SYLVA–The lauded expansion of Sylva’s Jackson Paper Manufacturing Company has come to a halt.
Stonewall Packaging, LLC, launched in spring of 2009, has announced it will close its doors.
The century old Jackson Paper plant that dominates downtown Sylva is not affected by the closing — Stonewall Packaging, located in a renovated facility further out Scotts Creek, will close, eliminating 43 jobs.
Jackson Paper makes corrugating medium — the zig-zag paper inside the walls of cardboard. Stonewall Packaging used the medium to produce complete cardboard.
Company representatives say that a major purchaser of their product backed out, leaving them no choice but to close.
Diners crowd Guadalupé Café during A Taste of Downtown Sylva 2009
SYLVA–The Downtown Sylva Association has announced the lineup for its annual Taste of Downtown Sylva culinary walking tour.
The tour, set for June 26, features the following restaurants: Papou’s Wine Shop and Bar, Lulu’s on Main, Signature Brew Coffee Company, Eric’s Fresh Fish Market, Bill’s Back Street Take-Out, Spring St. Café, Restaurant 553, My Place, Ironstone Grill, Heinzelmannchen Brewery, Annie’s Naturally Bakery, and Mill and Main.
Ticket availability is limited.
Tickets can be pre-purchased for $15 (adults) and $7 (youth ages 12 and under) and will be available at participating merchants starting June 4th. Tickets may also be purchased at these downtown events: Sylva After Dark on Main Street on June 4th and Concerts on the Creek at the Bridge Park on June 11th (cash or check only).
Remaining tickets, if available, will be sold the day of the event beginning at 1pm next to Signature Brew Coffee Company and at Papou’s Wine Shop and Bar.
All proceeds benefit the Downtown Sylva Association.
Taste of Downtown Sylva ticket holders may enter drawings during the tour to win gift certificates from participating merchants.
CHEROKEE–The Cherokee Preservation Foundation, funded by gaming revenues produced by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, began making economic development grants in 2002. Since then, it has awarded 487 grants totaling nearly $40 million. Every dollar of the Foundation’s support has been matched by $1.41 in secured grants or other funding or in-kind resources, making the foundation’s total contribution to the region more than $95 million.
The Foundation’s focus is on project, planning and capacity initiatives that will enhance the Cherokee culture, facilitate economic development and job opportunities, and improve the environment. We are helping the EBCI and its neighbors address challenges that include the loss of jobs from manufacturing plant closures, potential environmental degradation due to increased traffic and localized growth in specific areas, the deteriorating growth of small and medium businesses in the region, and a decline in visits from tourists to Cherokee cultural events and institutions.
Yesterday the Foundation released a film detailing its efforts. View the film below …
KITUWAH–A controversy over Duke Energy’s plans to build a relay station in Kituwah valley near Bryson City has reached the boiling point.
The relay station, serviced by multiple 100-foot towers, is being constructed on a parcel of land that Duke owns near the Kituwah Mound – one of the most sacred spots of the Cherokee.
The Cherokee and various citizens’ groups protested, and in March the Swain County Board of Commissioners halted construction by means of a moratorium.
The controversy is now playing out before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, with Duke Energy telling the commission this week that the region is threatened by outages and blackouts if the station isn’t completed.
The Cherokee had expected Duke to acquiesce, but Duke seems prepared to make a stand on the Kituwah site.
Russell Townsend, the tribe’s historical preservation officer, doubts that the tribe will accept a decision to complete construction quietly.
“There will be trouble,” Townsend told John Murawski of the Raleigh News and Observer. “I can’t imagine if Duke proceeds to build there that the tribe would just say, ‘That’s a shame,’ and move along.”
Commenters to the N&O story have pointed out that electricity production is by definition obtrusive, and that the Cherokee gaming industry is one of the region’s biggest users of power. Others point out that the issue is transmission, rather than production, and that electricity has to be transmitted no matter how it is produced.
