The three remaining members of the Canton Board of Aldermen/women have decided not to appoint anyone to a board seat left unexpectedly vacant by the resignation of an alderman June 13. 

Just 18 months after winning the second of two open alderman seats in the town of Canton, James Markey told the Canton Board of Aldermen/Women June 13 that he was resigning his office due to a change in residency. 

Haywood County’s latest economic development victory — a state-of-the-art, $12 million hemp processing facility — means that Canton will become among the first local municipalities to cash in on the new “green” economy.

Haywood County’s latest economic development victory – a state of the art, $12 million hemp processing facility – means that Canton will become among the first local municipalities to cash in on the new “green” economy.

Of all the victims of the nation’s opioid epidemic, probably the most overlooked are the municipalities that have to expend taxpayer-funded resources to deal with the problem.

The Town of Canton’s preliminary proposed budget shows an increase over last year from $8.7 million to more than $9.2 million. Most of that is from monies split between budget years and slight increases in some spending categories, but Mayor Zeb Smathers was eager to answer the question on the minds of most. 

There are a number of reasons to walk or bike to work, to play or to shop — saving money on gasoline, experiencing the health benefits of regular physical activity, or just a general desire to stop and smell the roses — but that’s especially so in the compact, walkable communities that dot much of Western North Carolina. 

Although it wasn’t a formal budget retreat, leaders in the Town of Canton met last week to begin identifying budget priorities for when that time does come. 

Haywood County’s five local governments more or less fall into two tiers — there’s the county and there’s Waynesville, and then there’s everybody else. 

In a county as old as Haywood, there exist all manner of half-remembered places and faces long gone from the physical world yet immortalized through penciled notes on the backs of dog-eared, sepia-toned photographs.

Sunburst, in southeastern Haywood County, is one of those places; the subject of intense historical research, it’s been documented better than most ghosts of Haywood past, but the story of Sunburst has always been short one chapter.