson, president of Haywood Community College and champion of sustainability efforts in the county.

The chamber’s Green Initiative is part of a growing critical mass of sustainability efforts taking off in Haywood County. From Haywood Community College to Haywood County government, sustainability practices are being implemented on several fronts.

Thanks to the efforts, Haywood County is positioning itself at the forefront of the green movement.

“If we are marketing our community as a green friendly community, people are going to go, ‘Wow what a place to live. They are already ahead of the curve when it comes to initiating green,’” said CeCe Hipps, executive director of the Haywood Chamber.

While eco-havens like Oregon and Vermont are far ahead of Haywood County, the efforts underway here already make it a leader as far as the South goes, and on track to be a national leader in the future.

“I believe we are laying the appropriate groundwork and are getting important players involved. All of those things combined over a period of a few years are going to make a very dramatic impact,” Johnson said.

Leatherwood said Haywood County is a natural place for sustainability to make a stand and to be on the leading edge of the movement.

“Natural resources are part of the beauty of where we live. That’s why people come here,” Leatherwood said. “We want people to live it personally but we need our business community to live it as well in their practices as they do business throughout the day.”

Simple steps, big difference

The program has been more than a year in the making.

“It seemed all of a sudden that word green was everywhere,” Hipps said. “It was something coming on the forefront fairly strong and a fairly quick pace. We wanted to educate our businesses on this is what you can do to be green and how you can save money.”

The chamber formed a committee to figure out how businesses could jump on board the green movement. That committee in turn formed subcommittees to draft various parts of the plan: water, energy and recycling. A fourth subcommittee is in charge of education, which will provide support and outreach for businesses implementing the plan.

“We designed the green initiative so it is flexible enough to pertain to the smallest organization to the largest,” Johnson said.

Businesses can tailor or personalize the plan to better fit their particular organization, Johnson said.

“There are some simple things that even one-man or two-man businesses can do,” Leatherwood said. “We want every business to be able to participate. If everybody does one small thing can you imagine the collective impact we would have?”

Beyond doing the morally right thing, businesses that decide to go green stand to gain. For starters, they can market themselves as such. Those that complete the program will get “green business” designation by the Haywood County chamber. With an increasingly green-savvy public willing to go the extra mile to support — or extra dollars — to support businesses with an eco-bent, the self promotion as a green-designated business is a big benefit.

From an overhead standpoint, business will save on energy costs and office supplies if employees use less paper, for example.

“We wanted to educate our businesses on this is what you can do to be green — and how you can save money,” Hipps said.

The plan encourages businesses to conduct an energy audit, essentially an assessment of how much energy they use and where they could save it. With an upfront investment, an energy audit can help a business save money on energy costs over the long run, said Buddy Tignor, the director of Haywood Community College’s natural resource department.

And, “The more we all reduce carbon emissions the more likely we are going to be able to at least slow down or mediate the global warming that is taking place,” Tignor said.

Stephen King, the county’s solid waste director and a champion for recycling, helped create the Green Initiative component that targets a business’s trash, resource consumption and recycling.

King said it is hard to break out of old habits, but very simple steps can often make change easier. For example, when King looked for ways to improve recycling participation in the county tax office, he targeted the placement of trashcans. Before, trashcans were placed in a central location, but a lone recycling bin was at the very back of the office tucked in an out of the way place.

“Nobody had to make an effort for trash but for recycling, you had to make an effort. You just have to flip that,” King said.

King moved the recycling can up front, and all the trashcans down the hall and around the corner and low-and-behold, recycling increased.

King, who has been a ringleader in the sustainability movement in county offices, is thrilled to see the business community jumping on board.

“It shows community camaraderie around what they believe in and trying to make it work,” said King. “More people understand what’s going on now than in the past.”

Other chambers of commerce are already looking to follow suit, Hipps said, and no doubt more will be clamoring to copy Haywood as word gets out.

“I imagine there will be a lot of others who will follow in our footsteps,” Leatherwood said.

