The Southern Highland Reader

Every town worth its grinds needs a coffee magnate, and now Sylva has one.

John Bubacz, owner of Signature Brew Coffee Company and Bubacz’s Underground on Main Street has purchased the competition — Shot in the Dark Cafe — from Lucy Silverman and Justin Goble.

Silverman and Goble were recently married, and she has taken work in Durham. Goble’s departure will be felt on both ends of Main Street, as he is also a workhorse reporter for the Sylva Herald newspaper.

Bubacz, who roasts his own joe at Signature Brew, will reopen Thursday, January 21.

“I’ll move my coffee roaster up there in due time,” says Bubacz, “but we’ll immediately offer fresh pastries, organic fair trade coffee and espresso, snacks and grab-and-go lunch. We will be open 7am-6pm Monday-Thursday with weekend hours TBA.”

Bubacz opened Wha Cha Want Bodega on the WCU campus in 2001, and combined that business with Sylva’s Juice Junkie in 2002. He moved the whole shebang to its current location at the Underground in 2006.

New life for the old post office

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.

CULLOWHEE–When outfitter Burt Kornegay, owner of Slickrock Expeditions, got an email from a friend inviting him to a save-the-Dillsboro-Dam shindig, he fired off a pithy response. Naturally, it was immediately shared all around the interwebs, where by complete happenstance it filtered all the way down to me.

Here it is, with his permission:

First, the note from his friend:

Yo, read all about it….

Saturday night there is a benefit in support of saving the Dillsboro Dam. So, all you anti-establishment, anti-Duke Power people come on down and catch the 7:30 set of singer-songwriter Barbara Duncan. If you’ve not heard her, you owe it to yourself to check this out and to have a few beers in the process, not to mention to support a good cause. So, let’s make Sat. eve. a party night and fill up Guadalupe (that also serves great food).

Hope to see you there …

Then, Burt’s response:

Hey, Partner, Hold on there!

Why do you say that fighting to keep the Dillsboro dam is “a good cause”?  Because doing so spites bad ole Duke?  Let’s not forget that the dam plugs up and drowns the Tuckaseegee River, halting the travel of river creatures and backing up an unnatural mile-long trough of deadwater behind it. Also, from a human perspective now, the dam stands in the way of creating a real, honest-to-goodness “river park” in Dillsboro.  By honest-to-goodness river park, I mean a park with a river that actually flows, like at East LaPorte (probably the most popular public place in our county).  A real river park would make a pleasurable place for all of us to go, and it would be good for businesses in Dillsboro too.  Hundreds of old concrete plugs like the Dillsboro dam are coming down all across the US,  cheered on by river-loving and civic-minded people just like yourself, and I say, Right On!

As for your rebel claim that it is “anti-establishment” to fight for the dam, because doing so is anti-Duke, I say, wasn’t the dam built by the county’s moneyed “establishment” in the first place, back when other segments of the local “establishment” were as busy as beavers gnawing out railroad lines, felling the virgin forest, and turning the Tuckaseegee into flowing mud?  I mean, what could be more “establishment” than a dam?  (Well, perhaps a skyscraper or aircraft carrier.)  And what could be more “establishment” than to align yourself with the likes of county manager Ken “Dam or Die” Westmoreland, who doesn’t mind taxing us to the tune of more than a quarter-million-$ to pay lawyers, in his attempts to do  .  . . what?  Why, to milk still more $ from Duke! When it comes to the Dillsboro dam, the “anti-” lies in taking it down.

Kornegay’s longtime Jackson County business has been the focus of some media features lately. Here and here from the Smoky Mountain News, for example. The Sylva Herald has also written him up (you can search that story at their paid archives, here).

Recent news from the legal struggle over the dam from the Sylva Herald here (link will expire in one week), and from the Smoky Mountain News here.

SYLVA–Sylva town leaders, in a unanimous vote, have named former Economic Development Commission board member Chris Matheson to fill an empty seat on their board.

The vote at Thursday’s meeting filled the seat vacated by newly-elected mayor Maurice Moody.

The naming of Moody’s replacement had been the focus of speculation, because on the frequently ideologically divided board Moody often provided the “swing” vote.

