week of 3/26/03
 
 
 
  Cashiers incorporation bill introduced
By Scott McLeod

The Joint Legislative Commission on Incorporation has OK’d the Cashiers incorporation petition, and Rep. Phil Haire says he is ready to introduce the proposal in the General Assembly.

That should be enough to finally bring the proposal to a vote.

“All we’ve wanted all along was the right to vote on this,” said Paige Bernstein, a member of the incorporation team who traveled to Raleigh this week to try and move the proposal through the bureaucratic and legislative channels.

Rep. Phil Haire said he expects to introduce the bill as soon as it is drafted and that it could be approved by next week. Since it is a local bill it does not require the governor’s approval before becoming law.

“I’ve looked at the summary from the Joint Legislative Commision on Incorporation,” said Haire. “Since it meets all legal requirements, I will have a bill drafted.”

After it is approved by the General Assembly, a referendum could be held within 120 days of its passage. Many thought the petition’s chances for success in Raleigh had been seriously harmed last week when county commissioners refused to endorse a resolution in support of the referendum. Rep. Haire had earlier told commissioners that he wanted a show of support from them before he would agree to introduce legislation allowing the incorporation referendum. That resolution was voted down 3-2 last week by Jackson County commissioners.

“Since it was going to affect county services, like law enforcement and whether they might need to hire additional officers, I wanted to make sure they were OK with it,” said Haire.

The three commissioners who voted against the proposal — Joe Cowan, Roberta Crawford and Brian McMahan — all said before the vote they resented the fact that Rep. Haire had sought a vote on the issue from the county board. Haire said all three contacted him to say they supported the right of Cashiers’ residents to hold a referendum on incorporation. Still, they had strong words for Haire during the meeting.

“Now it gets dumped in our lap because the parties who should be voting on this dumped it on us” said Cowan. “I have a little resentment that it ended up back here with us.”

Commissioner Brian McMahan said voting on the resolution would set a dangerous precedent.

“We would be telling our representatives that we’ll decide things when it is politically heated,” said McMahan.

The General Assembly has the authority to pass incorporation proposals without a referendum or to approve referendum that could lead to incorporation.

Commission Chairman Stacey Buchanan and Cashiers businessman, resident and county commissioner Eddie Madden supported the resolution. The resolution that was defeated did not endorse incorporation, merely the right of the people in the area to hold a referendum. It was amended from a week ago and included two stipulations: a requirement that the town could not create an extraterritorial jurisdiction and a requirement that all the services proposeed in the incorporation petition would be offered. Those included solid waste pick-up or disposal, police protection, fire protection and zoning.

Incorporation supporter Bill Coward said after the county board vote that he hoped Haire took note of the fact that the lone county commissioner from the Cashiers area did support the referendum.

“It’s noteworthy that Eddie Madden, who is from Cashiers and knows that community, supported this resolution and supports the call for a referendum of the community,” said Coward.