Up-to-date coverage on this week’s hearings is available from the News and Observer here, here and here.
Earlier coverage of the controversy appeared in the Smoky Mountain Newshere,here and here.
LEICESTER-Once, in a field near Franklin, Jonathan Hearne was hit by lightning. Or rather, lightning struck the tool he was using to shear wool off a sheep. The bolt then jumped from the shears to his knees, and with a burst of flame “blew the bottoms off his feet” and killed the sheep.
Jonathan Hearne is a sheep-shearer. His days aren’t this hard as a rule, but it’s pretty tough work, and it doesn’t pay too well unless you work fast.
He owns property between Newfound and Leicester – at the eastern end of Haywood County – that his parents bought in 1966, and he works that land, but he makes his principal living traveling seven southeastern states and visiting farms to shear their flocks.
Like many of us, Hearne had no real idea that this is where life would lead him. “I never dreamed thirty-three years ago, when I was first doing this for a living, that I’d be shearing sheep thirty-three years later,” he says with a laugh. But he adds that he loves it.
A native of Pennsylvania, Hearne learned his trade from an old-time Iowan. Traveling shearers often take on helpers – apprentices, more or less, – that travel with them. That’s how Hearne learned. Then, in 1976, he came to the mountains.
His parents, who had been dairy farmers in Pennsylvania from 1938 until 1966, preceded him by a decade.
“I heard stories about a fellow in Fines Creek that could shear 100 sheep a day,” Hearne recalls. “I thought ‘there’s never been a bigger lie told in these mountains’, but then I saw him shear and I thought ‘OK, that’s different’”.
As he honed his skills, Hearne eventually doubled — nearly tripled — that number.
Now he travels with his son, Ben, a graduate of Earlham College, and they carry on what is becoming a family tradition. The shearing circuit is by no means high living, but they have a good time.
“We’ve got a lot of friends in a lot of places,” says Hearne. “Sometimes we camp out, sometimes we’re invited in. Because we’re sheep shearers, we’re obviously not in it for the money, so we’re generally trusted. We’re welcomed as someone who can do something that people really appreciate. And the people we meet are good. As a general rule, scoundrels don’t keep sheep.”
The economy of keeping sheep for wool is, at this point, poor. In the 1980’s the per pound price of wool started to fall, by the late 90’s it was desperately low – around 3 cents per pound. That was the beginning of the end. Three decades ago, Hearne says, wool sold for around one dollar per pound.
“Wool from your general cross-bred sheep isn’t worth much,” he says.
The main reason that many people keep flocks these days, he adds, is so they can maintain their land’s “agricultural” designation, which has tax advantages.
Once, about ten years ago, I was having lunch at a Sylva restaurant called the Spring Street Cafe.
From my table I caught a quick glimpse down an unlikely sightline — framed just so by some plants and interior drapes, down a hallway, and through a cracked door — of a baker’s table. On the table was a wedding cake, and the cake was being carefully decorated by two hands. The hands were all I could see.
The owner of those baker’s hands would one day become my wife, and we would come to own a house across the street from the cafe, where we live today with our three girls.
Spring Street, which has been closed for nearly a year, will soon open again under the ownership of former employee Emily Elders, a Cullowhee native. One of her ideas for an advertisement is a group shot of kids that have sprung from the many friends that have surrounded the cafe for the past ten years. (It better be a big ad).
All along, Spring Street Cafe has held a particular niche in Sylva’s lively-for-a-small-town restaurant scene.
First, in the nineties, it was City Lights Cafe, a small eatery attached to the bookstore upstairs, and under the proprietorship of Joyce and Allen Moore.
About a decade ago it was expanded into it’s full service self by Faye Holliday, whose culinary flair traces at least a little of its lineage to Asheville’s Hector Diaz, owner of the eclectic and popular eateries Salsa’s, Zambra and others.
Holliday and her unusually loyal (for food service) crew built a strong following through wild explorations of fresh local and world cuisines, and Tuesday night old time jam sessions and Sunday brunches were de rigueur among a certain Sylva social set.
