Each year, one of the highlights of the 10-day Folkmoot Festival is the Parade of Nations. This year, 10 groups from across the globe walked down Waynesville’s Main Street, stopping at the Historic Haywood County Courthouse to perform for local dignitaries.

High atop a mountain overlooking Haywood County, Annie Haslam Colquitt sits across a dining room table at The Swag. A rainstorm has just swept through, with a cold breeze floating through the open front door. She gazes around, her eyes slowly drifting out the windows onto the deep woods of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park bordering the property. 

When a controversial text amendment passed the Town of Waynesville Planning Board and Board of Aldermen in back-to-back public hearings almost two months ago, Mayor Gavin Brown told opponents that they’d again have their chance to oppose the development that instigated it. 

A long-standing informal agreement between the Town of Waynesville and Main Street merchants has now been formalized, clarified and expanded to allow for limited encroachments onto public sidewalks. 

Property owners, single-family homebuilders and any Waynesville residents who own a car will see their cost of living increase over the next year, under a FY 2018-19 budget passed June 26 that includes an eclectic mix of charges in the form of both tax and fee increases. 

As Royal Phillips packs up her belongings that signify the last 20 years she’s spent in Waynesville and prepares for her next chapter in Palm Springs, California, she can’t help but to feel like her life has come full circle — and what a crazy circle it has been. 

Although the philosophical basis of the Waynesville comprehensive plan is rooted in academic concepts and professional standards related to long-term planning and resource management, area citizens last week got down to some of the more concrete decision-making that reveals who we are, what we want and where we want it. 

Customers of downtown Waynesville’s restaurants and bars may soon be told to “hit the bricks” — but in a good way. 

Infrastructure in municipal sewer and water systems isn’t cheap, but a debate recently settled in the General Assembly clarified what towns can charge new customers for connecting to the existing system while also anticipating the system’s future needs. 

With municipal budget season coming down to the wire and those municipal budgets coming down to the penny, two Haywood County town governments are hoping to avoid property tax increases by introducing vehicle registration fees.