Last week, more than a hundred people turned up to an informational meeting about a North Carolina Department of Agriculture plan to treat a small portion of Haywood County’s Cruso community for an invasive species of moth. And they weren’t happy.

Darris Moody’s failure to appear for a federal court hearing back in October could come back to haunt her, as prosecutors plan to seek a 2-level enhancement at her upcoming sentencing.

While some elected officials and media outlets are going to great lengths to celebrate Gov. Roy Cooper’s signing of the Medicaid expansion bill passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, there remains one very real obstacle to enactment.  

The initial shock of Pactiv Evergreen’s announcement that its Canton paper mill would soon cease operations hasn’t quite worn off for some, but the various parties affected by the closing have begun to take actions to mitigate the impact that has only just begun.

The Town of Waynesville’s municipal governing board has taken steps to modernize its operations by proposing amendments to its charter — changing both the terms it uses to refer to elected representatives, and how those representatives are elected to their terms.

Administrators from the Town of Canton’s various departments met with Mayor Zeb Smathers and members of the town board March 23 to begin to prepare for the financial impact of the closing of Pactiv Evergreen’s paper mill, estimated by Town Manager Nick Scheuer at roughly $3 million.

Last week, more than a hundred people turned up to an informational meeting about a North Carolina Department of Agriculture plan to treat a small portion of Haywood County’s Cruso community for an invasive species of moth. And they weren’t happy.

A March 21 letter from the general manager of Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton and Waynesville operations, John McCarthy, says the company will start mailing out mandated WARN notices to workers beginning on Thursday, March 23. 

Haywood County Republican and real estate agent Lynda Bennett will be sentenced in federal court on June 20 after accepting a plea agreement for violating campaign finance laws during her failed 2020 congressional bid.

The North Carolina General Assembly is one step closer to approving Medicaid expansion after the bill passed out of the Senate on March 15, but a popular amendment seen as a necessary addition by a Haywood County legislator — and every other member of the House — didn’t make the cut in the Senate.

Haywood County still needs its proposed $21.5 million jail expansion, but an unexpectedly high bid from the lone construction bidder has temporarily derailed the process — a delay that could become costly.

The 185-acre paper mill at the heart of Canton is the most visible sign of Pactiv Evergreen’s corporate presence in Haywood County, but they also own dozens of other parcels worth tens of millions of dollars.

The union that represents most workers at Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton mill has been placed under control of its Pittsburgh-based international union, stripping local officers of their titles and power.

For the first time since 2008, North Carolina’s governor is termed out, meaning Democrats and Republicans will both have a pretty fair shot at what will be an open seat come 2024.

In a letter sent by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to Mike King, CEO of Pactiv Evergreen, Cooper says that closing the Canton paper mill would violate the terms of a 2015 economic development deal and require the company to repay the state $12 million.

No one living can remember a time when there wasn’t a paper mill at the heart of Canton. Now, after 115 years in operation, it all comes down to three months.

After years of inaction by Congress led to a massive $262 million deferred maintenance backlog in America’s most-visited national park, it will now be up to visitors to pony up their own money to support the park’s most basic staffing and maintenance needs.

In less than three months, Pactiv-Evergreen’s Canton mill will cease operations after more than a century of serving as the cultural, economic and geographical center of the tiny Haywood County town of Canton. 

After more than a century of serving as the cultural, economic and geographical center of the tiny Haywood County town of Canton, Pactiv-Evergreen’s Canton mill will cease operations at some time during the second quarter of this year. 

Despite strong opposition last year, Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood) has again filed a bill that if passed would bring partisanship into some of Western North Carolina’s municipal governments.

All the world’s a stage, Shakespeare wrote, and all the men and women merely players. But with the recent uptick in bad actors consistently providing misinformation to Waynesville’s Board of Aldermen, a proposal to increase transparency by broadcasting meetings got bogged down over concerns that the videos would simply end up as food for trolls.

When is an alderman not an alderman? When that alderman happens to be a woman. 

Waynesville is Haywood County’s only municipal government that elects all of its members at once, but that will likely change — just in time for this year’s election.  

The Town of Waynesville’s municipal expenditures and revenue streams have all come in as expected during the 2022-23 fiscal year, but with a long and growing list of deferred maintenance needs and purchases, aldermen are looking for places to save money while once again raising the specter of a general obligation bond initiative.

Two years after a nonprofit affordable housing developer was granted incentives by the Town of Waynesville, the project is finally moving again but the developer has now returned to the table, asking for more incentives amidst rising construction costs.

Waynesville is Haywood County’s only municipal government that elects all of its members at once, but that will likely change — just in time for this year’s election.  

Like a lot of Americans, Lyn Forney remembers exactly what she was doing when the whole world shut down.

Haywood County commissioners made the right call on jail financing according to County Manager Bryant Morehead, and will proceed with a conventional loan after no opposition was heard during a public hearing held on Feb. 20.

After years of infighting and obstruction, the North Carolina General Assembly is closer than ever to expanding Medicaid after the Republican-controlled House gave its final approval on Feb. 15.

After a seven-day trial and several hours of jury deliberations, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina failed to return a verdict in the case of a Macon County Sheriff’s Deputy who shot and killed a Macon County man nearly five years ago.

