Downtown Waynesville merchants hope a plan to remodel the old Strand theater as an entertainment venue, restaurant and microbrewery will return the former icon to a Main Street magnet once again.

“We are excited about it. We think it is certainly needed here in Waynesville,” said Tom Massie, owner of Massie Furniture. “I think it will bring a lot of people downtown at night who will be exposed to Main Street and see things to come back and buy.”

Those who grew up during the heyday of Friday night features and Saturday matinees remember the line at the former Strand movie theater stretching a block and a half down Main Street. In the days before television, many people went religiously every time a new picture came to town, recalled Bette Sprecher, who grew up during the era.

During the post-World War II years, there were even dueling downtown movie theaters stationed across the street from each other. The Strand remained in operation until the early 1980s when attendance eventually withered too low to remain operational.

“TV kind of ruined the theater business,” said Massie.

Ed Kelley, owner of Ridge Runner Naturals gallery on Main Street, can’t wait until the new venue at the former Strand opens its doors.

“I have been saying this for ages, that the Strand needs to be turned into a brew pub kind of place,” Kelley said. “I think it will enhance what we already have to draw people here.”

Kelley is a musician and appreciates craft beers, so he will likely be a regular. But as a business owner directly across the street, he’s already plotting how to tap into the presumed bump in downtown nightlife.

“I think I will get trickle down from it,” Kelley said. He hopes the evening foot traffic will inspire merchants to stay open later.

“Waynesville pretty much rolls up the sidewalk at 5 or 6,” Kelley said. “I think it will give people some options of things to do in the evenings, which is something we seem to lack.”

It may also motivate more redevelopment.

“If people see things happening, that is good PR, and that can actually enhance somebody’s perception of what Waynesville is or is going to be,” Kelley said.

That’s exactly the outcome Buffy Messer, the director of Downtown Waynesville Association, was hoping for when chasing a grant to make the Strand venture a reality.

“The project will spur more interest and growth not only in our downtown, but also in our community,” Messer said. “An economically vibrant and growing downtown is not just good in itself — it is vital for a prosperous region.”

Besides, merchants could use some rosy news, she said, not only due to a two-year recession but a winter hammered by snowstorms that kept shoppers holed up at home.

“It was just a really rough winter. The snow came every Friday. It killed their weekends,” Messer said of the merchants. There are certainly signs 2010 will mark a turn-around based on downtown development in recent months. In addition to half a dozen retail shops and a couple new professional businesses, two large anchor buildings have been filled. Main Street Artist’s Co-op moved into the space vacated by Furniture Village and Davis Clothing opened in the former Towne Square space, which had been vacant two years.

There have been two new restaurants to open as well, Nico’s Café and soon Café 50, both of which remodeled downtown spaces in recent months.

While Waynesville’s downtown has been a shining model for Main Street revitalization and the envy of small towns across the state, the once-beloved Strand has remained shuttered. Then a dose of good fortune arrived in February. The state announced a pool of grant money through the new Main Street Solutions Fund, designed to drive economic development by assisting small business owners in downtowns.

“It was the first opportunity we had been given in years for small business,” Messer said. “I couldn’t look back and say I didn’t try.”

Messer and the owner of the Strand, Richard Miller, toiled day and night to complete the application. The grant required an exhaustive business plan and putting it together by the 30-day deadline was be tricky. Luckily, key pieces were already in place. Joey Massie, the Strand’s owner before Miller, had a similar plan to transform the space into an entertainment venue, restaurant and bar. He even had architectural drawings for the interior remodeling work and a business plan. Massie never got the project off the ground, however, because the renovations were cost-prohibitive.

Massie’s architectural drawings and business plan provided a foundation for the application. Meanwhile, a local beer brewer, Kevin Sandefur, happened to have a comprehensive business plan in his pocket for the brewery angle. Sandefur created a business plan the previous year in order to enter the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce Business Start-Up competition.

“We wouldn’t have made it if there hadn’t already been some paperwork in place,” Messer said.

Competition was stiff. There were 29 applications requesting $7 million — but only eight were awarded and $1.95 million given out.

The Strand venture will obviously compete with other downtown restaurants and bars. Jennifer Ewart, owner of Nick and Nate’s, a popular Main Street pizza restaurant known for its outstanding selection of microbrews, wonders whether there will be enough business to go around, particularly during winter months. Nick and Nate’s generally has a wait list going by 6 p.m. during the height of summer tourist season, but the winter months are “very slow,” Ewart said, citing that as the true test facing the Strand venture.

