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DWA narrowly survives contentious hearing
Downtown Waynesville Association narrowly survives contentious hearing
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR
The Downtown Waynesville Association has been in the fight of its 36-year political life since Waynesville aldermen refused to renew the group’s contract back in June, but after a highly unusual special called meeting on Aug. 12 where the DWA narrowly avoided the death penalty, aldermen have decided to give the beleaguered organization yet another chance, putting the group on life support for 90 days.
Founded in 1985, the Downtown Waynesville Association administers the Town of Waynesville’s Municipal Service District (MSD) and directs revitalization activities. It’s funded largely through an additional property tax levied on properties in the district.
The DWA’s longtime executive director, Buffy Phillips, had recently come under scrutiny for a litany of management, performance and transparency concerns and barely survived an attempt to remove her from the position in 2018.
With the expiration of the DWA’s five-year contract imminent, Waynesville aldermen held a public comment session on April 27 to gather community input regarding the organization’s performance.
It was there that a group of concerned business owners said it would compete with the DWA through the RFP process for the right to manage the MSD. That group later disappeared, but the problems raised by the group didn’t, so Alderman Anthony Sutton requested five years’ worth of the group’s public records — financial statements, meeting notes and other documents that state law requires public bodies to retain.
Sutton’s request largely mirrors a public records request made by The Smoky Mountain News more than a month prior. Then, as now, SMN’s request has gone unfulfilled.
That meeting also revealed confusion as to whether or not the executive director had announced her retirement; a story published in The Mountaineer on March 27 said Phillips had made the announcement at the DWA’s most recent meeting.
Phillips didn’t return multiple calls from SMN seeking confirmation, and when board members Leigh Forrester, Olivia Carver and chair Carolyn Brunk were reached, they refused to comment on Phillips’ status.
In June, aldermen revealed that the DWA was the only group to submit a proposal to manage the MSD, but the proposal was riddled with incomplete sentences as well as inaccurate and outdated information, including listing a board member who was deceased, an elected official who had been voted out of office more than 18 months prior, and letters of support from 2016.
The proposal did, however, include Phillips’ resignation letter.
Sutton made clear that the proposal was insufficient when he addressed the board that night.
“I have lots of questions about the proposal, also the fact that I still haven’t received all the minutes that were requested,” Sutton said. “I would propose that we do a joint meeting of the entire board of aldermen and [DWA] officers and that we prepare questions and have them readily available for the executive staff to answer at the time of the meeting, because right now I do not feel comfortable proceeding with negotiations with them, as is.”
That’s what brought the board of aldermen together with some of the DWA’s board on Wednesday, Aug. 12, at the Waynesville Recreation Center, where Sutton started out with a scathing review of the documents he had been able to obtain from the DWA.
Grasping a thick binder with dozens of colorful post-it notes hanging off its edges, Sutton launched into a scathing summary of what he’d found — or rather, not found — within it.
He began by asking the most basic questions of the board. Who’s on the board? How many are on the board? How often do you meet? What’s your quorum?
Brunk, owner of the Oak Park Inn and chair of the DWA’s executive board, replied with a series of conflicting answers and a general lack of knowledge over who, exactly, was or is on the group’s board.
Sutton asked when the last time the board met, because he hadn’t received meeting minutes since at least April. He also asked about the search committee responsible for hiring the new executive director, and the number of people the group had interviewed. First, the answer was zero, then it was one, then, two. Brunk also said that she’d received three resumes in the last week, but hadn’t yet interviewed them.
“Until we have a contract it’s really hard to bring someone in,” Brunk said, noting that without assurance the group would even be in existence in the coming months, some candidates were reticent to apply. Sutton then directed his attention to the meeting minutes in his binder, which he said were “rife with inaccuracies,” noting issues that were raised in meetings that were never followed up on (including an executive director succession plan), minutes from meetings approved by board members who weren’t present at the meeting for which minutes were being approved, and a missing financial audit for 2019 that wasn’t completed until 2020.
“It’s been the last year-and-a-half to two years that things have been slipping,” Brunk told Sutton. Brunk’s been on the board for years, and became chair last year.
Brunk said specifically in response to document requests made by The Smoky Mountain News that she went into the DWA’s office, expecting to find the records readily at hand, and discovered they weren’t there.
