Scott McLeod

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op frJackson County commissioners are going to pass a smart steep slope ordinance that will help as this region shakes off the devastating effects of the recent recession.

Commissioners are expected to pass a revised steep slope ordinance that will weaken the threshold from 30 to a 35 percent slope for the ordinance to kick in. While this change essentially does indeed weaken the ordinance, things could have been much worse, so Jackson is to be commended for the stance it’s taking.

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op frI sincerely hope Waynesville citizens support Mayor Gavin Brown for reelection.

Municipal elections carry more import than most people realize. The decisions made by mayors and aldermen do not have as direct — and large — of a bearing on your pocketbook as the decisions made at the county, state and federal level, but they do matter. Down at the municipal level, it’s really more about impacting our quality of life and putting in place the amenities we enjoy in small towns.

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op fr“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, 

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

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op frJust a few more dollars, that’s all. When you get your car fixed or a new dishwasher installed, now you’ll have to pay the 7 percent sales tax on the labor provided by the mechanic or the repairman. As you pay, give a nod to the state legislature’s decision to tax a few more services as part of its ongoing reform that moves North Carolina further toward a reliance on consumption taxes versus income taxes.

A new ranking released this week by WalletHub pegs North Carolina as the 50th worst place in the country for public school teachers. We managed to beat out West Virginia but have been passed by economic powerhouses like Mississippi and Washington, D.C. (there were 51 spots, including D.C.) The ranking is based on median starting salary, pupil-to-teacher ratio and per pupil spending. Our 50th spot was — you guessed it — up one spot from last year.

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op frThis is one tradition that could just die and I don’t think many will care. I’m talking about the recently announced plan by Haywood County Schools to do away with the time-honored ritual of naming a valedictorian and salutatorian.

Haywood joins many school systems across the nation in going this route. Some want to argue that this is more evidence that we are dumbing down our schools and finding ways to tell all students that they are all fantastic and that everyone will succeed.

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op frWith the right leadership, it can happen. If the national and regional economy continues chugging along for another few years without a stumble, it can happen.

I’m talking about a rejuvenation of the small east Haywood County town of Canton, where elected leaders are saying they want business growth and new residents. That’s the town dominated by the giant paper mill that sits unabashedly in the town center, the mill that still occasionally emits a smell that envelops the town, the mill that still discolors the Pigeon River.

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op frRecently released figures on the impact of tourism in Western North Carolina are encouraging. More visitors are spending more money, and that means new jobs and increased sales tax revenue. 

But there’s even more relevant news for those of us who believe that tourism should be viewed as a long-term, viable industry for the region. A study conducted in Buncombe County found that successful tourism marketing leads to direct increases in more traditional manufacturing jobs. Those jobs are increasingly difficult to attract in this era of cheap overseas labor.

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op frI was watching my son’s soccer game last night and the old Al Stewart tune, “Time Passages,” kept running through my head:

Well I’m not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on, are the things that don’t last
Well it’s just now and then, my line gets cast into these
Time passages.

And so it started last night. It continues this week, and will keep coming around until August 2016. It’s what I’ve been calling the “year of lasts.”

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op frI’m sure the founders of Haywood County’s new charter school — Shining Rock Classical Academy — never imagined a week like the one they just had.

Not only was our newspaper challenging them on what we feel sure were violations of the N.C. Open Meetings Law, other media were giving ink and air time to problems at what may become the new location for their school. Seems surveys done at the property damaged the corn crop of the farmer currently leasing the site. Lawyers have gotten involved, meaning the site acquisition process just got more complicated.

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op frThe Tribal Council kicked us out again. Holly Kays, a reporter for The Smoky Mountain News, was told on July 9 to leave a meeting of the Cherokee Tribal Council. No meaningful reason was given as to why members of the council did not want our reporter present. 

This is the second time in the last seven months the Tribal Council, under the leadership of Chairwoman Terri Henry, has decided to exclude the media from their meetings. Such actions would be against the law in all 100 counties in North Carolina.

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op frThe North Carolina Senate has become emboldened in its partisanship over the last couple of years, and there appears to be no end in sight. Under the leadership of Sen. Phil Berger, the president pro tem, and his troops — including our own Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin — it has ventured so far to the right and is making moves that are so politically heavy-handed that even Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the GOP-controlled state House often call foul.

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op frI should get over being astounded by the way the world works. And I’m talking about the good stuff, not the negative.