In the eyes of Canton’s town leaders, the status quo in recreation funding just isn’t cutting it.

For years, the town of Canton has had to maintain an aging public pool and has struggled to obtain stadium lighting to allow night games at the International Paper sports complex, which could cost as much as $400,000.

Yet since the start of the recession, the town has received not a penny from the county to support recreation. Residents from all over the county, not just within town limits, use town facilities like the pool in Canton and the recreation center in Waynesville. Yet town taxpayers are left footing much of the bill without county support.

That prompted Canton’s mayor, all four of its aldermen and its town manager to show up to the last Haywood county commissioners meeting, requesting that recreation funding not only be restored, but also that it be doled out fairly.

“We feel like we’re not getting all the funding that we’re possibly entitled to receive,” said Canton Alderman Kenneth Holland.

Until the recession struck, Haywood County annually sent $30,000 Canton’s way for recreation, while sending $70,000 to Waynesville for the same purpose.

But last year the county eliminated recreation contributions for Canton and Waynesville and has revealed no plans for restoring it.

“The needs have been great, but funds have been few,” said Canton Mayor Pat Smathers.

Canton leaders say they feel shortchanged geographically. The resolution that the Canton board formally presented alleged that there were few programs “if any” and no facilities operated by the county recreation department in Canton and the rest of eastern Haywood County.

On the other hand, the county has begun planning a $6.3 million sports complex in Jonathan Creek after already completing the first county-developed park in Allens Creek. Both projects are in western Haywood County.

Canton’s board of aldermen have requested that the county once again allocate funds to individual towns and school recreation programs, rather than to the county recreation department.

“At least on this end of the county, there’s a perception, ‘Hey, what’s the county rec department doing here?’” said Smathers.

But Claire Carleton, county recreation director, denied that there was any favoritism for the western half of Haywood.

“Each entity has got to stand up and prove their needs,” said Carleton. “No matter where they’re coming from, east, west, it doesn’t matter.”

While county commissioners were sympathetic to the Canton board’s request, they stressed that the recession has left their hands tied when it comes to appropriating funding for recreation.

As a Canton resident, Commissioner Skeeter Curtis is well aware of the town’s recreation needs, but he said the county is down to bare bones with the tough economy. Curtis also pointed out that the Town of Canton is “well-represented” on the county recreation board, which has a significant say in which projects the county moves forward with next.

“If there was money, I would stand up for the people of east Haywood,” added Curtis. “But I’m on both sides of the fence now, I can see both sides.”

Meanwhile, Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick emphasized that “contrary to popular belief,” no construction work had started on the Jonathan Creek park. Kirkpatrick also pointed out that in the past, the county supplied $321,000 to help construct the sports complex in Canton. Haywood County also transported fill from the Beaverdam Industrial Park to grade the sports complex at the county’s cost.

Commissioner Bill Upton said Canton is actually in the lead when it comes to having a complete sports complex. For now, the Jonathan Creek sports complex exists only on paper.

“If they ever get their lights, they’re way ahead,” said Upton.

Bridging the divide

Canton’s town leaders claim that 65 percent of the people who use the public pool in Canton come from outside town limits. Similarly, the town of Waynesville reports that about 70 percent of people who use its recreation center do not live in town.

Though user fees generate some revenue, town property taxes play a significant role in propping up both the Waynesville recreation center and Canton’s outdoor pool. In essence, town taxpayers are subsidizing those two facilities for the entire county.

The Town of Waynesville reports that it makes $695,000 operating the recreation department, including the recreation center. In contrast, the recreation department faces $2.2 million annually in expenses, from paying off debt on the recreation center to paying regular operating expenses. It’s up to town taxpayers to help make up the difference with $1.1 million of contributions from property taxes in the 2010-2011 town budget.

For now, Waynesville residents pay the same monthly fee as county residents at the recreation center, though town leaders have toyed with the idea of charging higher fees for county residents living outside town limits in the past. The idea has proven to be a logistical challenge.

“That becomes a total nightmare when someone’s coming in to check in,” said Wells Greeley, Waynesville alderman.

The easiest way to receive support from county taxpayers who live outside town limits was to receive direct funding from the county. With the total cut in recreation funding from the Haywood county taxpayers though, towns are now left to their own devices.

“It is a challenge every year to devote the money to our recreation, but it’s a vital part of every municipality in Haywood County,” said Greeley.

Carleton said while recreation is crucial for both the mental and physical health of citizens, most government officials see recreation as a non-essential service. The county recreation department has seen major funding cuts of its own since the recession hit.

