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Stacking the deck
To the Editor:
Like good news, bad news also travels fast. It has come to my attention this week that there are at least three candidates running for the Jackson County Board of Commissioners who either work for or have connections with a major large-acreage, gated community development in Jackson County.
Chairman Brian McMahan, who is running unopposed, works in security at Balsam Mountain Preseve; Raymond Bunn, who is one of three candidates in the District 1 race, also works at Balsam Mountain Preserve. Keith Parris, who is one of five seeking the District 2 seat, is the brother-in-law of Balsam Fire Chief Johnny Nicholson, who is McMahan’s boss. One begins to wonder what, in fact, is going on here.
These interconnections bring up certain issues which have broad-ranging implications for all of us in Jackson County.
We wonder if there is some conspiracy afoot to “stack the deck” with people who are pro-development. This would, from an outsider’s perspective, certainly seem to be the case. Common-sense logic and simple math will get you to this conclusion very fast, if you look at the players and look at their connections to large-scale development and to each other.
A Board of Commissioners made up largely of people with vested interests who are in the pocket of corporate developers doesn’t bode well for the future of our county. There are many examples, here in the South, as well as in other parts of the country, where the big out-of-state developers have come into rural communities and essentially bought up all the available large tracts of land, built their gated communities of million-dollar homes, then stacked the deck on the local Board of Commissioners, allowing them to have their way, financially, politically and culturally with the future of those places. We here in Jackson County are facing a similar plight, if we don’t stand up and take notice, and cast our votes in the upcoming primaries on May 2 for candidates who have the welfare of local landowners and citizens at heart. If we sit back on our haunches, unaware, and let these kinds of developers come in, take over, and then invite all their corporate “friends” to come and partake of the wealth of beautiful mountain land, here in our county, we’re going to end up as simply a suburb of Cashiers and Highlands, with land assessment values and taxes to match.
Now is the time to take stock of who the candidates are and what their connections are to big business and large development, and/or where they stand on the issues pertaining to land-use and land-use regulations (such as steep-slope and ridge-top ordinances, as well as sediment-control and similar regulations.). From where I sit, out here in Tuckasegee – with Centex (a Texas-based company and owner of Bear Lake Reserve) and Arvida Corporation (from Florida) owning several thousand acres of land surrounding our community and threatening to not only drive locals off their land due to escalating land values, but to build asphalt plants and rock quarries to supply developers with their road-building materials – we need to know who is representing us in local government and to make sure that the Board is not stacked with employees and sympathizers of the powers that would come into our community and have their way with the land and its people.
Thomas Crowe
Tuckasegee
Upset student teacher
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to several letters that are belittling our public schools and their teachers. For the past four years I have been a student at Western Carolina University majoring in elementary education. I am now completing my student teaching in a second-grade classroom in Haywood County. However, I have also worked in some of the Jackson County schools over these past few years.
I am appalled that parents and adults in our community feel that teachers do not care and have no concern. I would invite you to come to my classroom any day and see just what I do as a teacher. I have to make sure that my students are completing their work, that they are all safe, that they have eaten a good meal, that they get home the correct way, and still be their teacher. Not every day is the best day ever, but I sincerely love what I do and for others to say that no teacher cares or has concern is simply a lie. I have had the privilege to work with many great teachers. Sure, every profession has its bad apples, but you have to look past those and find the good ones. I am sure that for the most part these teachers care and are concerned about their students. Our school day does not run from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. as most people assume. I arrive at school every morning between 7:30 and 7:40 a.m. In the afternoon, I do not leave until around 4 p.m. and sometimes I stay as late as 5 p.m. making sure that everything will run smoothly for the next day. I spend hours preparing lesson plans and making sure that those plans will reach every student in my classroom. I find ways to challenge my students so that they can all have a feeling of success when they leave my classroom at the end of the day. I have to buy my own materials with my own money because the state does not provide enough of an allowance to buy them. I only have an assistant for half of a day. Sure I will be paid to teach, but I could make more money if I went out and built houses. I do this because it is what I love and what I want to spend my life doing. For others to come along and stomp our profession that helps your children into the ground is atrocious.
