A Lake Junaluska task force voiced overwhelming support last week for merging the 765-home community with the town of Waynesville before a packed audience of homeowners.

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The 14-member task force has spent 10 months weighing the future course of the community with century-old roots as a summer Methodist retreat. Financial solvency was the deciding factor for those in favor of being absorbed into Waynesville’s town limits. The community does not have the critical mass nor economies of scale to go it alone, especially given the costly repairs it would face during the next decade to fix its crumbling infrastructure, task force members said.

A team of laid-off state geologists will soon start mapping landslide hazard zones in Haywood County after a coalition of environmental nonprofits raised money to keep the project alive.

The state two years ago axed an ongoing effort to map landslide risks in mountain counties. Haywood was supposed to be next up on the list when the mapping was terminated.

The number of children in foster care in Haywood County is on the rise, a depressing sign for Department of Social Services workers whose first goal is to keep a family together.

“Growing up in foster care or growing up in an institution is no way to grow up,” said Ira Dove, director of the county’s Department of Social Services. Dove presented his case to the Haywood County Board of Commissioners Monday, requesting additional money to pay for the increasing costs of running foster care.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority board responded to outcries from Maggie Valley business owners about a proposed lodging tax increase during its meeting last week.

Several business owners in Maggie voiced their collective concerns about the possible increase at a town meeting two days prior. A portion of the meeting was spent correcting misperceptions about the matter.

There’s a new sheriff in town.

Greg Christopher, a 51-year-old former lieutenant in the N.C. State Patrol, assumed the role of top lawman in Haywood County this week.

Darkness enveloped the vehicle as soon as it exited Interstate 40.

Cruising around sharp S-curves in the mountain community of Fines Creek in the remote northern reaches of Haywood County, headlights peered across vast fields and by quiet farmhouses where inhabitants were winding down after another bountiful day. A heavy fog rolled into Western North Carolina as distant homes sparkled like far away stars in the sky. Barreling further into the country, and away from any semblance of town, it seemed you could drive off the edge of the earth if you kept pushing any longer.

When LeRoy Roberson and his wife, Gale, opened an optometric business on Waynesville’s Main Street 35-years-ago, about a quarter of the storefronts sat empty.

The Maggie Valley Board of Aldermen got an earful from hotel and motel owners Monday during a nearly three-hour meeting held specifically to hear views about a proposed increase to the overnight lodging tax.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority and the county board of commissioners both unanimously approved the idea of a hike in the lodging tax — from the current rate of 4 percent to 6 percent. The Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce has also written a letter of support.

If anyone opposes an increase in Haywood County’s overnight lodging tax, they did not make their enmity known at Monday’s board of commissioners meeting.

A heated argument and near fight between two Maggie Valley residents — one of whom is banned from town hall — disrupted the town’s board of aldermen meeting last Tuesday.