At some point, the Haywood Chamber would be willing to share its Green Initiative templates with other communities, but until it has taken root and garnered attention for Haywood, they will protect the program, Hipps said.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority will weigh the merits of grant applications from tourism groups over the coming week.

Every year, tourism initiatives, from festivals to visitor center operations, compete for funding from the tourism authority. Haywood County hopes to bring in a little more than $1 million in tourism revenue over the 2009-2010 fiscal year, thanks to a 4 percent tax tacked on to overnight lodging accomodations. The tax carries a stipulation that it must be spent on tourism promotion. How to allocate the money is up to a 12-member tourism board appointed by the county.

Most of the money is used by the tourism authority to market Haywood County as a visitor destination through brochures, magazine ads, billboards, the Internet and various marketing campaigns.

But two pots of money are set aside specifically to fund special tourism projects and festivals by nonprofits and groups throughout the county. Competition for the funds has been contentious in past years — so contenious in fact that it led the county to raise the tax on overnight lodding from 3 percent of 4 percent to provide a bigger pot of money to go around.

That extra 1 percent — roughly $250,000 for the coming fiscal year — is divied up among geographic areas in the county. Each district gets money proportional to the amount of lodging tax collected from that district.

Committees from each of the five districts — Maggie, Waynesville, Lake Junaluska, Canton and Clyde — make recommendations to the Haywood tourism authority on which projects to fund from their respective district. The tourism authority has the final say, however.

On top of the money allocated for each district, the tourism authority sets aside another $100,000 to fund visitor centers and tourism initiatives seeking money from the general tourism budget rather than the special pot allocated for one of the geographic areas.

Between blue skies and blue water, the inaugural Lake Junaluska Duathlon won over dozens of runners and bikers this weekend.

“It’s basically the perfect set-up. I couldn’t imagine a better venue,” said Ken Howell, a racer who lives in Haywood County.

Aside from the picturesque setting, racers reveled in the sheltered nature of the lake, where traffic could easily be controlled, said Pat Burgin, another racer from Haywood County. Burgin could only think of one negative to the venue.

“The hills,” he said. “But I don’t think there is much we can do about that.

Aside from the fabulous location, many athletes were happy about the debut of the duathlon in general. While there has been a proliferation of triathlons in the region over the past couple of years — a line-up that consists of swimming, running and biking — swimming can be a turn off to many racers. A duathlon cuts out the swimming leg and instead combines running, then biking, followed by a final leg of running.

Kelly Anderson, 36, a biker and runner in Haywood County, had been clamoring for a duathlon. When this one was announced, she started a Saturday morning duathlon training class at the Haywood Regional Fitness Center where she is a regular instructor.

“I hope we have it every year,” Anderson said of the new race. “It was nice not to have to drive to Charlotte or Florida or somewhere. Hopefully it will grow.”

The duathlon was put on by Greg Duff of Waynesville, whose company — Glory Hound Events — has become a leader in staging races throughout the region. Since Duff started Glory Hound Events three years ago, he has launched more than half a dozen new races, three of them in Haywood County, not to mention several existing races for which he has taken over the management.

“It’s a ton of work. None of this would be happening without him,” said racer Thomas Howell, a long-time member of the Haywood County racing scene.

For Howell, who lives a short distance from the lake, Saturday’s course largely followed his training route.

“It’s like what I do every Saturday,” said Howell, an Iron Man and marathon runner who typically travels far and wide on the race circuit.

This weekend was a nice change, with the bike route passing within half a mile of his home. His kids were able to roll out the door and cheer their dad as he went by on his bike, then high tail it to the lake and greet him as he ran across the finish line.

The event had a large pool of volunteers, some who are regulars in the race circuit, often the family and friends of the athletes. But several people who live at Lake Junaluska pitched in as volunteers as well, getting their first taste of the excitement and adrenaline that flows through the air at races.

“I am so impressed with the number of volunteers out here,” Burgin said. “I’ve done a lot of racing and I’ve been to some where they are asking spectators at the start line to help because they don’t have enough volunteers.”

