Sharon Franks, the embattled chair of Waynesville’s Cemetery Committee who sent a scathing email to a committee member for reporting a parking situation at Green Hill Cemetery, has resigned without fulfilling a public records request in accordance with state law.

On the same day her concerns about a parking issue were published, a Waynesville Cemetery Committee whistleblower resigned after the committee’s chair chastised her via email and made problematic comments about the First Amendment, public records laws and open meetings statutes.

Haywood County residents have always been very protective — and particular — about Waynesville’s historic Green Hill Cemetery, but at least one member of the Waynesville Cemetery Committee is looking to head off disaster before it becomes another public relations nightmare.

Waynesville’s historic Green Hill Cemetery has long been a centerpiece of the community, but of late it’s been at the center of controversy. After a botched cleanup prompted a closer look at management of town-owned cemeteries, restrictions on tours were implemented due to complaints of disrespectful behavior.

Months after a proscribed cleanup in Waynesville’s Green Hill Cemetery outraged residents who felt they hadn’t been given adequate notice, the town has followed through on its pledge to establish a committee designed to foster more collaborative care of both Green Hill and Dix Hill cemeteries. 

Long-established rules and regulations created by the Town of Waynesville that proscribed periodic cleanup of the town’s historic Green Hill Cemetery upset family members of the deceased, who were taken aback — and, they say, by surprise — when the cleanup resulted in dozens of shrubs, statues, vases and floral arrangements being cleared from plots. 

Historians in Waynesville are building a case to get Green Hill Cemetery listed on the National Register of Historic Places.