The package of stories that graced the cover of The Smoky Mountain News last week, “The Golden Children,” is almost allegorical in its arc. Staff writer Holly Kays traveled to an orphanage in a remote part of Bolivia to help do some construction work and spend time with the children. Her reporting about the orphanage — named Kory Wawanaca, which means “Golden Children” — its founder, Carrie Blackburn Brown, and the connection to Western North Carolina and particularly Haywood County, is so touching that it could never be scripted because it would come off as too heartwarming, too many people doing the right thing for all the right reasons.

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op frComplicated. Ignorant. Entrenched. It’s easy to come up with words to describe the state of race relations in this country and especially in the South, but some come to mind more easily than others after what happened in Charleston last week. Dylann Storm Roof attended Bible study with black congregants of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and then summarily gunned down nine of those in the group.

And once again we in this country are forced to confront the ugly reality of racism, compelled to search for ways to turn tragedy into change.

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op frI remember someone once telling me that all the seemingly trivial, decidedly unimportant choices you make every day prepare you for when the big thing comes along and the right decision might have life-changing consequences. Do right everyday for the right reasons and you’ll most likely do right when that moment arrives. At least we all should hope that’s the way it will turn out.

I think that admonition has more to do with morals and ethics than actual actions, but it still popped into my head when I was editing one of the stories in last week’s paper. I’m referring to the school bus driver in Macon County who may have saved the lives of children and staff at South Macon Elementary School with a singular act of courage.

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op frWhat’s your dream job? Recent college graduates are perhaps honing in on the difficult task of searching for a satisfying career, but I’m standing at my desk today thinking “what next?” I’m 55, and for the last 16 years I’ve had my dream job. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather have done during that time than own and edit a weekly newspaper in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Not that I’m moving onto something different soon (much to the chagrin, I’m sure, of many readers and some of our staff). It’s just that time of year when my concentration begins to wander off track, thinking about where this newspaper is headed and what the future may hold, both journalistically and from a business perspective.

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op frI don’t know if it reaches the magnitude of a moral dilemma, but I feel for the Frog Level merchants who appeared before the Waynesville town board recently. They came seeking help in dealing with the patrons of The Open Door soup kitchen that’s located in the historic business district. 

The soup kitchen clientele, needless to say, are the most needy among us — some are poverty-stricken, others suffer from mental health issues, others have drug and alcohol problems — and so it is bound to come off as callous if you say you want to be rid of them.

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op frThe rioting in Baltimore has settled down and we haven’t heard much out of Ferguson, Missouri, recently. The uproar and incessant debate over what is happening in our inner cities — racism, poverty, violence, drugs, police brutality — has, for the moment, quieted down. But problems don’t go away just because they are left unspoken.

The festering wounds in those towns were on my mind as we settled down Sunday night to watch the award-winning movie “Selma.” The film is about a few weeks in Martin Luther King’s life as he organized and marched in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were specifically calling for an end to laws that kept blacks from voting, and despite the mortal dangers they faced — there were deaths in those few weeks among whites and blacks who supported the marchers — it worked. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act that same month.

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op frHe was tall, maybe 6 feet 8 inches or taller, and was standing at an intersection studying a map. My wife, Lori, and I had just dumped out from a favorite trail at Bent Creek in Asheville onto the well-used Forest Service Road 491, jogging along as we enjoyed the warm early spring afternoon.

We gave him some directions, and he asked if he could just follow along for a while so as not to get lost. His strong French accent made it obvious he wasn’t a local.

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op frDozing in and out of sleep on the flight home from Leon, Nicaragua, I was thinking about circles. More to the point, I was contemplating the work of my father-in-law, Bill Sullivan, at the hospital in Leon, the Hospital Escuela Oscar Danilo Rosales Arguello.

I had read something recently about people who lead meaningful lives and how they move in circles, how as they circle back to relationships, places, or important work they add layers of emotional depth to their existence. Returning again and again to those touchstones, everything becomes more relevant and worthwhile as all those interactions add up over days, months and years.

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op fr“You bet I’m happy. I feel this was only right. My goal is to improve Waynesville and set it apart as a first-class mountain community.” 

— Former Waynesville Mayor Henry Foy in May 2003, upon receiving notification from DOT about the roundabout and other modifications to the Old Asheville Highway plan.

The passing of former Waynesville Mayor Henry Foy on April 15 brought back a flood of memories for me. Foy’s tenure as mayor of Waynesville (he was elected in 1991) was closely aligned with my move to Haywood County (1992) and my introduction to mountain politicians and their motivations.

