• Linda Taylor, 54, owner of Valley Inn*

• Mark Demeola, 43, log home dealer and developer*

• Roger McElroy, 67, owner of Maggie Valley Realty and Construction and Meadowlark Inn*

• Don Printz, 75, retired Miami police lieutenant

• Pat Tilley, 55, owner of a motel and mobile home park outside the county

• Saralyn Price, 50, retired Maggie Valley Police Chief

• Billy Case, 52, Realtor

• Jay Ring, 54, general contractor

• Colin Edwards, 40, owner of Soco Stone Company graders

* Incumbent

There are few towns where candidates put as much energy into each individual vote as Maggie Valley.

Two years ago, 306 people voted in the town election, but candidates pulled out all the show stoppers on Election Day, setting up tents and tour busses on the lawn outside the voting precinct, giving out everything from free barbecue to coffee cake. With nine candidates in the field this year, a mere 100 votes could be all it takes to win.

The race in some ways is democracy at its finest. A drive through Maggie Valley these days can be dizzying between the looming billboards and picket-crazed yards sporting signs every 20 feet. One candidate even has a banner on a building boasting it as their “campaign headquarters.”

Some candidates are peeved over the army of signs being set out by their opponents.

“I don’t like to see our town littered. It is not right to do that to people who have to live here during election season,” Alderman and candidate Mark Demeola said.

“I’m putting up one or two per property, not lining up 15 or 20 signs in a row,” said candidate Colin Edwards. “This game they are playing is name recognition.”

Maggie has been home to several heated elections in recent years, most including some type of formal challenge to the Board of Elections. With several of the nine candidates running neck in neck thanks to dedicated supporters beating the bushes on their behalf, the race could be awfully close.

Maggie Valley’s bylaws don’t call for a run-off election in case of a tie, but rather a random drawing of straws or coin toss to settle it. With three seats open, a tie for first or second isn’t problematic as the tied candidates would both be among the top three winners. But if there is tie for third place, it will be settled by a random drawing rather than recount.

But now, on to the candidates...

Every candidate running claims they have the ability to end the constant state of controversy that defines Maggie town politics. It’s a promise voters have heard before, for at least the past two election cycles, but has yet to come to fruition as candidates from opposite political factions continue to end up on the board together.

The incumbents

Alderwoman Linda Taylor has been one of the more controversial political figures in Maggie Valley. She says it is because she stands up to an entrenched cronyism that had long dominated Maggie Valley’s leadership.

“We need to do the people’s business in the sunshine,” Taylor said.

“The only thing I can do is what I keep doing, which is to keep saying ‘You can’t do this. It’s not on the agenda’ and make enough noise that people start coming to the board meetings to see for themselves,” Taylor said.

Taylor has long been in the minority on the board. She said others on the town board have “clandestine” meetings outside town hall where they decide what they are going to do. Taylor said some board members have come to meetings with instruction sheets devised ahead of time on how they should vote and who would make the motions.

Alderman Mark Demeola, 43, got his first taste of town leadership on the planning board before being appointed to the town board to fill a vacancy. (The vacancy was left by an alderman who resigned shortly after being elected two years ago because town politics were too burdensome.)

Alderman Roger McElroy is also running for re-election. McElroy and Demeola typically side together and are part of the majority camp on the town board — the opposite camp as Taylor.

McElory has been on the Maggie Valley town board on and off for 30 years. He lost re-election two years ago, but was appointed to fill the vacancy of an alderman who moved away. The other town board members make the appointment in case of a vacancy. Taylor, who had always been at odds with McElroy, said she regrets agreeing to appoint him, but had thought it would promote unity.

McElroy did not return phone calls seeking an interview for this article, nor for the election article that appeared in the Smoky Mountain News two months ago.

The locals

Colin Edwards, 40, is a local to Maggie Valley.

“I bring something totally different to the table. I’ve got common sense, I’m honest and I believe in doing the right thing and that is something we haven’t had in a long time,” said Edwards. “I have always treated everybody fairly.”

Edwards said he’s supporting Saralyn Price and Mark Demeola.

“That’s who I want to work with. We’d make a good board. That’s what this town needs right now is someone that ain’t got an agenda,” Edwards said. “I just think the leadership does need to change right now.”

Candidate Billy Case is also a native of Maggie Valley. As a single-family homeowner, he said residents identify with him. Case said the “commercial strip” of Maggie needs to change its thinking.

