The Southern Highland Reader

FRANKLIN–Monday’s meeting of the Franklin town board was a busy one, with one major point of conversation being the status of the town’s funding of not-for-profit organizations.

Spurring the conversation was the board’s choice not to help fund the Macon County Library – a departure from its track record.

Relationships between local municipalities and libraries bear watching in coming years, as the societal role of libraries – and books – shift.

CJ Lotz reports on the Franklin board meeting for the Franklin Press.

Also worth a look is a recent editorial in the Smoky Mountain News about the civic path the Jackson County Library has walked to reach its final destination on courthouse hill.

SYLVA–It’s a mystery.

In the Sylva area, where two strong economic engines are a university and a hospital, there is almost no real “starter” housing, built with young professionals in mind. In an economic and societal climate that has families seeking out a more “walkable” lifestyle, the town of Sylva, which has an appealing downtown, has seen almost no new home construction in the past decade, despite solid growth outside town limits.

Before now, no larger development has come along to take advantage of the need. In fact, Sylva’s antiquated zoning ordinances not only discourage higher-density construction, they in many cases make such construction impossible.

As with most things, a mystery won’t go unnoticed forever, though, and this one hasn’t.

The Cashiers-based Taurus Development Group recently requested a zoning ordinance amendment for property located off Savannah Drive and Yellowbird Branch Road in Sylva, and plans to develop the 48-acre tract with 68 town homes and 51 single-family homes, ranging in price from the mid $100,000’s to the mid $300,000’s. The project, upon completion, could increase Sylva’s population by some ten percent. Sylva’s planning board has voted unanimously to recommend that the board approve the amendment.

This development comes on the heels of an announced smaller, but in some ways similar, development on Elm Street. Sapphire developer Art Pohl received a zoning ordinance amendment to build a series of more upscale townhomes just East of the Taurus project, on Elm Street.

Both housing projects intend to take advantage of existing or proposed infrastructure, from sidewalks to water and sewer, and tout “best building” practices that are being finely honed in some areas of the country, but are just on the planning horizon in the mountains. These practices include systems that reuse storm water and structures that are hyper-efficient in terms of heating and cooling.

Sylva Town Planning Director Jim Aust values these “green” practices, but seems to value the larger principles at play even more. He sees the positive aspects of traditional community structure meeting 21st century needs.

“Clustering housing reduces the carbon signature, minimizes degradation of water quality and provides attainability by people in the middle income brackets,” Aust said. He went on to say that higher-density development also keeps infrastructure costs lower.

Still, the concepts surrounding “downtown living” are outside the frame of reference for many in the area. It was never particularly part of the culture here, (although some people lived in town, to be sure).

“I just don’t believe people come to Sylva for ‘density’”, said Town Council member Maurice Moody, a native whose career took him away, but who retired to Sylva. Moody has been a strong proponent of the rights of large-lot homeowners, but is also and has been an advocate for a downtown focus in town government.

Is high-density in mountain towns a realistic model?

Aust thinks so. Not only is it a realistic model, he says, but he thinks it’s inevitable.

“It’s coming,” he says. “With all these baby-boomers retiring; they want to live in the mountains, but they want to be where they can walk places. They don’t want to spend their time cutting grass.”

Coldwell Banker president Jim Gillespie, in a recent interview, concurred.

“Over the past several years we have seen a boom in downtown living all over the country, and this is not just reserved to major cities,” he said.

Gillespie’s observation came on the heels of a large Coldwell Banker in-house study that showed strong evidence of the trend. While some of this movement is pushed by necessity, as fuel prices make the all-American live-in-your-car lifestyle less desirable, much of it is clearly evidence of a shift in lifestyle preferences as well.

“People are being drawn to the convenience and culture of walkable urban neighborhoods across the country—even when those neighborhoods are small,” wrote Christopher B. Leinberger in a widely publicized article in The Atlantic Magazine.

“When the Baby Boomers were young,” Leinburger wrote, “families with children made up more than half of all households; by 2000, they were only a third of households; and by 2025, they will be closer to a quarter. Young people are starting families later than earlier generations did, and having fewer children. The Boomers themselves are becoming empty-nesters, and many have voiced a preference for urban living. By 2025, the U.S. will contain about as many single-person households as families with children.”

The town of Highlands faces its own set of challenges.

As a resort town, it suffers the slings-and-arrows of a severely cyclical economy: a huge summer population and a small winter population. It also has limited land to build on, and what is available isn’t being developed for people with medium-to-low income brackets. This dynamic has forced many resort towns in the western U.S. into the subsidized housing market, and Highlands recently made a move in that direction.

The Town of Highlands created an affordable housing task force, and recently announced plans for a 48-unit apartment complex in which 24 units would be rented at market rate and the other 24 at a subsidized rate.

