Evergreen Packaging has reached a partial settlement with environmental groups over pollution from the Canton paper mill in the Pigeon River.

Environmental groups had challenged the mill’s pollution permit, claiming that the standards weren’t tight enough. There were two bones of contention: how warm the river gets and the dark color the river takes on due to the mill’s discharges.

The portion of the suit dealing with temperature fluctuations to the river has been settled. Initially, the mill was permitted to raise the temperature of the river by 15 degrees Fahrenheit with its discharges, as measured at a monitoring point about half a mile downstream.

The limit was based on a monthly average, however, so spikes much higher were acceptable as along as it evened out over the course of a month to stay within the acceptable 15 degrees.

Now, the mill has agreed to an additional temperature criteria based on a weekly average. The river cannot exceed a maximum temperature of 89 degrees in summer or 84 degrees in the winter based on a weekly average, under the terms of the new settlement.

That is largely within the temperature confines the mill adheres to already.

“This agreement largely validates what was already a good permit ... the result of a good process,” Blue Ridge Plant Manager Dane Griswold said in a statement. “Having this issue settled means we can continue to provide jobs for hundreds of Western North Carolina families, continue to meet the needs of our customers and ensure the quality of the Pigeon River continues to improve.”

Hope Taylor, the director of Clean Water for North Carolina, said the temperature standard is still too lax in her book.

“We would have liked to go far enough to have a true mountain cold water stream downstream of the mill,” Taylor said.

But moving the mill toward a weekly average instead of a monthly average is still progress, said Taylor, who has been wrangling with the Canton paper mill over water quality issues for more than a decade.

Taylor said in some instances water in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit has been discharged into the river by the mill. For monitoring purposes, however, the river’s temperature is taken about half a mile downstream of the discharge point, after the hotter water has mixed with the rest of the river.

The lawsuit was filed by Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of several groups: the Western North Carolina Alliance, Clean Water for North Carolina, the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association, Cocke County, Tenn., and Clean Water Expected for East Tennessee.

The paper mill sucks roughly 29 million gallons a day out of the river and uses it in a myriad of aspects of the paper making process — from cooling coal-fired boilers to flushing chemicals through wood pulp  — and then dumps it back in the river again.

The settlement was reached “without any admission of liability” on Evergreen’s part, the agreement makes a point of noting.

Too dark? You decide

Another area environmental groups contested in the suit is how dark the river’s color should be. Discharges from the mill darken the color of the river. The state considers this purely an aesthetic issue, governed by a subjective standard. Whether the river is too dark is in the eye of the beholder.

The state has wagered that the color of the river is acceptable, and the mill no longer needs regulation on this front. Environmental groups argued the river is still too dark, however.

To resolve the issue, the mill will soon undertake a public perception study. A random panel will be asked to size up the color of the river upstream and downstream of the mill.

The environmental groups have agreed to table their concerns over color pending the outcome of the study. In the meantime, Taylor said her organization is riding herd on the protocols for how the study will be carried out to ensure it is done fairly.

“Blue Ridge Paper is paying for the consultants who are coming in to do this study, so you have to assume they would bias the study,” Taylor said. “There is a way to really manipulate the way the study goes.”

For example, the mill initially proposed taking the panel to view downstream portions of the river first where the water is darker due to the discharges, then to the upstream portions where the water is clear. But the color contrast of the river downstream would likely be more striking if viewed the other way around — seeing the clear stretch first then the darker stretch, Taylor said. So she proposed a different methodology: splitting the panel into two groups in terms of viewing order.

“We said, ‘No, you have to have to have half of them go one way and half go the other way,’” Taylor said.

Taylor also wants to ensure the panel doesn’t have anyone on it who works at the mill, or whose family members work at the mill. She is also scrutinizing the way the questions will be phrased and the spectrum of multiple-choice answers.

Mike Cohen, a spokesperson for the Canton mill, said the issue of color is primarily aesthetic, thus the subjective standard is appropriate.

But Taylor believes there are underlying ecological concerns from the color of the river.

“We see that color as evidence of the chemical soup coming into the river,” Taylor said. Some of those compounds could be toxic, said Taylor, even though the state doesn’t currently classify them as toxic.

Even on the basis of aesthetics, the color is still a black mark against the mill, according to the lawsuit.

“We believe the dark color makes the river less desirable for fishing, rafting and wading than other, less polluted rivers nearby,” said Daniel Boone of Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association in a press statement.

Taylor said the mill should not deprive the public from being able to use and enjoy the river as a resource.

Whether the public is indeed bothered by the river’s color — based on the opinions of the random panel that is selected — will be borne out by the study in coming months, with the results finalized in early 2013.

The parties in the suit will then revisit the issue of color. The mill hopes the study will resolve the concerns and the rest of the suit can be dismissed, according to a statement by the mill.

Permit, take III

The environmental standards in the mill’s water pollution permit have already been tightened once compared to what the state initially suggested. The state was sent back to the drawing board once by the Environmental Protection Agency, which intervened in the pollution permit two years ago.