I challenge you to ask yourself as you are voicing your complaints, how many times you have walked into a classroom and offered any help this year? How often have you been up late worrying about a student who you have come to care for over the course of a year? How many times have you called your student’s teacher just to ask how the student was doing in the classroom? How many times have you said “thank you” to a teacher who has helped your student with their school work? Maybe if you were actually in the school instead of standing outside complaining your view would change. No school system is perfect, but the least that parents can do is to show their concern without crushing everything that most teachers work for. If there is that big of a problem maybe you should check into private schools for your children.
Pamela Gunter
Sylva
Support candidates who support property rights
To the Editor:
I’ve been a vocal advocate for property rights over the years. I believe strongly in the traditional values embodied in the mountain culture of independence. The right to use one’s land as one sees fit is fundamental.
I worked hard to fight the Village of Forest Hills when they attempted to impose an extraterritorial jurisdiction on my community and I’ve been critical of the actions of some of our other municipalities when they overreached in this area. I was dismissed from the Smart Growth Task Force largely because of my opposition to the Cashiers Development Ordinance, which preserved nothing but the right of a small group of businessman to avoid competition at the expense of a large segment of the local community.
Property rights, however, do not come without their responsibilities. My rights end at my property line. My rights come with obligations to my neighbors and to the community at large. I have no right to create a nuisance for those around me. I have no right to dump sediment into our streams. Just as important as my individual property rights are the rights of the community as a whole.
Far too often property rights arguments are used as a means of justifying rapacious development that serves only the narrow economic interests of the developer. Development interests that ignore the general rights of the community cannot justify their actions by claiming property rights. Development often imposes huge costs on communities and it is only right and proper that developers bear the costs for the burdens they impose in their quest for profit.
We see the costs imposed by development in the spiral of speculative real estate markets. There are several studies, including one done by Susan Kask, formerly of WCU, that demonstrate that the costs of development to local governments and communities often exceed the increased tax base. Rural communities and the traditions and values they hold dear are divided and fragmented by development without conscience. Our landscape, our watersheds and our viewsheds are degraded by poorly-planned development or development that recognizes only profit, self-interest and self-protection. You can’t do what you want with your land if you are taxed off it. Your children lose their rights to your land if they are priced off it.
I’ve been against zoning by regulation primarily because it doesn’t work very well. Too often, as in the Cashiers example, it ends up protecting special interests and not the general community. Zoning by regulation may not be beneficial but neither is zoning by money. Like it or not, admit it or not, that is exactly what is going on in Jackson County today. Large corporate developers like Balsam Mountain Preserve and Centex are turning our landscape into a zoned checkerboard. They aren’t using regulations, they’re using money. What is particularly galling about this is that these companies benefit from huge tax breaks in addition to everything else. Balsam Mountain Preserve has taken more than $20 million of tax breaks on land they bought for slightly less than $10 million.
Three years ago, on the same night the commissioners passed the Cashiers Development Ordinance, the Smart Growth Task Force presented a program to the commissioners on non-regulatory approaches to land use planning. We talked about the need to find approaches to help folks stay on their land. We talked about the consequences of spiraling land prices and the costs development imposed on the community. The presentation fell on deaf ears. The SGTF also worked on a draft ordinance of a subdivision regulation. This ordinance would have held developers accountable for the costs they impose on the community. Not surprisingly those efforts were also ignored.
Property rights are important. They are a foundation for American democracy, but like any right, they are only real and effective when they apply to everyone. You shouldn’t have to have money to have property rights. There shouldn’t be anyone who is more equal simply by virtue of economic status.
In the coming election there are candidates who support real property rights. There are also candidates who use the term as a justification for a much different agenda. Take the time to find out the difference.
Mark Jamison
Cullowhee
Give Ashe a chance
To the Editor:
I wrote a letter to the editor March 16 asking Jackson County citizens to help Randy Marrinan and all the people in West Ridge community.
