Plans are progressing for a new animal shelter in Jackson County, the first new construction to be completed in the $7.65 million vision for a revamped Green Energy Park campus. 

The time to tweak plans for Sylva’s controversial N.C. 107 project is past, residents were told during a well-attended town meeting Thursday, Sept. 12. 

In 2014, Duke LifePoint Healthcare purchased three hospitals in Western North Carolina with the promise of drastically improving rural health care services. 

Jackson County hopes to offset the cost of moving its Dillsboro recycling center with proceeds from selling a piece of land in Sylva that has been county-owned since 2012.

Last year was a good one for the tourism industry in Jackson County, with visitor spending in 2018 increasing by 5.3 percent over 2017 numbers, according to recently released figures from the state tourism office Visit North Carolina.

With right-of-way acquisition for the N.C. 107 project in Sylva set to begin in January, the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority is hoping to adopt new policies this December aimed at assisting ratepayers impacted by the endeavor. 

Housing is an issue across Western North Carolina, and Jackson County is no exception. Since June 2018, a newly created Housing Committee has been working toward solutions, and during an Aug. 13 work session the group showed county commissioners an early draft of a document to establish a housing trust fund for Jackson. 

After a closed session discussion during its Aug. 20 meeting, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to buy a pair of properties along Haywood Road in Dillsboro as part of a plan to remake the county’s existing Green Energy Park. 

The organization tasked with managing homeless services in Jackson County for the year ahead received official status as a federal nonprofit this month. 

Western Carolina University’s newest chancellor is fairly certain that, of the teachers and students she knew years ago while pursuing her undergraduate degree, none would have guessed that she’d one day end up leading a thriving campus of 11,000 students.