The state had initially recommended looser temperature criteria. The state also deemed the mill had already done enough to improve the color in the river, and that the color discharges were now acceptable and no longer needed regulating through a permit.

But the EPA called for tighter limits, telling the state to tighten up temperature fluctuations. Under the state’s original permit, the mill would have been allowed to raise the river’s temperature by as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit downstream of the mill based on a monthly average, but the EPA reined it in to only 15 degrees warmer.

The EPA also wasn’t convinced color was no longer an issue. The study to determine whether color was within acceptable levels was a result of the EPA stepping in, Taylor said. The EPA also wanted tougher monitoring requirements on dioxins and fish tissue testing.

The permit was approved by the state two years ago in May 2010. Technically, the permits are up for review every five years.

“It is pretty much a continual process,” said Cohen, the mill spokesperson.

In reality, it is often longer between permits. Before the new one was adopted in 2010, the last one before that dated to 2001. The mill operated under an extension of that 2001 permit for four years while a new one was being worked out.

The river downstream from the mill is far cleaner today than anytime in the mill’s 100-year history. The Pigeon River was once so polluted few fish species could survive and it was unsafe for people to swim in.

During the 1990s, the mill embarked on a $300 million environmental overhaul, spurred partly by expensive class action lawsuits.

The biggest environmental victory of the 1990s was getting the mill to drastically reduced dioxin, the most toxic chemical discharged into the river. The final health advisory against eating fish caught downstream of the mill was lifted in 2005. Fish once wiped out by the mill’s pollution are being reintroduced in a joint effort between the mill and state wildlife and environmental agencies.

But environmentalists and downstream communities want the mill to make further improvements. But instead, it seems progress has plateaued.

Canton and Waynesville’s paths have diverged when it comes to the most cost efficient way to haul trash to White Oak Landfill.

Both towns will face higher costs to dump residents’ trash starting this summer when the county closes a trash transfer station that served as a mid-way point and instead will require towns to truck trash all the way to White Oak.

The Canton town board decided last week to privatize trash pick-up. Rather than running its own trash fleet, Canton will contract with Henson Waste Disposal starting July 1. The company is based in Canton.

To continue trash pick-up in-house, Canton would have had to hire additional garbage men and buy an additional truck to haul loads out to White Oak and back — an additional 40 miles, or one hour, round-trip for each load.

The extra long trip made it difficult to gauge what would be cheaper — contracting a company or doing the work itself.

“That is the reason we have to look at it to see if we are going to have to go out and buy heavy duty vehicles or contract it out,” said Alderman Ed Underwood.

Town Manager Al Matthews said no town workers will lose their jobs as a result of the switch over, as the town crews that do trash pick-up will stay on the town’s payroll in the streets department.

Henson Waste was the apparent low bidder with a price of $184,884 a year. However, it is currently unknown what the contract price will be. The town and Henson Waste are still negotiating “minor technicalities” within the contract, including a possible fuel adjustment clause, Matthews said.

The county is estimated to save $800,000 to $900,000 annually as a result of closing the transfer station — some of which commissioners said it will give back to towns to help cover their additional costs.

Hauling trash the additional distance to White Oak will also impact commercial garbage haulers and industries with large trash volumes, like manufacturing plants or the hospital. County residents, however, can continue to use one of the many convenience stations located throughout the county.

The town of Waynesville had briefly considered contracting out its solid waste operations as well but decided to continue hauling its own waste based on an analysis done with the help of Land-of-Sky Regional Council, a government planning and development organization in Asheville.

Although there will be additional costs associated with the decision — including the purchase of a new, more efficient rear-loading garbage truck and one new employee — the town does not yet know how much more it will have to shell out each year, said former Town Manager Lee Galloway. Galloway is remaining on board with the town as a consultant until the end of June.

Additional costs for the town will also translate to more money out of residents’ pockets every month. Residences currently pay $6.50 a month for trash pick-up.

“We will be recommending a rate increase,” Galloway said. The amount of the increase is also unknown.

To help mitigate the added cost and cut down on trips to the far away landfill, Waynesville will continue to promote recycling. There is grant funding available for towns to purchase recycling carts or bins for their resident, and Galloway would like to see Waynesville take advantage of that.

“We need to make it easier for people to recycle,” Galloway said. “I would love it if the town could apply for and get money for carts.”

The town currently picks up blue bags full of recyclables from homes and businesses. However, it does not collect cardboard or glass from businesses.

“We haven’t collected cardboard in probably 10 years,” Galloway said. “There is a guy (from Henson Waste) who picks up cardboard and hauls it to Jackson.”

Business owners should call Henson Waste if they wish to have its cardboard and glass picked up for recycling.

The county is also making a push for increased recycling countywide. The goal is to decrease the amount of waste in landfills by eventually recycling at least 40 percent of its refuse. Haywood County currently recycles 11 percent of its garbage and hopes to increase that to 20 percent during the next 10 years.

