Cory Vaillancourt
In what could very well be a sneak preview of his in-person town hall in Asheville later today, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) abruptly walked away from a podium in Canton’s Sorrells Street Park and refused to answer questions about federal cuts to programs and services.
A small group of property owners in Maggie Valley are taking advantage of Rep. Mark Pless’ offer to de-annex them from the town, with at least one citing development restrictions and others saying they’re not getting what they’re paying for.
A bipartisan collaboration to bolster critical communication resources during natural disasters is gaining momentum in Congress after lessons learned during the devastation of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina last year.
Nearly six months after Hurricane Helene killed 106 people and caused more than $60 billion in damage across Western North Carolina, the General Assembly is set to approve another storm-related relief bill.
Highways, roads and bridges weren’t the only components of transportation infrastructure impacted by Hurricane Helene last fall. Now, a pair of Western North Carolina legislators have filed a bill in the North Carolina General Assembly to help a pair of railroads get back on track.
Few volunteer service organizations can claim a century of community engagement alongside world-changing influence, but as Waynesville’s Rotary club rolls into its second century, its leaders are looking to bolster the personal, professional and philosophical ties that have brought the organization to where it is today.
North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek has unveiled a new Hurricane Helene dashboard, an online tool designed to track relief efforts and spending in the wake of the devastating storm.
A team of students from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics has developed an artificial intelligence-based flood modeling system that could transform the way communities predict, and therefore respond, to extreme weather events.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been eager to propose federal budget cuts that purportedly save taxpayers money, but as the proposed cuts trickle down to the neighborhood level — like closing the U.S. Social Security Administration office in Franklin — residents are just as eager to show their disapproval.
Last week, Haywood County Republican Rep. Mark Pless filed a bill that would strip the county of its ability to levy room occupancy taxes. Now, he’s revealed that the impact of tourism on public safety and tight county budgets are also a motivating force behind it.
Saying 2024 was an “eventful” year for the Waynesville Fire Department may have been an understatement by Chief Joey Webb, Sr., but so is saying the department “made many great strides forward.”
After a disastrous September and October, some — but not all — counties impacted by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27 are getting back to business as usual.
Often called “America’s best idea,” the National Park System founded more than a century ago has given generations of visitors from across the country and the world a unique opportunity to come together amid the bountiful natural beauty and historical dignity this nation has to offer.
Today in the North Carolina General Assembly, Haywood County Republican Rep. Mark Pless filed a bill that would strip the county of its ability to levy room occupancy taxes.
On a holiday meant to honor the nation’s presidents — past and present — demonstrators in Jackson and Haywood counties joined others who gathered in cities across the country to protest what they describe as a dangerous concentration of power under Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
In the months before Hurricane Helene, the Town of Waynesville initiated a comprehensive stormwater master planning process. Now that the project is about at the halfway point, consultants checked in with Town Council to give a progress update on some capital projects that could help mitigate damage during the region’s next extreme weather event.
After two major floods in three years, BearWaters Brewing Company is adapting its business to ensure a future in downtown Canton. During a Feb. 13 town meeting, brewery representatives detailed their struggles and their vision for a new chapter, which includes shifting away from brewing on-site while expanding into a whole new line of business.
Updated Feb. 18
early $6 million in taxpayer money will be coming back to Haywood County after Attorney General Jeff Jackson and Gov. Josh Stein announced that a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit alleging that Pactiv Evergreen had violated the terms of a decade-old economic development grant agreement when it closed its Canton paper mill in 2023.
While the financial impact of Hurricane Helene has been apparent since the morning of Sept. 27, 2024, economic data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce and other sources now show Western North Carolina counties started to feel the pain even before the storm hit.
For the fourth time in four months, the North Carolina General Assembly has introduced a bill to address lingering unmet needs in communities affected by Hurricane Helene last year — and there’s a strong chance it won’t be the last.
A visit from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and comments made by North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein have given residents of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee considerable reasons for optimism as the region continues to recover from Hurricane Helene.
Despite Hurricane Helene’s disruption of the region’s tourism industry, the entity charged with collecting and spending room occupancy taxes in Haywood County to promote visitation has presented a 10-year master plan outlining a comprehensive strategy for sustainable tourism development.
Residents of Haywood County will have more information at their fingertips the next time flooding presents a risk, after Haywood County commissioners unanimously approved the purchase of seven new river gauges to monitor area waterways.
With billions in damages, limited state aid and considerable uncertainty surrounding federal funding, local officials are still pushing for streamlined disaster response to rebuild their communities months after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina.
After Hurricane Helene completed its devastating march from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Smoky Mountains, the struggles of disaster survivors — from environmental devastation and bureaucratic hurdles to inadequate recovery support — have exposed a broken cycle of aid and accountability, where truth and trust become enveloped in a murky ethical mist that consists, at least partially, of exploitative promises made worse by false premises and finger-pointing.
Before he was sworn in on Jan. 20, Donald Trump had a lot to say about the agenda he plans to pursue during his final term as president.
The 2017 inauguration of President Donald Trump was normal in nearly every way — the crowds of enthusiastic supporters, the chants of angry protestors, the iconic swearing-in ceremony at Capitol. But as it turns out, that inauguration will now fondly be remembered as the last “normal” inauguration in recent history.