The DWA is a public body subject to the same public records and open meetings laws as municipal governing boards, says Frayda Bluestein, the David M. Lawrence Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Government at the School of Government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
In North Carolina, the remedy for a public records request that isn’t fulfilled is in a court of law, and guidance provided by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources says that records of the sort that have been requested by Sutton and SMN — meeting minutes, agenda packets and the like — are to be retained permanently by the custodial organization.
Statutes also provide criminal penalties for the destruction of records, which could mean trouble for the DWA if they’re not available for production. Board members can also be held personally liable.
“As a board you have a responsibility to know what is going on in your organization and get that info to us regularly,” Sutton told Brunk.
Reading from North Carolina General Statutes, Sutton said that the DWA has to account, very specifically, for how it spends its money, and that he’d seen no accounting whatsoever — another violation of state statute.
Although many members professed a
Waynesville Town Manager Rob Hites (center) joins Waynesville aldermen at an Aug. 10 meeting. Cory Vaillancourt photo
deep admiration for Phillips personally and professionally, they didn’t hesitate to throw her under the bus for nearly every concern raised by Sutton.
“We didn’t know that 90 percent of what Buffy was doing was in her head and not on paper and not in a file,” said Brunk, who with the DWA board is charged with oversight of the DWA’s executive director, administration and activities.
Citing “institutional issues that cannot be resolved within the [existing] board,” Sutton then made a motion to bring the MSD under town control, which would leave the DWA as an organization without a mission and, more importantly, without funding.
Under Sutton’s proposal, the MSD would be administered by a town-appointed board like the cemetery committee. It would run the MSD’s Main Street program and benefit from the town’s professional recordkeeping services and document preservation protocols. The executive director would be a town employee, and a cost savings would likely be realized due to economies of scale in health insurance coverage and payroll operations.
Mayor Pro Tem Julia Boyd Freeman seconded Sutton’s motion, opening up the issue for board discussion that included an especially lenient back-and-forth Q & A session with DWA members.
“It makes a lot of sense,” said Morgan Beryl, the new executive director of the Haywood County Arts Council who serves as an institutional representative on the DWA board. “I mean, from a governmental streamlined perspective of sharing resources, using the same systems, if this is one of your most important assets, your Main Street, I think it makes sense for you all to have a pretty large amount of oversight on what’s happening in that arena, and I think as long as the Main Street program is protected and administrated appropriately, I think that’s the most important thing for Waynesville. That’s my personal opinion.”
Alderman Jon Feichter did not agree, calling it a “fairly monumental step” to assume control of the MSD from the DWA and citing his family’s long history of involvement with the group even as he acknowledged the relative disarray within the organization.
“Obviously there is a huge problem and has been a huge problem for quite some time,” Feichter said.
Some of the DWA’s failures are the responsibility of the board of aldermen, according to Feichter, who with Freeman and Mayor Gary Caldwell has served on the board for five years or longer — in some cases, much longer.
Feichter said he opposed Sutton’s motion and asked if the DWA could be given more time to straighten out its act.
“Taking the step of bringing this in-house is not warranted at this point in time,” Feichter said. “I would prefer us to enable the reconstituted DWA to move forward with the changes and a new director. And let’s see where we are a year from now, holding out the notion that we can always bring it inhouse if we need to.”
Former longtime Alderman LeRoy Roberson, who was voted out in 2019, was also in attendance, agreed with Feichter, and asked for two more years.
“But it’s been five years of disfunction,” Sutton said.
When it came time for Mayor Caldwell to speak, it appeared as though Sutton might have a majority for his motion, saying that the organization had been “going downhill for quite some time,” and reflecting on the DWA’s most recent street festival.
“I came out Friday night to see how that concert [interim executive director] Beth [Gilmore] was putting on. She done a great job, but she done a great job by herself,” Caldwell said. “There was nobody helping her. She was there alone and her husband [Assistant Chief of Police Brandon Gilmore] was out putting up cones and stuff and our guys, the Town of Waynesville crew, helped set all this up, so it makes sense that it be brought in house – because we do it anyway.”
Alderman Chuck Dickson was noncommittal and said he wasn’t quite ready to vote for Sutton’s motion that night, but that he might be convinced to do so. Freeman said she hadn’t gotten the answers she’d hoped to receive.
After another appeal from Feichter and several minutes of DWA members begging for a reprieve, Freeman rescinded her second on Sutton’s motion and proposed a 90-day window for the DWA to correct its inadequacies, including planning for an executive director and completing a strategic plan.