It also plans to add to the list of items that can be recycled, such as glass, cardboard, paper and plastics. Soon, the county hopes to recycle carpet and shingles.

The county sells its recycled materials to companies around the U.S., which amounted to more than $642,000 in gross revenue during the last fiscal year.

“We use the revenue from the recycling to offset our costs,” said Stephen King, director of Recycling and Solid Waste Management in the county.

Voice your opinion

The Haywood County Board of Commissioners will hold a public meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 7, on its 10-year solid waste plan. The plan, which details the county’s goal regarding solid waste, is available at www.haywoodcounty.net. The website also lists what items the county currently recycles.

Canton’s elected leaders could find their two-year terms of office doubling if voters support a proposed change to give the mayor and board of aldermen four years in office.

The town board will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. on Feb. 28 to gauge residents’ feelings about shifting from the current two-year terms to four-year, staggered terms.

“I think it would behoove our community to make that decision,” said Mayor Michael Ray.

Ray said he did not think that adding another two years to the terms would make much difference.

Unlike most towns, Canton’s mayor and four aldermen have to run for election every two years. Every other town board in the region, as well as county commissioners, serves four-year terms.

While Canton’s town board has long toyed with the idea of switching to four-year terms, it would mark a change for Canton voters who are likely accustomed to the more frequent election cycle. The town board discussed the issue at their meeting last week and decided to leave the final decision up to voters.

“It’s been the way it is for a long time,” Alderman Ed Underwood said of the two-year model. “That is what the people have got used to. I think having their input is going to be very important.”

Because the entire board and the mayor run for re-election every two years, a perfect storm of circumstances could saddle the town with a completely new board and mayor, and institutional knowledge could disappear with the previous leaders.

“We were worried about the possibility,” said Alderman Patrick Willis.

Fellow Alderman Jimmy Flynn first broached the idea during his last term but no action was taken.

“I’ve been pursuing that ever since I got re-elected,” Flynn said. “If you do the staggered terms, you don’t run the risk of the whole board coming in new.”

In 2007, Canton saw three of the five seats on the board flip in a single election. And again in 2009, three of the five seats flipped. A wholesale change of the board hasn’t taken place in at least four decades, however.

Two extra years would also allow leaders to tackle longer-term projects more easily.

“I’m sure it would give anyone who is elected a longer time to complete things,” Ray said, adding that candidates would realize personal savings because they would not have to spend on campaign materials every two years.

However, a longer term is also a bigger commitment from the candidate’s standpoint.

“It’s seemed a long time since I’ve been elected, and that was only three months ago,” joked the newly elected Willis.

Although the board is required to hold a public hearing before switching to four-year terms, the law does not require residents to have a vote. The town has elected to make it a ballot issue in November.

“I feel this should be put before the people,” Ray said. “The electorate might like the possibility to have a quick turnaround.”

In addition to four-year terms, the proposal would also institute staggered terms, meaning only part of the board is up for election every two years.

If the new terms are approved, the two aldermen who receive the fewest votes in the 2013 town election would serve for only two years and then have to seek re-election again in 2015 before going to a permanent four-year cycle. The two aldermen and the mayoral candidate with the most votes during next year’s election would begin serving four-year terms at that time.

The Imperial Hotel in Canton has become entangled in a legal battle as a result of unpaid bills by a contractor.

Haywood County Builders Supply has filed a civil suit and lien against the hotel, owned by outgoing Canton Mayor Pat Smathers. The claim states that Smathers and his contractor Gary Cochran failed to pay for $29,084.93 in building supplies, such as lumber, paint, flooring, doors and nails. The supplies were used to renovate the old Imperial Hotel, which was built in 1911.

“It is what it is. I don’t agree with it,” Smathers said, adding that he didn’t want to “lambast anybody.”

Smathers said that the problem is between the contractor and Haywood Builders. Smathers said he paid Cochran for the cost of all the materials.

“Everything has been paid to the contractor,” Smathers said.

However, Cochran said Smathers still owes him money, and as a result he hasn’t been able to pay his bill with Haywood Builders.

Haywood Builders fronted the supplies and materials to Cochran for the job. Cochran would then wait to get paid by Smathers before paying the invoice with Haywood Builders.

“I paid as I got reimbursed,” Cochran said. “There is still money outstanding.”

To help cover the cost of the renovations, Smathers got a $90,000 grant from the North Carolina Rural Center to renovate the Imperial Hotel. It was a one-to-one matching grant, requiring Smathers to spend $1 of his own money for every $1 he got in grant funds.

He’s spent most of the money, according to the Rural Center. As of Nov. 10, the remaining grant funds totaled about $4,000.

The Rural Center also awarded Smathers a previous $25,000 grant for architectural and engineering plans.

Cochran said the grant process created a cash flow quandary. Bills for labor or materials must be paid for first and only then could he be reimbursed for the costs.