Now I am asking Jackson County to give Sheriff Jimmy Ashe a chance as sheriff. He has always treated me with respect, and he is really trying hard to be a good and caring sheriff. Some people here are not giving him a chance and are being too hard on him. It’s just that some of his deputies have their picks and are mean to some of us people here and also they are telling him things and then doing them differently. But I am sure he will figure them out and put a stop to it.
Brenda Shuler
Webster
Unfortunately, board comments lost in translation
To the Editor:
Setting the record straight on my three-minute presentation before the Jackson County commissioners seems to be a necessity since the facts and interpretation are not quite accurate. If I say something, I want it to be exactly as I meant; exactly who and what my subject references were about. In the interest of accuracy, I will dissect The Sylva Herald’s article on April 6.
First the reference to voice volume just shy of a yell; unfortunately I am quite hearing impaired and, therefore, do not realize raised volume as a normal hearing person. This annoys normal hearing people, but that’s the way it is. As for the use of hands punctuating verbal speech, whether it is figures emphasizing a point or whatever gestures I make, it is actually a trait in some of my family. All my young life I was teased by people I knew well with “Tie her hands behind her back and she can’t say a word.” I certainly apologize if I seemed to be saying and making points that I was not. I cannot be other than I am: a very concerned citizen about the mountain people as they are being pushed out, with more debt planned. Their land hacked, gashed and made as ugly as these people left behind. “Do-gooders” that have moved here that are trying to build a 25-to-30,000 square foot library for themselves. Library statistics based on circulation revealed people read or checked out other material very little, dropping 7,000 last year. Their justification in choosing this size: the experts recommended it. They know nothing about the reading records of the Sylva library, now or in the past. As a user of the library on and off for the past 50 years, I have never seen the front area crowded. Despite the people’s concerns about taxes and unaffordable housing, the commissioners’ unbelievable lack of fiscal responsibility that will result in more loss of their land, along with encouraging more developers because of no protection for the mountainsides and ridges. Out current crop of “do-gooders” will receive $4.2 million. You can tell how much their votes are desired in the commissioners’ election because the Department of Social Services (with its astounding service record to people) received a projected $3,305,655 as stated by record I have for their 25,000-square-foot building.
My statement about attorney (Joe) McGuire was totally incorrect, and was pertaining to Judge Guice awarding attorney fees and court costs of $36,347.75 to (Tom) McClure, (Jim) Rowell and (Eldridge) Painter. My statement (I have the written comments) was, “McClure was laughing with Rowell, Painter and attorney McGuire over what I am sure he (McClure) considered a bunch of incompetent fools.” They got away with breaking a number of laws thanks to the Jackson County Commissioners not entering court the right way. “They have the legal power to go into court and take care of these people who have perverted the law.”
The idea that I was threatening a lawsuit is ludicrous, although I was victimized more than 17 years by the town of Sylva and TWSA, forced to use dirty, gritty water and eventually had my house almost destroyed. Partially, my letters to the editor made it plain that financially, a court action was not an option for me. My aside comments on civil liberties groups was to emphasize secrecy and deprivation of civil rights should never happen here again. These civil rights groups can be sought out by the poorest citizen to protect their civil rights against unlawful deprivation, but not everyone knows this. Our black community owes their equality under the law to these dedicated people.
(The Herald) has done me a disservice by interpreting what I said. It bears little resemblance to the meaning. I was only given three minutes to leap through; no time, really, to even speak on two issues: the library could still be moved to Southwestern Community College at a little more than $1 million. A huge, safe-sited library with incredible savings among warm, wonderful and kind human beings that steered me in enrichment courses. (SCC President) Cecil Groves was always visible, smiling and greeting us. To his credit, he and SCC’s growth plan have been on line since 2001 and was complete in all details. It would also save, but you weren’t told this by commissioners, several hundred of dollars per month for more staffing, heating, cooling, cleaning, maintenance and replacement costs from now on. It isn’t just $4.2 million we will be paying for. Ask yourselves, are we suckers? Vote.
