The Southern Highland Reader

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–Incumbent town commissioner Stacy Knotts and challenger Danny Allen were the top vote-getters among five candidates for Sylva town board in elections held Tuesday.

Turnout was light, at 18% of 2,728 registered voters.

Allen, who previously sat on the board before being unseated by the narrowest possible margin two years ago, regained his seat by tying Knotts, 121-121, while incumbent Harold Hensley finished third with 111 votes. First-time candidates David Kelley and Ellerna Bryson Forney finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Terms for Sylva board members are staggered – current members Sarah Graham and Ray Lewis will not stand for re-election until 2011.

Board member Maurice Moody ran unopposed to replace longtime mayor Brenda Oliver. The board will appoint a replacement to his seat when he is sworn in as mayor in December.

Sylva’s McDonald’s restaurant — the oldest franchise in town — will close for three months in early 2010 to replace its current structure. The local owners will completely remove the current building and replace it with another.

An upshot of the closure is that McDonald’s will be required to come into compliance with Sylva’s sign ordinance. The owners will have to remove the current, large, 80’s-era arches and replace them with a much smaller “monument” style sign.

Franchise owners approached the Sylva town board recently asking to keep their current sign. They expressed concern that their considerable setback from business 23, combined with the impact of a smaller sign, would hurt business. The circumstances disqualified McDonald’s from consideration for a variance, however, and the town asked the restaurant to come into compliance.

While the McDonald’s sign change requirement is tied to the length of the store closure, Sylva residents could see other sign changes soon. The ordinance prevents updates to current oversized signs; owners may not spruce them up without coming into compliance. As a result, current big signs such as those at Wendy’s restaurant and Ingle’s grocery store are likely to become gradually more dilapidated before they are ultimately replaced.

SYLVA–Officials at Jackson Paper Manufacturing Company in Sylva said Thursday that a new state-of-the-art boiler, planned for phase two of the company’s announced expansion, is a wood-burning system.

“It would be extraordinarily expensive to convert for use with other fuel sources,” said Lydia Carrington, spokesperson for the company.

Jackson Paper’s air quality permits allow it to burn coal, rubber pellets or natural gas, as long as it meets current air quality standards.

The boiler will be housed in a new addition to the Jackson Paper mill, for which the Sylva Town Board recently amended its industrial zoning regulations regarding structure height.

That change brought about complaints and eventually a lawsuit from four Sylva residents and the Sylva-based Canary Coalition, a clean air advocacy group. Avram Friedman, Director of the Coalition, contends that the Sylva Town Board gave improper notice of the public hearings it held before making the zoning change. He argues that the zoning change was the only leverage town residents had to prevent Jackson Paper from ever burning coal or rubber pellets at its downtown factory.

Friedman asked the board to voluntarily rescind the zoning change and restart the process, but the board refused. The board did vote by a 3-2 margin to invite Jackson Paper to a public forum to discuss its intentions, but the company has so far declined to accept.

Friedman called the invitation “meaningless” and the board, along with the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, “irresponsible”. County commissioners approved a $500,000 loan package for Jackson Paper two weeks ago.

Jackson Paper is the county’s third-largest employer. It manufactures corrugating medium, used to make cardboard, from 100-percent recycled cardboard. It is North Carolina’s largest producer of 100-percent recycled paper. Jackson Paper’s current system uses wood chips as fuel to fire its boiler, scrubbers to pull ash from the exhaust, and a closed-loop system to make unnecessary the release of wastewater.

The Canary Coalition is concerned that Jackson Paper might one day choose a different fuel source.

Supply sources for wood chips can fluctuate, and Jackson Paper recently lost a major source of chips when Sylva’s T&S Hardwoods closed its doors. Wood chips, however, are considerably less expensive than coal, rubber pellets and natural gas, and rubber pellets, made from recycled car tires, can be hard to get.

Jackson Paper’s Carrington also stressed that the second phase of the plant expansion remained contingent upon continued market demand for the company’s product, and on the country’s economy.