Freeman also expressed dismay that most of the board, including Vice Chair Jonathan Key, weren’t even present at the all-important meeting.
Brunk then offered to resign from the board if her presence could be seen as an obstacle to preserving the DWA’s legacy.
Caldwell subsequently appointed Sutton to the DWA’s board, replacing former Mayor Gavin Brown, who was still listed as the Town of Waynesville’s institutional member even though he lost the November 2019 General Election to Caldwell and has since left town.
Freeman and other aldermen then agreed to loosen up the 90-day “probation” window, saying it wasn’t meant to be a hard and fast deadline, but went on to demand that the DWA report to the board of aldermen monthly for the immediate future.
Sutton’s motion to bring the MSD under town control then died without the requisite second.
— Alderman Jon Feichter JustDoOils.com
Haywood Square | 288 N. Haywood St. | Waynesville
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Shining Rock begins school year in new, permanent home
BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER
The quiet calm of a bright summer morning dissipates like dew off the freshly manicured lawn upon entering Shining Rock Classical Academy. Inside, the back-toschool energy is palpable.
At the front office, one student is getting checked out, another is waiting for the receptionist to walk him back to a classroom, and before they can leave a tiny, pigtailed girl wanders around the corner asking the woman behind the front desk if she is in the right place.
Something about the matching uniforms make all these children look like they are ready for more than just school. In their khaki pants and zip up hoodies over polos, they almost look like they are ready for adventure, an appropriate look for a school focused on experiential learning.
Shining Rock Classical Academy is experiencing more than its normal share of back-toschool excitement this year as the 2021-22 school year will be the first spent in its brandnew building off Russ Avenue.
After a little over a year at the Wilson and Shackford buildings on the grounds of Lake Junaluska, the public charter school secured the temporary campus at 1023 Dellwood Road. In 2020, the Shining Rock Board of Directors agreed to move forward with a permanent location. The Russ Avenue property was secured, and Shining Rock entered a partnership with BC Construction Group and Premier Financial to begin construction of the new school.
Groundbreaking took place last October, which began the 10-month process to get students in the school doors this August.
“All along for Shining Rock, what we wanted to try and do was to have a permanent facility. We’ve always had a really good working relationship with the lake, with the Dellwood Property, but that was a lease,” said Head of School Josh Morgan. “This was an opportunity for us to have a permanent home and a permanent facility.”
In addition to a full-size gymnasium, the school building hosts grades K-9. Currently, the school has four kindergarten classes, three classes in each grade first through seventh and two classes each in eighth and ninth grade. The former Dellwood location is being used for the Shining Rock Classical Academy Pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds.
“We saw a real need for Pre-K programs in the community and we are excited to help fill that need with our Pre-K program,” said Morgan.
The bottom floor of the new school building is home to elementary grades, and as he passes each classroom, Morgan is greeted with excited waves from the students within. In one kindergarten classroom, students are lined up at the door, most of them sporting some sort of camouflage printed accessory.
“They’re undergoing ABC boot camp. One letter each day for 26 days,” said Morgan.
Upstairs are middle school and early high school grades. Though the school currently only serves students through ninth grade, the plan is to add one more grade level each year as those ninth graders move through their high school career. According to Morgan, plans are already in the works for a second wing of the new building, as the school continues to add more students.
The beauty of the property is especially noticeable on the second floor of the building. Every classroom seems to boast a picturesque view of smoky, green mountains out its several windows. The natural light is abundant, and Morgan is excited to demonstrate one of his favorite features.
Special classes, like art, have their own, permanent rooms in the new building. Previously those teachers took materials with them and went into the classroom of each group of students they were teaching. In the new building the art room is complete with tables and materials. Morgan pops his head into the room, already lit almost completely with natural light and demonstrates the dimmable lights.
“That’s one of my favorite parts. Not only does it allow us to conserve some energy, but it also allows us to use natural light and not be bombarded by fluorescents all the time,” he said.
MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES
Shining Rock Classical Academy has one full-time counselor, as well as one full-time nurse that both assist in maintaining students’ mental health.
Morgan says the school takes a serious approach to all-around health, of which mental health is an important part. Students get to move around a lot throughout the day, take breaks for snacks, and receive at least some of their learning outside each day.
In addition to the full-time school counselor, the school partners with several mental health resources in the county to ensure Shining Rock students get the type of help they need, when they need it.
As Morgan walks back down the uppergrades hallway, we pass a student standing alone outside a classroom door.