While locals loved the close-to-home duathlon, more than half the racers came from out of the area, contributing to the tourism economy in the process.

“I was so pleased to see so many people participating in this who came to Lake Junaluska and the mountains for the first time,” said Jimmy Carr, executive director of Lake Junaluska. “I think the event has given Lake Junaluska and Haywood County a lot of visibility with a whole different audience.”

Owners of Ghost Town in the Sky hope to funnel up to $500,000 into the amusement park in order to get it open by summer.

A recently created limited liability corporation called Resurrection Partners has emerged as a vehicle to provide the beleaguered theme park much needed cash. The line of credit would be provided at least in part by Ghost Town partners themselves, according to Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver. By funneling the cash through a separate entity, the investors have a shot at recouping their money should the park go under.

The park needs “emergency and immediate approval of financing,” without which “the park will not be able to open and operate for the 2009 year,” according to bankruptcy filings. The line of credit would provide money for payroll and “expenses commensurate with the opening preparations.”

Resurrection Partners, LLC, was created in early March. Lynn Sylvester, a Waynesville accountant who serves as Ghost Town’s CPA, is listed as the registered agent for Resurrection. Sylvester is also an equity member in Ghost Town. He is also listed among the creditors in the bankruptcy filing, with a claim of $74,000 for accounting services and fees.

The other players in Resurrection Partners are not known, but Shiver has previously said the owners of the park will be putting up money to get the park reopened.

“You should all be thanking us because we are putting our money where our mouth is to make something work that benefits all of Haywood County,” Shiver said.

However, those putting up money through Resurrection would only do so if they could be granted super-priority status, according to the filings. That means they will be among the first in line to get paid back if the park doesn’t pull through a reorganization and is liquidated.

Resurrection is second in line behind a $6.5 million bond held by BB&T for the property’s purchase. They are ahead of more than 200 other creditors owed money by Ghost Town. They are even in front of a $3 million loan by BB&T for property upgrades.

Ghost Town owners originally asked the court to approve a $100,000 line of credit through Resurrection. After it was approved, they returned to the court and asked for it to be increased to $500,000. They claimed the initial request for $100,000 was an “error in communication,” according to bankruptcy filings, and that they had always intended for it to be $500,000.

But in a phone interview two weeks ago, Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver said the initial request for $100,000 was a “place holder.” Shiver said they needed the bankruptcy court to approve the concept of a line of credit from Resurrection first, and would then ask for it to be increased.

The larger the line of credit gets, the further back in line the other creditors are pushed.

The bankruptcy court will track how much is actually passed to the park through the line of credit, with the ability to ask for bank statements and cashed checks. This ensures Resurrection only stands to get back the amount it puts in.

The court will also track how it is used. The court will want to see the money used to help the park remain solvent rather than salaries for the park’s owners, for example. The court would not allow Resurrection to be a vehicle for funneling money to the owners while other creditors on the list remain unpaid.

Shiver said Ghost Town plans to fight a liquidation.

“That is not in the best interest of the creditors and the Maggie Valley businesses we owe money to, our bond holder and our investors,” Shiver said.

The park has a trail of unpaid bills with more than 215 companies totaling $2.5 million. That’s on top of a $6.5 million bond to purchase the park and a $3 million loan for upgrades to the property. The park owes another $200,000 in back sales tax and property tax. The bankruptcy filing doesn’t reflect the numerous private investors who put up money over the past two years in exchange for an equity stake in the company but may never see a return.

Comments from Shiver in this article were made a week and a half ago. Shiver would not return phone calls and emails seeking comment this week. Sylvester did not return phone messages seeking comment, nor did Ghost Town’s bankruptcy attorney David Gray.

Despite the daunting hurdles faced by Ghost Town in the Sky to get the Maggie Valley amusement park open by summer, it could be only the beginning of a long, uphill slog to pull through bankruptcy reorganization.