“That’s just the way it’s always been, from the national level all the way down to Haywood County,” said Carleton. “It’s a widely known fact, the first thing that’s going to be cut is recreation.”

Carleton would not say what she thought was the best way to divvy up the recreation responsibilities among county and town recreation departments. But she added that the most important points are to not duplicate services and to work together.

Waynesville Mayor Gavin Brown agreed that governments philosophically shouldn’t be competing with each other.

“I hate that east-west argument,” said Brown. “I thought we had got over it ... that kind of diatribe and that kind of mentality gets you nowhere.”

However, Brown said he, too, would like to see recreation funding restored to municipalities. More than that, he would like to see the county work more closely with the towns.

“If the county wants to be in recreation, it should sit down with everyone to decide how we want to spend the citizens’ money,” said Brown. “What we need to do is sit down and discuss things, and that’s not going on now. That is the biggest problem.”

The cause of a fish kill on an isolated stretch of Jonathan Creek in Maggie Valley last Saturday is eluding environmental agencies and will likely remain a mystery.

A number of trout, from fingerlings to foot-long fish, turned up dead on Jonathan Creek near the confluence with Evans Cove branch in the middle of Maggie Valley.

The exact number has not been confirmed.

“I have estimates that are all over the place,” said Roger Edwards, regional supervisor of the surface water quality branch of the state Division of Water Quality.

The dead fish floating in the water were so visible it even triggered 911 calls.

Jonathan Creek is a source of drinking water for customers of the Maggie Valley Sanitary District. But whatever caused the fish kill did not jeopardize the public water source, according to Neil Carpenter, director of the Maggie water agency. Both water intakes are safely a mile and half upstream from the site of the dead fish.

“As a precaution, we sent our crews to both areas and walked the stream looking. We went a half mile above each intake and walked the stream banks and saw nothing,” Carpenter said.

While Division of Water Quality was alerted when dead fish started turning up Saturday afternoon, no one with the agency made an appearance until Monday. The nearly 48-hour lag time means anything in the water that may have contributed to the fish kill was long gone downstream. But for good measure, field teams took water samples to test things like pH and oxygen levels anyway. They did not do any biological sampling to see what kind of aquatic critters were present.

The tissue of the dead fish is not likely to unlock any secrets. For toxins to show up in tissue, fish would have to be exposed to it over a prolonged period, Edwards said.

In this case, Edwards believes there was an “isolated incident” that caused the fish kill, since the dead fish showed up during a finite window of time and a fairly short stretch of the creek.

Fish kills during summer, and especially during a summer drought, can occur when low creek levels combine with high temperatures to deplete oxygen in the water. But Edwards has ruled out that cause in this case. He doesn’t think it was sediment plume either, as that would have been visible and easy to trace to its source by eyewitnesses.

Steve Lampl paints with acrylics and loves to golf. But last year when he had shoulder surgery, he had to put golfing on hold. That’s when he decided to organize The Mainstreet Artists Co-op Gallery.

A year later, the co-op has grown to a total of 20 artists and has moved to a larger location — a prime storefront on Waynesville’s Main Street left vacant when the Furniture Village closed last year.

“We are very pleased with the space,” Lampl said. “The traffic flow is great. We feel like we have to be on Main Street.”

On the first Saturday the gallery opened this season, more than 300 people walked through the art displays, said Char Avrunin, an original member of the co-op and oil painter.

The co-op has a three-member jury to select new artists, but the gallery is already full. The last artist who will be added this season is a fine quilt-maker.

Lampl said the jury selects artists on the basis of quality, salability, price points and how they will meld with the rest of the gallery.

Nancy Howell Blevins is new to the co-op this year. In order to be accepted, she submitted a portfolio, including pictures of her art and a statement about what she would bring to the group.

Blevins hand dyes silk scarves and paints with watercolor.

“There were no other silks or watercolors with styles like mine,” she said. “The committee was looking for something different.”

Blevin recently taught Avrunin how to paint on silk.

“The artists in this community are wonderful about sharing their techniques with each other,” Avrunin said.

Unlike other artists in the co-op, Avrunin works mainly on commissioned portraits. She uses her gallery space to showcase her skills to potential clients. Avrunin’s past subjects include golfer Arnold Palmer and racecar driver Leilani Munter.

Although she majored in art during college, Avrunin earned her master’s in educational communication and became a manager for Chrysler Satellite Network in Detroit.

She became mysteriously ill in 1995 and spent about a year in bed, she said. In 1998, doctors at John Hopkins Hospital diagnosed her with a rare neurological disease.