“Everything OK?” Morgan asks.
“Yes, I’m just cooling off,” the student replies in a tone that suggests Morgan knows exactly what he means.
“Good job, use your strategies,” Morgan says.
Further down the hall Morgan remarks that this is an example of what he means when he talks about mental health and all-around health. Students should be empowered to use tools they have, and know work for them, to keep their mind and body healthy.
COVID-19
Though the total number of students attending Shining Rock Classical Academy this year does not reach the full capacity, over 600 students, for the new building, Shining Rock currently occupies every classroom, partly in an effort to help spread students out during this time when social distancing is necessary. Social distancing is just one way the school aims to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The school has also decided to mandate masks, at least for now, for students, staff and visitors to the building.
According to Morgan, the school decided to mandate masks because local, state and national health officials were all recommending public schools do so.
“We wanted to make this school year as normal as possible,” said Morgan. “By wearing masks, encouraging outdoor education whenever possible and spreading kids out, we will be able to have a less disruptive school year. Less cases and less quarantining.”
According to Morgan, eight days in the school has already had more COVID-19 cases this year than all of last year. There have been 11 COVID-19 cases among students and staff, resulting in 67 individuals in quarantine protocol as of Aug. 16.
“If the school year had been starting up at the beginning of July, we probably wouldn’t have been wearing masks,” said Morgan.
But, cases in the community have risen significantly since July with Haywood County Health and Human Services reporting 73 daily cases, and 206 cases in the last seven days.
Because the guidelines laid out in the StrongSchoolNC Public Health Toolkit worked so well for the school last year, Shining Rock Classical Academy has decided to follow its guidelines again for the 2021-22 school year. The decision was made in conjunction with local health officials.
BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER
As COVID-19 cases rise, in large part due to the spread of the new Delta variant, school boards across the state are opty r g ing to mandate masks for students and staff. On July 21, Gov. Roy Cooper issued guidance for K-12 public schools in North Carolina, recommending universal masking for all students, staff and visitors. The recommendations leave the decision to many f date masks up to local school boards. As of Aug. 17, over half of North Carolina’s 115 school districts have mask mandates in place, according to the N.C.
School Board Association. The remaining districts are leaving the decision up to parents.
In The Smoky Mountain News coverage area, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties have all decided to mandate masks in schools, while Haywood County remains the sole school board to keep masks an option for individual families.
l The Haywood County School Board originally voted to make masks optional on July 27. At that meeting, local health officials recommended the board begin the year with a mask mandate according to the guidelines laid out by North Carolina Health and Human Services, or devise standards of transmission and infection rates that would determine the need for temporary mask mandates in the future. Fourteen parents spoke in favor of optional masks, while two pleaded with the board to require masks. One of those two parents advocating for a mask mandate, Natasha Bright, returned on Aug. 9 and presented a petition to the board asking to start the school year with universal masking. At the time of the Aug. 9 meeting the petition had more than 600 signatories.
On Aug. 13, the school board held an emergency school board meeting to discuss the issue again. By that time, the petition to start the year with universal masking had over 800 signatures. At the meeting the school board issued a strong statement asking students to wear masks while indoors but did not enact a mask mandate.
“While masking is still a choice, the Haywood County Schools Board of Education, Haywood County Health and Human Services and Haywood County Schools administration strongly recommend the use of masks in indoor settings at this time,” said Chairman Chuck Francis during the meeting. “Masking is also requested at outdoor events if social distancing is not possible.”
According to the statement, since the board’s action on July 27, COVID-19 cases have significantly increased with several clusters developing in the county. One cluster was connected to the school system’s maintenance department.
“There have been several conversations between Board of Education members, Haywood County Schools Administration and Haywood County Health and Human Services Officials,” said Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte. “We want to have in-person learning this year. In-person learning is clearly the best learning situation for most students. We are concerned the increasing and rapid spread of COVID-19 coupled with low mask wearing rates could result in uncontrolled spread at school, numerous quarantines and an inability to have in-person school.”
While masking is still a choice, the Haywood County Schools Board of Education, Haywood County Health and Human Services and Haywood County Schools’ administration strongly recommend the use of masks in indoor school settings at this time. The board of education reserves the right to make masking mandatory if necessary.
Shining Rock Classical Academy, the only charter school in Haywood County, decided to follow guidance from the governor, as well as state and local health officials and mandate masks for all students, staff and visitors in its school.