Faye’s slow food influence can now be felt in a number of kitchens in the southern mountains.
Holliday sold the place to Lisa Agee a few years back, and Agee, whose desserts were quite a calling card, closed her business last spring, a victim of the economic malaise.
Enter Ms. Elders. As a single mom, a student and director of the Jackson County Greenways Project, you’d think she might have enough on her plate to worry about what’s on everybody else’s, but she’s game. She and a band of volunteers have been sprucing the place up in preparation for a January 26 opening.
“I’m very much inspired by Faye’s ideals,” Elders says. “We’ll be as local and as organic as we can be. My goal right away is to keep price points down, and bring back a lot of the items people remember and love.”
Elders has assembled a crew of former employees and a front-of-the-house manager that’ll be familiar to Sylva folks: Michael Redmon has been a longtime employee of Annie’s Bakery.
Several of the specifics that fans of the place remember will return, sushi Wednesdays and Sunday brunch among them. In addition, Elders and new City Lights Bookstore owner Chris Wilcox hope to develop a more symbiotic relationship than the two businesses have shared before. The cafe’s hours will be much closer to those of the bookstore, and the bookstore will open on Sunday afternoons.
Spring Street will hit the ground running, events-wise. Elders will host a Chamber of Commerce business after hours on January 28th, and will open for business the next day.
Book-signings and an art opening are already on the schedule for February.
SYLVA–City Lights Bookstore, a retail anchor in downtown Sylva since the early eighties, is changing hands.
Owners Joyce and Allen Moore are selling the store to longtime employee Chris Wilcox, effective January 1.
Moore informed her customers of the change in a letter written on Monday, in which she wrote, in part:
As I begin my 66th year and a new decade, I feel the need to slow and simplify my own life, but I believe that I am leaving the store in capable hands, well suited to dealing with the evolving complexities of the bookselling world.
The Moores bought the store from local author Gary Carden in 1986, and moved it from Main Street to its current location at the corner of Spring St. and East Jackson St. a few years later.
In her letter, Moore also wrote:
Chris and his employees will also be facing many changes. Some are beginning to affect not only the face of the bookselling world, but even the book itself. It will take hard work, a constant acquisition of new information, flexibility and most of all, your continuing support to carry City Lights into the new decade.
Many independent bookstores across the country are closing in these economic hard times, but you have continued to say with your dollars that having a real bookstore in Sylva is important to you. It is essential that you continue that commitment, not only to City Lights, but to all the independent businesses in downtown Sylva.
REGIONAL–Congress has approved $13 million towards a larger settlement with Swain County to resolve the North Shore Road issue.
Here’s an excerpt from Mark Barrett’s story in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
A provision backed by U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, a Swain County native and Waynesville Democrat, to spend the money is part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 that the House passed Wednesday.
Shuler’s office said the Senate is expected to pass the bill this weekend.
The bill would release $4 million in federal funds to Swain County immediately, with the remaining $8.8 million to come 120 days after a settlement agreement is reached.
In 1943, the federal government agreed to build a road along the north shore of Fontana Lake, after an existing road was covered by the lake. Parts of the road have been built, but the north shore of the lake is remote, rugged and mostly inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Eventually, the federal government sought a financial settlement rather than build the road, but elements within the community fought the settlement, and the contentious issue has dragged on for decades.
SYLVA–The holidays are here and so is the spirit of giving!
The Downtown Sylva Association is partnering with The Community Table for a Food Drive from December 1st-23st. Visit some of your favorite downtown hotspots to make a donation that will make a difference at the same time.
Papou’s Wine Shop & Bar, Annie’s Bakery, Yesterday’s Tree, Lulu’s on Main, Friends of the Library, Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, Bubacz’s Underground, Heinzelmannchen Brewery will have a box identified for your donation at their location.
Check our website, www.downtownsylva.org, as this list of merchants will grow in the coming days.