The grant money came in “slower than I ever thought,” Cochran said.

The county, which had to sign off on the grant and act as the fiduciary manager, requires both invoices and cancelled checks from Smathers before submitting an application to the Rural Center for reimbursement from the grant funds. Then, the center must process the application prior to reimbursing the money. This procedure can take several weeks.

Haywood Builders has also filed a civil suit against Cochran and Smathers. According to the suit, Cochran owes the building supply company an additional $186,954.96, plus interest and fees, for other projects.

Cochran said he sat down with Haywood Builders and tried to work things out many times but was unable to work out a payment plan.

“It’s been a downturn in the economy,” Cochran said. “We’ve been down for the last couple years.”

Last year, Haywood County issued 172 building permits for privately owned housing units — compared to 366 in 2008, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The firm representing Haywood Builders declined to comment.

It’s anybody’s guess when the Imperial Hotel in Canton will open.

The deadline for finishing renovations to the hotel, owned by outgoing Canton Mayor Pat Smathers, has continually been pushed back. The initial opening date in May turned into July, then August, with the latest target now sometime in December.

“There is just very little left to do,” said Smathers, who expects to finish renovating the hotel by the first or second week in December. “It’s just taken time, but it’s an old building.”

The renovations have been progressing in fits and starts during the past decade. Piles of bricks and other tell-tale signs of construction have been a mainstay in the yard of the downtown property for years now.

This time, however, completion really is just around the corner. If Smathers doesn’t create 15 jobs in the renovated hotel by this time next year, he will have to repay a $90,000 state grant for the project from the N.C. Rural Center.

Smathers himself will only create one of the required 15 jobs directly, however. An independent restaurant leasing space from Smathers inside the hotel will create the other 14 jobs required under the grant.

Smathers must repay a portion of the grant for each job not created.

Plans for a restaurant inside the hotel have taken a turn last week, however, with one restaurateur stepping back and another stepping in. Originally, Greg Petty, owner of the Canton Lunch Box, was going to open a restaurant in the Imperial Hotel. He expected to open this summer and even closed his other restaurant to focus his efforts on the new location.

“We closed our Canton Lunch Box in anticipation of getting this place opening on Aug. 1,” Petty said. That’s after previously touting a June opening.

Petty said the prolonged renovations were not the main reason he opted out of the Imperial locale. He said he was still planning to open the restaurant when he was approached by Sid Truesdale, who wanted to buy him out.

Truesdale said he was looking for an opportunity locally.

The goal for opening a restaurant in the hotel is New Year’s Eve, said Truesdale, calling the timeline “pretty aggressive.”

The restaurant, called Sid’s on Main, will offer “a little bit of everything,” such as steak and soups, Truesdale said.

The renovation project was about 80 percent complete in June, according to a progress report submitted to the Rural Center as a requirement of the grant. The main items remaining were painting the interior and installing a sprinkler system, bathroom fixtures, HVAC units and lighting fixtures, according to the report.

Now, the sprinkler system has been installed, as well as the light fixtures. However, workers are still inspecting the hotel’s pipes and finishing several outdoor decks or walkways, among other things.

Smathers purchased the property in 1983 with several others. During the next 15 years or so, he bought out his partners and began renovating the historic building.

The mayor said he did not know “off the top of my head” how much he has spent on the project during the last decade. However, he said the final stages of the project should cost about $180,000.

Smathers, through the Haywood County government, has obtained a two-part grant from the N.C. Rural Center to renovate the Imperial Hotel. The center awarded Smathers a $25,000 pre-development grant for architectural and engineering plans and a $90,000 grant for construction.

Smathers had to match the grant with an equal level of spending. As of Nov. 10, the remaining grant funds totaled about $4,000.

To meet the terms of the grants, the hotel must create 15 new jobs — 14 in the restaurant and one in the hotel — before November 2012 or repay part of the grant.

Canton residents and business owners said the hotel will have a positive impact on the community but are wondering how much longer they will have to wait.

“Anything that brings people downtown will help businesses,” said Julie Spivey, an area resident. “It’s taking longer than anyone expected,” she added.

Charles Rathbone, owner of Sign World WNC, said he would like to see the hotel and restaurant open for the upcoming holiday season.

“There is a lot of anticipation waiting for the opening day,” Rathbone said.

The Canton Town Board of Aldermen will now feature three old dogs and one new one.

Patrick Willis, who ran unsuccessfully in the last election, won a seat on the board with 312 votes.

“I am looking forward to working with the board,” Willis said. “I’d like to bring some new ideas, some new perspectives to the board.”

Willis said he thinks he will be able to work with the board to set some goals for the town.

As a member of StepUp Canton, Willis focused his campaign on economic development. Specifically, updating the town website, increasing communication between town officials and residents and marketing the town’s assets (e.g., its cheap housing and beautiful landscape) to draw new residents and businesses.

Willis said he expects there to be a small learning curve but he “deserve(s) to be there.”