“We wanted to make this school year as normal as possible,” said SRCA Head of School Josh Morgan. “By wearing masks, encouraging outdoor education whenever possible and spreading kids out, we will be able to have a less disruptive school year. Less cases and less quarantining.”
According to Morgan, eight days into the year the school has already had more COVID19 cases this year than all of last year. There have been 11 COVID-19 cases among students and staff, resulting in 67 individuals in quarantine protocol as of Aug. 16.
MACON
Macon County Schools had originally planned to start the year without a mask mandate. At the July 22 meeting, Superintendent Dr. Chris Baldwin said that because mask mandates would be a local decision as of July 30, he had been in regular conversation with Macon County Health Director Kathy McGaha.
As of July 22, based on the level of COVID-19 transmission in Macon County, McGaha did not recommend starting the school year off requiring face coverings. However, Baldwin said that they would continue to monitor COVID transmission rates in the community and would discuss parameters and thresholds regarding what level of transmission within the community and schools would require the need for temporary face covering requirements.
On Aug. 16, due to rising levels of transmission within the community, and after lengthy discussion, the Macon County School Board voted 3-2 to require masks indoors for students and staff. Board members Melissa Evans and Tommy Cabe voted against the mask mandate.
Masks are now required inside school facilities and school transportation. Masks will not be required outside, or during vigorous physical activity. The mask mandate will be re-evaluated weekly.
Baldwin expressed concern about the ability to keep schools open if masks were optional due to quarantine requirements.
At the Aug. 16 meeting, McGaha recommended starting the year with a mask mandate due to rising cases and higher transmission rates in the county. McGaha noted that anyone within 6 feet of a positive COVID patient for 15 minutes or longer is considered a close contact. If both parties are masked, asymptomatic close contacts do not have to quarantine. If one or both parties are unmasked the close contact has to quarantine regardless of symptoms.
Because the meeting was virtual, parents and community members had their remarks read aloud by the board attorney during a public comment session that lasted over an hour. In addition to parents and community members, Congressman Madison Cawthorn, R-NC, addressed the board virtually to implore the board to make masks optional.
“I know that you are here to reconsider instituting a mask mandate on the school and the children throughout this next school year. And I understand the main reason you’re probably doing that is because we had unelected bureaucrats who serve at the favor of our North Carolina’s governor, who are trying to force their will upon you, they’re trying to make your life difficult by saying that, ‘oh, if just one student is found to have COVID-19, then we’re going to have force that entire class to go into quarantine.’ I understand that sounds difficult, but my friends, the superintendent of the schools in your county works for you, they don’t work for the governor. They do not work for the bureaucrats in Raleigh. And so I ask, please stand up and do the hard thing,” he said.
Cawthorn said that while the decision to make masks optional may be unpopular, and the board may receive some backlash, “the people at Raleigh can’t arrest all of us. They can’t come shut all of our schools down.” However, according to the governor’s orders, the decision to require masks is a local decision, not one the board could face legal trouble for.
He also spoke out against mask mandates at school board meetings in Buncombe County and Transylvania County this month. Buncombe County School Board voted to require masks, but Transylvania decided to keep masks optional.
SWAIN
Swain County Schools will start the year with a mask mandate, reversing a previous decision to make masks optional for the 2021-22 school year.
At the July 29 Swain County School Board meeting, the board had decided to make masks optional for all students, staff and visitors. In making this decision, the board made it clear that the decision was based on current conditions and was subject to change if COVID-19 transmission rates grew to dangerous levels in the community.
According to Swain County Public Health Director Alison Cochran, that time has come.
Cochran presented the latest COVID-19 information to the school board and the board questioned Cochran about social distancing and quarantine requirements for students and staff when masks are required versus when they are not.
The big takeaway was that when students are consistently masked, symptom-free students are not required to quarantine after having close contact with a COVID-positive peer. When masks are optional, students that have been within six feet of a COVIDpositive peer would have to quarantine for the appropriate amount of time, or until they receive a negative COVID-19 regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
When the board asked Cochran what her level of concern was, she said that because cases are sharply increasing and students and teachers are about to return to classrooms where they are in close contact, indoors there is reason for concern. Cochran said that all the public health directors she had spoken with were recommending their school board follow CDC and state guidelines.
The board took Cochran’s advice. Board member Kimberly Carpenter made a motion to start the school year requiring masks indoors for all students, staff and visitors. The motion passed unanimously.