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op frNothing would reflect better on this country than to have a rational, reasoned debate on gun violence and what steps could be taken to curb it while still adhering to the Second Amendment. One look at the statistics shows how badly this needs to take place. 

But we aren’t getting close. In face, a recent law introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly would be a step in the wrong direction.

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op fr“Many of us are not living our dreams because we are living in fear.” Not sure where I came across that line, but I pasted it into my folder for column ideas and then came across it last week when it suddenly seemed appropriate.

My daughter had just skyped us from the airport in Amman, Jordan. Amman is just a few hundred miles from where some of the most horrific violence in the Middle East is taking place. And there Megan was, smiling and laughing, on her way to Istanbul, Turkey, for a 10-day vacation from her teaching job in Dubai.

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op coverMy cousin has always been an inspiration. Wilton Collins Jones Jr. — he’s always been called “Corky” — is one year younger than me (54) and has been a lifelong professional musician. We were raised in Fayetteville, our mothers were sisters who both ended up divorced and raising sons as single moms. We had that single mom bond and that of family, and so we were close. 

As I headed off to college, he was getting schooled in music, playing in rock bands, jazz fusion bands, duos, trios, sometimes groups that toured the country and kept him gone for long periods of time.

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op frTurning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ….

— The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats

The dissension among Haywood County Republicans took a decisive turn last week at the party’s convention, signaling a new era for the GOP in Haywood. The question many are now asking is just how the new group will lead. One thing  for certain is they won’t be leading from the center, not this group.

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I'm sure my paranoia was partly flamed by the buzz about the case of the CIA operative whose name was leaked to the media by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, with many still suspecting - and even more on the left hoping - that the case could eventually lead to presidential adviser Karl Rove or Bush himself. Would the inner Bush circle really make a concerted effort to retaliate in this manner because of bad publicity concerning the run-up to the war? Are the reporters, including Judith Miller and Robert Novak, way too involved with their sources? Why did Miller spend so much time in jail rather than reveal her source?

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Many of us who call these mountains home rely on the isolation, the distance from the cold realities of modern times that one can find in a home nestled deep in a high mountain cove. But it’s really a false hope, and all it takes is a few events to bring us back to the here and now.

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I’m not sure where home is, but my children know. They’re first-generation mountaineers, which means, should they stay, they’ve got a lot riding on their shoulders. I hope they’re up to it.

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We in the newspaper business are supposed to be having the bejesus scared out of us because of the power of the Internet. And right now, as people are spending billions making Internet purchases for Christmas, this fact is hitting home. Soon, we who put out traditional newspapers will be forgotten, quaint relics from the past.

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op frGoogle is a wonderful thing, but it sometimes makes things harder for journalists. That’s why a new emphasis on transparency among newspapers and news sites may be one of the measures that helps save real journalism and differentiates it from all that other stuff out there on the web.

“In the digital world, where information is infinite and infinitely replicable, being transparent … helps distinguish journalism from other content on the web,” writes Martin Moore, the executive director of the Media Standards Trust, in a blog post that listed the arguments in favor of transparency.

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op fr“… the long-term benefits of a high-quality pre-K program can be substantial. These include higher high school graduation rates, lower rates of juvenile delinquency, less substance abuse, and higher adult earnings. Thus, many studies show that high-quality pre-K programs can improve outcomes for disadvantaged children in the short run and generate favorable returns for taxpayers in the long run.”

— Professor William T. Gormley Jr., Georgetown Public Policy Institute

Most parents who have the time and the education to take part in their children’s schooling remember well those first couple of years. Your child — with your help — was prepared for kindergarten, and then you worked with them as they learned to read and do simple math. Other children, however, came to school so unprepared that they demanded so much of the teacher’s time that it slowed the whole class down.

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op fr“It is an Internet Age paradox: We have more information than ever before and yet, seem to know less. Indeed, in the Internet Age, it can be fairly said that nothing is ever truly, finally knowable, authoritative testimony always subject to contradiction by some blogger grinding axes, some graduate of Google U, somebody who heard from somebody who heard from somebody who heard.”

— Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald

Leonard Pitts calls it Secret Knowledge, the information that only a few people know, but those people who know it know it to be true. I refer to it as the Internet Plague, a condition whereby any statement — no matter how outrageous, how cockamamie, how simply stupid — will be given credence by some wild-eyed know-it-all with a computer at his fingertips, facts be damned.