Ghost Town managers say they are committed to getting the park back on its feet. If they stick to that plan, they will have to file a reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court in coming months.

Ultimately, the people Ghost Town owes money to will get to vote on the reorganization plan. With the list topping 215 companies, the vote could get interesting. The plan must be approved by the majority of creditors, and by those holding two-thirds of the total debt. The double-litmus test prevents a handful of the largest creditors from tipping the vote, and prevents the more numerous but smaller creditors from upstaging those with a bigger stake.

The bankruptcy judge has veto power over the reorganization plan, but typically defers to the vote of creditors. The judge could tweak elements of the reorganization plan if he spies something that he thinks is unfair or unrealistic. The plan, in general, will describe how the park plans to pay back creditors and over what time period.

Along with the reorganization plan, Ghost Town will submit a disclosure statement that offers an in-depth look at its finances. The disclosure statement will be the first order of business taken up the bankruptcy judge. It will provide crucial information for creditors when weighing whether the reorganization plan is realistic. For example, after making payroll and covering overhead, can Ghost Town bring in enough revenue to not only cover its costs but also slowly replay the debt it has racked up? If so, over what time period?

If Ghost Town doesn’t provide enough information in the disclosure statement for creditors to make an informed decision on the reorganization plan, the bankruptcy judge can make Ghost Town answer additional questions.

Ghost Town could choose at any time to throw in the towel on Chapter 11 and move to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which means the park would be sold off to the highest bidder and the money used to pay off as many of the outstanding debts as possible. But Ghost Town partners have said they are committed to turning the park around and remaining solvent.

A bankruptcy judge could analyze the situation and declare it hopeless, forcing the amusement park into Chapter 7 involuntarily, but that is highly uncommon. A bankruptcy judge typically gives a company an opportunity to turn things around.

Creditors will likely give Ghost Town’s owners the benefit of the doubt in reorganization as well. If Ghost Town goes to Chapter 7, the vast number of creditors will likely never get a dime, or at best would get pennies on the dollar of what they are owed. In a sense, the creditors have nothing to lose, so they may as well let Ghost Town owners give reorganization a shot.

“Once they are in reorganization it is really our job to work with them and give them the best opportunity to pull through reorganization,” said Roger Gardner, a ride engineer in Colorado who is owed $52,000.

There is roughly $10 million in debt that stands in line ahead of the myriad small companies owed money (see box on “Who is owed?”).

At the front of the line is about $9.5 million owed to BB&T — of that $6.5 million is for the initial mortgage and $3 million is for improvements to rides and infrastructure. Also at the top of the list is $200,000 in back taxes, and a yet-to-be-determined amount for Resurrection, LLC, a newly created entity loaning Ghost Town money (see sidebar).

If Ghost Town goes to Chapter 7 and is liquidated, it would have to net more than $10 million for any of the small businesses in line behind BB&T to see anything.

“It’s not in anybody’s interest at all. That is the last ditch,” said Gardner.

Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver has said in the past that Ghost Town was seeking a large loan last fall in order to keep going. The loan would pay off bills, but more importantly complete a major overhaul of the park’s equipment, rides and infrastructure, as well as add new features to make the park more appealing to a 21st century audience.

The credit crunch killed the park’s shot at getting the loans, forcing it into reorganization, Shiver said. Shiver would not comment for this article, citing the sensitive nature of the proceedings.

While the case is small compared to the major Chapter 11 bankruptcies playing out on the national stage, the case is big for Western North Carolina’s bankruptcy division in terms of the 215-plus creditors with a stake in the game.

Who does Ghost Town owe?

The list includes more than 215 companies, many of them local businesses, like plumbers, electricians and contractors who did work on the mountain and several local building supply stores that provided a line of credit for materials. Ghost Town owes vendors that provided food for concession stands, souvenirs for the gift shops and even capguns for the gunfighters. The park also owes big bucks to ride engineers. Another category of debt is for marketing and advertising, including newspapers, TV stations, magazines and billboard companies.

