Macon County is asking Jackson County for money to pay for providing services to its residents in Highlands, but Jackson officials are exploring other alternatives, including establishing fire districts and levying a tax.

Macon County has requested about $160,000 from Jackson County to continue offering emergency services to residences in Highlands that are technically located in Jackson County. While Jackson County receives the property tax revenue from these homes, Macon County is burdened with the responsibility of providing emergency services.

The Jackson County Department of Public Health has scheduled a public meeting to discuss increased levels of mercury in walleye and large mouth bass at Lake Glenville. 

The 2nd annual United Community Bank Mountain Challenge featuring American tennis legends Andy Roddick and Jim Courier will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, July 26, at the Cedar Creek Racquet Club in Cashiers.

The event will be hosted by the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce and benefits the nonprofit organizations Mountain Youth Charities and the Boys & Girls Club of the Plateau.

Public concerns over the visual blight of a proposed cell tower in the Cashiers area have prompted Verizon Wireless to alter its design for the tower, namely by disguising it to look like a very tall, very big pine tree.

It was time for something different.

“We’ve been looking at doing something like this for years,” said Sally Peterkin. “And when we found the right place, we knew it was time to do it.”

Highlands and Cashiers are perched on the edge of the Blue Ridge Escarpment, where the mountains plunge sharply from a high plateau, creating the right ingredients not only for bountiful waterfalls but a temperate rainforest, one of the few in North America. This makes for lush vegetation, plus special designations such as “salamander and lichen capital of the world.”

Cashiers area property owners have long complained that they pay more than their fair share when it comes to property taxes — ponying up 60 percent of the county’s total property taxes.

The vibe in the Cashiers library was thick with polite tension as Jackson County Manager Chuck Wooten recently stood before a roomful of curious skeptics.

The undertone was summed up by an audience member about halfway through the meeting.

Jackson County and the town of Sylva agreed this month to merge the entities’ separate Alcoholic Beverage Control boards. The deal means that Jackson and Sylva will share in the overall profits generated throughout the county, including those generated at the yet-to-open ABC store in Cashiers.

To relieve sewer gridlock in the Cashiers area, the Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority may change its rules to let developers swap, transfer and even sell unused sewer capacity.