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op frI wish those planning to open a new charter school in Haywood County the best. Their intentions are completely honorable. But I also believe that the proliferation of school choice in the U.S. is not a long-term positive for the country.

Look, it would be ludicrous to argue that the U.S. system of public education is great. There are lazy, below-average teachers, way too many uninspired central office bureaucrats (who don’t, by the way, deserve double the pay of classroom teachers), and too many parents who don’t — for any of a multitude of reasons — make school a priority for their children.

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op frHere’s hoping No Name Sports Pub and the town of Sylva can work out their differences on noise so that both get what they need.

As it stands now, the establishment has stopped booking live music because neighbors have complained that the bands and traffic are making too much racket late at night. According to town commissioners, they believe the bar and its owner are not complying with the town’s noise ordinance. 

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op frThe Haywood County School Board narrowly voted (5 to 4, with Chairman Chuck Francis breaking a tie) to contribute money toward a lobbying effort by the N.C. School Boards Association. The decision is the right one given the current situation in Raleigh and hopefully will be money well spent.

Lobbying is a catchall phrase that often has a negative connotation. I get that. When business groups direct thousands of dollars to candidate campaigns and then try to use that support to influence legislation, things often get sleazy. We’ve all read about it happening too many times.

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op frI watched world leaders with arms linked lead a march of about 1.5 million people in Paris to commemorate the ideals of free speech following the massacre at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo by Muslim terrorists. I read about the outpouring of support for the newspaper’s gutsy cartoons that lampooned — in addition to Islamic terrorism — anything and everything.

And then I sought out the cartoons that infuriated so many Muslims so I could see for myself what kind of artwork could engender such emotion. If you haven’t looked, you may or may not want to take the time to do it. These are rough, sometimes vulgar images that are cringe-worthy. Satire has always been one of the cruelest forms of free expression because at its best it insults your sensibilities to get a message across. And these cartoons are insulting.

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op frOne of my wife’s childhood friends lives near Wilmington. Her daughter, a senior at Appalachian State, died last week in a tragic car accident. We went to the service two days after Christmas. 

One of the young lady’s sorority sisters had the courage and strength to speak, but could only do so with six or seven of her friends surrounding her, literally helping her keep standing and keep talking at times when she was overcome. When they got to the podium — most of them in tears — it was as if the grief, already overwhelming, was multiplied by 10.

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op frMoments, mostly the ones unplanned, are the stuff of important and lasting life memories. 

We had a great Thanksgiving day with our daughter Hannah, son Liam and family in Asheville. My wife Lori and her sister Julie had planned the dinner for some time, and all turned out as we had hoped. 

I left for the office Friday with Lori and Hannah snuggled on the couch watching an old Audrey Hepburn film because, well, that’s what my girls do on vacation days. On Saturday morning we went skiing early at Cataloochee to get in some first-of-the-season runs before the holiday weekend crowds jammed the lift lines. The snow was perfect, and we all gushed once again about how lucky we are to have such a great ski mountain so close to home.

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op frJust as President Obama seems poised to sign an executive order preventing the deportation of up to 5 million illegal immigrants, we read in the Nov. 17 Asheville Citizen-Times that a newcomer center for immigrants in the city school system is so full it has a waiting list. I have no idea how many of those students in the newcomer center or waiting to get in are illegals, but the point is that we have a huge immigration problem in this country and policy to address it keeps being ignored by those in a position to change things.

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op frCullowhee rising. Sounds like a fitting name for some aspiring college band, but it best describes what’s happening at Western Carolina University and the community surrounding it. It’s one of the fastest growing places in the region whose potential is matched by the energy of those who live and work there. And this is why it is important that those advocating for zoning measures in Cullowhee prevail in the face of the passionate but misguided voices trying to squelch the forward motion.

Western Carolina University has 7,500 traditional college students who live and study in and around Cullowhee. Total enrollment is around 10,300, but some of those are nontraditional students — professionals seeking a second degree who live elsewhere or students at its satellite locations. By 2023 — that sounds like the distant future, but is now less than 10 years away — that 7,500 figure is expected to grow to 11,000. That’s a whopping 46 percent increase in students, and that doesn’t account for the faculty and staff required to accommodate this growth.

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op frGetting an education is about reducing ignorance. Whether it’s in a rural second-grade classroom or at one of this nation’s elite graduate schools, learning is all about gaining a better understanding of the world around us. That might mean studying the religion of another culture or unraveling the DNA of a sea turtle, but the idea is to seek to understand.