Marie Leatherwood
Sylva
Chaplains have access to jail
To the Editor:
Recently a flier was circulated in Sylva charging that Jackson County ministers and witnessing laymen were denied access to the county jail and its inmates. It specifically stated the facility and its staff have “no time for God.”
The record must be set straight, and the ones who produced the flier should be indicted for impersonating Christians, for the truth is not in them.
Truth is to be found in the following information:
– Currently there are two chaplains on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to serve the inmates and the staff of the Sheriff’s Office.
At the present time there are 24 ministers volunteering as chaplains with seven enrolled for the new chaplain’s training program, which begins in May.
– Over the past three years, the chaplains have been able to distribute over 200 Bibles to inmates, thanks to the generosity of the Gideons of Jackson County.
Whenever an inmate indicates a need to talk with a chaplain or has a critical need, such as a family crisis, a chaplain is called and a visit is made.
– The new Justice Center, with its modern jail facilities, has closed-circuit television, which provides the inmates videos of preaching services, gospel singing and Bible instruction. This is on a volunteer basis. The inmates may wish to view the programs or not.
– Legally, a chaplain or layman may not infringe on the civil rights on an inmate. If an inmate makes an inquiry of a chaplain concerning religious faith and practice, then the individual may talk with them. The chaplain or layman may not initiate the conversation if the inmate does not request it.
I have served as a volunteer chaplain for the Sheriff’s Office for nearly 10 years, and the Rev. Jeff Powell has served almost four years. Both of us have been called on to assist in everything from suicide prevention, to death notices, to domestic disputes, to parents’ inquiries about incarcerated children, to witnessing to God’s mercy and redeeming love, to being a support to officers and staff when there is a need.
The flier contained two other statements that were incredibly offensive. First, “There are no preachers, teachers, singers, moms or dads that are allowed to go in for contact visits.” Secondly, “No one has ever been let in there to talk or pray.” This is an insult to those of us who have on many occasions gone to the jail during the night or day to visit with and pray with an inmate.
I hope this in some way sets the record straight.
John Bunn
Sylva
Cruzan, supporters should be embarrassed by flier
To the Editor:
I have never been politically active, but I have been following the Jackson County Sheriff’s race with interest this year.
Recently, other Jackson County residents and I were subjected to unsolicited fliers being placed on our vehicles signed by “Concerned Voters of Jackson County” and “Voters for Jim Cruzan.”
The misleading information in these fliers made my blood boil. I won’t dignify the content of these fliers by going into detail, but suffice it to say the “drug dealers walking out of jail and “no time for God at the jail,” as well as other statements in these fliers is an insult to the intelligence of every Jackson County voter.
All of the information in these fliers is completely false and appears to have been fabricated by desperate people in a desperate attempt to bolster a faltering campaign. This sometimes happens when a campaign is unable to find anything of substance against another candidate. (Former Sheriff Jim) Cruzan and his supporters should be embarrassed by the distribution of these fliers.
Of course the purpose of these fliers is to try to obtain votes for Cruzan through this negative campaign propaganda. Speaking for myself and some of the other people with whom I have talked, it didn’t work. Apparently you folks have shot yourself in the foot. You may want to regroup and review the ninth commandment in Exodus chapter 20, verse 16, at your next meeting.
I know that Sheriff (Jimmy) Ashe not only enforces the law, but he obeys the law. The Jackson County jail is run to the letter of the law, and no one who is incarcerated will be released unless it is so ordered by the court.
Unfortunately, illegal drugs are an ongoing problem in every county, but I believe Ashe and his officers have done an outstanding job of curtailing the drug trafficking in Jackson County. I base this on the almost daily news reports of drug-related arrests and the number of successful convictions over the past four years, which are a matter of record in the Clerk of Court’s office.
