Newcomer, incumbents vie for Bryson City Board of Aldermen
Downtown Bryson City.
File photo
Three candidates — incumbents Tim Hines and Ben King, and newcomer W. Kent Maxey — are vying for two open seats on the Bryson City Board of Aldermen.
Though aldermen serve four-year terms with odd-year staggered elections, Hines has only held the position since his appointment in April 2023 following Steve Augustine’s resignation. Nonetheless, Hines, who also works as a manager at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, said he’s learned a lot about the nuanced nature of town issues throughout his time in office.
King, meanwhile, became a member in 2017.
In a conversation with The Smoky Mountain News, King, who co-owns an outdoor adventure business, said he might not have run again “if there would have been more interest out there from other candidates that were informed.”
Maxey, a videographer by trade, is a newcomer to political office but cited his “long history with town,” including his stepfather Bruce Medford’s near decade-long mayoral career.
All three candidates talked about a variety of issues. Homelessness, affordable housing, water and sewer rates and the Fontana Regional Library system were key among the topics discussed.
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On what he called Bryson City’s “vagrancy issue,” Maxey felt strongly that it should be “addressed.”
“We need some vagrancy laws. I’m not sure what’s on the books now… I think if the police had that tool at their disposal, they would use it, because I know this is a pretty good drain on them,” he said.
Maxey suggested a law to ban “tents in the city limits on public property,” and another to limit time spent “in an area without either purchase or using of services.”
Hines, however, said there’s already a process in place for private citizens to address “concerns over some of the homeless population… being places they shouldn’t.” He praised the police department for its communication of procedures to town residents, like the ability to “post your property that no one [is allowed to] be here after dark or just during business hours.”
Hines said if business and property owners are still “having a problem with folks, then you can call it in” to Bryson City police.
According to the American Bar Association, however, criminalizing homelessness “is the most expensive intervention to homelessness both in fiscal and human costs.”
King told SMN that he doesn’t “feel that he’s had significant issues with our unhoused residents that are out and about around town.”
“I know a lot of people are uncomfortable being put in situations where they have to confront another human being that may not be on the same socioeconomic status as they are,” he said, adding that the epidemic of houselessness spans nationwide, and “without multi-organization cooperation,” there’s no easy fix.
The homeless population throughout the United States increased 18% from 2023 to 2024.
“We as society don’t give a second chance a lot of the time, or maybe even a third chance,” King said.
One example he gave was a formerly incarcerated person trying to turn their life around.
Providing criminal history is typically mandatory on private sector job applications — and mandatory for all public sector applications at the county and city level, as neither Swain County nor Bryson City have enacted “ban the box” law reforms. Plus, when laws are passed that criminalize homelessness, a criminal record for those without housing becomes almost inevitable.
That means this individual wouldn’t find employment — and thus would be unable to finance a stable living situation, especially “somewhere like Bryson City, where housing is expensive,” King said.
Bryson City doesn’t have the funds to build and maintain a homeless shelter, but if it did, King would support the initiative.
Responding to that hypothetical scenario, Hines said would be “fantastic that a number of folks could get assistance” and a shelter “could be a step” toward solving homelessness, but it wouldn’t “reduce the homeless population” in town.
“I think our homeless numbers would go up, and I think [the shelter] would probably get flooded,” he said.
Hines’ work commute takes him through an area known to have a “lot of homeless population activity during the daytime,” he said, adding that he finds it sad how many new faces he sees. He said his “heart hurts for homeless people … there’s no judgement on my side of how you got into that situation.”
But that’s not how Maxey sees it.
“I believe that probably about 50-60% of the people who would fall under the homeless category in this county choose that lifestyle,” he said. Of the remaining percentage, “probably half of those are mentally ill,” and the other half “are stuck there and would really, really like to get out.”
Maxey told SMN that he’d be in favor of working with nonprofits to expand emergency housing efforts, which should prioritize the final group he listed, rather than “the people pooping and peeing and breaking in and stealing.”
According to the United States Interagency on Homelessness, which also dispels the myth that “people experiencing homelessness choose to live outside in tents or cars,” 40-60% of people experiencing homelessness have a job.
As noted by a large-scale 2023 Pew Research Center study, the strongest determinant of homelessness — in addition to other influences like systemic discrimination, job loss, and limited access to social services like healthcare — is a scarcity of affordable housing.
As for affordable housing in Bryson City, the candidates agreed that the town had a shortage. All, however, said that Bryson City aldermen lack the power to do much about it.
Water and sewer rates
Last summer, Bryson City residents saw their water bills increase, some by more than 300%. SMN reported on a charged Aug. 27, 2024 meeting following the rate hike. A few dozen townspeople expressed their outrage to Mayor Tom Sutton, who prematurely ended the meeting after tensions escalated.
As a result, for the alderman, water and sewer issues remain at the top of the list. King said he was excited to start the wastewater treatment facility, which government has been planning throughout “almost my entire time [in office].”
Sutton had spoken about the wastewater facility during the August 2024 meeting: expected costs were slated at $15 million to replace its old, underperforming pipes.
Hines echoed the need for a better functioning system.
“Many of those pipes are older than about every resident in the in the town,” he said.
Hines also emphasized the poor state of the town’s water lines.
“The current middle school is supplied by two water lines. One is down. So, we have one water line strapped to the bottom of Everett Street Bridge, and that supplies this entire side of the town,” he explained.