The business partners behind Ghost Town in the Sky are facing significant logistical and financial challenges as they pursue their goal of reopening the Maggie Valley amusement park by summer.

Ghost Town filed for bankruptcy three weeks ago under the auspice of reorganization. Whether the partners can pull that off remains to be seen, however.

“They are trying very hard to reopen but they have a lot of challenges to overcome,” said Mark Clasby, director of the Haywood County Economic Development Commission.

The challenges include $12.5 million in debt, not enough cash to make payroll and burned bridges with suppliers. Meanwhile state inspections of their rides have yet to be scheduled.

“It is my understanding that the situation is dire at best,” said Attorney Gavin Brown, the chairman of the Haywood County Economic Development Commission and the mayor of Waynesville. “They simply do not have the cash funds to operate and there is not an entity I am aware of that will assist them.”

Maggie Valley Mayor Roger McElroy said he doesn’t know what to tell his tourist-dependent town, which historically relied on the amusement park as its cash cow.

“All I can tell them is I don’t know. We just don’t know what is going on,” McElroy said.

Ghost Town’s owners continue to assert that the amusement park will open in mid-May, and that’s all the town has to go on, said Maggie Valley Alderman Mark DeMeola.

“All I can do, like anyone else, is just hope,” DeMeola said. “It is kind of like blind faith right now. We are at the mercy of what they are telling us. But here we are 30 days away and if you look at it on the surface, it does seem like a tall order.”

Burton Edwards, a contractor in Maggie Valley, said he does not think the current owners of Ghost Town have the capital they need to reopen the park.

“My honest opinion is with the current financial status, it is just a matter of time. There is no way they can do it,” Edwards said. “I want Ghost Town to succeed because I want Maggie Valley to succeed. I don’t think these guys now can pull that off. I hope they can.”

Edwards said the current owners had the best intentions when they bought the park two years ago. After being run by the same owner for most of its 40 years, the park had fallen into disrepair and eventually closed down in 2002. It stayed closed for five years, much to the dismay of the Maggie tourism industry.

The current owners admit they didn’t realize how much money it would take to get up and running when they bought it.

“Where we thought you had to paint the wall, it didn’t have a foundation under the wall,” said Steve Shiver, Ghost Town CEO.

Rides had to be completely rebuilt. Nearly every roof in the mock Old West town leaked. The park was on well water that didn’t meet code, requiring the new owners to run city water lines. Water pipes were clamped with muffler clips. The electrical wiring was jerry rigged. It cost millions more than they anticipated, Shiver said.

“I think they accidentally got in over their heads,” Edwards said. “They didn’t do a proper study and know how bad a shape it was in. Number two, the economy hit hard.”

The new owners rushed to get the park open after buying it. Two years later, the amusement park still isn’t running at full tilt, which has led to disappointed visitors, Edwards said.

“It has to be up and fully running to help Maggie Valley. Otherwise I feel like it is doing Maggie Valley more harm than good,” Edwards said. Edwards currently has a lien against Ghost Town over unpaid work, which Ghost Town is disputing on claims the retaining wall he built failed.

One sign of Ghost Town’s financial troubles is its failure to remit sales tax to the N.C. Department of Revenue. According to bankruptcy filings, the park owes $136,000 in back sales tax, penalties and amusement tax, some dating back to fall of 2006.

Ghost Town was collecting sales tax on everything from ticket prices to souvenirs, but for some reason did not remit it to the state.

“If the business owner takes it and uses it for another purpose, that is illegal,” said Kim Brooks, spokesperson with the N.C. Department of Revenue.

Ghost Town has also failed to pay property taxes. It owes $40,000 in property taxes to Haywood County and $30,000 to the town of Maggie Valley.

The health insurance policy for Ghost Town employees was canceled recently after the company didn’t make the payments. The N.C. Department of Insurance is investigating a complaint that coverage was terminated without employees’ knowledge. Shiver said the partners are working to get the health insurance reinstated retroactively so that employees won’t be left holding the bag for medical care incurred during the time they didn’t have insurance.