Six candidates — three of whom were incumbents  — ran for four seats on the Board of Aldermen. Jimmy Flynn, Kenneth Holland and Ed Underwood reclaimed their seats on the board. Mike Ray, the sole candidate for mayor, received 440 votes.

Mayor  

Mike Ray 440  

Town Board

Seats up for election: 4

Total seats on board: 4  

Ed Underwood (I) 347

Jimmy Flynn (I) 313

Patrick Willis 312

Kenneth Holland (I) 292

Phil Smathers 275

Cecil Patton 82

Stanley Metcalf 72

Four years ago, candidates for office in Canton wanted new faces. Two years ago, their platforms were cooperation. And this year, business development and recreation are the common threads among candidates.

“I think we also need to look at doing our best to attract new residents to Canton and new businesses to Canton as well,” said Patrick Willis, who is spearheading StepUp Canton, a program aimed at spurring economic growth in the town.

Willis, who ran unsuccessfully two years ago, said Canton needs to market its assets: its comparatively cheap property values, its friendly atmosphere and its family-oriented recreation.

All the candidates shared a similar desire to revitalize downtown Canton.

The town should also work with existing businesses to improve the appearance of local storefronts through grants to owners willing to redo their façades, said Alderman Ed Underwood.

“It’s just got to be a cooperative effort,” he said. Underwood cited his personal effort to improve the town’s appearance by picking up trash once a week while walking through town with his wife.

The candidates emphasized some form of combined effort between the town and business owners, many of them discussing the need for a business or merchant’s association to serve as a driving force for commerce.

When current Alderman Jimmy Flynn ran for office two years ago, he pressed for the creation of a business association, he said.

“That is what I will continue to push every chance I get,” Flynn said.

Fellow candidate Phil Smathers said such an association is key if the town hopes to bring specialty shops to Canton’s Main Street and beautify its downtown.

“Certainly, everybody’s moving for progress,” Smathers said. “We are expecting big things to eventually come.”

A couple of candidates even mentioned offering incentives to draw businesses to the area.

“We’re going to have to work as a team to get things going,” said candidate Cecil Patton.

Patton said the town must work with property owners and businesses to fill the empty storefronts along Main Street.

Stanley Metcalf also said he would like to see more local businesses on Main Street, adding that it is difficult to own a business in Canton, but incentives might entice people to open a store.

“In my opinion, Canton is an unfriendly business town,” said Metcalf, who owns a lawn care service.

It seems every time a business does something to promote itself, such as place a sign on the sidewalk, it breaks an ordinance, he added.

Willis and Underwood, another candidate and current alderman, both cited updating the town’s website as an important tool for promoting Canton to prospective businesses and residents.

“That gets the word out,” Underwood said.

Recreation reconstruction

From replacing its aging pool to lining up acts to play in the historic Colonial Theatre, Canton board candidates agree that the town needs to step up its focus on recreation.

“We’re going to have to take a hard look at that pool,” Underwood said. “We’ve got to have that pool.”

Flynn agrees that the pool needs to be replaced — a cost of more than $1 million.

The swimming pool only has about three years of life left in it, said Flynn, who wants to start a recreation fund to save money for the replacement. Flynn said the town should start other reserve funds for future projects as well.

Adding lighting to the ballpark complex, creating more paths for pedestrians and cyclists and repairing the pool are among Smathers’ list for recreation improvements.

One of Patton’s main campaign goals is to increase activities for kids and seniors. He said the town should offer games and keep the pool open later so that there is not a shortage of recreation opportunities for either age group.

The past two years

Canton has an unusual election cycle: all four town board members plus the mayor are up for election every two years. Two years ago, a slate of three new candidates prevailed in the election. A similar upset was seen four years ago. The widespread dissatisfaction that drove those elections does not seem as prevalent this year, however.

“I’ve got all respect in the world for the board that is in there now,” said Smathers, a challenger in the race. “To me, it’s been one of the best boards that has been seated in Canton in years.”

Smathers said he is not looking to oust one of the current board members. Instead, he is running for the seat currently held by Alderman Eric Dills, who is not in the race this year. Smathers was a longtime town employee and cited his experience working with the town budget.

“I am running on experience as an asset,” Smathers said.

Other candidates had more mixed reviews of the current town board, however, questioning whether it has accomplished enough.

Willis said if elected, he wants to work with other board members to create short- and long-term goals, which the town can work toward.

“I have not seen or heard what direction the town wants to go with,” Willis said, adding that he thinks the board can accomplish much more than it has in the past couple of years.

“Not everybody is going to agree on every issue … but if there is common goals that the board can come up with then they should work to get those goals accomplished,” Willis said.

Willis, who chose Canton as the place to raise his family, wants to see the town develop in a positive way.

Metcalf said he thinks the most recent board has done “a pretty decent job,” but he would not care if the whole board were replaced.

He would like to see more local people get involved, he said.