“People want to blame the demise of Maggie on Ghost Town. Well, people have come here for years just because of the mountains, the natural things that are here. They don’t need to worry about some big attraction. To tie your whole business economy to something like that is really foolish,” Case said.

One issue facing Maggie Valley is the town-run festival grounds. The rules for hosting events there have been a source of controversy, but Case said there needs to be standards.

“I am for events that are family oriented. We have had some events brought in that aren’t a family-oriented event for Maggie Valley,” Case said.

Saralyn Price, the former police chief of Maggie Valley, said she hopes to make a difference.

“Being a native of Maggie Valley, I feel obligated to the people here,” Price said. “I hope that my reputation in the past showed I was an honest person and that’s what people are voting on.”

Price has a large platform, a long list of things she pledges to do if elected. Some have to do with the way meetings are run. She said wants to end hostility when discussing issues, make decisions based on what is best for the town as a whole rather than individuals, and stop dragging out meetings.

“I would like to speed things up a little more than they are,” Price said. “They discuss things for such a long period of time that maybe they should be more prepared on the agendas before they get there.”

She also has a list of town-related initiatives, like creating an index of all the town ordinances, cataloguing roads within the town and developing standards for maintaining them and examining annexation protocols.

The outspoken

Candidate Jay Ring is one of the most outspoken candidates. Ring said Maggie residents are getting tired of being shafted by the current town board majority.

“They are tired of the ongoing system of government that allows for no input from the taxpayers. They come to a public hearing but what they say is absolutely ignored,” Ring said. “I’m concerned about the people who are out there who have been so under-represented. They need someone out there to stand up and say this is wrong.”

Ring said the current town board will enforce one set of town laws for their friends — whether it’s a sign ordinance or zoning regulation governing the density of new development — and another set of laws for people they don’t like. Ring is also concerned with what he calls “run-away” spending.

“I have talked to about two dozen people who were shocked the town was getting ready to spend $450,000-plus on a new police station,” Ring said. Ring said the town has too many employees for its size and they are paid more than employees of most towns its size.

“They are spending money like there is no bottom to the pocket,” Ring said.

Ring is supporting Taylor and candidate Don Printz.

Printz has billed himself as a defender of the average resident.

“Most of my support from talking to the residents are the people who have been ignored, the people who have complained but the alderman have not listened, the people who want something for their tax dollar,” Printz said. “Most boards have always been comprised of, and the board now is comprised of, all business people. I have heard people say we want something for our tax dollars. We get nothing for it.”

One of Printz’s big issues is involuntary annexation. He said it is not fair for the town to annex a neighborhood and give them nothing in return.

The future

After the pure and simple politics of who’s in whose camp, the top issue in the Maggie Valley race is land use-planning. The slopes and the ridges around the town are rapidly being developed.

Pat Tilley is all about land-use planning and community involvement. Tilley is the chair of the planning board and spearheaded the creation of a long-range plan utilizing public involvement. It took Tilley three years to drum up the support from town leaders for a planning process and see it through, but the resulting long-range plan received state accolades. Tilley said the town board should be more like the planning board.

“We have a working-together planning board,” Tilley said. Tilley said the planning board always invites public comment, brings opposite sides to the table, and has open and honest discussion about their views before voting. The same cannot be said for the current board of aldermen, she said.

“It doesn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out when you go to a board meeting that they’ve already made a decision because they don’t talk about the item. We don’t need an off-the-cuff decision either,” Tilley said. “What is right is right and wrong is wrong and everything else in between is confusion.”

Alderman and candidate Mark Demeola got his start on the planning board, too. Demeola said he wants to help protect the watershed and the ridgelines.

“Growth is inevitable. As long as it is well planned and smart, that is what I’ve been about from the get go,” he said.

Candidate Billy Case is also on the planning board and advocates smart growth. Case sits on the board of the Homebuilders Association plus Haywood Waterways and said he can balance development interests with the need to protect the mountains.

“You are always part of the solution or the problem and I want to be part of the solution,” Case said. “Whoever the voters put in there needs to develop a long-range plan. The people are going to change, but the plan and the vision shouldn’t, so 20 years down the road no matter who is in office, we can look at Maggie and say ‘This is a result of the planning we did 20 years ago and look how nice it is’.”