Commission votes 3-2 against vote on Cashiers incorporation

By Lisa Majors-Duff

By a vote of 3-2, Jackson County commissioners Tuesday rejected a resolution calling for the people of Cashiers to have the right to vote on incorporating their community.

Chairman Stacy Buchanan and Cashiers representative Eddie Madden voted in favor of the measure, while Commissioners Roberta Crawford, Joe Cowan and Brian McMahan voted "no."

"What message will this send to Rep. (Phil) Haire," incorporation supporter Paige Bernstein asked following the vote. Without the support of the home representative, a local bill has little chance of approval, he said.

According to resolution discussions during last week's commission meeting, state Rep. Phil Haire (D-Jackson) of Sylva had requested board members take a stand on the incorporation issue and forward the results to the General Assembly. The first resolution considered by the board simply stated that as a constitutional right, the people affected by the proposed Cashiers incorporation should be given the right to vote on the issue.

But that document was superseded by a second resolution, which put stipulations on board approval of the right to vote. The requirements placed on the future elected leaders of Cashiers were that they provide police and fire protection, garbage collection and zoning, and that they not employ an extra-territorial jurisdiction, which places restrictions on bordering property owners without giving them a right to vote in town electi

ons. "This issue seems to have caused a lot of discussion in our community," Madden said. "It seems the best course of action is to allow the vote to happen."

Picking up on a statement Cowan made last week, Chairman Buchanan said, "This is a Cashiers issue. I feel it should be addressed by the folks in Cashiers."

While neither Crawford, Cowan nor McMahan denied that the people of Cashiers should be allowed to vote, each said it was wrong of Haire to place the burden of deciding the issue with the county commission.

"This got dumped in our laps because the people who should be acting on it are not," Cowan said. "The people of Cashiers have the right to vote on this and the procedure for doing that is to contact their (state) representative and ask for the right. Nowhere in the law has the board of commissioners been given the power to allow this vote."

"I can see valid arguments both ways," McMahan said, "but I think our representatives have put us in a very precarious position. I don't want to get into the habit of having our representatives come to us when they get into a bind."

"The only way these people are going to have the right to vote is from their representatives in Raleigh," Crawford said.

After the vote, Cashiers resident Bob Dews said it was interesting that the commissioners who voted against the resolution used Haire as an excuse.

"In my opinion that's a cop out," Dews said. "Rep. Haire has a lot on his plate, and the county commissioners are supposed to have a better feel for the pulse of the community.

"The commissioners have denied my right to have this come to a vote," he continued. "They are nothing more than a stumbling block."

"The resolution says we should have the right to vote, and they voted no to that," Bernstein said. "It's disappointing."

As board members rose to leave the meeting, they carried flags distributed to mark the deployment of the 210th MP Co.

"There they go waving an American flag," incorporation supporter and Cashiers attorney Bill Coward said as Commissioners Crawford and McMahan approached. "How ironic is that."

Back to Archive: 03/20/03.