• Jean Hartbarger, 68, co-owner of the Jarrett House

• TJ Walker, 52, owner of the Dillsboro Inn

Aldermen, pick five

• Jimmy Cabe, 42, self employed carpenter

• Jim Cochran, 62, property manage of Reedwood Manor apartments, incumbent

• Jim Dukes, 34, environmental consultant, planner and developer

• John Faulk, 53, owner of the Applegate Inn and Burger Shak in Sylva

• Mike Fitzgerald, 53, owner of Fitzgerald’s Shoe Repair in Sylva, incumbent

• Bud Smith, 59, co-owner of The Golden Carp Gallery, incumbent

Dillsboro’s municipal election is shaping up to be one of the more interesting in the region as six official candidates and two write-ins compete for five seats on the town board. In addition, town residents get to decide a tight race between Mayor Jean Hartbarger and challenger T.J. Walker that will shape the town’s future as a tourism-based hub.

The town has long been a source of pottery and fudge, train rides and country cooking, but has lacked significant municipal meat to provide routine services and commercial offerings to its year-round residents. For example, the town has a post office, but no grocery store within its town limits. There’s a real estate office every block, but not enough business to keep hotels booked in the late winter months.

“This election we are concerned with the year-round residents,” said Walker, 52, who owns the Dillsboro Inn, located adjacent to the Dillsboro Dam. He is a political newcomer, having never held an elected office.

But the question is, as always, one of change. Should town leaders look into expanding Dillsboro’s economic base to become more well-rounded, or is the town’s role as a tourist village enough?

“I don’t think we’d want to move away from what we were founded for,” said Hartbarger, 68, co-owner of The Jarrett House, a Dillsboro restaurant and landmark. She served as a town board member for eight years prior to her election as mayor in 2001.“This is Dillsboro. We are a unique and special place.”

“Over 31 years of serving people the main thing people say is we love Dillsboro, please don’t let it change,” Hartbarger said.

Town board candidates Jimmy Cabe, 42, a self-employed carpenter, and Mike Fitzgerald, 53, owner of Fitzgerald’s Shoe Shop in Sylva, agreed.

“Really that would be something I would go with the residents on, but industrial development I don’t see as being really beneficial to the town of Dillsboro for the simple fact that we’re not that big,” Cabe said. “Tourism is the hand that feeds us and I wouldn’t want to do anything to hamper tourism.”

“We just want to continue to make it a tourist-friendly town,” said Fitzgerald, who was appointed to the Dillsboro board about six months ago following the resignation of board member David Jones.

Anything that the town does to expand the local economy should be directed more toward lengthening the tourist season, which in and of itself would be a matter of determining whether the effort would be worth the reward, Fitzgerald said.

Granted the town is no place for heavy industry — the juxtaposition of summertime rafters against the bang and clatter of the nearby rock quarry makes that somewhat self-evident — not to mention that so little land within town limits is even zoned for industrial use.

“It would be difficult to have an industry unless you’re talking major major annexation,” Hartbarger said.

The land that is zoned for industrial use, however, is located along the Tuckasegee River, opening the door for a potential visual blight on the natural landscape.

“Half of our riverfront is zoned industrial and that has discouraged developers who might want to put in attractive multi-unit dwellings,” Walker said.

However, candidate James Cochran, 62, who has served two terms on the town board, said that more could be done to balance tourism with basic town needs.

“I think we could combine the tourism with offices of accountants and attorneys and things like that, maybe a bank,” he said. “I think that would be in keeping with the town of Dillsboro.”

These added services — things that Dillsboro residents currently must travel to Sylva to receive — would help fill out the town for those who are full-time residents.

“I think we need to keep in mind that there’s more to Dillsboro than merchants,” Cochran said.

Nevertheless, merchants are a key component to the town’s economic success and it is important to facilitate positive relationships between the town and existing businesses, Walker said.

“We need a better partnership attitude,” he said.

“I like very much the current mayor, but I don’t like the attitude of the town,” Walker said.

“If it’s not our town clerk’s idea, it’s not totally accepted in Dillsboro. We live according to his preferences and prejudices,” Walker said.

Walker’s comments about town clerk Herb Nolan — the town’s only employee for 22 years — have caused a rift that may lead to Nolan’s resignation, depending on how the Nov. 8 election turns out.

In a letter to the editor of The Sylva Herald, Nolan responded to Walker’s allegations saying, “Mr. Walker’s comments regarding my position have come from a very distant observation, since he has only attended meetings when he had personal business to approach the board about, and has never been in my office for any length of time and has no real understanding of the work done therein... I can assure everyone that, should Mr. Walker gain the office of mayor, I could not serve under his direction, and I will resign.”

Candidate and sitting alderman Bud Smith, 59, co-owner of The Golden Carp Gallery, also cited the tenuous relationship between town officials and the business community as a reason for the declining quality of businesses and affluence of tourists.

“We’ve kind of lost a lot of that over the years because of political reasons,” Smith said.

A change in leadership is needed to overhaul the town, giving elected representatives more of a say so in what happens, Smith said.

“In all honesty, they say we have a say, but it’s really kind of not true,” Smith said. “The real truth is if this whole election goes the way we want it to, we’ve all got great ideas of making it a better town.”

Such heated contention in a Dillsboro election is unusual, as this is the first time in at least 20 years that the town board has faced opposition, said board member Emma Wertenberger. Wertenberger, who would have been an incumbent candidate, is running for re-election as a write-in, having been asked by local residents to run after having already decided not to do so.

“The more I though about it, I decided I needed to run,” said Wertenberger, who runs the Squire Watkins Inn.

Another candidate, Charlie Wise, also has entered the race as a write-in. Wise is a construction superintendent who grew up in Dillsboro and recently moved back to town. He was unavailable for comment, as he is in Florida working on a family home damaged by Hurricane Wilma.

Wertenberger agreed that it would be difficult to attract any sort of traditional industry to Dillsboro, but that economic expansion could come about by encouraging non-traditional jobs, such as those who work out of their homes, or high-tech and alternative industry such as a partnership with the county’s planned landfill gas recovery project.

“We need to be involved and pro-active in making that project successful,” Wertenberger said.

Candidates Jim Dukes, 34, a land-use planner, chairman of the Jackson County Greenways Commission and co-owner of Grindstaff Cove mixed-use development in Sylva and Dillsboro Crossing; and John Faulk, 53, owner of the Applegate Inn, a member of Dillsboro’s planning board and Sylva appointee to the Economic Development Commission, could not be reached for comment.