Becky Johnson
The sale of the hospitals in Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties to Duke LifePoint has entered the final stages but is still several weeks, and possibly even a few months away.
A tourism tax increase in Haywood County has virtually no hope of advancing in the N.C. General Assembly this year, but some of its supporters seem reluctant to fold.
Town and county leaders have implored state legislators to green light a tourism tax increase since this time last year. Hiking the tax on overnight lodging from 4 cents to 6 cents would bring in half a million extra dollars a year for tourism coffers and would be earmarked for building or expanding tourism attractions.
The advent of three large student apartment complexes around Western Carolina University in the past few years has prompted concern in Cullowhee over increased traffic.
Two video gambling halls were raided in Haywood County last week following an undercover investigation by law enforcement agencies.
Stagnating pay for North Carolina teachers is prompting some local school leaders to dig a little deeper for salary bonuses at the county level.
A proposal to loosen steep slope development rules in Jackson County is headed back to the drawing board.
A large and vocal crowd opposing the rollback of mountainside protections in Jackson County packed a public hearing earlier this month. Given the outcry, the Jackson County Planning Board decided to reconsider some of its initial recommendations.
A film crew with the show “American Unearthed” will arrive in Jackson County this week to film an episode on Judaculla Rock, despite fears that a mockery will be made of the prehistoric rock art.
After oscillating on the issue last year, Maggie Valley town leaders have now endorsed a room tax hike in Haywood County that would raise more money for tourism projects, but its chances of passing muster with the N.C. General Assembly this year remain slim.
A controversial bypass around Sylva that was supposedly tabled by the highway department last year suddenly and mysteriously seemed to be back on the drawing board last month.
Dueling challenges over the legitimacy of two Macon County commissioner candidates could have had far-reaching implications for the county’s political landscape and, ultimately, the tone and tenure of the county for years to come.
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Both challenges fizzled out after a week of political commotion, but from the shadows of the unfolding drama a power struggle for majority control on the Macon County Board of Commissioners emerged. While both candidates who faced challenges are Republicans, they come from two different ends of the party’s philosophical spectrum.
The informal process for picking people to serve on the planning board in Jackson County has come under scrutiny, prompting county commissioners to double-down on the how, when and who of their appointments.
The daunting challenge of courting industry, cultivating entrepreneurs, helping businesses expand — and ultimately adding new jobs to the economy — will soon become an all-hands-on-deck affair in Haywood County.
Nearly a year after cutting down the historic maple trees in front of the Haywood County Courthouse, the lawn still isn’t as grassy or green as county commissioners would like.
Haywood County Schools’ attorney has countered accusations that Pisgah High School administrators allegedly hampered a student’s attempt to form a club for atheists and non-religious students.
Macon County can count itself lucky for landing a $500,000 state recreation grant to help pay for a softball and baseball complex.
A wrongful firing suit by Tammy Cagle, the former director of Swain County Department of Social Services, has shed light on a series of unorthodox payments funneled to Cagle’s family members for social assistance.
A wrongful firing claim by the former director of the Swain County Department of Social Services has been rejected by the state.
A standing-room only crowd turned out for a public hearing on steep slope rules in Jackson County last week and implored county leaders to uphold existing protections against mountainside development.
The clock is ticking for the fundraising foundations of Haywood Regional Medical Center and Harris Regional Hospital to spend earmarked money in their coffers to benefit the hospitals.
Political backlash against the new conservative policies of state lawmakers has given rise to two local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Haywood and Jackson counties — the first such affiliates to be formed in the rural, predominantly white mountain counties since the NAACP’s creation about a century ago.
A Maggie Valley restaurant owner who was also a figure in town politics has been charged with sexually abusing two boys several years ago.
A club for non-religious students is being formed at Pisgah High School after a freshman enlisted the help of a national group to go to bat for her.
Jackson County commissioners have nixed the idea of making volunteer fire departments financially autonomous.
Limits on mountainside development and standards for steep slope building are once again in the spotlight in Jackson County.
The Jackson County planning board has spent the past 14 months rewriting steep slopes regulations first put in place seven years ago.
They were more restrictive than anywhere else in the mountains at the time. The watered-down version that has emerged from the rewrite is still far more protective than most mountain counties.
The steep slope hearing scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 13 has been moved to Thursday, Feb. 20.
David Brooks grew up dirt poor. His dad farmed corn, apples and tobacco, always with a plow and mule, never with a tractor. Brooks’ mom and five siblings were often left to tend to the 100-acre hillside farm in Jackson County when his dad journeyed in search of cash-paying jobs — taking him as far as Washington state during summers to work as a logger.
“I guess it was poverty, but we didn’t know it at the time,” Brooks said.