And if a natural disaster like Helene were to happen today and break the single remaining water line, he said, “this side of town would shut down.”
“I want to see through a lot of the projects that strengthen our infrastructure, because at the end of the day, [if] you don’t have an infrastructure, you don’t have a town,” Hines said.
Maxey discussed a longer history of water issues in the town.
“The water issue in Bryson City was in terrible shape when my stepfather, Bruce Medford, took over as mayor,” he said. “They found something like [200] to 300 city taps that were not even metered … We were facing fines … the pipes were caving in.”
He said a lot of work has been done to address the problem in the recent past — and that the work needs to continue.
“The issue is, the water rates just really didn’t go up to match it, and we’re not used to paying what water is worth.”
Maxey explained that Bryson City gets plentiful rainfall, so “we don’t think of water as being precious … like you do in a city.”
But it is precious, he said. It’s expensive to move and expensive to sanitize. For Maxey, the problem last year wasn’t rooted in the rate hike. It was about the lack of communication. Were he in office, he would’ve implemented a phased approach to payment increases and open lines of discussion throughout the process.
Hines said he “will admit our communication process for when we initially raised rates … I understand a lot of folks may still be struggling with that.”
Nevertheless, he said it was an intentional decision made after consulting with outside partners like the UNC School of Government. All framed raising rates as the only way to finance solutions for the water system.
After the initial hike, rates went down “a hair,” he said, and “no one’s voiced a concern over water rates to me directly in almost a year.”
Whats more, according to Hines, the alternative would mean pulling from the general fund. To some, he explained, that feels like paying twice.
As for potential grant funding, an idea sometimes raised by constituents, Hines said Bryson City gets “a lot of grants and loans” — so many, in fact, that the town is nearly at its debt ceiling.
“There’s no such thing as free money everywhere. Someone paid for it at some point,” he said.
For King, it doesn’t help that “literally every other municipality across the state” is applying for the same grant funding. And after raising consumer rates, “last year was the first year water and sewer didn’t operate in the negative. We didn’t have to supplement [from the general fund],” he said. Like Hines, King thought public outrage diminished when rates lowered slightly, after the first jump.
“Everybody still may not like it,” he said, “but we the customers are the people that have to pay for the system.”
The library ‘debacle’
Candidates stood in unanimous agreement that censorship does not belong in libraries and that Jackson County’s vote to exit the Fontana Regional Library system due to concerns about LGBTQ+ content was a poor decision.
“I usually don’t make a ton of comments about things outside of my purview, but I will say… it’s a debacle,” said Hines of Jackson County pulling the plug.
He surmised that he “could probably go to any library on the planet, and there’s books in there that I don’t agree with.”
“If I was in that position [of navigating the situation], I don’t know if I’d beg Jackson County not to leave the system, but I would hope that they would have some more open discussions,” Hines added.
Hines recalled that he’d reached out to Jackson County officials to offer a “sounding board to talk some of this out.”
“Did anyone take me up on that? 0%,” he said.
Maxey discussed the Fontana Regional Library board, where a faction aligned with Jackson County decision makers has gained the ideological majority. He knows Cynthia Womble, who on Sept. 7 resigned as chair of that board but remains a voting member. She is not among those crusading against LGBTQ+ content.
“[Cynthia] is an amazing person. I cannot believe the crap that has gone on there. Anything Cynthia says, I support,” Maxey said.
When asked about literature censorship, Maxey told SMN, “I think they’re making a big hoo-ha of nothing.”
King held a similar view.
“Everyone has the right in this country to be exposed to the information they choose to be exposed to,” he said. “Part of an educational process is to know what people think, feel, love, hate … I think that’s part of us being Americans.”
To King, the library is critical — and its role extends beyond the books. He envisioned a library with programming that might also function as a youth center, which is already underway via the Marianna Black Library expansion and renovation project.
To Hines, there’s another reason libraries are so important. Swain County is one of the poorest in the state, and internet and cell service aren’t always consistent.
“During the fall, I can see the cell tower, and it’s blinking, and I’ve got one bar of service,” he said.
If a student can’t purchase a cell phone or doesn’t have internet access, “they’ll just have to go to the library or park in the library parking lot and use Wi Fi there,” Hines added.
Final statements
Maxey said his strength as a candidate was his love of the town — and the people in it.
“I’m going to spend time walking around town on the fourth of July and sticking out my hand. That’s just not [Mayor] Tom Sutton. It’s just not his personality. That’s my personality,” he said.
Hines said his communication skills are what makes him stand out.
“[From] my time in my professional career and some personal things that I do, I’m able to listen to people. People can get hot quick, and it doesn’t bother me. Usually, I’m pretty good at defusing a situation,” he said.
Hines wanted people to vote for him not because of his social connections, as is often the case in small towns, but because he is dependable and “explains his idea of what he votes on something hard.”
King spoke of his personal investment in Bryson City and desire to better it for everyone around him.
“I think there’s a good balance in the way we move forward with smart growth and smart decisions,” he said.
He also thought that it might be difficult to enter the board as a novice.
“We don’t get a lot of people that come to the meetings. I want to know that the folks running know all the things that we’ve been through in the past year. It just takes so long, if you’re uninformed, to get up to speed,” King said.
He emphasized the importance of getting involved in local politics — for everyone.
“The decisions made here every two weeks, or every month, affect your life way more significantly than the decisions made on a national level.”
