Judge again rules county violated Open Meetings Law - A third Superior Court judge ruled last week that county elected leaders violated the state’s Open Meetings Law in January 2005. Though the order has not been signed, visiting Judge Russell Lanier of Duplin County, has determined Jackson County’s commissioners broke the law when they removed then-Airport Authority Chairman Tom McClure from his post on Jan. 12, 2005, and ordered the county to pay the plaintiffs’ legal...

SMHS grad assists with investigation into hiker’s murder - Professors and students – including 2003 Smoky Mountain High School graduate Patrick Brady of Sylva – from Western Carolina University’s forensic anthropology program assisted law enforcement agencies in their search for clues near Standing Indian where the body...

Top musicians - Smoky Mountain High School student Emily Gonzalez concentrates on her oboe playing during a rehearsal session at the 2008 Western Regional All-District Band Festival, held Feb. 8-9 at Western Carolina University. More than 350 of the region’s best middle and high school musicians attended the festival to rehearse with guest clinicians and take part in a gala public performance at WCU’s Fine and...

County, towns to discuss EDC by-laws - County leaders have set a meeting with officials from each municipality next Monday (Feb. 18) to discuss proposed changes to the Economic Development Commission’s by-laws. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the commissioners’ boardroom at the Justice Center. Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan announced the meeting during a work session Monday night (Feb. 11). He said the towns wanted to discuss options for the by-laws presented by both...

Property revaluation likely to reveal skyrocketing land values - County land values are expected to rise by some 67 percent with this year’s looming property revaluation. That news came Monday night (Feb. 11) during a work session regarding Jackson County’s 2008-09 fiscal year budget. County Manager Ken Westmoreland said that, while the numbers are not official, revaluation will show all of the parcels in Jackson County having a combined value of slightly more than $10 billion. Finance Officer Darlene Fox said that would be around $4 billion more than...

Hackers breach auxiliary server at WCU, possibly access 550 records - Computer hackers possibly learned the names and social security numbers of 550 alumni by gaining access to a single server at Western Carolina University last week. According to WCU Chief Information Officer Bill Stahl, the breached server is managed by the College of Business and was not part of WCU’s main network that contains financial and student information. The server did contain a list of some 550...

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