2024 A Look Back: If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try again award
Sylva Town Council addressed panhandling multiple times this year. Hannah McLeod photo
Sylva first considered a proposal to address panhandling in November 2022 but ultimately decided against it after a majority of the board and several members of the public spoke out in opposition to the measure.
However, after Mayor Johnny Phillips was elected in November 2023, he brought the topic back before the board in January and directed staff to create a draft ordinance for review. That ordinance passed by split vote in January of this year with Brad Waldrop and then-Commissioner Natalie Newman opposing the measure. A few months later, Newman resigned her position on the town board and told Blue Ridge Public Radio, “we recently had the vote on panhandling where to me it really felt like we were attacking our unhoused population in this town.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. In August, another round of revisions were proposed for the ordinance, at which point previous Sylva Town Board Member Ben Guiney said, “For some reason Mayor Phillips has this vendetta against people on the street asking for money.”
Due to robust public opposition and new voices on the board, the third and latest round of ordinance revisions failed.