Thursday night’s proceeding before a packed house was the final meeting for Sylva’s longtime mayor, Brenda Oliver. Oliver has served as mayor since 1991, and was a town board member for a decade prior to that.

The meeting was also the last for board member Harold Hensley, who was unseated in recent elections. Hensley was replaced by Danny Allen, a previous board member who won re-election. Also sworn in was incumbent Stacy Knotts. Knotts and Allen were the top vote-getters among five candidates for two seats on the board.

Some, including the newspaper The Sylva Herald, had argued that Hensley, as the third-highest vote-getter in the November elections, should’ve been appointed to fill Moody’s seat.

Coverage from the Smoky Mountain News here.

Coverage from the Sylva Herald here. (Link expires in one week)

SYLVA–Editorially, the Sylva Herald newspaper has been openly disdainful of the Jackson County Commissioners’ ongoing battle with Duke Energy over the fate of the century-old Dillsboro Dam.

It editorializes on the subject this week. Here’s an excerpt:

Recently we taxpayers have been asked to bear quite a burden for our county’s leaders. First they forced through revaluation right before the housing market crashed. Now we’re paying taxes based on land values that are much inflated over current market value. They then turned around and instituted a pay study by the Mercer Group that resulted in major raises for several county employees. The amount of some of those raises nearly equals the average yearly salary for Jackson County residents. Yet the taxpayers haven’t gotten a single “thank you” for footing the bill.

The editorial is available here for a short while, then afterwards at the Herald’s paid archive.

SYLVA–The forecast remains cloudy for Balsam Mountain Preserve, a 4,400-acre gated community near Sylva, after a foreclosure hearing for the property was continued for a month last Friday.

Jackson County Clerk of Court Ann Melton continued the hearing until November 30 at the request of Balsam Mountain Preserve attorney Jay Coward, and over the protests of the Asheville-based attorney for lender TriLyn, according to the Sylva Herald.

TriLyn, a Connecticut-based venture capital firm with connections to the Bank of Scotland and the middle eastern concern Investcorp, argues that Balsam Mountain Preserve has had over a year to address its now $21 million dollar debt to TriLyn, and seeks to foreclose.

Rumor has it that TriLyn officials have a relationship with the owners of the similarly high-end Cliffs Communities, and that the Cliffs Communities might be interested in acquiring the Balsam property. The Balsam Mountain Preserve is owned and was created by Chaffin/Light Associates of South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the Smoky Mountain News reports that a buyout offer from current homeowners on the Preserve is gaining steam.

The recent economic downturn has had a marked impact on the substantial mountain second-home market, and numerous planned or newly-minted gated communities have given up the ghost. But Balsam Mountain Preserve was begun nearly a decade ago, its amenities are mostly in place and over half of its lots are sold.

The Preserve’s recent layoff of about half of its 80-plus person workforce was a significant economic blow to northern Jackson County.

Should the Cliffs Communities appear on the scene in Balsam, one storyline will have come full circle: Balsam Mountain Preserve’s first president was named Jim Anthony, and the CEO of the Cliffs Communities is also named Jim Anthony. When Balsam Mountain Preserve was fresh out of the gates, nearly a decade ago, the Cliffs was involved in a land acquisition controversy in Transylvania County and the dual high-profile names were the source of considerable confusion.

SYLVA–An imposing hotel construction project, dormant since early 2009, will remain unfinished for the foreseeable future according to the Smoky Mountain News.

Construction of the Clarion Inn on NC 107 N, near Walmart, ceased in January of 2009. In February, developers told the Sylva Herald that construction would resume in May. Construction did not resume and the bank that financed the project recently foreclosed.

Read the Smoky Mountain News story here.

CULLOWHEE-Organizers and supporters of Jackson County’s ambitious greenways project celebrated a milestone October 5, when the county board of commissioners voted to purchase a 1.4-acre plot of land near Cullowhee for $39,580.

The plot is the first purchased by the county to augment an existing sewage right-of-way that follows the Tuckasegee River between Cullowhee and Sylva. Organizers envision the Cullowhee-to-Sylva segment as a core element of a larger plan to hook individual greenways segments together to create an alternate transportation system for the county.

Commissioners tabled action on the purchase of an piece of property adjacent to the one they purchased.

County greenways project manager Emily Elders says the purchase is significant.

