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Crime listing could help county
To the Editor:
This newspaper should list public records of reported crimes that occur in Jackson County. The listing could help residents know what crimes are being committed and where they are likely to happen.
Exposing criminal actions to the public is the best way to discourage crime and catch criminals.
Lately I have heard reports of thieves stealing gasoline. Rather than hear these stories through local citizens, The Sylva Herald could obtain police records and report criminal activity in the area. This would help many older people who do not get out much, yet must be aware of security.
Ken Lee
Sylva
Former resident views change from afar
To the Editor:
I received a subscription to the Sylva Herald as a Christmas present from my sister and I couldn’t be happier with it. My husband is in the Army and we have been gone from Sylva for 14 years. It is wonderful to keep up with the hometown news. And what a hotbed of controversy my little hometown of Sylva seems to have become! The rate of growth is (to me) absolutely astounding. I never thought Sylva would make such a name and a place for itself.
I read with great interest and sympathy the articles in the Herald from those people unhappy with the rampant growth in the area. Sorry folks, but things change, and not always for the better. Those people that cherish the small-town way of life should pack their bags and get out now.
It appears you are living in the hub of the Western North Carolina mountains. Convenient to gambling at Harrah’s of Cherokee, the grandeur of the Great Smoky Mountains, the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains, the home of scenic Asheville and of the fabulous Biltmore house and the small, but rapidly growing, Western Carolina University. Not that all of this is a bad thing. There are those who thrive on change and those who don’t. You can’t have it both ways. New businesses mean job opportunities and income for individuals as well as the county. Old places, things and ideas are lost as new ones take their place.
I understand and sympathize with those who want to see the small town remain. I have been cooped up with neighbors on my doorstep in military housing for so long that I can’t wait to retire and build our own house. I want peace and quiet and space. All of that used to be available in Sylva but it doesn’t appear to be anymore. My sister still lives at “the old homeplace” and is now surrounded by noisy neighbors with loud music, barking dogs, and with wonderful views right into her home.
My husband and I will be retiring in a couple more years, but not to Sylva. I cannot believe how much the price of land has risen. We have instead purchased 21 acres in a very desirable location in Virginia. I shudder to think how much 21 acres in the greater metropolitan area of Sylva would cost! But that is another argument.
It makes me sad to see all of the places lost that I remember from my younger years but I am happy for those that benefit from all of the growth. However, town leaders should bear in mind that not all residents benefit and not all residents are happy with so many changes being forced on them. Not everyone wants to be incorporated into the township, not everyone wants a shooting range in their backyard and not everyone wants to fight the crowds to pick up a box of nails to build a privacy fence. Don’t destroy completely those things which make Sylva and Jackson County unique just for the sake of a few dollars. And please consider the “little people” when making decisions that affect all citizens of Jackson County not just the “big wigs” who profit from the land sales or tax revenues.
I have heard it said that distance lends perspective. From my distant perspective, I see Sylva continuing to grow. I, for one, mourn the loss of the small town that was.
Teresa Frizzell Demas
Fairbanks, Alaska
County becoming ‘nothing special’
To the Editor:
I wasn’t born and raised in Jackson County, although I have ties that go back a long way here. Still, I’m not a native and even though I spent a considerable amount of time here growing up, I am painfully aware of that fact every time I speak up about a local issue.
I didn’t come home to Jackson County to tell anyone else how to live. I came because I treasured the values of community. I came not just because the views were pretty or because of the lifestyle, but because of the people. I came to be a neighbor and to have neighbors, real neighbors, not just the kind you are bound to by the covenants of a home-owners association.
Like a lot of folks, I just want to live my life in peace. I’d like to think that I’m willing to lend a hand when it’s needed but that I’m respectful enough to mind my own business. I don’t want anyone imposing a bunch of rules or restrictions on me but I recognize that attitude has its limitations. It comes with an obligation to be considerate of my impact upon my neighbors.
I don’t believe that the dollar ought to be the ultimate measure of value in a society. I’d rather have a little less than enough rather than too much if the difference means stepping on someone else’s toes. I hope that I never want anything so much that in getting it I’d have to hurt someone else. I recognize that’s probably naive, but it lets me sleep at night.
Jackson County is becoming a reflection of our society in general. There are too many people who believe that he who dies with the most toys wins. There are too many people who believe that progress is better than peace. There are too many people who judge a neighbor not by his character, but by the size of his mansion. And there are too many who believe that the single most important criteria for defining community is property value.
