Holly Kays

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Tribal government is expected to gain on openness and accountability following passage of a pair of laws in Cherokee Tribal Council this month. After more than a year of work, the tribe now has a code of ethics and a mechanism to ensure the new standards are enforced. 

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After more than two years of tests and evaluations, the end is now in sight for an effort to remove 450 tons of lead-contaminated soil from a shooting range at Southwestern Community College. The job will cost $237,000, but by the end of the summer the soil should be excavated, treated, hauled away and replaced with new, uncontaminated soil.

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The jury is still out on a property tax challenge being waged by Harris Regional Hospital, which claims its property is only worth a quarter of what the county says it is.

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After sixteen months of meetings, a change of planning director and a nearly complete turnover of membership on the Jackson County Planning Board, an updated industrial development ordinance is now in place for the county.

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out frRound tables and large, neon sticky notes characterized last week’s kickoff of a planning process to cut timber and create elk habitat in a remote corner of northeastern Haywood County.  

About 50 people representing groups including the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, MountainTrue, The Nature Conservancy, the Ruffed Grouse Society and Haywood County government — among a host of others — found their way to the room at the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville, taking a seat on the large circle of chairs waiting for them.

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out redwolfPetitions bearing nearly half a million signatures urging protection of the endangered red wolf made their way to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week, about one year after the USFWS announced it would suspend a program reintroducing red wolves to the wild.

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fr salariesWhen Bill Yang decided to leave the world of private industry to join Western Carolina University’s School of Engineering and Technology eight years ago, he fully expected that the transition to academia would bring with it a slash in salary.

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fr healthdirectorJackson County’s health department is gearing up to start millions of dollars of construction for its animal shelter and health buildings, but before those projects get off the ground leadership will change with the coming of a new health director. 

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fr dssdirectorAfter 20 years with the department, Jackson County’s director of social services will be retiring from county employment at the end of the month, but the department won’t want for experienced leadership going forward.

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fr chartersAfter months of fundraising, cash is now in hand to get a monument to the country’s founding documents in place at Mark Watson Park in Sylva.

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fr dogsrunningBear hunters on the Qualla Boundary may be able to run their dogs through tribal reserve land for a full half year following contentious discussion and a divided vote in Cherokee Tribal Council this month. 

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fr tribalcouncilCherokee Tribal Council is closer to finalizing a decision to revoke part of a former vice chief’s will, following its July meeting last week.

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cashiersCashiers recently completed its own effort to address food trucks with an ordinance approved by the Jackson County Commissioners last month. 

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fr foodtruckssylvaAfter seeing the showdown over food truck rules playing out in Waynesville, Sylva is gearing up to take a look at its own code of ordinances, hoping to forestall any such drama in its neck of the woods. 

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fr ledbetterAfter a June 9 accident that left a man dead and a community grieving, the effort to address a road that’s long been seen as dangerous is seeing a renewed surge of focus.

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out frA growing collection of roadside signs has been popping up along rural drives and main thoroughfares in Western North Carolina over the last decade, and while their presence might be barely noticeable to the untrained eye, they trace the history of a story that shaped the region before most of the roads they adorn were even built.

The Trail of Tears. 

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coverEver since a controversial bill proposing to slash tuition rates at selected University of North Carolina schools popped up in May, leaders at Western Carolina University have been working to parse its language, ferret out its potential impacts and prod legislators toward a version they could support.

SEE ALSO: Tuition ‘buy down’ promises future entanglements

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fr goodsamaritanA partnership that could quadruple patient volume and expand medical staffing for the uninsured of Jackson County has been the subject of a flurry of meetings and conversations since The Good Samaritan Clinic of Jackson County announced last week that it’s moving toward a partnership with Hendersonville-based Blue Ridge Health Center.

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fr caneyforkstoreMickey Luker has been working on a remodel of Caney Fork General Store ever since he purchased the property in 2011, but now the county commissioner candidate is claiming that politically motivated nefariousness caused the county health department to deny him the wastewater permit he needs to add a deli line to his business.