• Read Brian O’Shea’s piece about the complex in the Highlands Highlander, here.
• Read the Highlander’s recent editorial about affordable housing here.
• Read a recent piece about the Sylva project in the Smoky Mountain News here.

FRANKLIN–After two years of work, the Macon County Commissioners adopted a subdivision ordinance recently. The original version of the ordinance, presented in 2006, met with stiff opposition and was sent back to the drawing board.

Macon’s recent hearing and vote was relatively lightly attended, and there was little opposition to the ordinance. The new ordinance has teeth, according to advocates, though those teeth have gaps between them. Still, they say, it’s a start.

In our region, Jackson County is most proactive with regards to protecting it’s mountainsides and ridgetops. Macon County is beginning to follow Jackson County’s lead. Swain and Graham Counties are under somewhat lighter development pressure, at this point, and are also somewhat protected by the fact that so much land there is owned by the federal government.

There is also significant opposition to planning in these counties (as there is across the region). Swain County’s commissioners recently proposed a development ordinance, but are now running scared from the response (the town of Bryson City, though, which is in Swain County, has approved its own plan). Graham County, often called western North Carolina’s “last frontier” hardly talks about such things.

Read Colin McCandless’s thorough coverage of the Macon ordinance for the Franklin Press here.
Read about Bryson City’s ordinance here, from the Smoky Mountain News.

CULLOWHEE–The first development phase of a regional “toolbox” of best planning practices wrapped up early last week with a summary presentation by planning and design specialists The Lawrence Group.

Approximately 150 community leaders from across the western tip of the state were on hand at Western Carolina University for the presentation, which ended up an intensive, week-long charrette. The charrette, also held at the university, came on the heels of several months of well-attended open community forums and interviews.

The over-arching title of the project is the “Mountain Landscapes Initiative”.

The purpose of the initiative is to move toward understandings of mountain land use planning challenges, and to provide a common “toolbox” of solutions with which to handle them.

The long-term project is funded by the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, and by the Southwestern Commission. The Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1978 to create a permanent pool of charitable capital that will always be available for the 18 counties of Western North Carolina. The Southwestern North Carolina Planning and Economic Development Commission (The Southwestern Commission) is a 43 year-old governmental agency created to help multiple county and town governments avoid duplication of services, and to administer state and federal grants.

The Lawrence Group is a large planning and design consultancy based in St. Louis, MO. Its regional office in Davidson, NC, managed the initiative.

The months of meetings, interviews, forums and charrettes led the Lawrence Group to conclude that the “top ten” Western North Carolina planning concerns are these:

• How can mountainside and ridgetop development be done responsibly, safely, and in a visually sensitive way?
• How can new development respect the character of local landscapes?
• How can water quality be protected?
• How can the region’s natural beauty and open space be protected?
• How can quality jobs be created and sustained?
• How can quality, affordable housing be created?
• How can the region’s infrastructure keep up with the rate of growth?
• How can farmland and local markets for food be protected and enhanced?
• How can natural resources be protected?
• How can growing communities remain respectful of local cultural heritage

Follow-up stories from Colin McCandless at the Franklin Press here. Tony Wheeler at the Macon News here. Jennifer Daniel at the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle here.

Broader coverage from the Smoky Mountain News here.

SYLVA–North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper ruled on May 6 that the state’s 58 community colleges must immediately cease admitting undocumented students to degree-seeking programs.

The ruling came as a surprise to most everyone, including the community college system itself, and makes North Carolina the only state in the union to pursue such an action. In reaching his decision, Cooper overruled the community college system’s own attorney.

Many sources say the move places North Carolina on the far-right fringe when it comes schools of though concerning immigrants and education.

Wrote Julia Merchant in the Smoky Mountain News:

Higher education organizations have called the move unprecedented.

“When I first saw the headline, I thought it was a mistake or joke or something,” said Dan Hurley, director of state relations for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Charlotte Observer Associate Editor Jack Betts characterizes the move as extremely regressive, but also opines that it is likely to stick.

Most critics point out that many of the students impacted by the move were born in the United States or were brought here very early in their lives, were educated in the public school system, and are well on their way to citizenship. The move, the critics say, is strictly punitive.

As a practical matter the ruling is a relative non-starter at Southwestern Community College in Sylva. The school has a popular English as a second language program, but that program does not fall within the degree-seeking curriculum. Current rules require than undocumented students pay out-of-state tuition, which makes it cost-prohibitive to most.

Fewer than five undocumented students are among the student body.

CULLOWHEE–Two weeks ago, Cullowhee Valley School special education teacher Doug Ward was suspended without pay pending investigation after refusing to administer end-of-grade tests that he deemed “invalid”.

It now seems likely that he will lose his job.