Currently, the Board of Aldermen holds its meetings at 10 a.m. on the second Tuesday of the month and 7 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Metcalf said he wants to change the time to make it more convenient for local residents to attend.

The incumbents running for re-election pledged to continue on the same course.

“For me and Jimmy and Kenny, we’ll continue working together (if we are re-elected),” Underwood said. “We haven’t kicked the can down the road.”

“I think we’ve been very progressive,” Flynn added.

Underwood said there is more they would like to accomplish, however, after coming on the board just two years ago.

“You couldn’t do everything in two years,” Underwood said.

The board began and will continue its sidewalk and street repair work, said Underwood and Flynn.

This board has spent more money on roads, fixing potholes and paving, than any other board in the past 10 years, Flynn said. It has cut expenses, held the tax rate steady and combined staff positions when an employee retired or quit to save money, he said.

The town has also begun replacing the sewer line along Champion Drive around exit 31 off Interstate 40. The line was undersized and as a result, lacked capacity for new businesses. Replacing the line had been a top goal of aldermen who were elected two years ago.

Kenneth Holland, a current alderman who is also running for re-election, did not return multiple calls requesting an interview.

Alderman: pick four

Ed Underwood, 62, retired army lieutenant colonel and retired state prison guard, current town board member

• Continue street and sidewalk repairs

• Clean up the town, including façade improvements

• Replace the pool

Jimmy Flynn, 61, safety director for Buckeye Construction Company and retired assistant town manager, current town board member

• Create a recreation capital reserve fund

• Establish a business association

• Keep tax rates down

Phil Smathers, 64, retired fireman and building inspector

• Start a downtown business association

• Improve local recreation, including adding more paths for pedestrians and cyclists and lighting at the ballpark

• Beautify downtown Canton

Cecil Patton, 84, retired Army sergeant

• Offer more activities for the elderly and children

• Maintain current local tax rates

• Work to keep businesses in Canton

Stanley Metcalf, 54, owner of Metcalf and Associates Lawn Care Services

• Make Canton more business friendly

• Change the board’s meeting time to promote more resident involvement

• Award contracts to in-state businesses

Patrick Willis, 31, historic interpreter at Thomas Wolfe National Historic Site

• Improve the town’s website

• Increase communication between businesses and local officials

• Market the town’s assets to draw new residents and businesses

Kenneth Holland, 64, retired pharmacist, current town board member.

• Holland did not return phone calls requesting an interview.

Mayor: pick one

Mike Ray, a former Canton alderman, is running unopposed. Current mayor Pat Smathers is stepping down after 12 years.

Although work has barely begun, the replacement of Park Street Bridge in Canton has already hit a delay.

The project was previously slated for completion on Nov. 5, 2012, but the date has been pushed back to Dec. 1. The hiccup was caused by a delay in rerouting the utilities running adjacent to the bridge, said Mitchell Bishop, an engineer with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

DOT knows which utilities must be moved before a contractor is awarded a project, and ideally, the lines are relocated before construction begins. However, sometimes, that is not possible, Bishop said.

Department of Transportation agents in Raleigh must work with myriad utility companies to move the cable, fiber, telephone and electrical lines either before or during project.

“We knew the water and sewer was going to be rerouted,” Bishop said, adding that the overhead power lines running along the bridge could not be moved until after the project began.

The actual razing and replacing of the Park Street bridge will not begin until the first couple weeks of November.

The bridge was built in 1924 and will cost about $3.5 million to replace.

The reconstruction will slow traffic on downtown Canton’s busiest one-way streets, Main and Park, which run parallel to each other. Cars typically leave Canton via the Park Street bridge and enter the town using the Main Street bridge. However, the project will require Main Street become a two-way street while the other bridge is closed. A dog-leg detour will reroute traffic around the construction.

Pat Smathers is what you might call a born politician.

His first campaign was pitching Terry Sanford’s 1960 run for governor and John F. Kennedy’s bid for the White House. He was posted on a busy corner in downtown Canton by his politically active father, bedecked in a vest adorned with campaign buttons and matching straw hat.

“I was 6 years old,” recalls Smathers. “They had me standing out, handing out campaign literature, I guess because who’s going to be mean to a kid? That’s the first time I really understood politics.”

Today, Smathers is a lawyer, with an office on Main Street in downtown Canton, and on the waxing end of his 12-year tenure as the town’s mayor.

He has seen the small mill town through epic floods of 2004, a buy-out of the paper mill, the town’s centerpiece and largest employer, and more recently, an economy trending decidedly downward.

He’s leaving office to tend to his law practice, which he now shares with his son, and devote some time to the renovation of the long-vacant Imperial Hotel, a downtown icon whose restoration he’s bankrolling.

Though his political life may have started at the tender age of 6, his career in politics got off the ground in the mid-1980s when he won the post of chairman in the Haywood County Democratic Party.

After that, he held various party offices and following an unsuccessful bid for state senate in the ‘90s, he started his stint as mayor in 1999. He also ran as the Democratic candidate for the lieutenant governor position in 2008, which he lost.