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fr webcherokeeThe Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ website received the lowest score of any of those reviewed by The Smoky Mountain News, coming in with an overall 1.4 out of 5. 

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fr websylvaSylva’s website, last overhauled in 2010, will be getting a facelift this year after the town board voted to spend $3,000 on a redesign of the town’s website and logo.

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fr webjacksonKelly Fuqua doesn’t have a problem saying she’s pretty proud of Jackson County’s website. Before she overhauled it in 2011, the site was getting “complaint after complaint,” and she sank a lot of work into fixing the problem. 

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fr web govtGo back in time 25 years, and a town with a website — any website, no matter how terrible the fonts or funky the navigation — would have been seen as glitzy and ahead of its time. But these days, having a website is the bare minimum of what citizens expect from their government’s online presence.

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out frRods, reels, and wader-clad teenagers dotted Big East Fork’s meander to Lake Logan through the warm summer mornings last week, a picture of mountain tranquility framed between green-shrouded banks backlit by the mountain-bordered reservoir downstream.

“It’s pretty relaxing,” said Gabby Dilemme, 14, of Brevard. The rod she grasped was her own, an instrument she’s used before when fishing with friends. But at Rivercourse, the annual four-day fly fishing and conservation camp organized by N.C. Trout Unlimited, she was hoping to dig a little deeper into the sport.

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jacksonWith a one-month gap between the retirement of Jackson County Manager Chuck Wooten and the arrival of his successor Don Adams, Jackson County Commissioners voted this week to choose an interim manager to bridge the gap. County Attorney Heather Baker will fill the role.  

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fr minorsfundWhen teen members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians come of age, they find themselves in sudden possession of a six-figure bank account. But the overnight windfall comes with risk, many tribal leaders believe, and Tribal Council took a monumental vote to change the way money is paid out to their young people — in installments rather than as a one-time payment. 

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WCUStudents pursuing health careers at Western Carolina University will soon have ample chance for hands-on learning right on campus if plans for a new medical office building on Little Savannah Road move forward as expected. 

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out frWhen Sarah Scott first started work at Haywood County Cooperative Extension in February 2015, planning for the 2016 Haywood County Garden Tour was one of the first items to come across her desk. Untold hours of preparation later, the horticulture extension agent and horde of volunteers working with her are days away from showing hundreds of people the best of Haywood’s gardens.

“Haywood County has some very talented gardeners and some very beautiful gardens,” Scott said. “I enjoyed going out and seeing so many of them. It was terrible to have to choose only a few.”

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out troutJackson County won’t officially become the North Carolina Trout Capital this year, but legislators expressed their support of the county’s angling opportunities by declaring it the state’s Premier Trout Fishing Destination on Wednesday, June 1, in Raleigh.

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black bearNearly a month after an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker found his night interrupted by an attacking bear, the backcountry shelter in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where the incident occurred is open once more.

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fr defendantsAbout 20 tribal members filled the audience benches in Cherokee Tribal Court last week, watching the first court hearing in a lawsuit decrying pay raises Cherokee Tribal Council gave itself in 2014. The suit’s defendants were asking Judge Sharon Barrett to dismiss the claims.

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jacksonThe finish line is in sight to choose a new county manager for Jackson County.

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jacksonNearly two-thirds of Jackson County voters who visited the polls last week said yes to a referendum question asking to raise the county’s sales tax by one-fourth of a cent. Education leaders are rejoicing at the outcome. 

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A casino board member who came under fire for possible “conduct unbecoming” of a public official will keep her post, following conclusion of an investigation ordered by the Cherokee Tribal Council.

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out frAdam Bigelow bears down on the gas pedal of his biodiesel-fueled Jetta, urging it up the steep contours of the Blue Ridge Parkway in search of higher ground. It’s a gardener’s car, through-and-through, the dash covered with dried plant parts, the floorboards papered with garden-related fliers and catalogues. 