Ward contended that testing developed under the state’s newest guidelines, and as an extension of mandates set forth in the 1991 Federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation, are unfair to more profoundly disabled students. They are, he says, intended for higher-functioning children, and determine nothing when administered to children with much lower functionality.

“I’m not objecting to the idea of a test,” Ward, a third-year teacher at CVS, told The Sylva Herald last Tuesday. “I’m objecting to this test. It’s invalid, and it doesn’t test yearly progress.”

The controversy has since been carefully covered, with Ward receiving plenty of public support.

This week’s Smoky Mountain News features in-depth coverage from staff writer Michael Beadle.

Friday’s Asheville Citizen-Times made a rare foray over the Balsams to provide this coverage.

Letters to the editor in this week’s Sylva Herald included this one:

Teacher’s action took courage
To the Editor:

It took great courage for Doug Ward to stand up for his students who are unable to represent themselves. No Child Left Behind has been one of the weakest policies put into affect by the current administration. One main effect has been labeling thousands of schools as failing. This not only negatively effects those employed in those schools but the students and neighborhoods in which they are located.

NCLB requires that all states fill classrooms of “core” subjects with “highly qualified” instructors. No state has met this requirement. Indeed the NCLB has placed an immense strain on educators and administrators. Some students are no longer receiving the well-rounded education they deserve due to doubling-up of math and reading classes in lieu of arts, sciences and music.

The rules and regulations have placed teachers in a position of teaching to the test. Morale is low, there is no room for creativity, and now with the desire for a bell-curve placed above the needs of children (including their sense of self-efficacy) there will be more dropouts and “push outs.” Exceptional children have the right to an education and reasonable accommodation just as all other children. To place them in a situation where they are doomed to failure is both unethical and immoral.

I personally give high praise to Doug Ward; he speaks for “the children.”

Deborah Hennessy
Sylva

REGIONAL–Former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford was found guilty last week in what amounted to a massive corruption case centered around illegal poker machines.

Smoky Mountain News reporter Julia Merchant takes a broad perspective, giving a rundown on various illegal gambling activities in the western counties.

SYLVA–Scotts Creek drains a large watershed that includes the basin on the west side of Balsam Gap, between the towering Plott Balsams and the beginnings of the Richland Balsams, along with significant coves up the sides of Sugarloaf and Doubletop mountains.

Just before the creek empties into the Tuckasegee River in Dillsboro, it passes through downtown Sylva, where the Watershed Association of the Tuckasegee River recently unveiled a “mud meter”, which monitors the level of sediment in the water from day to day and flashes the score for all to see.

The creek begins less than twenty miles away (as the water flows), with some headwaters that are quite pristine, so the fact that contaminant levels in Sylva, including human waste, are high, is significant.

The Smoky Mountain News’s Becky Johnson writes about the mud meter.

REGIONAL–There is no shortage of good writing about outdoor adventure and the environment in the Southern Highlands, and there’s no drought of inspiration in the springtime.

Jim Casada adds another to his string of columns about Fontana Lake tributaries with this piece about Kephart Prong for the Smoky Mountain Times.

In the Smoky Mountain News, George Ellison writes about catbirds, and Tina Masciarelli writes about her love for her peony garden.

Editor Lynn Hotaling reviews a book about hikes to NC lookout towers in the Sylva Herald.

FRANKLIN–The Macon County Board of Commissioners has approved it’s subdivision ordinance. Franklin Press Reporter Colin McCandless does a good job of parsing the material.

Smoky Mountain News reporter Jennifer Garlesky takes another angle.

REGIONAL–I’m here to identify the odd, clicking sound you heard earlier this week. What it was, was the quiet noise of newspaper editors, all around our mountains, typing with one hand.

No, no don’t be snarky. The editors had their advertising manifests in their other hands, and they were looking carefully at the sheriff’s department calendar on the wall behind their computer screen. The one with election day circled in hi-liter.

It’s a time-honed skill to avoid controversy that might tee-off advertisers, and still foist the appearance of bold objectivity. And the newspaper issue before an election is territory that papers tend to tiptoe around, opinion-wise.

So, editorial boards called beer-thirty at around noon this past press day.

The Sylva Herald and the Highlands Highlander mailed in the obligatory “yay-America, get-out-n-vote” piece, while the Smoky Mountain Times had assertive things to say about the weather. The Franklin Press honored firemen. At the Graham Star, editor James Budd invited both presidential candidates to Robbinsville, which is remarkable in its own way.

The Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle called voters to the polls and said “we don’t endorse”, but followed up with a second piece that had some teeth, and urged local involvement in land use planning.