Following up on a campaign promise he made just over a year ago, newly-elected North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson stood within eyeshot of what used to be Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton paper mill to remind the company that he wasn’t going to ease up on a lawsuit filed by his predecessor, now-Gov. Josh Stein.
Apprehension over the fate of a huge industrial parcel in the heart of Canton is now transitioning to cautious optimism.
A press release just issued by the St. Louis-based developer who’s been pursuing the site of the shuttered Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton since last May says he’s successfully acquired the site.
Editor’s note: This story originally ran in The Smoky Mountain News in November 2018 following Politics Editor Cory Vaillancourt’s trip to Georgia to meet President Jimmy Carter. The former president died Dec. 29, 2024.
There, in Sumter County, Georgia, not far from the Alabama line lies the tiny town of Plains (pop. 784), a most unremarkable place home to a most remarkable man.
Sunny sea-level Savannah, Georgia, is known for a lot of things — historic colonial beauty, low country cuisine and a wide-open bar culture that benefits from/endures one of the nation’s few open container laws — but it also has a rich musical legacy that locals are now using to help victims of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.
A local hero comes home to Western North Carolina for the first time in 20 years, potentially reigniting a longtime feud with an old nemesis and proving that some things always stay the same.
Newly elected Gov. Josh Stein wasted no time addressing some of the state’s biggest challenges after being sworn in on Jan. 1, traveling to Buncombe County today to announce immediate action on Hurricane Helene recovery.
I started this annual feature nearly a decade ago to poke fun at the emerging scourge of fake news — lies, really — that had popped up at local government meetings. It was a prophetic move, unfortunately, and in the intervening nine or so years it’s only gotten worse.
Hurricane Helene victims in Western North Carolina have eagerly been awaiting an expected holiday gift in the form of federal aid since the Sept. 27 storm pounded the region, but after nearly three months of wholly insufficient action in the General Assembly and a last-minute House vote in Washington, the only gift under the Christmas tree this year was pink bunny pajamas.
Two weeks after an unusual meeting where Commissioner Terry Ramey was told to resign over lies he helped spread about the post-Helene housing situation in Haywood County, the other four commissioners made clear they weren’t in the mood for any more shenanigans — removing one woman from the meeting, refuting more lies and even using a little bit of poetry from a cherished Western North Carolina scribe to keep things on track.
On Jan. 11, 2025 at 10 a.m., North Carolina will have a new governor for the first time in eight years — and what an eight years it’s been.
After decades of paying for hurricane recovery operations along the North Carolina coast, Western North Carolina taxpayers finally had a reason to ask the rest of the state to return the favor in the wake of Hurricane Helene. On Dec. 11, the rest of the state answered with a resounding “no.”
Mary Garrison and her husband, Fairview Fire Department Battalion Chief Tony Garrison, awoke around 4 a.m. on Sept. 27 to a darkened home with no electricity, torrential rainfall pounding the ground and high winds from Hurricane Helene screaming through their tiny, isolated Craigtown community.
According to a press release issued Dec. 9, a merger between Pactiv Evergreen and Charlotte-based Novolex will provide better customer service, increased product innovation and additional distribution capabilities across North America, but what the merger means for Pactiv’s lawsuits, its languishing 185-acre parcel in Canton and the future of the town’s wastewater treatment, isn’t yet clear.
According to a press release issued Dec. 9, a merger between Pactiv Evergreen and Charlotte-based Novolex will provide better customer service, increased product innovation and additional distribution capabilities across North America, but what the merger means for Pactiv’s lawsuits, its languishing 185-acre parcel in Canton and the future of the town’s wastewater treatment, isn’t yet clear.
Editor’s note: this story contains strong language.
Since his election in 2022, Haywood County Commissioner Terry Ramey has been known for lying — about his delinquent taxes, about his votes, about being assaulted — but this time, his acquiescent appearance in a YouTube video that spread misinformation about the county’s powers to circumvent state law has Ramey’s fellow commissioners receiving death threats and Haywood’s state representative calling for Ramey’s resignation.
To be, rather than to seem; North Carolina’s aspirational state motto evokes notions of determination and the desire for substance in a world where a thin veneer of competence is oftentimes seen as an acceptable substitute.
With North Carolina’s Republican-dominated General Assembly still dead-set on refusing to provide meaningful relief for mountain communities hit hard by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper traveled to Washington, D.C., with a delegation of western leaders, appealing to higher authority for help.
Like much of Haywood County, Waynesville wasn’t affected by Hurricane Helene as badly as many other Western North Carolina communities, but businesses, residents and the town still incurred millions in costly damages that will take time to fix.
Solid numbers on damage from Hurricane Helene are finally coming into Haywood County, along with a state plan to repurpose federal funds that will help speed recovery.
The Town of Canton’s temporary operations hub on Summer Street, home to town hall and the police department since shortly after deadly flooding in 2021, is about to get a little bigger.
In recognition of the exceptional public service provided by a trio of radio stations during Hurricane Helene — when nearly all other communication infrastructure had failed — the Town of Canton has named them grand marshals for the annual downtown Christmas parade.
Two days after Haywood Chamber President and CEO David Francis announced the creation of a small business grant recovery program for businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene, the Haywood County Tourism Development authority jumped on board — in a big way — while tempering its own expectations of what the post-Helene landscape looks like.
