Clyde candidates consider plans for smart growth
Tiny Clyde, near the center of Haywood County, faces a number of challenges generally and specifically related to Hurricane Helene.
File photo
Clyde is a small town surrounded by bigger ambitions. Tucked between Canton and Waynesville, hemmed in by interstate lanes and the Pigeon River, it is both geographically and economically poised on the edge of growth — an edge that has never been sharper than it is now, in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s destruction and amid mounting pressure to plan for a future that’s already arriving.
Four candidates are vying for two open seats on the town’s Board of Aldermen: Frank Lay, Diane Fore, Cory Nuckolls and Kathy Johnson. Voters will help chart Clyde’s course through recovery and renewal and may choose any two of the four.
Frank Lay and Diane Fore currently serve on the board. Nuckolls and Johnson each ran in the last election and are back for another attempt.
Lay was born in Fayetteville and served briefly in the Army before being medically discharged. He moved to Haywood County nearly 30 years ago and has practiced law ever since, becoming a board-certified specialist in criminal law. He joined the Clyde Board of Aldermen in 2015 and has used his legal training to help interpret statutes and advise fellow board members on complex matters.
Fore grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida, and moved to Haywood County in 1989. A corporate banker turned educator, she earned two master’s degrees and national board certification before teaching in Haywood County Schools for 25 years. Fore served 14 years on the town’s planning board before being elected to the board in 2017. She still works part time at Publix — the same company where she held her first job five decades ago.
Nuckolls was born in Houston and raised in Hendersonville, where his parents worked in the hospitality industry. A graduate of Appalachian State University, Nuckolls studied marketing, hospitality and supply chain management. He now serves as director of guest services at Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center, and also serves on the board of Haywood Waterways Association and as an ambassador for the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce.
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Kathy Johnson has lived in Clyde since 1971. She retired as manager of First Citizens Bank’s Canton branch, where she spent her career taking banking and management courses through the institution. She’s seen the town evolve through booms and floods, and she wants to see it recover from its latest losses with a renewed focus on growth, resilience and fiscal prudence.
For all four candidates, Clyde’s future hinges on whether it can grow without losing itself; hemmed in by mountains, highways and larger neighbors, the town’s limits are fixed — but the debate over how to use what’s inside them is not.
“Our big issues stem around strategic growth and development,” Nuckolls said. “We’re not a large town by any means, but we are surrounded by these areas that are seeing significant growth, and strategic and smart town planning is not just looking at what’s happening this year or next year, but it’s five, 10, 20 years out.”
That long view comes with tradeoffs. Fore said she’s aware that doing nothing can be as costly as doing too much.
“If we continue with no development, eventually the cost of running the town will override what we’re bringing in,” she said. “Something would have to be done, but I’m hoping that we’re able to ride this out and listen to the people and what they say.”
Johnson, who’s watched Clyde evolve since the early 1970s, said its next phase depends on creativity and cooperation rather than expansion.
“We need to be smarter and more resilient and be more open-minded,” she said. “Look for private partnerships that build neighborhoods, potentially developments, which I know someone is looking at higher ground to develop.”
Lay views the question of growth through the lens of recovery. To him, rebuilding after disaster is not about restoration but reinvention.
“Our goal is not to put it back like it was,” he said. “We want to come out of this in a better position. We want to have learned the lessons from these mistakes.”
Those lessons came hard. When Tropical Storm Fred inundated the town in 2021, it exposed vulnerabilities that Hurricane Helene hit even harder three years later. The Pigeon River, once an afterthought, now shapes nearly every decision Clyde makes, including where Fore drives.
“I take Broad Street, which is what got hit so badly,” Fore said. “I do that to remind myself there’s still people dealing with this, and I don’t want to forget because they’re going through a lot.”
That awareness, Nuckolls said, must translate into policy that doesn’t wait for the next storm.
“Knowing that future events like the [Tropical Storm] Fred floods and Helene will continue to happen, how do we prepare ourselves, and how do we set aside a nest egg of money to help when those situations arise?” he said. “You’ve got to have a nest egg to get you through until that support actually arrives. I think that’s a big component to keep in mind when you think about the money that it takes for immediate needs and repairs and first response.”
While the emotional weight of Helene lingers, Lay said the town has started turning recovery into progress by moving vital facilities away from danger.
“We’ve got a new location where we’ve got our town shop,” he said. “We’re trying to relocate all of our town facilities out of an area where they’re more likely to be damaged.”
For Johnson, recovery is also personal — a reminder of what was lost, a sign pointing to what still needs replacing and the generational impact of one small business on one small town.
“We need to find someone for Sentelle’s building,” she said, referring to the longtime seafood restaurant that recently closed after years as a community anchor. “That was a big loss for the community. It’s just a big loss.”
Losses like Sentelle’s echo through the town’s budget. When businesses disappear, so do sales taxes and water customers, forcing leaders to rethink how they’ll keep Clyde running in the years ahead.
“I think our large opportunity is getting new business and ensuring the businesses that we have in the town continue,” Nuckolls said. “We’ve recently gotten grant funding. Ensuring those funds are properly used to help encourage new businesses to start in the town will be necessary to really help to see the business side of things continue to grow.”