The paper trotted out the terrifying tale of Tommy’s Restaurant to illustrate the point. Tommy’s, a long-time downtown Cashiers diner – the kind where at lunch there was a measuring tape on every belt – was bought and closed last year by a developer-type. Eventually, the new owner decided to re-open the diner in one-sixth of its previous space, with 20 seats and fancy coffee drinks. Mind you, I’m as interested in imaginative sources of caffeine as the next guy, but if the waitress at Tommy’s had ever offered me other than sweet tea, coke or Folger’s, my forehead would’ve hit the table.

The Chronicle’s point, in order to encourage participation in the upcoming Cashiers meeting that’s part of the Mountain Landscapes Initiative, is that in Cashiers, especially, if the foxes aren’t actually in the henhouse, the henhouse is pretty darn close to the woods. So Cashiers residents better help plan the future of their community, before all of what once was Cashiers bleeds away.

The Smoky Mountain News generally doesn’t play the tip-toe game, and used its editorial this week to make the same point: the paper called on Jackson residents to continue their support of steep-slope control at the polls, and tried to shake a little sense into Haywood and Waynesville leaders, who are rubbery at the knees at the prospect of controlling growth.

FRANKLIN–Two-lane NC 28 follows the Little Tennessee River north from Franklin through beautiful countryside. Columnist Brent Martin writes in the Smoky Mountain News that the proposed widening of this road is one of a series of transportation missteps.

Sylva Herald editor Lynn Hotaling wrote last week about the seeming demise–or at least departure–of the whip-poor-will, a ground-nesting nightjar that was once fairly common in this area. The bird, whose name is derived onomatopoeically from its haunting call, is a staple of popular rural culture and legend.

New Englanders once thought the bird could sense the departure of a soul, and then could capture it as it fled. Others have called whip-poor-wills and their fellow nightjars “goat-suckers”, with the odd belief that the birds sucked milk from goats.

I first think of Hank Williams, I suppose, but a close second is “Camp Roughewn” at Lake James, NC, just down Black Mountain the other side of Old Fort. I spent many summer spans of my childhood there, at the girls’ camp my great aunt had owned since the twenties. It was no longer a camp when I came along, but it was a coming-of-age place still.

My great aunt Lillian knew birds–owls especially–and she knew wildflowers. She also knew Lake James, which sits right at the base of the Blue Ridge, where the wilderness of Linville Gorge drops away into the Piedmont. Sometimes, on hot summer days, we’d ride around the lake and explore its tributaries–Wilson Creek and others–to see about a picnic spot or a little wading.

Later, from the cool, earth-scented porches of weathered cabins, we’d hear the whip-poor-will’s song and stop to listen, with the light drumming of moths against screens the only other sound.

Anyway, the past few week’s papers from Waynesville, Sylva and Bryson City brought thoughts of Roughewn to mind with some fine writing about the outdoors.

Aside from the whip-poor-will, Jim Casada at the Smoky Mountain Times wrote about Bradley Fork and Forney Creek, in the Great Smokies.

Don Hendershot at the Smoky Mountan News holds forth on the beautiful trillium, one of Aunt Lillian’s favorites, here.

PANTHERTOWN VALLEY-Jackson County’s Panthertown Valley is a rare place. A 6,295-acre high-altitude valley northeast of Cashiers, Panthertown is home to rare species, rare topography and is prized with rare passion by lovers of the outdoors who are familiar with it.

Panthertown is situated at 3,600 ft., and features many granite domes and sheer faces, and these features must’ve seemed city-like to early settlers who named the place. Panthers were, of course, a known quantity in the mountains at that time. Two streams — Greenland Creek and Panthertown Creek — join in the valley to form the east fork of the Tuckaseegee River, which flows northwestward out of the area through evocatively named gorges such as “Devil’s Elbow” and “Bonas Defeat”.

The valley floor is flat, which is odd for that elevation, and so features bogs and accompanying water features that are more common outside of the mountains.

Like most of the region, Panthertown has been treated poorly over the years. Heavy logging, wildfires and subsequent erosion have taken a toll. In the 1980’s Duke Energy placed a major power corridor through the area, in the face of considerable opposition. Eventually, though, the Nature Conservancy acquired the tract, and subsequently sold it to the US Forest Service. In September, 2003, Panthertown Valley was officially designated the James and Elspeth Clarke Forest. Clarke, a Democrat, served three terms in the US House of Representatives and led the 1987-88 effort to obtain funding to transfer Panthertown Valley to the Forest Service.

George Ellison is one of the region’s foremost naturalists and historians. He has a piece in this week’s Smoky Mountain News about the apparent first English words ever written to describe the southern mountains, in the late 1600’s. Two men passed through the Asheville area, then presumably across Balsam Gap, the Cowees and down into the Georgia foothills, where they hoped to find the Pacific Ocean. A brief written account came of that, and Ellison unearthed it in a London archive.