Letters to the editor: 06/01/00

Do unto others

To the Editor:

Recently while driving along a country road in the Webster area with my two daughters, I had a flat tire and pulled over in a fairly large gravel area in front of a white house.

Luckily, I had my cell phone with me and called a friend for help. Unfortunately, my friend had trouble following my directions couldn't find me. So I waited in the hot sun on the side of the road with my two girls, and the youngest one has a heart condition.

Meanwhile the lady who lives in the white house came home and took her two children out of her van, preparing to go into her house. I told her I had a flat and had called for help. She said OK and went inside.

My friend still hadn't been able to find me an hour later, and no one who passed by offered to stop and help. I didn't know what I was going to do. My little girl needed to go to the bathroom and we were very hot and tired.

I finally called the Sheriff's Department and told them of my situation. They dispatched the Highway Patrol to our aid. My plan was to have the officer take us home and go back in a little while to get the car when I could catch up with my friend.

I knocked on the door of the white house and told the lady my situation. She informed me that her husband was coming home soon and would need a place to park. This parking area was plenty large enough to park four or five cars, I thought, and the only two cars there were hers and mine.

What ever happened to southern hospitality? I grew up in Franklin and moved to Cullowhee last November. I haven't gotten to know a lot of people yet, but if a perfect stranger was stranded in my driveway on a hot day I would do anything I could to help. I would at the very least offer them something cool to drink and a shady place to wait for help.

I've always heard what goes around, comes around. I hope and pray that this lady never finds herself stranded on the side of the road with HER two children. But if she does, I hope someone has a heart warm enough to show her what Jesus meant when He said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Bonnie Manogue

Cullowhee

Forest Hills incorporation burdens taxpayers

To the Editor:

Forest Hills does not deserve to be a corporate village. They waste tax money needed for schools in North Carolina. The budget for operating Forest Hills shows they get a portion of the sales tax collected by the state. This includes sales tax from merchants in Sylva, including Wal-Mart.

The Powell law distributes money collected as taxes from the entire state to these types of corporate villages not wishing to pay their own way. Why should the people of North Carolina be taxed to support the privately built streets of Forest Hills? These streets were probably not built to state specifications and will require more than their share of maintenance during the lifetime of the village. No corporate village or town should be helped to maintain their artificial standard of living at the remaining taxpayers' expense. The Powell law should be repealed.

The distribution of all state funds should be ceased to all villages or towns who do not give police, fire, water and other needed public protection as a town is expected to do. There is no public need for a corporate village in Jackson County other than we have at this time. I even question the need for corporation in Dillsboro, provided we could improve on the Sylva government operation.

I call on our elected representatives to act accordingly and forget their promises to the people who have given the elected lawyers retainer fees to represent them instead of representing us, the taxpaying public.

Remember, each time you buy things in Sylva you are supporting Forest Hills with the tax collected from your pocket.

Thank you,

Frank Young

Cullowhee

A disappearing way of life

To the Editor:

Folks should stop for a moment and look around. If you look carefully, you will see something you may not like, the passing of a culture and a way of life.

Do you remember when community meant church, school, neighbors? That is changing. Today community almost always means government.

There was a time when values were an indication of character not a description of property. There was a time when we valued a neighbor based on the type of person he was, not on whether the condition of his house had an effect on our net worth.

We have come to believe that we can legislate every sort of behavior, every sort of transaction. The more prevalent this belief, the more isolated we become. We have come to believe that property value is a better measure than human value.

This country was founded first and foremost on the sanctity of individual rights. The Declaration of Independence asserts our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It further tells us that governments are instituted to secure these rights. Government derives its power from the consent of the governed, not as some would have us believe today, the other way around.

Those elected to serve the people in government ought to be humbled by their position. Too often though, they mistake vision for what is nothing more than arrogance. While we may be tempted to think we know what's best for all, most of us are smart enough to know we don't.

More government does not necessarily make better government. Oft times government shows its wisdom more by how it restrains itself rather than in its pursuit of grandiose plans. Government must use the power it has been granted by the people wisely. Government should build consensus first. Government must recognize its role as a servant and not a master.

Land use planning and zoning may have high-minded intentions. But we must be very careful before we sacrifice individual rights at the altar of community planning. In practice this type of planning and regulation often are nothing more than one group of folks saying "not in my backyard." In practice this is an exercise of power - put the ugly stuff in someone else's neighborhood; preferably someone with less say and less power.

There are those who say that this type of planning increases property values. But what good is increased property value to someone who has no intention of selling? If my desire is to stay on my land, to pass it down to my children, to maintain my community, my lifestyle and my culture, then property value has a whole different meaning than simply dollar signs.

In many cases increased property values mean nothing more than increased taxes, increased land speculation and increased change. The tool that is championed as bringing stability actually destabilizes communities.

Over the past year we have seen several instances where local governments have lost perspective. Our county government has committed us to a very ambitious building plan that will surely result in increased taxes particularly in a year of reassessment. I wonder, what good will all these buildings be if the very folks they were built for can no longer afford to live here? Will these efforts to increase our quality of life have the opposite effect when our young people cannot afford to build and our old people are pushed off their land because of increasing taxes?

The town of Sylva spent substantial amounts of taxpayer money to uphold a sign ordinance that most folks still can't understand. A business owner who pays taxes and wages to people who pay taxes put up a sign to promote his business. His sign was well constructed and maintained, it did not promote a profane or offensive message, and, if truth be told, it was no larger than several hundred other signs throughout the community. And yet the town of Sylva pursued this in court for several months and at great expense to its taxpayers, not to mention a man whose business benefits the town.

The Village of Forest Hills, a subdivision of 220 homes that provides no municipal services, has the temerity to even consider reaching out and extending control over an area six times as large. It seeks to use a state law to impose jurisdiction over its neighbors, a law that permits this jurisdiction without also extending the right to vote.

In all three cases ask yourself - was this vision or nothing more than arrogance? Shouldn't the first rule of government be that it stand the test of common sense? The citizens of Speedwell and Long Branch communities believe that government's powers arise from the consent of the governed. We do not consent to surrender our property rights to Forest Hills. We believe ETJ is a bad law. Therefore we will lobby the General Assembly for changes to this law. We also have established a legal defense fund. If we must, we will defend our rights in court.

We believe that a way of life is being lost in this county. We believe that a sense of community and a sense of neighborhood is being swallowed up by a desire to regulate and control. Some of us aren't quite ready to surrender just yet.

Mark Jamison

Cullowhee

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