“It’s the first property purchased specifically for greenways in Jackson County after nearly ten years of hard work by our volunteers,” she said. “Hopefully, with future donated conservation easements, other successful negotiations and grant funding, we’ll be able to put a project on the ground soon that will demonstrate the wellness, transportation and recreation benefits of greenways for the whole county.”

Three newspapers are covering Jackson County’s greenways progress: the Smoky Mountain News, The Sylva Herald and the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle.

The Chronicle is primarily concerned with the several Cashiers-area elements of the greenways plan, so it didn’t weigh in on Monday’s vote, but the Herald and News both did. Bibeka Shrestha’s story for the News emphasized the commissioner’s decision not to purchase the adjacent property, noting that if they had, the first mile of the 4.5 mile stretch would’ve been in county hands. The Herald, which has recently taken county commissioners to task for what it considers profligate spending on county payroll and the Dillsboro Dam fight, emphasized the property’s price tag.

Read the Smoky Mountain News piece here.

Read the Sylva Herald piece here. (Archives=$)

SYLVA–Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner today dismissed a lawsuit filed against the town of Sylva by clean air advocacy group the Canary Coalition.

The Coalition, along with four Sylva residents, filed suit against the town of Sylva in early summer, alleging that the town gave inadequate public notice of hearings before passing a zoning ordinance amendment that directly impacts Jackson Paper Manufacturing Co.

Judge Winner disagreed.

Read background information from us here.

Read more coverage from Justin Goble at the Sylva Herald here.

CULLOWHEE–The Sylva Herald reported yesterday that Legasus of North Carolina’s efforts to build a golf course on Cullowhee Mountain have generally ceased.

The Herald reported that the US Army Corps of Engineers permit necessary for the development of the golf course — and the necessary tinkering with waterways — had been withdrawn.

This comes as no huge surprise, given that portions of the development within which the Phil Mickelson-designed course was to be situated were recently foreclosed upon and sold at auction, but the news that the course itself is no longer a going concern is a clear indicator of where the development as a whole stands. Golf courses are the primary calling cards of such large-scale developments.

Legasus of North Carolina planned to develop an 1,810-acre tract into a 828-unit residential community with two golf courses. The development drew vocal and sustained local opposition.

Read the Herald’s story here.

2009-07-17: Publishers Weekly’s annual survey of publishing employees painted a grim picture of the book industry last week, reporting that a staggering 70 percent of the more than 1,400 respondents saw hiring freezes at their companies. PW also found that eleven percent of polled employees felt “very insecure” about the state of their jobs–an all-time high for the survey. In addition, travel expenses, printing budgets, and bonuses were reduced for many respondents.

“66% of industry members reported that their companies have reduced marketing budgets, and 63% have cut travel and entertainment expenses. A number of industry members also mentioned that their companies have reduced attendance at trade shows, and others are moving more titles to print-on-demand or digital.”

2009-07-17: From Ashvegas:

Earlier this week, the Asheville Citizen-Times carried a front-page lead story on the conjecture that Sinclair, the parent company of local news competitor WLOS, might go into bankruptcy. The story came a few days after the Citizen-Times and its parent company laid off 15 people at the newspaper, the latest in an 18-month run of lay-offs and furloughs ordered by its struggling parent, Gannett. But you won’t find that reported on the front page of the Citizen-Times. Just pointing out the obvious.

2009-07-10: Asheville blog Ashvegas reports on the newest round of firings at the Citizen-Times. The number stands at 15 or 16, including Julie Ball and Andre Rodriguez.

2009-07-05: Gannett Company, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher and owner of the Asheville Citizen-Times, will announce another round of layoffs in the next few days. Veteran journalist Jason Sandford, at the Asheville blog Ashvegas, writes about it here.

Gannett will cut 1,400 jobs nationwide. Sandford suggests that this round might hit the newsroom, a department that has been largely spared in past cuts. Also to be cut: the paper’s sheet size.

2009-07-05: The Sylva Herald began to charge for access to its archives a few weeks back. One other paper in the southwestern mountains (in addition to the Asheville daily), the Highlands Highlander, does this, although the Highlander comes at it from a slightly different angle. The Highlands paper gives subscribers to its print edition access to more online content through a password system.