Who shows up and speaks out at a steep slope public hearing in Jackson County next week could alter what mountainside development looks like for decades to come.
The silence seeped from the mountain ridges and hung heavily over the forest, silence like a deep well, so deep that a pebble tossed in just might go on forever, swallowed up for what seems like an eternity until at last, a dim, muffled plunk echoes up from in the darkness far below.
It was the kind of quiet so steadfast, so impenetrable, little stood a chance against it.
Time has nearly run out for the beleaguered N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to fix the systemic problems plaguing its food stamp program.
After months of admonishments, the federal government has given the state until Feb. 10 to fix a massive backlog of food assistance applications or risk losing millions in federal administrative support funds.
Maggie Valley town leaders are questioning the amount of money the town plows into its festival grounds each year and how much of a support role the town should play for outside events staged at the venue.
Haywood County leaders have substantially lowered the asking price for the empty, run-down, old hospital — it’s now free.
A fifth attorney has added his name to the list of possible nominees for an open District Court judge position in the seven western counties.
Editor’s note: Alice Aumen has been a major voice in Haywood’s tourism landscape for more than half a century — as a founder of Cataloochee Ski Area, operator of the third-generation family-run Cataloochee Ranch and a leader in the Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Hunters from all over the mountains came together last weekend to speak out against the tactics used by undercover wildlife officers in a multi-year investigation — one that presumably targeted bear poachers.
Attorneys in the seven western counties will to be called on in the coming weeks to weigh in on their top pick to fill a vacancy on the judicial bench.
A proposal to convert a closed-down state prison into a halfway house and homeless shelter in Haywood County is gaining steam.
The old prison was given to the county two years ago after the state shut it down, but the county has no real use for it. So it’s been sitting there empty, just beyond the backdoor of the county’s own jailhouse.
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Faith-based groups that regularly counsel and minister to inmates in the jail have come up with a plan to convert a section of the old prison into a halfway house — a place where recently released inmates can be reformed and remade upon release from jail.
When Jane Hipps began toying with the idea of running for state Senate as a Democratic challenger, a wave of excitement crept through party circles.
The North Carolina Senate seat for the seven western counties could be one of the few swing races in the General Assembly this year as Democrats vie to make a dent in Republican dominance in Raleigh.
Jackson County tourism leaders are weighing the best way to get their message to the masses.
Controls on mountainside development in Jackson County could be loosened following a year-long line-by-line rewrite of steep slope rules by the Jackson County planning board.
A public hearing on changes to the state’s hunting and fishing rules, including looser rules for black bear hunting, will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 14 at Tri-County Community College in Murphy.
Some hunters in Western North Carolina are speaking out against the tactics used by undercover wildlife officers in a multi-year bear poaching investigation.
Amid the epidemic of prescription pill abuse, the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office is buying a niche device more common to pharmacies than police stations — a pill counting machine.
The attractive, even swanky new liquor store in Waynesville got off to a sluggish start the first two months after popping the cork on its new location, but it had posted slight gains by the month of December.
An old elementary school in Waynesville that serves as a giant bunkhouse for troupes of international performers during the signature Folkmoot festival each summer is being relinquished by the Haywood County school system and turned over to Folkmoot for good.
A new formula for business license fees will mean a six-fold increase in collections for the town of Waynesville this fiscal year, bringing in a projected $128,000 compared to $20,000 last year.
To Jenifer Bauer, the conditions couldn’t be better for a hike. It’s cold and soggy. There’s no leaves left, nothing green at all on the forest floor save the rhododendrons and mountain laurels. Even the views are dreary and gray, leaving nothing better to look at than the ground beneath her feet.
Supposedly just 8 percent of Americans who make a New Year’s resolution keep it.
The obvious reason is human beings just aren’t very good at self improvement. But some resolutions are doomed from the start.
Like many of you, I’ve been amassing Christmas presents for months now — stocking up at consignment sales, cruising craigslist for good deals, and slipping irresistible stocking stuffers into the shopping basket when the kids aren’t looking. There’s something slightly exhilarating about shepherding bags of future presents into the house undetected and squirreling them way on the top shelves of cupboards and in corners of the basement.
Raymond Caldwell was 15 years old when he hitched up a team of horses to a wagon with 30 bushels of corn in tow, leaving the only home he and his ancestors had ever known in the idyllic Cataloochee Valley.
“I drove the wagon all over the farm, but that was the first time I ever drove it out of there,” said Raymond. It was a high stakes assignment, since the load represented the fall corn harvest and needed to last the family and livestock through the winter at the new farm they were heading to across Haywood County.
Haywood County commissioners are going through the motions of selling Haywood Regional Medical Center to a national hospital chain with little in the way of pomp and circumstance.