It’s hard to think of much that would bring more life to a quiet building than a dance academy, and that’s just what’s coming to Sylva’s old post office, located on Landis St., and closed since spring.
Triple Threat Performing Arts Academy is moving from its current location adjacent NAPA Auto Parts on the Asheville Highway into the old post office. Renovations there are ongoing, and owner Valerie Tissue hopes to crank up in March. Downtown merchants will take note; the academy has over 230 students, whose parents and assorted caretakers have a lot of time on their hands between drop-off and pick-up.
Spring St. Cafe to reopen
Spring St. Cafe would celebrate its ten-year anniversary in March — if it were open. And apparently it might be, as owner Faye Holliday and space-owners Joyce and Allen Moore are close to reaching terms with an interested party …
Downtown wayfinding system
Downtown merchants — particularly the ones who aren’t directly on Main St. — have long complained about the lack of a standardized signage system for the downtown area. Many have resorted to various sandwich boards placed here and there, bringing about the occasional visit from the sign ordinance folks. Town Manager Adrienne Isenhour has been working this year to implement the needed system, and her efforts got a boost this week with a $9,000 municipal grant from county government.
Downtown Sylva Association; another successful parade
From the DSA: Downtown Sylva celebrated its annual Christmas parade Saturday with a great turn out and amazing floats that showed the time, effort, and talent that went into making such a special presentation. Wilmot Baptist Church won “Best in Show” and $200. Honorable mention was a tie and goes to Yesterday’s Tree and Heritage Christian Academy.
Downtown windows and businesses were judged during the Holiday Open House this year. Judges walked around downtown to view the numerous beautifully decorated windows. First place went to Annie’s Naturally Bakery and $100. The Nichols House came in second and Jackson General in third. Thank you to all the merchants for participating in this contest and we look forward to seeing more beautiful windows next year!
STATEWIDE-The Raleigh News and Observer reports that the state of North Carolina will urge 78,000 state residents whose unemployment benefits recently expired to re-apply for extended benefits recently approved by congress.
An excerpt:
The N.C. Security Employment Commission is preparing to send out the letters this month as it begins administering the extension, which increases benefits by up to 20weeks. Congress boosted maximum jobless benefits five weeks ago from 79 weeks to 99 weeks in the midst of the nation’s most severe economic recession in decades.
GSMNP–Smoky Mountain News outdoor writer Don Hendershot wrote last week that the 2010 omnibus spending bill, due to be signed in a couple of weeks, might include the long-awaited cash settlement that would (in theory) lay to rest Swain County’s North Shore Road controversy.
Hendershot quotes anonymous sources, and hints that the dollar amount could be greater than the projected $30 million.
Here’s an excerpt from Hendershot’s story:
After more fits, there was another start at construction back in 2000 when then Rep. Charles Taylor and then Sen. Jesse Helms appropriated $16 million for construction of the North Shore Road. Even though the $16 million was about $550 million short of the estimated cost of such a road, the appropriation spurred some Swain County residents to action.
The Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County was created in 2001. Although totally lacking in acronym-imagination, the CEFSC did strike a chord with many Swain County residents and environmental groups with its proposal for a cash settlement in lieu of the improbable North Shore Road. Through some mathematical calisthenics the group came up with a settlement figure of $52 million.
NATIONAL/STATEWIDE–A federal stimulus program designed to help keep the unemployed insured is phasing out.
The lead from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
At a time when the unemployment rate tops 10 percent, many unemployed Americans will no longer qualify for federally subsidized health insurance.
That’s because a nine-month health-insurance subsidy that was part of the federal stimulus legislation began to end Monday for many who have relied on it. As many as 7 million people were eligible for the subsidy in 2009, according to government statistics.
People who have not used up their nine-month subsidy will be able to finish it. But no one laid off after the end of the year will be able to start using the subsidy. Parts of the stimulus legislation dealing with the insurance coverage end Dec. 31.