DILLSBORO–Two months ago, the courtroom slap-fight between Jackson County and Duke Power over the fate of the Dillsboro Dam seemed to have descended nearly to the level of farce.

Duke Energy, which holds a monopoly on electricity production in this area and has many hydroelectric projects here, wants to tear down the dam as part of an enormous licensing agreement, reached years ago. Jackson County’s Commissioners long ago decided that the county didn’t get enough of a cash settlement in the agreement, and that the dam, which is more or less the centerpiece of the little town of Dillsboro, should stay.

Jackson County, with the firepower of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Duke Energy, half the environmentalists and a growing segment of the population arrayed against it, seemed to be pouring tens of thousands of dollars down a questionable hole in lean economic times.

As the court hearings droned on, local reporters tried to take accurate notes while dreaming of things they’d rather be doing — like driving bamboo shoots under their fingernails.

Then, things took an interesting turn.

After being forced in court to release the necessary permits for Duke to begin dredging silt from behind the dam, and as court-ordered mediation efforts were winding up, Jackson County quietly paid a consulting firm almost $20,000 to design a large river park and riverwalk along both banks of the Tuckaseegee above, at and below the dam location.

The commissioners now say they’ll use eminent domain to take the dam from Duke Energy. The eminent domain possibiliy has been mentioned before, but there are only certain circumstances that are grounds for eminent domain under North Carolina law. Public recreation is one of them.

The Sylva Herald newspaper editor Lynn Hotaling points out in this blog post, though, that the original agreement terms call for the land alongside the river to be turned over to the town of Dillsboro to be used for public recreation. Dillsboro has since relinquished its rights to that property to the county. The upshot is that if the county condemns the land, it’ll pay Duke fair market value, but if Duke removes the dam, the power company will give the county the land for free.

The Sylva Herald has taken an open editorial stance against the county’s legal efforts.

Meanwhile, Duke has announced that it will accelerate its efforts to remove the dam, and will accomplish as much as possible before condemnation proceedings interfere.

UPDATE 4.03.09: Judge Laura Bridges ruled in favor of Duke Power in the judgment outlined below, and ordered Jackson County to issue the relevant permits. The county has appealed.

UPDATE 4.04.09: Ruling available at Sylva Herald blog here.

SYLVA–Attorneys representing Duke Energy and Jackson County met in superior court Monday, March 16, seeking a partial summary judgment in the ongoing dispute over the fate of the century-old Dillsboro Dam (map it).

Dillsboro Dam

The hearing took place before Judge Laura Bridges, who by her own admission has some studying to do about the five-year-old conflict. Judge Marlene Hyatt, who is familiar with the case, recently retired.

Monday’s hearing was centered on Jackson County’s refusal to grant permits for Duke to begin dredging sediment from behind the dam in preparation for demolition — something the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has asked it to do. Jackson County has refused to grant the permits until other facets of pending litigation are cleared up, contending that its own suits against Duke are so intertwined with the dam’s removal that they must be decided before removal can go forward. Duke argues that FERC’s ruling supersedes the rights of the county to deny permitting.

Judge Bridges heard the argument, and said that she’d rule in a week or so, as soon as she waded through the history of the case.

Read an account of Judge Bridges’ decision from Lynn Hotaling at the Sylva Herald

Read an account of earlier proceedings here, from Justin Goble at the Sylva Herald.

CULLOWHEE–According to information released by Western Carolina University last week, the school will lay off 31.75 employees due to ongoing state budget cuts. 92 jobs have been eliminated campus-wide, but only 31.75 are currently held positions.

Western is Jackson County’s leading employer, with over 1,500 employees.

In addition, among the apparent early victims of budget cuts at Western Carolina University are these programs and initiatives:

• The Institute for the Economy and the Future
• The Clinical Lab Sciences Program
• Summer Ventures Program
• Legislator’s School
• Reading Center

Here’s an overview from Josh Mitchell at the Smoky Mountains News.

Of these program cuts, one, the clinical lab sciences program, hits particularly close to home. As the Sylva Herald’s Justin Goble describes, it isn’t a flashy program, but it is a productive one.

Here’s a previous post about Western and the budget crisis.

