Stakeholders around Western North Carolina recognize the end of COVID-era child care stabilization funding and the broader lack of available child care resources as a multilayered impediment to economic development.

Administrators for the Town of Canton have presented a conservative fiscal year 2024-25 budget that seeks some sense of sustainability after last year’s closing of the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill, which created a substantial revenue deficit and has now forced the small town to plan for a huge new expense it’s never had to worry about before.

Several notable things happened during the Town of Canton’s regular board meeting on May 23, but the meeting was perhaps more notable for something that didn’t happen — a closed session. 

Pactiv Evergreen’s shocking announcement that it would close its 115-year-old paper mill broke lots of hearts — and wallets — in Canton, but now, more than a year later, North Carolina’s Attorney General is looking for some payback over broken promises.

While there are still many uncertainties surrounding the ultimate fate of Pactiv Evergreen’s now-shuttered mill site in Canton, the situation has come somewhat into focus with confirmation from Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers that a management consulting firm has submitted a letter of intent to purchase the property.

What happens when the those with the most chips in the game only have a partial stake in it?

In other words, what does a community lose when most of the very large businesses are owned by absentee or corporate entities whose main goal is make money but have little interest in making that place a better place to live?

Six new recipients in Western North Carolina have been awarded grants to participate in the MADE X MTNS Partnership’s Building Outdoor Communities Program. 

The Town of Canton, still beset with myriad issues related to both natural and human-caused disasters, took an unprecedented step by shuffling one administrator into a newly created position and promoting another — saving taxpayer money and making history at the same time.

Not a lot of people remember the date the whistle last blew or the date the last workers put their well-worn tools down and took their shiny plastic helmets off for the final time, but everyone seems to remember the date of Pactiv Evergreen’s shocking announcement — the date that marked the end of one era, and the beginning of another. 

Calling the last decade “a period of intensive and dynamic change” for Haywood County, strategic planning consultants in conjunction with county economic development administrators will produce a late spring report for commissioners identifying local priorities, challenges and concerns augmented by the closure of the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton last year.