“I asked God what I should do next,” she said. “He said, ‘Paint my people.’”

Like Avrunin, George Dixon is also an original member of the co-op. He displays his color photography in the gallery. He primarily shoots nature but also some architecture.

“I’m trying to capture the natural beauty of Western Carolina before it’s developed away from us,” he said.

Before retiring, Dixon was a physics professor. Long before he became the photographer he is today, he understood the optics and technology that make cameras work.

Dixon got his first “good camera” when his oldest child was born, he said. He’s sold between 30 and 40 prints since he joined the co-op last year.

“It’s been a complete delight,” Dixon said. “None of us are getting rich at this, but it’s fun.”

Members of the co-op pay a fee that goes to cover rent and other expenses. When an artists’ work is sold in the gallery, all the money goes back to the artist.

“It’s been a positive experience for me, and I love to create,” Blevins said. “I appreciate having an outlet where I can present my scarves for sale so I can support my habit.”

Artists staff the gallery themselves, working a half day once a week or a full day every other week. Many of the co-op artists are at the gallery for Art after Dark on the first Friday every month.

“I think what we are doing is a positive thing for downtown Waynesville,” Blevins said. “It is good for me because I love my little town.”

For more information, call Steve Lampl at 828.452.4592, or stop by 93 N. Main Street 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Mon.-Sat.

The artists

The original co-op members include Char Avrunin (oil, watercolor and silk), Gretchen Clasby (acrylic and watercolor), Jeanne Colburn (acrylic and watercolor), George Dixon (photography), Pam Haddock (watercolor), Sandy Lampl (acrylic and oil), Steve Lampl (acrylic), Margaret Roberts (acrylic and collage), Sharon Smith (acrylic and watercolor), Bill Smith (photography), David Stone (acrylic) and Carolyn Taylor (watercolor).

The new additions are Nancy Howell Blevins (hand-died silk), Rebecca Hellman (glass fusion), Anita Painter (graphite portraits), Terance Painter (pottery), Terry Thompson (jewelry) and Dan and Wendy Wright (stained glass and copper).

A downtown Waynesville project that would put a live entertainment venue, a microbrewery and a pizza restaurant together in the old Strand Theater on Main Street has been awarded a $300,000 grant. Gov. Beverly Perdue will visit Waynesville this Friday (May 28) to see the project firsthand and to talk with other Main Street businesses.

Waynesville businessman Richard Miller owns The Strand, and he credited Downtown Waynesville Association Executive Director Buffy Messer with encouraging him to apply for the grant.

“I give her all the credit for bringing this to our attention,” said Miller.

Miller will partner with other entities to pull off the project, including Headwaters Brewing Co., which is owned by Kevin and Melanie Sandefur. Headwaters Brewing Co. was just last week named the winner of the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce’s Business Start-up Competition, which comes with an $8,000 award.

Miller said the grant will be awarded to the Town of Waynesville, which is then obligated to give it to the developer who restores the building where the new businesses will be located. The money can’t be used for furnishings or business equipment, he said, only for permanent building upgrades.

In a best-case scenario, Miller said the project would be open for business by summer 2011.

The partners in The Strand project include the town, the Downtown Waynesville Association, The Strand Dynasty LLC, Headwaters Brewing Company, Delano’s Pizza Company and the Haywood County Arts Council.

In addition to Waynesville, seven additional communities will receive a total of $1.95 million through the state’s Main Street Solutions Fund. The grants are earmarked to “assist planning agencies and small businesses with efforts to revitalize downtowns by creating jobs, funding infrastructure improvements, rehabilitating buildings and finding other growth opportunities.”

“We know that some of the most creative and innovative economic development work is being done through small businesses and other economic partners in our downtown areas,” said Gov. Perdue. “Main streets can be at the heart of North Carolina’s economic recovery with the right support and investment. For every $1 invested by the state, an additional $4.72 will be invested by the local community."

$6,342,044.

That’s approximately how much money needs to be raised before Haywood County residents can expect to see a recreation park built in Jonathan Creek.

With the recession retaining its stranglehold on the nation, county commissioners aren’t contributing a single cent to the park in this year’s proposed budget.

The project, as many already know, is years away from becoming a reality, even though the park’s design is nearly finalized.

Having a design in hand undoubtedly gives the county a leg up in securing state recreation grants, which mostly fund projects that are already underway.

But there’s one other source that could be of assistance to the many softball and baseball players itching to play at the park’s proposed four new fields.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority — which collects lodging tax and helps promote tourism in the county — already contributed $10,000 of the $15,000 that went into the Jonathan Creek Park design process.