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina University lives in a media bubble, an anomaly of place, time and people that frees it from some of the pressures that come with media scrutiny.

In some ways, this serves the school well; lack of accountability equals freedom of movement. Sometimes, though, it seems ill-prepared to deal with big events, or tone-deaf to how its message-of-the-moment resonates outside of the ivory tower.

WCU student body president Dwight Nelson speaks to WCU students during a nighttime march on chancellor Jack Carlton's home in 1973. (Photo originally published in the school yearbook, the Catamount.)

One thing is certain: this tax-funded school is flexing its institutional muscles in particular ways these days, and some of its moves are controversial.

So who’s watching?

The “local” daily is almost an hour away, and has never been a strong paper. These days, as it faces the same pressures as the rest of the fourth estate, the Asheville Citizen-Times is weaker than ever. To this paper, to be tough on Western is to have your sports guys say mean things about the football team; to be nice is to publish content provided (for free) by faculty members.

The local weekly, The Sylva Herald — which doesn’t do much investigation regardless — has developed a certain symbiosis with WCU over the decades. The Herald tends to run Western’s press releases verbatim, and to generally allow the university to have it’s “bubble.” (There has been this recent and notable exception).

A couple of independent weeklies range into Jackson County: the Smoky Mountain News, based in Waynesville, and the Mountain Xpress, based in Asheville. These two papers take their investigative reporting seriously, and the growing Smoky Mountain News probably has the wherewithal to focus weekly attention on decisions made at the university. Still, given the school’s economic impact in the SMN’s sparsely-settled coverage area, the paper might choose to tread carefully. The Mountain Xpress seems unlikely to come this far west too often, with busy Asheville at its doorstep, but when it does, we can count on solid reporting. The Xpress provides an example this week with its piece on a recent BB&T donation.

How about on-campus media? As the current dustup over charitable funding from the CEO of Gannett was building, commenters from Gannett papers across the country asked “where is the student newspaper on this?”

Almost four decades ago Western’s students marched on then-chancellor Jack Carlton’s home, demanding a voice in how their school was run. If students have marched to the chancellor’s place since, they were carrying goalposts, not grievances. Today’s student body makeup doesn’t seem to lend itself to vigorous assessments of leadership, but even if that isn’t the case, and even if the students decide to take a less secondary role, it’ll take a while to build a student culture and student media capable of truly helping guide the school.

TUCKASEGEE–Residents of the Tuckasegee community south of Cullowhee are trying to have the beautiful valley where the east and west forks of the Tuckasegee meet added to the national register of historic places.

The site was home to a large Cherokee town, as well as to cultures that pre-dated the Cherokee.

“I’ve heard the story about the cave and the petroglyphs, but I don’t know where it is,” said Cherrie Moses, a longtime Tuckasegee resident whose great, great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Wood settled there in 1822.

“In most of the western part of the state we have artifacts going back 10,000 B.C.,” Assistant NC State Archaeologist Linda Hall told Jennifer Daniels, of the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle. “And it’s pretty common to go back to 8,000 B.C. Tuckasegee actually does have material from several different time periods. The part known the best is the Cherokee village there.”

Nearby is Judaculla Rock, a flat boulder in an open field, covered with petroglyphs that seem to predate the Cherokee and have never been deciphered.

The community of Tuckasegee is feeling development pressure from a proposed rock quarry as well as assorted gated community projects.

Read Daniels’ story here.
Read about the quarry controversy from the Sylva Herald here and here.

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

BRYSON CITY–The Smoky Mountain Times joined an odd bandwagon in last week’s issue, reporting on the issuance of permits for various types of construction in Swain County in the first quarter of 2008, but without reporting numbers from the previous quarter, numbers from the same time last year, or regional or national numbers.

The Sylva Herald recently reported a drastic drop in permits for 2008 as opposed to the same period in 2007, but did not offer comparisons with over-arching regional and national trends.

We’ve noticed a spate of this type of context-free writing lately.

The result in Swain County was a story that meant something only to the handful of readers who can pull those numbers from the tops of their heads, or who have the time to futz around and find them.

In Sylva the result was an article that was alarmist in tone. And given that an election in which building ordinances played a major role was two weeks away, the reader could’ve easily come away with the impression that the paper was taking sides.

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.

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.