Holly Kays
During a recent public comment period, water and sewer customers in Jackson County told the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority that they don’t want to see their rates go up to allow new customers to pay lower up-front fees.
Following a 383-2 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation transferring the property to the tribe, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is one step closer to gaining ownership of 76 ancestrally important acres in Tennessee.
The Cherokee Tribal Council voted unanimously to formalize rules governing who has final authority over procedures in the council house, but the ordinance elicited criticism from some who feel it doesn’t do enough to protect the rights of enrolled members to address their elected officials.
Plans are moving forward for an extensive renovation of the Jackson County Health Department building, with County Manager Don Adams hoping to have an architect contract ready for commissioners to approve at their May 7 meeting.
After January’s split vote to merge the social services and health departments into one consolidated department, the Jackson County commissioners are moving toward appointing a board and hiring a director to oversee the new department.
With a whole world of mountain beauty to explore, summer leaves no time to waste indoors.
The combination of a stress-filled week and the dawn of a perfect, sunny and 70-something degree day worked like a drug, a magnetic compulsion to leave the dark indoors in search of a sunlight-swathed trail to melt my anxiety away.
Mid-April is standout wildflower season here in the lower elevations of the mountains, so I grabbed the newly minted trail guide sitting on my desk for guidance on where to go. Wildflower Walks & Hikes: North Carolina Mountains, is the latest title from Swain County-based guidebook author Jim Parham, and with 59 hikes organized by location, habitat and peak season, it wasn’t hard to find an outing to match my criteria: low enough elevation to feature April wildflowers, dog-friendly and as close to Waynesville as possible.
For the two Democrats running to serve as Jackson County’s next clerk of Superior Court, the results of the May 8 Primary Election will decide who takes the seat in December.
During the May 8 Primary Election in Jackson County, two Republican candidates for county commissioner will race for the right to appear on the November ballot.
In a 3-2 vote that followed hours of public comment spread over three different meetings, a measure that would have allowed Sunday morning alcohol sales failed in Jackson County April 16.
For the first time in the Southwestern Commission’s 53-year history, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has a seat at the table.
For Nick Provost and Peter Moyle, co-owners of the startup outdoors brand Gnarcissist Gear, it all started with granola bars in high school history class. Moyle was new at Smoky Mountain High School, and he and Provost became friends over the shared snacks, strengthening their bond as they both took jobs at Cataloochee Ski Area.
“We worked together all the time, carpooled all the time,” said Moyle, 27. “That’s how this whole ideation came about was talking in the car about what we wanted to do someday.”
As planning proceeds for a new sewer treatment plant in Cashiers, the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority will soon be able to end the long-standing freeze on new sewer allocation in the mountain village — at least temporarily.
A second public hearing on whether to allow Sunday morning alcohol sales in Jackson County will be held at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 16, at the Cashiers/Glenville Recreation Center in Cashiers, and attendance is expected to be significant.
Two years after the Sylva town board enacted a 42 percent increase in the city’s property tax rate, budget time has found the town without any extra cash to work with. In fact, Sylva will have to take $236,000 from its reserves in order to cover needed expenditures.
After a contentious three-hour back-and-forth that followed an already full day at the Cherokee Council House, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted unanimously April 5 to start work on legislation regulating how culturally important words and names can be used for business purposes.
Nine months after arguments concluded in a dispute over the process used to impeach then-Principal Chief Patrick Lambert, the Cherokee Supreme Court issued a full, 22-page opinion on the matter.
While nearly a year has passed since former Principal Chief Patrick Lambert was removed from office, a court hearing March 29 showed that debate over the legality of the process is not dead.
Jackson County Sheriff Chip Hall may be running unopposed in the upcoming Democratic primary, but two Republican candidates are competing for the chance to challenge him in November. Doug Farmer, currently a detective for the Sylva Police Department, and Brent McMahan, a bailiff and patrol officer for the Swain County Sheriff’s Department, will face off during the May 8 Primary Election.
A plan to re-imagine the Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro as a campus for creativity, learning and animal adoption met a favorable reception when Western Carolina University pitched it to Jackson County and Dillsboro leaders March 5, and behind the scenes work is ongoing to pave the way for that idea to become reality.
It was 1983 when Avram Friedman first rolled into Sylva, driving the repurposed school bus that was home for him, his wife and their 18-month-old son during their cross-country trek from California. They were looking for a more permanent living situation, and while most would have passed over the 3-acre property that is still the Friedman family home, to Avram it was perfect — mainly because the land and the house combined cost only $12,000.
“We didn’t have any money,” Avram laughed. “We were just poor hippies.”
Even as I parked my car at the bottom of a steep and weedy hill that Friday morning, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d signed up for by electing to participate in Kudzu Camp.
A bail bondsman who the FBI accused of accepting sexual favors in lieu of monetary repayments pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine.
A proposal to extend the allocation rental option to all Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority users hit a dead end March 20 when board members voted 5-1 against a proposal to loosen the policy.
Southwestern Community College is seeking compensation for damage to the Balsam Center building that it believes resulted from the R-5000 road project, a 0.7-mile connector road between N.C. 107 and N.C. 116 that wound up costing $30 million.
While elementary, junior high and high school students from across the region offered a plethora of good ideas during last month’s 2018 Region 8 Western Regional Science and Engineering Fair at Western Carolina University, one entry in particular caught the eye of judges and university officials alike.
Liam Tormey, a fifth-grader at Cullowhee Valley School, conducted a study of Tuckasegee River water quality at test sites above and below the Cullowhee Dam, which is owned by WCU — and he found that during recent rainstorms sediment coming from university property at a source point below the dam increased the concentration to levels unacceptable for trout habitat.