Sports tournaments are known to bring out-of-town visitors not only out to the fields during the day, but also to hotels and motels after the game is through.

“Whenever you have kids in any type of competition, you have parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters,” said Marion Hamel, TDA’s vice-chair for the Town of Maggie Valley. “I think it would just be a boon to the whole area.”

More “heads in beds” means more money for the TDA, which in turn leads to a higher advertising budget to then bring even more tourists to town. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that gets a boost from new facilities that draw tourists.

The idea is not new. TDAs or similar associations across the Southeast have utilized their funds to do more than just place ads in newspapers and magazines. On the east coast, they’ve funded boat docks. In Greensboro, they helped the International Civil Rights Center & Museum come to fruition.

The Buncombe County TDA has gone so far as to devote one percent of its lodging tax solely to brick and mortar projects that generate additional room nights.

Its beneficiaries throughout the years are many, including the Bob Moog Museum, concert venue The Orange Peel, Pack Square Park, the Buncombe County Civil War Trails, and the Bonsai Garden at the North Carolina Arboretum, to name a few.

Small in the game

For now, Haywood’s TDA is unsure that it’ll play a major role in funding the Jonathan Creek park.

“The problem is we’re going through the budget process right now, and it’s looking very, very, very slim,” Hamel said. “I would be very hesitant to say yes. If we had the funds, yes, I would support that.”

Alice Aumen, who serves as chair of the TDA, said the organization has already made unprecedented cuts due to the triple whammy of the recession, the rockslide that shut down Interstate 40 for six months and 2009’s rainy summer.

The agency’s year to date revenue is down by 8 percent, and the TDA held a special meeting last week to determine how to possibly fulfill the budget they’ve passed for this year with such a shortfall.

Members voted to close doors at the Balsam visitor center three days a week and the Canton Visitor Center altogether until the end of June, when the new 2010-2011 fiscal year begins.

“It’s never happened before,” Aumen said. “We certainly hope it doesn’t happen again.”

Aumen would not comment on whether the TDA would fund construction on the Jonathan Creek Park, adding though that there had been no discussion yet on the subject.

According to Aumen, that decision would depend on how members see TDA’s role in the community.

“Some people perceive that TDA is really a promotional agency, as opposed to getting into product development,” said Aumen.

Ken Stahl, chair of the TDA’s finance committee, said the agency must above all determine how to maximize the impact of each tourism dollar it receives.

The TDA decided to help jumpstart the Jonathan Creek Park project with funding because of its potential to bring overnight visitors to the area for years to come, Stahl said.

“Maybe it was important for us to contribute to the front-end of this thing,” Stahl said. “Our thoughts were to help this project along, thinking it would help in the long run.”

Though the Haywood TDA has widened its scope, it hasn’t totally lost focus on its core principles of marketing and promoting the area.

Other than the sports complex in Jonathan Creek, the only other capital project the TDA has contributed to is the Maggie Valley’s festival grounds, which received $115,000 for lighting and other electrical needs.

According to the American Planning Association, however, sports tournaments generally create a greater economic impact for local communities than special events and festivals. Most non-major festivals overwhelmingly attract locals rather than faraway visitors.

Steve Fritts, vice president of Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon — the design firm leading the project at Jonathan Creek — is currently working on a project in Indiana, where the convention and visitors bureau is funding 100 percent of an $18 million sports complex.

Chattanooga, Tenn., spent $10 million on a new eight-field softball complex that’s estimated to bring an economic impact of $25.9 million between 2008 and 2013, according to Fritts. From 1992 to 2006, the city documented more than $50 million in economic impact from softball tournaments alone, Fritts said.

Meanwhile, Rock Hill, S.C., reports that holding about 35 sports tournaments each year adds $5 million of direct economic impact to its room tax each year. That tax money had paid most of the bills on a new soccer field and tennis center in town.

Though the impacts can be enormous in certain cases, Haywood County still faces a crunch in figuring out how to fund its own $6.3 million sports complex. The answer can’t fully lie with the TDA.

“There is obviously a limit to how much we can do that we can do,” Stahl said. “This is really a county project. They’re the ones that bought the property, and they’re the ones that are going to develop it.”

Haywood’s TDA typically has a total budget of $1 million, while similar organizations in Asheville and Cherokee can spend $1.5 million or more out of their multimillion dollar budget each year.

“We’re small in the game of TDAs,” Stahl said.