When Canton officials and administrators met for their annual budget retreat last year, Town Manager Nick Scheuer’s presentation was riddled with question marks — signs of uncertainty after widespread flooding caused more than $18 million in damages to town infrastructure and killed six.  

After 20 years in daily newspapers, journalist Matt Peiken took a buyout from the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press in 2007 and embarked upon his first foray into the entrepreneurial world — a daily video program called “3 Minute Egg.” Over nearly three years, he produced more than 300 short documentary videos that eventually became a pre-YouTube era public television hit. 

Last week, reports obtained exclusively by The Smoky Mountain News revealed that Canton’s Pactiv-Evergreen Packaging would scale back production by idling one of its four paper-making machines. The company cited a decrease in demand, but as more information becomes available, it appears the “curtailment” of PM20 could be a tactic employed by Evergreen for leverage in a long-simmering contract dispute with the company’s unionized workforce.

A leaked, undated internal memo from Evergreen Packaging’s Canton General Manager John McCarthy says that the mill will idle one of its paper-making machines, citing reduced demand for its particular product.

Commissioners in Haywood County will move forward with pursuing a bank loan to finance the jail expansion after Davenport and Company, the county’s financial advisor, issued a request for proposals for installment financing contracts and explained the nuances of the ones they received.

On the same day her concerns about a parking issue were published, a Waynesville Cemetery Committee whistleblower resigned after the committee’s chair chastised her via email and made problematic comments about the First Amendment, public records laws and open meetings statutes.

A controversial education bill making its way through the Republican-dominated North Carolina General Assembly proposes granting parents a slate of “rights” they already have while taking more power from locally elected school boards and prohibiting instruction on a topic that doesn’t currently exist in state educational standards.

Two weeks after it was pulled from the consent agenda to allow more time for research and discussion, a $75,735 grant reimbursing Haywood County for money it had already spent on vaccination services was approved unanimously by Haywood County commissioners despite objections from more than 25 people who spoke out against it for nearly two hours — many of whom peddled vaccine misinformation similar to that heard at the previous meeting.

More than a year after announcing plans to open a location in Waynesville, popular tool retailer Harbor Freight Tools said via press release on Feb. 7 that construction has begun inside an 18,000-square-foot space vacated by Kmart in 2019.  

Chief David Adams and the Waynesville Police Department will begin implementing a motorcycle program and hope to have bikes on the streets this summer, thanks to a steal of a deal from an old friend in the city of Hendersonville.

The town that refuses to stay down made another big move toward getting back on its feet last week, selecting architects who will design replacements for municipal buildings that were damaged or destroyed during flooding in August 2021.

Haywood County residents have always been very protective — and particular — about Waynesville’s historic Green Hill Cemetery, but at least one member of the Waynesville Cemetery Committee is looking to head off disaster before it becomes another public relations nightmare.

When the old Downtown Waynesville Association imploded back in 2021 due to mismanagement and a general lack of enthusiasm, it left behind only a soiled legacy that unfortunately overshadowed three decades of transformative work.

Haywood County real estate agent Lynda Bennett, a 2020 candidate for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, will plead guilty to violating the Federal Campaign Act of 1971, according to documents filed in federal court on Jan. 27.

According to the filing, on or about Dec. 31, 2019, Bennett “on behalf of her campaign did knowingly and willfully accept a contribution made by one person, Individual A, which aggregated $25,000 in the calendar year 2019, in the name of another person.”

The complaint further identifies “Individual A” as a relative of Bennett.

Bennett, who was backed by President Donald Trump, retiring incumbent Congressman Mark Meadows and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, among others, won the first round of Republican Primary Election voting but lost in the runoff election to future congressman Madison Cawthorn.

That year, the maximum donation allowed from an individual was $2,800 per candidate, per election, meaning Bennett could have legally accepted up to $5,600 for her Primary Election and for the runoff.

Sentencing guidelines for violations of 52 USC 30122 list maximum penalties of five years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $50,000.

This story was first reported in Politico.

Haywood County’s Tourism Development Authority will enter a new era with the announcement of an executive director to replace the retiring Lynn Collins.

“I am extraordinarily excited to move to Haywood County, learn more about what makes the destination special and immerse myself in the community as I work to bring national attention to the region,” said Corrina Ruffieux (pronounced “roof-E-air”). 

With long-term debt rolling off the books and a number of high-dollar, high-profile projects on the horizon, Haywood County commissioners will have some tough decisions to make following a presentation by the county’s financial advisor.

Asheville-based McGill Associates will begin work to provide emergency watershed protection in areas affected by Tropical Storm Fred after Haywood commissioners approved an $800,000 contract on Jan. 17, but at least one commissioner thinks it may not be enough.

It may be a new year with a new county commission, but anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists are still offering the same old falsehoods about COVID vaccine.

Republican Haywood County Commissioner Terry Ramey attempted to quell the uproar over his decade-old delinquent tax bills last week, but in doing so offered up at least two completely false assertions.

North Carolina’s General Assembly convened last Wednesday, beginning a new session with new dynamics that will come into play as members seek to resolve a host of long-lingering issues.