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'Pay up or don't vote' issue resurfaces

By Rose Hooper
Deja vu. "Seems like we just went through this last year," said the Village of Forest Hills Mayor Irene Hooper.

Monday night Hooper told her board that a move was underfoot in Dillsboro to deny the village voting rights on the Economic Development Commission of Jackson County.

Meeting just two hours before the village, the Dillsboro town board agreed to send a letter to the EDC requesting that if municipalities "did not pay their fair share, they should not be allowed to vote." Dillsboro EDC representative Herb Nolan initiated the letter, which maintained that neither Forest Hills nor Webster was "meeting their financial obligation."

The EDC requests the county and each municipality contribute yearly based on a $16.50 per capita formula.

"Based on Dillsboro's population, we pay $2,800," said Nolan. "If we are paying our fair share, the other municipalities should pay theirs."

At the last EDC meeting Webster's treasurer Billy Bryson presented the economic development agency with a check for $500. Forest Hills has allocated the same amount.

In its projected revenue budget for fiscal year 2000-01, EDC lists the following income: Jackson County, $150,000; Sylva, $38,000; Dillsboro, $2,000; Webster, $500; Village of Forest Hills, $500.

"The EDC requested we contribute $500 and we did," said Webster Mayor Steve Gray. "I later received a notice from the EDC, well after our fiscal budget was in place this year, informing us that, based on per capita, our amount should be $5,000."

Forest Hills, which received a similar notice, has a general operating revenue is $27,600.

"We're a new village and we haven't been operating nearly as long as Dillsboro, plus they have the revenue base that we don't," said Hooper.

Webster's budget this fiscal year is $12,755. "We support the EDC," said Gray.

"We just can't afford to give them $5,000," Hooper agreed.

The joint resolution signed between the EDC and the municipalities states that participating governmental units agree to pay their fair share "in so far as their fiscal budgets allow."

For Dillsboro's suggestion that Webster and Forest Hills be denied voting rights would require agreement of all the municipalities to amend the resolution.

In April of last year, Nolan raised the same concern with the EDC that each municipality should "pay up or not vote." Last year, the EDC did not follow his suggestion.

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