He didn’t really intend to be the mayor, or indeed stay the mayor for more than a decade, says Smathers. But he really loves the town. He just couldn’t say “no.”

Sitting in his office, it’s easy to see that Smathers is truly proud of Canton, and he knows how to work that angle. He’s a seventh-generation Haywood Countian on both sides, and he’s got the black-and-white family photo hanging above a leather couch in his office to prove it.

The glad-handing required of any politician came easily to Smathers, and from the beginning he saw himself as a salesman, with Canton as his product.

“The role of the mayor is really principal spokesman for the town and the promoter for the town,” says Smathers, who looks the part of a quintessential Southern lawyer, complete with summer seersucker suit.

He’s spent the last 32 years as a lawyer, salesman of a point of view, and it has helped him in his role as town promoter.

One of his main jobs, as he saw it, was going to a lot of meetings. State meetings, regional meetings, local meetings, economic development meetings — if there’s a meeting, Canton should be there.

“You need to know what’s out there. You need to know what’s going to be happening five years from now. If they’re talking about plans for economic development or things that may be happening, you need to be there to say, ‘Hey look, what about putting that in Canton?’” says Smathers. In other words, it’s his job to be perpetually on the hard sell.

And that he was, which didn’t always make him popular. He’s quick to say that he came to the job with an agenda for changing the town, and that didn’t always sit well with some.

Some of his projects, such as better power poles in town, came to fruition.

“We could’ve won a contest for the ugliest power poles in the state. They were horrible,” he says with disdain.

Others, like a major visitor’s center on Champion Drive or a leg of the Great Smoky Mountains Railway, did not. When the county was embroiled in a debate on where to build a new courthouse, batting it from one site to another, Smathers didn’t pass up the chance to suggest “why not Canton?” — even if it would mean designating Canton as the county seat instead of Waynesville.

His prowess at politicking, however, did come in handy during one of the town’s darkest times: the floods that inundated it in 2004.

Thirty-six hours of rain from Tropical Storm Frances slammed the town, leaving it largely underwater. Nine days later, Tropical Storm Ivan brought another deluge. The mill closed, the sewage plant failed and wastewater flowed into the Pigeon River and through town. Every downtown building was filled with a layer of destructive water. Town facilities alone, says Smathers, sustained $10 million in damage.

“I was terribly concerned,” he says, remembering that time. “A lot of people — probably most of the people in Canton — don’t realize what a perilous situation we were in. We could’ve been a ghost town.”

Of his long mayoral career, he pinpoints that catastrophe as the nadir.

“That was probably the most difficult time, I think, for me as mayor was that period of time during the floods,” says Smathers. “I go back and look at it and try to figure out how I got through all that. It was hard. I was just being pulled every which way. I must have been running on adrenaline 24 hours a day.”

Not only were the floods an unmitigated disaster, but he was also studying for his master’s in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College and mourning the death of his mother.

Still, though, his propensity for promotion won through. He saw the flood as a tragedy, yes, but also as a way to get a lot for Canton that it would never otherwise get.

When politicians in Raleigh called on him to pitch Canton’s need to the state and the nation, he saw his moment.

“I went down there and I stated the cause,” he says, and he brought home a lot of money not only to fix the millions of dollars in damage sustained by the town and its businesses, but fix other infrastructure problems and set the stage for Canton to emerge from disaster into a new era of economic development.

Smathers has a way of speaking in talking points, directing the conversation to highlight his favored themes and not letting the topic drift until he’s hit his key premises. He starts a lot of sentences with, “well, number one….” It’s a practiced rhetorical technique that has no doubt served him in the courtroom and behind the mayor’s desk in times of crisis.

Longtime Waynesville Mayor Henry Foy offered his town’s support when its neighbor disappeared underwater.

“He was mayor of Canton during its most critical times, the most critical situations that I can remember in my lifetime,” says Foy. “He had the flood and he had the restructuring of Champion (paper mill). Those were very critical issues for Canton and I think he did an outstanding job.”

Smathers himself attributes much of Canton’s success in recovery and growth to the town board, town manager and state representatives. And he hasn’t always gotten along with the aldermen, having seen three very disparate sets of elected leaders pass through town hall over the last 12 years.

“I think over the years, we’ve had some very frank discussions on the board about various issues,” says Smathers. “But you can’t take things personal. Nobody is going to agree with me all the time, and I’m not going to agree with everybody else all the time.”

To those who lament Canton’s decline since its mill heyday, Smathers aggressively pitches a more optimistic view. It has long been one of his goals to get young people to come here and come back after college or job training. And, he claims, it’s happening.

“Yes, we’ve lost a lot of businesses, but look, Canton is growing. People don’t realize just the changes that have occurred. Not everything has been successful, there’s been some things we’ve tried that have not worked out. We started on a very active self-improvement plan, and we did some things just to show people, well, you can change.”