Last week the commissioners endorsed the idea that all growth is good regardless of its impact on our existing communities and citizens. They endorsed the concept that virtually any tactics are valid in promoting growth. They endorsed the idea that we are all just special interest groups and therefore it is only right and proper that those with the most money, the most power and perhaps the least amount of conscience, should prevail. They endorsed the concept, so succinctly put by Todd Mathis during public comment: If you don’t like what’s happening in your community, sell out and leave.
It’s ironic that those who champion local prerogative the most are actually doing so to further the interests of those who would turn Jackson County into one big real estate listing without regard or respect for local culture, local communities or local heritage.
Those who have championed property rights loudest will find in the not too distant future that those rights exist only for those who have the money and power to control and dictate to others. Those who bemoan the fact that “you can’t get up into the mountains anymore” have done so in the service of the very ones that would gate and exclude.
Our elected leaders have articulated a vision of Jackson County that values transaction and marketplace over people, community, heritage, tradition and culture. Their vision recognizes the dollar as not the ultimate measure of value but the only measure of value. They see rights, both individual and property, not as a necessary part of the social compact but as a bludgeon to further profit.
Jackson County is well on its way to looking like everywhere else. Whether you were born here or came in good faith to be a part of the community it’s sad to see what has been lost and what is being cast aside.
What is even sadder is that our elected officials seem so willing to be the ones to push it all over the cliff.
Mark Jamison
Cullowhee
Ranges’ wastefulness not Appalachian heritage
To the Editor:
Growing up in these mountains I used to go hunting with my father, Frank Ammons of Tuckasegee. He only hunted when we needed food for our table. He never wasted a bullet and was careful to be accurate.
Our mountain heritage never included hunting for sport or shooting when it wasn’t necessary to survive; we couldn’t afford to be wasteful.
A shooting range is not part of my Appalachian heritage, and I don’t know many who would consider it such.
This shooting range issue is not about our heritage. Just the irresponsible lack of concern for neighbors is enough to make my father turn over in his grave. We considered each other’s welfare in our mountain communities.
If you raised howling hound dogs back then, you’d put them away from your neighbors so they didn’t keep everyone awake at night, and all shooting was done deep in the woods away from other people.
Today when I hear the sound of shotguns I run for shelter; a stray bullet can get close these days.
All of what’s going on now is showing a lack of respect for neighbors, something my Appalachian family would have never done. Guns were a necessary part of our heritage, but today their use is only for a sport that throws toxins into the mountains and hurts the future of our children. Any responsible elected official should not allow this to happen to our communities.
Doreyl Cain
Tuckasegee
Gun club officials may have ulterior motive
To the Editor:
All of us have the tendency to ignore issues that do not appear to affect us directly. Let the current experiences of the Tilley Creek community serve as a wake-up call to the rest of Jackson County.
Based on the current state of affairs in this county it is only a question of time before many more county residents are going to be put in the same position as those of us in Tilley Creek are today.
In spite of over 400 hundred petition signatures, the majority of which are from Jackson County citizens who do not live on Tilley Creek, and in spite of repeated requests from Tilley Creek citizens, the Jackson County commissioners have refused to even discuss a moratorium to allow consideration of an ordinance to govern the operation of gun clubs in this county.
The commissioners have demonstrated that a “social and recreational” club of more than 100 members, many of whom neither live nor pay taxes in Jackson County, is more important than the long-time residents of Tilley Creek.
The property on Tilley Creek is not suitable for a gun club, even by National Rifle Association standards. The ulterior motive behind locating the club on this property is to make the area undesirable for the current residents and drive the property values down.
What is going to happen if Smoke Rise Field Club does actually begin to operate on Tilley Creek? The noise levels from the shooting will be unacceptable; many residents will feel compelled to sell – at significantly reduced values. After all, to quote Chairman Brian McMahan in an April 6 Smoky Mountain News interview, “How do you sell a house on a piece of property that has a shooting range?”
The wealthy real estate developers and doctors of Smoke Rise will buy the now much-cheaper property to build houses that most of us would be unable to afford.
What happens next?
Because the newly-developed parcels on Tilley Creek need to be sold, and it’s difficult to sell property near a shooting range, the gun club may move again. It may try to go back to Caney Fork to another piece of property that the wealthy doctors and real estate brokers want to develop. Or it may move into another community in Jackson County that will be equally defenseless because the county commissioners don’t care about the ordinary citizens that live there.
It is time for Jackson County residents to work together to elect officials that are more interested in the majority of Jackson County citizens than in their political careers and serving the greed of the wealthy minority.
Deborah Hussey
Cullowhee
Ordinance would have affected everyone but gun club
To the Editor:
Thankfully our commissioners have weathered another assault on our freedom and stood tall for the common man of Jackson County.