The only thing that’s missing is a live plant, and even that’s not too far-flung a reality. It wasn’t that long ago, Bigelow recalls, that he looked down from his seat to see a little pea plant growing up, apparently having received just the right amount of water from some mysterious source to take root in the car.

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fr ledfordThe widow of a former Vice Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians may be out of a home if Tribal Council decides to slash the portion of a will that left her the house.

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fr wcusciencebuildingWith the N.C. Connect bond passed, Western Carolina University is moving forward with plans to bring a $110 million natural sciences building from vision to reality.

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jacksonWhen Jackson County sent out bucketloads of mail this spring announcing new values for every property in its borders, Harris Regional Hospital got a piece of paper declaring that its campus was worth a little over $42.3 million — the tally rises to $48.9 million with all the auxiliary holdings included.

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out frThe sun had not quite set when Bradley Veeder fell asleep in his tent May 10, feeling “tired but happy” after a 17-mile day on the Appalachian Trail.

The 49-year-old Montana native was no stranger to trail life, having more than 20 years’ experience backpacking in places ranging from Wyoming to Oregon to Nepal, and he’d been putting in 15- to 20-mile days ever since starting his A.T. thru-hike April 30. Sound sleep was an important part of the recipe. 

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fr pisgahWhen John Cottingham, then working as — in his words — a “stuffy, corporate lawyer,” walked into the Pisgah District Ranger Office to drop off a donation, he was surprised to learn that there actually wasn’t a way for the Pisgah National Forest to accept donations toward projects.

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fr jaxTDATourism folks in Jackson County are feeling hopeful after hiring a new marketing firm to spread the word about the county’s hidden wonders.

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fr forestplanThe timeline for a draft forest management plan has been kicked back once more, with the document now expected sometime at the very end of 2016.

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fr campgroundCamping fees could increase in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park if a recently released proposal gains approval.

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fr cherokeeA request to change the way tribal members in the westernmost reaches of the Qualla Boundary are represented on Tribal Council led to a heated discussion in Cherokee this month. The legislation was ultimately tabled, but the issue could well return to the floor.

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fr EMSjacksonWhen a funding request for Emergency Management Services came in for more than double what Jackson County is paying now, commissioners were taken pretty far aback, asking lots of questions about the justification for the $821,000 leap and setting the issue aside for a few weeks to investigate the options.

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fr sccWhen the polls open June 7, Jackson County voters will have a choice to make — whether to OK a small sales tax increase to provide additional funding for Jackson County Public Schools and Southwestern Community College.

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black bearThe case of a 400-pound bear euthanized after a hiker in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was bitten in the leg appears to have been a wrongful conviction. DNA results delivered Monday (May 23) showed that the bear that bit 49-year-old Bradley Veeder, of Las Vegas, on May 10 and the one that park staff euthanized May 13 were two different animals.

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coverIt’s been three years since a vigorous debate about charging for backcountry camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park ended with the park’s decision to charge backpackers a $4 fee, but for the fee’s most stalwart opponents, the issue isn’t yet in the rearview mirror. 

Southern Forest Watch, a group that formed expressly to fight the fee, filed suit against the National Park Service soon after the fee was approved in February 2013. The public had overwhelmingly decried the proposal, SFW said, arguing that the park hadn’t followed correct procedure when approving it and contending that the assertion that the existing backcountry system was inadequate, crowded and causing complaints — necessitating the fee — was unfounded.

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out frWhen life gets hectic, most people have a vacation spot where they go to unwind — perhaps a family cabin on the lake, a favorite campground or a sandy beach. 

David Burns, 73, finds that place somewhere in the depths of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

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coverAn air of excitement and expectation reigned over downtown Sylva last week as crews and stars alike rolled in to film streets transformed into the fictional town of Ebbing, Missouri. 

SEE ALSO: 
The long road to the big screen
• ‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Three Billboards,’ and economic ripples

Crowds gathered on street corners, craning their necks for a view during scenes filmed outdoors on Sylva’s Main Street or keeping a more laidback watch during indoor scenes, hoping for a glimpse of the Hollywood A-listers cast in the big-budget film, called “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

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