Also, Ashe has worked diligently from the beginning to ensure that people who are incarcerated in the Jackson County jail are provided with their rights, which includes family contact and legal counsel as stipulated by law. Ashe has also established a program whereby clergy from different faiths are available to every person who is in the Jackson County jail.
I commend Ashe on the many positive changes he has made in the Sheriff’s Office over the past four years and the various programs he has started and put in place. All of this is a matter of record.
Ashe has continued with a positive campaign throughout all of this and has been able to rise above the negative and unfounded accusations leveled against him. To me this shows great character. He remains focused on the issues affecting Jackson County and is an example to be followed. A good leader is one who leads by example and I don’t believe we could have a better example than Ashe.
Ronald Rhodes
Webster
(Editor’s Note: Former Sheriff Jim Cruzan has denied any connection to the fliers distributed last weekend and mentioned in the previous two letters.)
Another SMHS parent speaks out
To the Editor:
As a parent of two Smoky Mountain High School students, I feel outraged at many of David Snell’s April 6 comments. My children are being raised in a two-parent family. We’re involved with our children’s education, and we have stressed God, family, education and friends. I take my children to school with the expectation that they will show respect to teachers and administrators. Not only would I expect discipline from the school if they did otherwise, I would reinforce that discipline at home.
Similarly, I expect my children to receive respect from those same teachers and administrators. I have had countless students, my own included, ask me, “How do we respect them when they don’t respect us?” As a parent, it’s hard to give a good answer.
My children have been in local schools since kindergarten, and our elementary schools are some of the best around. While there, our children are loved and encouraged to achieve. Teachers take time to go that extra mile. I have personally thanked some of them for the love, support and positive role models they have been for my children.
When we send our children to high school, life takes a drastic turn for the worse. My children have both heard a teacher tell her class on the first day that 50 percent will fail. They have both had another teacher tell a class that if any of them live in trailers, their parents don’t love them and they’re trash. One of my children’s teachers taught domestic violence issues for a whole semester, yet tested them on English that she never bothered to teach. Would you like to hazard a guess to the result, Mr. Snell?
We have very little teacher accountability at our high school. The incidents listed above only scratch the surface. Yet teachers are allowed to continue unchecked and unchallenged by anyone in authority. Our children are expected to have every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed by people who aren’t willing to do the same. I’ve always believed that you lead by example; it seems that our children are being taught instead by “Do as I say, not as I do.”
The reasons cited by both you and (Superintendent Sue) Nations do exist in our community. However, are we supposed to be so gullible to believe they don’t exist in surrounding communities, too? How is it that, in spite of these conditions, the drop-out rate there is going down?
It’s time to stop throwing up smoke screens and look at the true problem. There’s an old saying that a few bad apples can spoil the whole bunch. That holds true for teachers and administrators as well as for students.
It’s not only the drop-out rate that concerns me. There’s also the number of students who graduate from elementary school but never attend SMHS. I know several parents who have chosen to send their children to private schools or to home-school them. I know others who have sent their children to live with relatives to avoid dealing with the situations and attitudes that are prevalant at SMHS.
I think it’s interesting that the only people speaking out in support of the high school seem to be people who work for the system. It’s hard for anyone to admit that they’re part of a failing system, but that’s exactly what’s going on at SMHS.
Many parents are afraid to speak out about how we feel. We fear retaliation against our children. It’s hard when the people we’re speaking out against hold our children’s grades in their hands and have the power to create negative results for our children’s futures. We need to stop and take a look at what these attitudes and situations are doing to our children today. By keeping silent, aren’t we actually allowing these conditions to continue and thrive? We are the people who, by action or inaction, can make things better for our children. It’s time for us parents to stand up and, as (John) Davis said in his March 30 letter, not request but demand better for our children.
It’s time to quit allowing those in charge to insult our intelligence with their lame excuses. The only way is for us to break our silence, put our fears aside and start standing up.
Let’s let educators and administrators know how we feel. This issue is too important to our children’s future to let it be swept under the rug.
Sandra Wood
Cullowhee
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