Charles Rathbone owns Sign World WNC, one of the businesses that’s popped up since Smathers took office.

“Pat Smathers has always shown that he had Canton in his heart,” says Rathbone. “And you know, a lot of times a lot of the ideas that he had were not well-accepted by the different board members, but he was always looking to improve the image of downtown Canton.”

Smathers has struggled to bring back the once bustling town, where downtown was flush with grocers, dime shops, hat and shoe stores, watch repairmen: all the trappings of healthy, small-town America. Finding a new downtown economy has been his goal, and the number of filled storefronts these days shows success in that direction.

Reflecting on the last three terms, his major regret, says Smathers, is that he didn’t write more sympathy cards when long-time community members died.

The community — its history and tradition particularly — do genuinely seem to be in Smathers’ heart, pumping through his blood.

He’s vacating the mayor’s chair, yes. And his office will now just be the seat of Pat Smathers, lawyer.

In the November election, his name won’t be on the ballot. Mike Ray, a former town alderman who served with Smathers is running unopposed and will take up the mayoral torch.

But, says Smathers, don’t be fooled. He’s not going anywhere, and he hopes to still be involved in public life, just from the other side.

“It has been very rewarding to be the mayor, it’s an honor. If you take a small town like Canton, especially for someone like me who grew up here, the people in this community know me, they know the good and they know the bad,” says Smathers, by way of goodbye to his constituents. “Everybody has warts. And if the people that know you best are going to let you serve for 12 years, it’s an honor.”

Anyone headed to Canton will need to book a little more drive time starting this fall, when a key downtown bridge is razed and replaced. A dog-legged detour around the construction is expected to seriously slow traffic on the town’s two busiest downtown streets, Park and Main.

The aging bridge was built in 1924. The total cost to replace it is about $3.5 million, with 80 percent of that coming from the federal government and the remaining 20 percent from state funds. The bridge has been on the DOT’s to-do list since 2000, said Brian Burch, division construction engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation.

For businesses perched on the edges of the bridge, the 16-month project could be quite a change.

“Apparently, the whole front of our parking lot is going to be taken up,” said Jason Siske, general manager at Napa Auto Parts, which sits just past the bridge on Park Street in downtown. His store is looking for a new home anyway, so the lack of road leading to their current location might not affect them for long.

Next door, however, Tom Wilson at American Cleaners has no plans to move.

“When they close one artery, it’s going to affect everybody,” said Wilson, who owns the store. “We just have to bear through it though. We’ve known this has been coming for years.”

Traffic moves through downtown Canton on parallel, one-way streets — Main Street and Park Street. Both have bridges spanning the Pigeon River.

With the Park Street bridge out of commission, traffic will jog over to Main Street where the bridge there will be pressed into service to carry traffic in both directions.

“People can expect some delays,” said Burch. “I’m sure we’ll have some delays during our rush hours in the morning and also when schools are dismissing.”

At the other end of downtown, Charles Rathbone of Sign World WNC isn’t anticipating too much hassle.

“I might look at changing my signage if it [Main Street] does go to a two-way, but I don’t really see it affecting us at all,” said Rathbone. “We’re going to be here with or without the bridge.”

But when the hassle, such as it is, finally subsides, contractors Taylor and Murphy say that the town will be left with a better, wider bridge. The firm won a $2.9 million contract, beating out six other bidders.

The bridge is now two-lane, but when construction closes in December 2012, there will be three lanes and a turning lane as well as wider sidewalks on both sides.

As part of the deal, the town will also come away with a greenway running under the east side of the bridge, which will connect to the town’s current greenway and provide safe passage for pedestrians under the bridge and into what will be Sorrells Creek Park.

“The bridge itself is obsolete to the traffic flow and the plans are to bring it up to date,” said Chris Britton, vice president of Taylor and Murphy. “It’ll be a lot safer, it’ll allow traffic to flow a lot better.”

Taylor and Murphy isn’t new to bridge building in Canton. The firm was behind the revamp of Bridge Street’s namesake in downtown earlier this year, has just completed work on the structure passing over Interstate 40 on Newfound Road and has a bridge in Cruso underway.

For the most part, said Britton, this bridge will be demolished and replaced by local laborers. He expects to have around 30 workers on the project, and all but the most specialized will be from the region.

Around half of the rubble from the soon-to-be-destroyed bridge will be recycled or sold as scrap metal. The new version, said Project Manager John Herrin, will also hopefully prove healthier for the river running beneath it.

“We’ll be making the river wider and cleaner, because right now you have three piers in the river and when we’re finished you’ll only have two,” said Herrin.

Contractors will start pulling up utilities and getting the bridge ready to come down by the end of August. The transportation department has a traffic flow plan in place, but they’re unlikely to need it until November, when Britton expects the bridge to close.

The town expects some upheaval during the process, but like Wilson, has long been ready for the replacement.

“We’re excited,” said Town Manager Al Matthews. “It’s going to be an inconvenience, but it’ll be good when it’s completed.”