ROBBINSVILLE–In a move that apparently came as a surprise to members of the Graham County Travel and Tourism Board, Graham County commissioners disbanded the board in a 3-1 vote last week.
Interesting political shenanigans are nothing new in the lightly-populated county, and the commissioners’ vote has the feel of more of the same.
Travel and Tourism Board Chairman Dirk Cody said commissioners did not discuss their plans with the board, but he would have resigned if asked …
“I told Trull and Snyder if they had a problem with me, I would have been glad to step down,” Cody said.
Cody added that travel and tourism is too vital to Graham County’s economy to tamper with.
The N.C. Department of Commerce reports tourism was responsible for putting $23.42 million in Graham County’s economy in 2008. More than 270 jobs with an annual payroll of $4.34 million were generated from tourism last year.
[Board member Linda] Ditmore said she was surprised by the commission’s vote and had no warning.
“I don’t understand why it was disbanded,” she said. “We cannot exist without an effective travel and tourism authority.”
Travel and tourism boards and authorities oversee occupancy tax revenues and invest them in tourism marketing efforts in many North Carolina counties.
REGIONAL–Ingles Markets, one of the larger grocery chains doing business in the western region, announced earlier in the fall that it would not allow Salvation Army bell-ringing at its stores this holiday season.
After some public pressure, it has reached a compromise with the charity.
Craig A. Gontner, Captain, WNC Area Coordinator and Waynesville Corps Officer with the regional Salvation Army office that serves Cashiers, said, “Ingles did make a business decision at a corporate level to allow only unmanned kettles to be placed in their stores. The Salvation Army’s view is that we understand their decision and value the partnership.
“Ingles is a committed friend and partner to the Salvation Army and this community,” added Gontner. “Ingles has agreed to allow bell ringers to be present for the time just prior to Christmas, Monday, Dec. 21 through Thursday, Dec. 24. We plan on utilizing this opportunity.”
The Hendersonville Times-Newsreported that Ingles originally banned bell-ringers to provide its customers with an “unsolicited environment” during the holiday season, given the tight economy. The Times-News also reported on the compromise. It’s lead: “The spirit of Christmas — and sensitivity to a barrage of customer complaints — has won the day.”
The compromise limits bell-ringers to a few days just prior to Christmas, down from more than a full month’s worth of ringing in previous years.
STATEWIDE–The Charlotte Observer’s Jack Betts has a look at the challenges facing the decade-old Golden LEAF fund; the non-profit formed to dole out North Carolina’s share of the national tobacco settlement.
An excerpt:
In its one decade of existence, Golden LEAF has sometimes inspired its supporters with potentially transformative initiatives such as $100 million for a manufacturing facility at the Global TransPark in Kinston for aerospace component fabrication.
And it has infuriated its detractors by doling out money in ways that remind them of nothing so much as political slush funds financed with public money. A recent critical report from State Auditor Beth Wood flayed the organization for its inability to produce minutes of meetings, criticized its ethics practices, faulted it for making a spending decision in closed session and blasted its refusal to fully cooperate with auditors. At one point an auditor was escorted out of a Golden LEAF file room that auditors had been given access to, prompting suspicions the foundation was trying to hide something.
NANTAHALA–Nantahala Outdoor Center has announced its title sponsorship of the 2010 Outdoor Industry Association Rendezvous in Asheville, NC. OIA’s Rendezvous is an annual leadership conference for the outdoor industry, and NOC along with the Asheville Chamber of Commerce welcome these leaders October 5-7, 2010.
“In a way, we’re welcoming home a group whose industry is a fundamental part of why the Asheville area is such a compelling destination,” said Tim Lampkin, Director of Convention Sales & Group Services at the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau. “This is a region that celebrates its natural treasures, so we heartily welcome the businesses and associations that help us make our natural assets economic ones.”
Rendezvous will bring together leaders from across the country for a week of keynote speakers, breakout sessions, networking opportunities, recreation and entertainment, capped off with a volunteer service project to give back to the host community.