That said, I want those who would be our educational leaders to embrace this concept, that of helping students broaden their understanding of the world in which we live. Unfortunately, at least one candidate running for school board in Haywood County displays such a depth of misunderstanding that by my estimation he is not qualified to serve on the school board.

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op frWhen National Newspaper Week (Oct. 5-11) was started 74 years ago, there wasn’t much competition for newspapers. If you didn’t read the paper, you just didn’t know what was going on around the world or in your hometown.

Now that’s not the case. Internet search engines have put thousands of news sites at our fingertips. Social media helps us keep up with friends and family and whole communities of like-minded people.

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I heard about this story from the Facebook crowd, so I imagine some of you have already read it. There was a story in this past Sunday’s Raleigh News and Observer that had this to say about Waynesville and Sylva:

To find the most beer-soaked town in North Carolina, look past the much-acclaimed Asheville. Thirty miles to the west sits Waynesville, a small town of 10,000 nestled between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. It’s here where you’ll find four craft breweries – one of the highest brewery-per-capita ratios in the state (www.newsobserver.com/2014/09/04/-4119190_pintful-to-find-ncs-most-beer.html?rh=1#story-link=cpy).

A possible rival is nearby Sylva, a smaller outpost in Western North Carolina where 2,700 people share two breweries.

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op heritageAnyone who reads The Smoky Mountain News regularly knows we emphasize in-depth, investigative stories when that’s what is called for to get to the bottom of something. Everyone at our company takes great pride in that aspect of our identity.

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op fr“Government’s job is NOT to fund private industry!”

“Shouldn’t the mill pay to keep themselves up to par as far as emissions? Why do our tax dollars have to help them? My small business doesn't get help from the state to cover upgrades!”

Those comments above are from our Facebook page in response to a post about the General Assembly’s last-minute decision to come up with $12 million to help Evergreen Packaging in Canton. The money will go to help the company meet EPA-mandated requirements to switch from coal to natural gas in its boilers. The switch is expected to cost around $50 million.

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When Haywood County Manager Jack Horton was asked to resign or be fired last week, it was, potentially, a watershed political event for Haywood County. This upheaval probably won’t have a long-term impact on the prosperity of Haywood County, but it will help shape the political landscape in the near future.

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It started over a discussion about the merits of that sanitizing gel that is now so often found in restrooms, grocery stores, gyms and elsewhere, the stuff that’s supposed to kill germs and stem the spread of colds and other minor illnesses. After a huge bottle showed up in our workplace, one of my co-workers kind of snickered when we were discussing its merits. His comment went something like this: “God, people work too hard to try and protect themselves against everything. It’s like living life in fear.”

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op frMost anyone who has worked for a living, volunteered, or held elected office has stood at the edge of the abyss, looked over it, and made a very important decision: complete honesty and unyielding integrity, or maybe a little dishonesty, maybe a seemingly harmless white lie. The dishonesty might concern office supplies or maybe tools, perhaps a few dollars from the organization no one would miss; for an elected official, it could mean cozying up and getting favors from someone who could benefit from your vote, or perhaps it could mean a little extra money or a gift from such a person.

The situation that The Smoky Mountain News reported about last week concerning the Junaluska Sanitary District is a great illustration of how this happens. The district’s former employee developed a scheme for embezzling a little money each day over a long period of time. Finally caught, she admitted to stealing $210,000 over six years. She repaid it all and did not serve any jail time.

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I remember the specific moment in my journalism career when I sealed my future as a small-town newspaperman. I was at my third newspaper job out of college, had moved up to successively larger publications, and an offer came to take over the editor’s job at a small-town daily.

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There’s really not much to say except this: why has it taken so long?

The Haywood County School Board apparently is going to pass a ban on tobacco products at schools and all school-related events, including football games, graduation ceremonies, and weekend events held at the schools that technically are not school functions.

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When the political season cranks up, as it’s about to, this business gets a lot more fun.

I’m one of those who believe newspapers are the best place to learn about candidates’ positions. We, along with the other print journalists in this region and those across the country, work hard to make these people who want your votes stake out their positions on the important issues. And we’ll try to provide some perspective and background, to put the issue into some kind of context. Most of us view it as a challenge each election season to prove newspapers provide better, more in-depth coverage of candidates that television and even the Internet.

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