Lots to do

To pull off an opening for the summer, employees will have to be hired soon to start sprucing up the park, from pulling weeds to setting up rides. Characters in the theme town, such as gun fighters, must get up to speed on their skits, and ride operators will need refreshers before tourists start showing up. There has been no movement to begin hiring, however.

On another front, Ghost Town needs to find suppliers to stock concession and souvenir stands, fill its fuel tanks, and send caps for the gunfighters’ guns. Given the long list of companies owed money by Ghost Town, most will want to be paid up front, but doing so will be difficult due to a lack of cash on hand.

Shiver said there are plenty of vendors ready and willing to do business with Ghost Town, however.

The park also needs annual inspections of all its rides and chairlift before it can open. As of press time Tuesday, Ghost Town had not yet asked the state for a site visit, according to Jonathan Brooks, bureau chief of the amusement ride division of the N.C. Department of Labor.

Inspections would take several days to complete and would have to include an evacuation drill of the chairlift. Brooks said it would be difficult to pull off by mid-May at this point.

The roller coaster still lacks numerous tests and inspections, which could not possibly be completed by mid-May, according to Brooks. The same goes for the incline railway, which is being rebuilt and is still missing integral parts.

Tourist outlook

Shiver says Ghost Town aims to increase visitation from 130,000 last year to 150,000 this year. Unpaid bills with more than a dozen TV stations, newspapers and billboard companies, however, could make it difficult to place advertisements unless Ghost Town can pay up front.

Other challenges to increased visitation include the recession — which could impact travel and spending of tourists — and an increase in ticket prices.

Another challenge is capturing the imagination of today’s kids with Old West gun fights and fair rides, when laser tag and water parks might be more their speed.

“The theme itself may be dated, and therein may lie the problem,” said Gavin Brown, chairman of the Haywood Economic Development Commission.

Despite the challenges, the park has raised ticket prices by $2 this year, to $31.95 for adults and $19.95 for kids. You get $3 off if purchased now online.

Shiver said he believes there will still be plenty of tourism this summer. In fact, Ghost Town is positioned to capture tourists that opt for close to home trips rather than bigger, expensive vacations, he said. He said the park is opting for low cost marketing, citing a mass marketing email sent out last week.

“Tickets are being sold as we speak,” Shiver said of online sales, but wouldn’t say how many.

The bankruptcy filing says that Ghost Town brought in $5.56 million when it reopened in 2007, but only $4.44 million last year. The 20 percent decline in revenue between 2007 and 2008 could have several explanations. Ghost Town got a natural bump in visitation when it opened in 2007 after being closed for five years. But 2008 was plagued by high gas prices and recession.

Ghost Town allowed hotels in Maggie Valley to buy blocks of tickets at a wholesale price and either resell them to tourists for a mark-up or make them part of a package vacation deal through the hotel. Several hotels were unable to divest themselves of all the tickets they had bought last year, however.

How much would it take?

Prior to filing bankruptcy, Ghost Town partners were seeking a loan of $18 million, Shiver said. It would have allowed them to pay off their bills and get the park open. It would also have provided the major cash needed to get all the rides working and allowed Ghost Town to add new components to the park that would make it more appealing to today’s youth.

Shiver even went to lenders of last resort, chasing expensive money at unfavorable terms, but could not secure a loan. When asked whether Ghost Town was the victim of the financial collapse Shiver said,

“There is no question.”

In recent weeks, Shiver has been seeking public assistance. But the town of Maggie Valley, the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority and the Economic Development Commission have all declined.

Shiver said the Ghost Town partners have put significant resources and personal collateral on the line to make the park a go, but would not say how much or the nature of the collateral. They are in the process of injecting more cash into operations, per approval by the bankruptcy court.

“If we didn’t think it would work we would not go out and commit ourselves more. We hope the community supports us in that effort. Everywhere I turn I am getting extreme support,” Shiver said. “It is very damaging to speculate right now.”