The threat that prompted Jackson County commissioners to intervene in the local Economic Development Commission in January has been made good: Triple S has foreclosed on the Tuckasegee Mills property.

However, EDC Chairman Tom McClure says there’s no need to worry.

“We’re not going to let a sale take place,” McClure said.

The pending foreclosure catapults the EDC back to the forefront of Jackson County politics following two months of county commissioner turnover — Chairman Stacy Buchanan resigned to take a football coaching job, Commissioner Brian McMahan rose to take his place and one-time Commissioner Conrad Burrell was appointed to fill McMahan’s seat — and a heated dispute over the potential establishment of a shooting range in Cullowhee’s Tilley Creek community.

As it stands, the Jackson Development Corporation — the EDC’s property buying entity of which McClure is also chairman — owes $177,643.87 of a $250,000 mortgage to Triple S. The mortgage was part of a deal the JDC cut in July of 2002 to buy the old Tuckasegee Mills building from Triple S to house QC Apparell. Triple S financed $250,000, and a $568,000 loan from the EDC covered the rest.

According to an affidavit filed with the Jackson County Clerk’s Office in regard to the foreclosure, the last payment toward the mortgage was $50,000 paid on Sept. 10, 2004. Also, at the time the county commissioners decided to intervene in the EDC and JDC, the JDC owed approximately $8,000 in taxes on various property holdings, including $3,457.80 on the Tuckasegee Mills property. As of Feb. 24, those taxes all were paid.

Currently, the JDC has less than $10,000 in its bank accounts, McClure said, making it unable to pay off the mortgage and prevent foreclosure itself. However, a private, non-Jackson County citizen has come forward to pay off the mortgage.

Although McClure could not say whether the citizen would be making a loan directly to the JDC, or assuming the mortgage for themself, the deal was expected to close late Tuesday afternoon, after The Smoky Mountain News went to press. Payment of the mortgage could occur as soon as the private citizen’s transaction was completed, putting the JDC well within the 30-day grace period between notice of foreclosure and auction, McClure said.

If the transaction is not completed, and the JDC remains unable to pay the mortgage, the property will go up for auction at 11 a.m. May 17.

During a county commissioners’ meeting held Monday night, commissioners discussed their planned course of action should the foreclosure reach auction. Though no official action was taken, they directed County Manager Ken Westmoreland to find out how much the property is worth in the event that they wish to enter the bidding process, McMahan said.

Commissioners will review the issue at a specially called meeting to be held at 3 p.m. May 10 at the Justice and Administration Center.

In related business, McClure and fellow Jackson County Airport Authority members Eldridge Painter and Secretary/Treasurer Jim Rowell held their first meeting after having been reinstated via a preliminary injunction against county commissioners April 26.

No official business could be conducted at the meeting, as authority members Chip Hall, Gary Buchanan and commissioner Eddie Madden failed to appear. A total of four authority members are needed for a quorum.

“Based on what we’re seeing and hearing it doesn’t look like we’re going to be getting any more support from the county,” McClure said.

In an interview after the meeting, Madden said that while he could not speak for members Hall and Buchanan, he himself had decided not to go to the meeting and did not plan to attend any future authority meetings.

“I’ve never really understood what’s been going on,” commented an audience member at the meeting.

“Well, get in line with the rest of us,” McClure replied.

Commissioners attempted to remove McClure from his post as the authority’s chairman in conjunction with their EDC and JDC intervention, but after receiving legal opinions from the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, McClure, Rowell and Painter filed suit against the commissioners. The suit charges that commissioners acted outside the bounds of their authority, and that McClure and Rowell — who temporarily lost his post as secretary/treasurer due to a vote by what the suit calls improperly appointed members — should have their posts back.

At the April 26 meeting, McClure announced that the airport authority would be moving ahead with business as planned, at least in terms of action that was approved before any of the EDC investigations or legal disputes started. McClure, Rowell and Painter explained that the Department of Transportation’s Aviation Division had committed money to the airport’s expansion projects — a $1.2 million airplane hanger and terminal addition — and that if that money was not spent, the authority would lose it.

“It’s not as though the money to fund these projects is going to come from the county,” Rowell said.

The county would be required to provide a 10 percent match for all DOT funds received.

The decision to move ahead comes at a tenuous time, as legislation has been introduced to the General Assembly that would create a regional Jackson-Macon Airport Authority.

Jackson commissioners have lauded the joint authority as an opportunity for regional development, saying that their money would best be spent extending the runway at the Macon County Airport to accommodate small, charter jets.

During a Macon County Commissioners’ meeting Monday night, Macon Planning Board member Jimmy Goodman spoke out against the proposed venture with Jackson County, saying that the two counties did not have a good history working with one another.

“I think we just got out of a bad situation with Jackson County,” Goodman said, referring to the recently settled Jackson-Macon landfill dispute, which left Jackson paying Macon approximately $250,000 for pulling out of a joint landfill agreement early. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea to stand up and go in with Jackson County on just about anything.”

If the regional authority were created, the two counties’ individual authorities would be dissolved. The Jackson airport would have to remain in operation until 2021 due to regulations regarding receiving federal funds, but upon its dissolution, the airport itself — which county commissioners gave to the authority in 1996 — would revert to the county’s ownership.

“We can’t sell it, we can’t give it away,” Madden said.