Haywood Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick said that with the county’s own tight budget, the recreation department will have to start applying for state grants, hoping for the best.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re not in a financial position to move forward with the construction,” said Kirkpatrick.

On the bright side, having a design in place will still move Haywood up on the queue for receiving state funding.

“Without a site master plan, you can’t get anywhere,” said Claire Carleton, recreation director for the county. “This is the most important initial step.”

The park’s many offerings

After receiving ample input from vocal citizens, the Haywood County Recreation Board has selected a master site plan for the Jonathan Creek sports complex.

The park will include a 225-foot baseball field, a 200-foot baseball field, and two 300-foot softball/baseball fields that would accommodate men’s softball tournaments, as well as a two-story scorer’s tower with concessions and restrooms.

The plan also calls for an Astroturf multipurpose field, a small soccer field, tennis courts, playground, horseshoe pits, picnic sites, batting cage, a handicapped fishing pier, and a walking trail alongside the creek.

The plan awaits final approval by the Haywood County commissioners.

Ten-year-old Waynesville resident Zeb Powell has exclusive, 24-7 access to a skate park in town — it’s in his driveway.

Powell got hold of a half-pipe, rails and multiple ramps when the indoor BP Skate Park closed down last fall. But as it turns out, having a park to yourself isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“He loves doing it with other people,” said his mother, Val Powell. “By himself, it’s just not as much fun.”

Zeb is one of many skateboarders in Waynesville waiting for the long-promised public skate park on Vance Street, near the Waynesville Recreation Center.

For now, skaters still have to deal with a town ban on skateboards on sidewalks and most town streets. Violators face a $50 fine and the possibility of having their boards confiscated.

The proposed fenced-in outdoor park will cost somewhere between $275,000 to $325,000 to construct. So far, the town has lined up $120,000 to devote to the project.

Included in that total is a $60,000 state Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant Waynesville recently received, plus a $20,000 grant from the Waynesville Kiwanis Club. The rest comes from town funds.

With the idea of a skate park stalled for more than a decade, the state grant eluded the town when it first applied in 2009. To boost its chances of winning the coveted grant in the next cycle, the town dipped into its own coffers to fund a design plan for the park — hoping to prove it was dedicated to the idea. The plan worked.

Waynesville hired California firm Spohn Ranch Skateparks to lead the project earlier this year. In March, the firm held a public input meeting with local skaters to help shape the look of the park. The firm will present three potential designs at an online meeting next week.

Recreation Director Rhett Langston says he sees a parallel between skate parks and golf courses. Each should have its own unique character and offer different elements from those facilities nearby. With skate parks relatively close in Asheville and Hendersonville, Waynesville’s recreation department wants to offer something else with its park.

“We want ours to be as nice but also different,” Langston said. “So all skaters can go from one location to another.”

Right now, Waynesville parent Joe Moore said he’ll be thrilled to see any kind of skate park.

“I wish there was more money to make it happen immediately,” Moore said. “The wheels of bureaucracy always move too slow.”

Moore wholly supports the project, though, and is happy the park will have no entry fee. He says he’s not worried about the park being unsupervised by town staff.

“Most parents are not going to drop off their 7- to 12-year-old to skateboard and run errands,” said Moore.

Though Moore originally preferred an indoor park, he would now love to see an outdoor facility with a roof overhead to protect skaters like his son Dylan from wet and snowy weather. He also suggests wooden ramps rather than those made of concrete.

“Skateboarders like to see things change,” said Moore. “Concrete, once it’s poured, it’s always going to stay the same.”

Most skaters who attended the first public meeting supported a hybrid of a bowl and a street park with ramps, rails, stairs and more, Langston said.

Langston, who has been instrumental in moving the skate park forward, was himself a skater in his youth. But that was before the rise of skate parks nationwide.

“We would just fly down the hill in our neighborhood,” said Langston. “We just made do with what we had.”

Donate

The Waynesville Recreation Department is selling bricks with personalized messages for a walkway leading up to the park. So far, skaters have raised about $3,000.

Those interested in purchasing one brick for $50 or two for $75, making a donation, or volunteering should contact Rhett Langston at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.456.2030.

Haywood County commissioners are fighting opposition on all fronts after a county task force recently recommended major changes to trash and recycling operations.

The central debate is revolving around a proposal that would privatize a portion of the county’s trash operations, put 15 full-time county employees out of work, and shut down a transfer station in Clyde where haulers now deliver their loads.

“The same folks that say reduce the costs are here saying save the jobs,” said Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick at a county meeting Monday, which saw everyone from private trash haulers to county employees to regular citizens railing against commissioners.