Lay said the same opportunity exists in housing. New neighborhoods could restore not only the residential stock lost in the floods but also town revenue amid the ongoing affordable housing crisis.
“We’ve had two different developers address some property that sits in our ETJ,” he said. “If either of those developments come through — and I do think that at least one of them will, and possibly both — we would more than cover the ones we’ve lost and potentially double it if both were to go through.”
Fore said that rebuilding effort will work best if it’s shared.
“We’ve worked with Canton, we’ve worked with Waynesville and Maggie Valley,” she said. “It’s always been that feeling of camaraderie. It may not be our direct problem, but we’re sympathetic to it, and we’re standing there going, ‘How can we help?’”
But Johnson said geography may prove a tougher obstacle than economics.
“We need to find some businesses to come in,” she said. “But I don’t know where they would be, or [where] you would put them.”
Infrastructure, another recurring theme, ties every part of Clyde’s recovery together. Fixing water and sewer lines isn’t just maintenance — it’s a form of protection, and it will determine how well the town weathers the next flood.
“The infiltration that was coming into our sewer system was costing us unbelievable amounts of money,” Lay said. “We’ve worked really aggressively to get that repaired and fixed. We’re working on fixing the water system.”
Johnson said she wants to build on that cooperation while looking for new ways to make Clyde’s system more secure.
“I know they’re continuing to update the water and sewer lines,” she said. “I know we get our water from Canton, but I don’t know if there is a way — maybe some type of water filtering plant — I don’t know. You’d have to look for grants.”
For Nuckolls, infrastructure isn’t just a local concern. His work with Lake Junaluska’s recovery after Fred gave him a firsthand view of how federal bureaucracy can slow things down.
“It’s definitely a long process, a process that tests your patience,” he said. “It requires good communication.”
The same focus on efficiency led to one of Clyde’s most significant changes — contracting law enforcement through the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office, rather than maintaining its own department.
“When I first came on the board, we had three officers, and I pushed to get it up to six,” said Lay, who championed the partnership and serves as the board’s law enforcement liaison. “We could never fully staff it, so we created this contract with the Sheriff’s department. Over that first five-year contract we saved ourselves close to $500,000.”
Those savings didn’t come at the expense of safety, Lay said.
“At any given time, you can drive through our town, and it’s rare not to see two [patrol vehicles],” he said. “We’ve had some excellent results. That high-visibility patrol does more than people realize.”
The change has helped rein in speeding through the town’s narrow corridor, Fore said.
“There used to be a time when I first got here when everybody said, ‘You’ll get your first [traffic] ticket in Clyde,’” she said. “Then it kind of fell off over the years, and traffic has picked up because the traffic on the interstate has picked up, so Clyde becomes a bigger cut-through than usual.”
As the town regains its footing, candidates also see potential in the same river that once brought it to its knees. The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority’s master plan called Clyde “underutilized” as a recreation destination, and the candidates see that as an opportunity — if the town can afford to take it.
“It is definitely an asset for us,” Nuckolls said of the Pigeon River. “We need to see what kind of experiences that can bring to our local community but also help attract visitors. Our biggest need is to make sure that the plans that get executed and can be kept up in a way that is financially stable for the town, and done safely.”
Fore said residents should play a central role in shaping that future.
“There were a couple of us that said we’d love to form a committee,” she said. “Get residents to come in and talk and say, ‘What do you envision? What do you think we could do?’”
Lay said the idea of turning a liability into an asset isn’t hypothetical — some businesses are already expressing interest, including an outfitter who’s been in the area about 15 years and is eyeing Clyde as a possible business location.
Johnson thinks the appeal of the river lies in its simplicity, not just in profit or tourism.
“A lot of people like floating down the river in the tubes and the kayaks,” she said. “There are sections along the river where people could put in kayaks, tubes, whatever.”
Still, progress costs money, and the countywide property revaluation delayed until 2027 ensures that money — and how much of it to collect — will remain one of the town’s hardest choices. Valuations are expected to come in substantially higher than they are at present.
“The people we put first are our residents,” Fore said. “We’re trying to get the best deal we can get for them, so they’re not hurt so badly by the increases, but then on the other hand, if we suddenly need a dump truck, you know, then that’s going to probably dictate more of what we have to collect.”
Johnson said she doesn’t expect a painless solution.
“It would be good to keep some money and maybe give some back,” she said. “But I really don’t see that happening.”
Lay said the board is already planning for long-term financial pressure tied to infrastructure.
“We’ve got a projected budget of close to $20 million of work to do on our water system,” he said. “I don’t want to be constantly raising the prices of water, so we’re looking to find alternative solutions.”
Nuckolls said those choices will shape whether Clyde continues to stand on its own or falls behind the growth around it.
“We really need to double down on making sure that the growth we’re bringing into our town is growth that’s going to sustain us into the foreseeable future,” he said.
Each candidate brings a different background and personality to the race, but their goals converge on the same idea — that Clyde’s small-town future depends on cooperation, resilience and a willingness to adapt. After years of hardship, voters will decide whether that vision moves from promise to plan.