Over the past decade or so, the craft beer explosion has ricocheted throughout Western North Carolina, bouncing through the valleys and over the peaks to find its way into even the most remote mountain towns. But one community has remained staunchly absent from the ever-increasing list of towns boasting hometown breweries.
That could soon change.
A referendum vote asking enrolled members to approve a tribally owned package store and ABC store selling beer, wine and liquor will be held Thursday, May 31, following a recent announcement from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Board of Elections.
Two years after Sylva leaders first cheered a proposal for a workforce housing complex across the road from Harris Regional Hospital, not a shovelful of dirt has been turned on the 17-acre property.
Hours after students in schools across the nation walked out of their classrooms to protest gun violence in American schools, students leaders in Jackson County’s high schools walked into the auditorium of Smoky Mountain High School to deliver their thoughts on the topic to a gathering that included the entire Board of Education and Board of County Commissioners.
If the two Jackson County commissioners considering a “yes” vote on Sunday morning alcohol sales were looking to the community to encourage that point of view, the crowd that turned out for a public hearing on the issue March 19 certainly didn’t deliver.
When Sharon Van Horn organized the first-ever Thru-Hiker Chow Down in Franklin, she and her husband Bill were pretty fresh off the trail themselves.
The Van Horns started hiking the 2,000-plus-mile Appalachian Trail piecemeal in 2005, getting more serious about it in 2010 and completing two 300-mile sections per year thereafter until their 2013 finish. During that time, they became well acquainted with the ways of hikers, from Georgia up to Maine.
Months after work wrapped up to relocate Caney Fork General Store in Jackson County, multiple subcontractors who worked on the project remain unpaid, resulting in two claims filed against the business.
Plans to build a crisis stabilization unit in Cherokee for people battling addictions stalled this month when Tribal Council, for the second month running, voted to delay approval of the $31.5 million expenditure.
When the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority held its annual meeting Tuesday, March 6, no members of the media were present. That’s because none of them were notified that the meeting was to take place.
Sylva’s Creekside Oyster House and Grill will soon upgrade to a new building following the Tuckseigee Water and Sewer Authority’s decision to allow the owner an alternative to paying a large, upfront impact fee.
Parking decks could come to Western Carolina University sooner rather than later following the Board of Trustees’ unanimous vote to designate three existing parking lots as sites for future parking deck construction.
The first time Matt Kirby attempted the 72-mile Georgia Death Race, he almost didn’t finish.
“I had a friend who was at the last aid station,” Kirby recalled. “She had probably pulled out every little carrot that she could to get me out of that aid station and moving again. I think I would have probably quit if it weren’t for my friend being there and pushing me so hard.”
Excitement and purple attire filled the second floor of A.K. Hinds University Center at Western Carolina University March 1 as students, administrators, faculty, staff and trustees alike gathered around a pop-up TV studio set to broadcast the good news — the launch of a massive scholarship fundraising effort, occurring simultaneously with announcement that WCU had received a $5 million scholarship gift, the largest ever in its 129-year history.
The Jackson County Green Energy Park has long been a topic of conversation in Jackson County — various boards of commissioners have debated whether it should be funded as much as it is, whether it should be funded more, whether it’s due for upgrades and renovations and improvements — but a team from Western Carolina University unveiled a new concept for the property during a March 5 joint meeting of the Jackson County Commissioners and Dillsboro Board of Aldermen.
Eleven months ago, the Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve development of a river park on county-owned land along the Tuckasegee River in Dillsboro.
A courageous leader. An empathetic caretaker. A driven taskmaster. An intelligent, resilient and love-driven organizer. A person who had no trouble telling other people what they ought to be doing, and who conversely had no trouble pouring herself out to help other people do better.
Ruth Marie Sequoyah McCoy, former deputy superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Cherokee agency, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud during a hearing at the U.S. District Court in Asheville Friday, March 2.
It’s been nearly four decades since Roger Clapp, then a math and science teacher for a middle school in Virginia, saw his life change course.
“Earth Day happened, and it caught my imagination,” Clapp recalled.
When a teenage shooter shattered an otherwise normal day in Parkland, Florida, with gunfire and bloodshed, the ripples of fear and tragedy didn’t stop at the boundaries of the previously low-profile town. They spread throughout the country, ricocheting through the halls of far-away schools, homes and government buildings filled with folks asking themselves the same question — how can we make sure this doesn’t happen here?
A new sewer treatment plant being planned for Cashiers will start allowing for growth in the mountain community before the first shovelful of dirt is turned on the project.
As a startlingly cold winter lapses into a startlingly early spring, Jackson County leaders are pondering a question they’ve been struggling to answer for several years now: What is the best way to serve Jackson County’s homeless population?
Lake Logan is a familiar fixture of any cruise along Haywood County’s stretch of N.C. 215, an 80-acre expanse of water that creates a wide-angle view of sudden contrast to the forested tunnel forming most of the road’s winding path toward the Blue Ridge Parkway.
But for years, it’s been a well-known fact that the inviting-looking lake is off-limits to locals looking to spend a day swimming, fishing or boating.
That’s not true anymore.
Jackson County’s controversially high water and sewer fees could remain unchanged following implementation of a 2017 state law that was designed to ensure that these fees are calculated fairly and consistently.
Jackson County will spend an additional $254,000 to clean up lead contamination and plan for sound abatement at the Southwestern Community College shooting range following a unanimous vote from county commissioners Feb. 19.