Meanwhile, town officials in Waynesville, Clyde and Canton are none too happy about greater expenses being passed down to them as the county offloads some of its current responsibilities.

Haywood County’s budget as proposed calls for the county to outsource operations of its 10 convenience centers, where residents without curbside trash pickup dump their household garbage and recyclables.

The county also plans to lay off employees who now sort all the county’s recyclables manually. Alternatively, recyclables would be hauled away to be separated much more quickly by machine.

If both measures are passed, the county would save $431,000. However, the household solid waste fee would still increase by $22 to make debt payments on an expansion of the White Oak landfill. Without the cost saving measures, those fees would jump up by $40 per household this year. The fee is currently $70.

Most controversial of all, though, is the suggestion not yet incorporated into this year’s budget: closing the county’s transfer station in Clyde.

For now, the transfer station offers town trash trucks and private haulers a one-stop shop. It’s where they drop off recyclables and where they offload trash, which the county then delivers the rest of the way to the White Oak landfill.

If the proposed changes are passed, all haulers would be forced to make the long trek out to the landfill, located off exit 15 on Interstate 40.

Though shutting down the transfer station could save the county $940,000 annually, opponents say the costs would still be passed down to customers in one form or another.

“It’s more expensive on the private haulers, it’s more expensive on the towns,” said Paul White, a hauler from Maggie Valley, who also criticized the county for excluding the towns and private sector from its solid waste committee, which came up with the recommendations.

“It’s going to affect everybody in this room, not just me,” said Roger Henson, a private hauler who handles trash pick-up for the Town of Clyde. “Reconsider this, because I’m telling you, it’s going to hurt.”

Dan Best, an employee on the recycling pick line facing a layoff in less than two months, argued the commissioners are sending money away from Haywood.

“Keep it in-house, keep it in Haywood County, and make Haywood County a viable place,” said Best.

The towns

speak up

Joy Garland, town administrator for Clyde, was caught completely off-guard by the county’s proposal.

“We just learned about this. It kind of comes as a little late in the budget year,” said Garland. “We’re just trying to put our numbers together at this point ... My board is not in favor of it, I can tell you that.”

Henson said if the transfer station in Clyde closes, his costs would skyrocket by 66 percent from having to make the long haul out to White Oak multiple times a day. The increase would be passed on to his main client, the Town of Clyde.

“We knew it would impact us, but had no idea 66 percent,” said Garland, who anticipates town residents seeing their household fees shoot up from $9 to about $15 per month.

Over in Canton, closing the transfer station would cost the town about $115,000 a year in new equipment. That translates to monthly fees jumping from $8 up to $13 per household.

Al Matthews, Canton’s town manager, said the town would seriously consider privatizing its own operations.

“We could probably contract for service cheaper than we could pass that cost on to our customers,” said Matthews.

Waynesville residents might see their household rate rise from $5.50 per month to $8 a month if the county shuts down its transfer station.

Waynesville Town Manager Lee Galloway said the town would need to acquire two new rear-loading garbage trucks and hire a new employee to shuttle trucks between curbside collection crews and the larger trucks bound for the White Oak landfill.

There also would be more wear and tear on the trucks, requiring more diesel fuel and more service, as well as an additional set of tires annually, Galloway said.

Driving to White Oak instead of the transfer station in Clyde would also add an extra 27,000 miles annually to each truck in Waynesville. The total cost increase annually for the Town of Waynesville would come out to $199,000.

Galloway said he couldn’t speak for his town board, but that he would prefer to see the county fee set higher to keep the transfer station open.

The Town of Maggie Valley, which is much closer to White Oak than its neighbors, is unfazed by the county’s proposal. Adding four miles to their private contractor’s journey each way will not result in a price hike.

“They might have to leave town a little bit earlier than if they were taking it to the transfer station,” said Tim Barth, Maggie’s town manager. “That would be the only difference.”

Maggie Valley residents can expect their household fees to remain steady at $8.24 per month.

Barth said the town decided to get out of the trash business in 2003 after growing tired of maintaining and replacing expensive equipment — not unlike the county’s current quandary.

At Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Skeeter Curtis reiterated that the proposal is far from a done deal, while Commissioner Mark Swanger said shutting down the transfer station would streamline the process and prevent trash from unnecessarily being handled twice.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Kevin Ensley expressed confidence that the private sector would somehow pull through.

“I believe the entrepreneurs that haul the trash now will find a way to make money,” said Ensley. “I really do.”