It was tricky in that, although this shooting range issue has been brewing since November, it wasn’t until March 21 (just minutes before our commissioners were scheduled to vote on the issue) that Smoke Rise Field Club revealed that they were also in favor of an unnecessary moratorium and ordinance. If you read N.C. State Senate bill 1137 – Sport Shooting Range Protection Act – you’ll see further proof of why this thing is tricky.
Beware, some people of Tilley Creek, you’re pushing for an ordinance that would probably affect everyone in Jackson County except Smoke Rise. If the club can get grandfathered in with a couple of phone calls to Raleigh, how hard would it be for them to dance around a future zoning board prone to giving variances to the rich and powerful?
I was a part-time resident for several years in a place where they had strict zoning and ordinances. I observed how it was a great tool for placing limits on the common man, while making it that much easier for the powerful to get what they want.
At the commissioner’s meeting April 4, I passed out 20 copies of Senate Bill 1137 and mentioned it when I spoke to the commissioners, but do you think The Sylva Herald mentioned it in the report? They usually favor the ones who want zoning. How about printing some pertinent information on this issue, like what kind of ordinance both sides are in favor of. What is their definition of a shooting range? Won’t everyone with a bench and targets set up be affected? How many hundreds of yards from the nearest house (or proposed house) will your range have to be? How high will the fence around your range have to be? Isn’t this pollution notion just a smokescreen?
It’s tough to see our commissioners berated by a few people with personal agendas they value over the freedom of hundreds. I think our commissioners have been vigilant about this issue and feel they have courageously represented all the citizens of our county.
Mike Clark
Cullowhee
Smoke Rise president should apologize
To the Editor:
In the April 7 issue of The Sylva Herald, Mr. Barry Moore, president of the Smoke Rise Field Club, which plans to construct a shooting range in the midst of the Tilley Creek community, was quoted in a news article as saying “It’s amazing all the lies (those opposed to the proposed range on Tilley Creek) are telling.”
As a lifelong resident of Tilley Creek who opposes the planned shooting range, and as one who spoke briefly before the Board of Commissioners on April 4, it would appear that Mr.. Moore is calling me a liar, as well as all the other neighbors and good folks who expressed their heartfelt views.
If Mr. Moore can prove that anything I said was untrue, I will try to correct the error and apologize to Mr. Moore. On the other hand, if he cannot prove that something I said was anything other than factual truth or the honest feelings about the situation, then he owes me (and all the other good folks he has labeled as liars) an immediate and sincere public apology, to be published in this same newspaper where his accusation was first reported.
If Mr. Moore fails to verify his claim, or fails to make a gentlemanly apology, then one can only conclude that it is he who has made unfounded and untruthful statements and placed malicious labels on others.
In addition, if the members of Smoke Rise allow him to make such false charges and do not insist that he apologize, we will then know just what kind of people they are. So far, most of the 120 or so members have not been identified; though Mr. Moore has stated (in the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle) that they want to be “good neighbors” in the Tilley Creek community, a list of these members has not been revealed. What kind of “neighbors” cloak themselves in secrecy and anonymity? Mr. Moore, it is time to let us know who our “neighbors” are going to be. If they have nothing to hide, if they are not ashamed of being members of Smoke Rise, if they truly want to be good neighbors, don’t you think it is time for them to show their faces?
David L. Fox
Cullowhee
Against ordinances and zoning
To the Editor:
I have never written a letter to the paper, but my conscience and last Monday night’s meeting at the Justice Center compel me to speak my piece.
I pay a lot of taxes and was really disappointed at the room the hearing was held in. There were only 80 seats and at least 125 people were there. There were no speakers in the back of the room for the people who came in late and stood outside the door, and some were hearing impaired.
I don’t know, but I bet that place cost us millions of dollars, and they can’t put speakers in the back. Maybe it’s just the old thing about how to treat us natives – like mushrooms.
No new ordinances was the gist of the meeting. Yay for the commissioners.
My idea on the gun club’s shooting range is this. We already have a rifle range on Goodenville Road, a short distance away. Why can’t Smoke Rise Field Club rent, lease or whatever, a place close to there? Unless Smoke Rise has ulterior motives – maybe to build an exclusive club on Tilley Creek in five or 10 years and sell lots for megabucks.
My main point is I don’t want any more ordinances or zoning or new restrictions on the people whose families have lived for up to five generations on this ground that we hold sacred and outsiders don’t care about and just consider a new playground. We just want to hold on to our heritage.
My intentions with this letter were not to make anybody mad. If I did, U.S. 441 will be four-laned from Mountain City, Ga., to Toccoa, Ga., after this summer and all the way back to Miami. You know who you are, how you got here and the way back.
Drew Hooper
Sylva
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