“We are excited to partner with NOC for Rendezvous 2010 and look forward to bringing the industry to Asheville next fall to showcase their efforts, as well as all the density of outdoor recreation and retailers in the area,” said Ann Obenchain, vice president of marketing and member services for OIA. “NOC’s leadership as a business in the Southeast and as a retailer in the outdoor industry is paramount and we are looking forward adding more paddlesports and retail influences to the event with their help.”
On the final day of Rendezvous, OIA attendees will give back to the community by working together to cleanup recreation areas in and around Asheville. This event will prove to be a special opportunity for leaders in the outdoor industry to make an impact on Asheville’s outdoor and paddling communities.
FRANKLIN–Citing the current economic downturn and resulting instability in the real estate market, Macon County tax assessor Richard Lightner asked the county’s board of commissioners to postpone property revaluations for two years. They agreed, in a unanimous vote.
“The market’s real unstable right now,” Lightner said. “There’s a lot of stuff listed for sale. Sales are slower than in the past. So you really just don’t have the marketability.
“Basically, the numbers say we shouldn’t do a reval right now.”
SYLVA–Last year, when automobile gas prices were through the roof, CSX railroad began running obvious ads, making a point the industry could’ve been making all along: it makes more sense to pull a couple of hundred trailers with two or three engines than a couple of hundred trailers with a couple of hundred engines.
Well, no kidding. That’s true no matter how pricey gas becomes.
CSX’s tagline – “our trains can move a ton of freight 436 miles on a single gallon of fuel” – has become a fighting slogan for the entire industry lately, as the prevailing economic and environmental winds begin to signal a railroad renaissance.
Financier Warren Buffet’s purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad recently drove the point home. Said Adam Hochberg on National Public Radio: “Buffett’s $44 billion acquisition, via his company Berkshire Hathaway, is one of a number of signs that freight railroads are in resurgence. While they may have been thought of as passé in the 1960s and 1970s, they’re now playing a vital role in the transportation system.”
Lobbyists for the asphalt and trucking companies, who for so long thought railroads were kaput, still make the argument that logistically, trucks work better.
“You can’t back a freight train up to the Harris Teeter,” one industry rep told Business North Carolina not long ago.
But some industry analysts believe that almost any regulations created to fight emissions will favor railroads, and that logistical issues with moving goods on the local level are easily overcome – in fact, are already overcome in some cases by the use of containers that can then be moved to flatbed trucks.
Closer to home, the topic reminds me of a sidewalk conversation I had in Sylva when gas was at it’s peak. “Before long,” my friend told me, “we’ll be able to ride a train to Asheville.”
I’m not sure I’m buying that – the cost of the necessary trestle work between Sylva and Waynesville alone would raise even Buffet’s eyebrows – but it is safe to assume that freight trains (which are allowed to run on ricketier tracks than passenger trains) aren’t going anywhere soon, even from our area.
A representative from Norfolk Southern Railway told me as much not long ago, saying that the line between Asheville and Sylva, which Norfolk Southern owns, is a money maker. The expansion of Jackson Paper Manufacturing in Sylva can only help.
As for true passenger rail, though, most of its advances will be focused on the cities.
Still, mountain residents can catch Amtrak in Toccoa Falls, GA, or Greenville, SC and ride the Southern Crescent southwest toward New Orleans or northeast toward Washington, through the Piedmont and to all points beyond.
Proponents of the long-fought-for return of passenger rail to Asheville are still at it, so that Amtrak spur — which would run up the mountain from the Piedmont — is still a possibility. (The two links in the previous sentence are from the Asheville Citizen-Times, here’s a Twitter report from MountainXpress from a recent Asheville Rail Corridor meeting).
And plans for the long-considered magnetic levitation train between Atlanta and Chattanooga and perhaps on to Nashville just got an infusion of federal cash. Maglev trains, used widely in Japan and Europe, achieve speeds of some 300 mph, mainly by not touching the ground.