However, Best said if the county invested adequately in the department, solid waste director Steven King could run it more successfully.

“If he had the backing of the commissioners, they can make this place go,” said Best.

For its entire existence, this country’s leaders have wrestled with the slippery issue of power and how much is too much for government at all levels. In times like these, as tax revenues disappear while the free market struggles, the issue takes on even more significance.

So when Haywood officials said last week that their decision to privatize trash and recycling services was more about fiscal reality than philosophy of government, there was no reason to doubt them. Still, this move toward getting out of the trash business presents an interesting opportunity for a discussion about local government and its responsibilities.

Haywood commissioners made some waves last week when they voted to stop providing a service that was costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead of operating their own convenience centers and a “pick” line at the county-owned recycling center, commissioners voted to privatize many solid waste services. The decision will save nearly $500,000 per year. Another switch that’s liable to happen within a year — the closing of the transfer station in Clyde — could save an additional million dollars a year. A task force studying the cost of these services also says hiring a firm to manage the entire landfill would provide large cost savings.

All that sounds great from a budgetary perspective, and one would think there would be widespread praise for the savings. Unfortunately for the Haywood commissioners, that’s not what happened. As always, people’s lives are in the crosshairs when a decision of this magnitude ripples through the system.

More than 15 county employees will lose their jobs as the county shuts down a line of service that has been expanding for the last couple of decades. Leaders of the municipalities are upset and most private trash haulers don’t seem happy.

So what’s next for Haywood and other counties struggling with declining tax revenues while the cost of everything else — gas, health care, wages, to name a few — continues to rise? Perhaps the sheriff’s department or the health department will go private. Government at all levels is better off by privatizing and outsourcing services that the private sector can provide, right?

“I think it’s function-specific,” said Commissioner Mark Swanger. “There are things that only government can do that cannot be logically privatized: law enforcement, emergency services, education.”

Swanger’s right, but there is some irony in the fact that this move by Haywood comes at the same time the burgeoning Tea Party movement is criticizing government spending at all levels, and a local group has been riding Haywood commissioners incessantly. Let’s be clear that the hectoring by these government critics has nothing to do with the decision in Haywood. Still, there’s little doubt that the rise to power of the Tea Party is related to the economic crisis and government spending, which becomes an easy target when times are this tough. More than ever, there is a clamoring to cut costs and keep taxes low.

I’m not one of those who believe too much government is necessarily a bad thing. There are certainly inefficiencies in government regulations and bureaucracies, but the oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico right now points to real and ongoing need for oversight of certain businesses. The vital services that government provides to citizens are a reflection of our fundamental values as a society, whether it’s health care for the poor and elderly, or EPA regulators to keep an eye on industrial polluters. In many cases the only entity that can step in and provide these services is government, and that’s the way it ought to be.

The question of how far government’s hand should reach into our lives will never be settled outright. From our local courthouses and town halls to Raleigh (where a privatization of mental health care a few years ago has left us with a broken system) and up to D.C. (where many question using tax money to bail out banks and automakers), it’s a fundamental issue our founding fathers left unsettled.

These are the same philosophic issues that pitted Thomas Jefferson and his anti-government, agrarian vision against the Federalist Alexander Hamilton and his pro-business, strong central government beliefs. This was the central controversy at the time the republic was formed, and it still bedevils our government at every level.

I suspect that in the next few years we’ll see more attempts by local governments to divest or privatize services. It will be up to voters to decide whether that’s good or bad. Haywood commissioners can say this is about the budget and not philosophy, but it’s hard to see the difference from inside the voting booth.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Counties usually have no choice but to accept unfunded mandates from the state, but this time, Haywood County commissioners are pushing back.

For the second time in recent years, legislation has been introduced in the state that would pass on the responsibility of maintaining secondary roads from the state to local level by 2011.

The Haywood board of commissioners already passed a resolution opposing such a transfer in May 2009, but the legislation has since been reintroduced.

They unanimously passed a similar resolution at a meeting last month, vowing to write a strongly worded letter to the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, which has also opposed the measure in the past.

“We should make sure they get on board with us,” said Commissioner Skeeter Curtis at the meeting. “That’s our lobby group. We need to make certain they lobby very heavily against this bill.”

County Manager David Cotton pointed out that larger counties were in favor of the transfer since they have funding to take care of their own roads. But if the law is passed, it would be a detriment for rural counties like Haywood.

While Commissioner Bill Upton said he’d heard the measure would not be passed, he added that commissioners should not let their guard down.

“I think we need to watch this very closely,” said Upton.