Hot topics: Observations of May 6, 2025 Watauga County Commission Meeting
Public Comments (Round One)
The first speaker owns a five acre property where a 750 bedroom building is underway, and she believes there is a need for a rural buffer. While she recognizes the contribution of students to our county, development focused on students creates challenges for long-term residents. The rural roads cannot handle all the traffic due to these dense developments, she suggested.
Next, Donna Lisenby, a leader with Indivisible Watauga, thanked everyone for permission to use the parking lot for the April 5th Hands Off march. 1500 people showed up, and everyone was kept safe. “We are thankful that we were able to exercise our first amendment rights.” She then recalled how in 2012 Beech Mountain had proposed a water grab, and the commission supported the people "through bipartisanship and representation, and I thank you for that tradition," Lisenby said.
Next a landowner complained that a small subdivision proposed for his land was denied due to new rules regarding access roads and slopes, rules that he considered unreasonable for our mountain region. He said there's never been a public hearing on it, and he wants to hear from the commission.
Public Hearing Heats Up (Feedback on Fire Appendices)
 |
| screenshot from part of the fire appendices |
A special public hearing followed on a proposal to repeal a 2024 amendment referring to all the fire appendices. While I realized that nothing sounds less exciting than appendices, this turned out to be quite the hot topic. I scanned them, gaining the impression that eliminating the appendices could eliminate many fire safety codes. I confess I lean more strongly on the side of "fires are bad, so let's prevent them," then on the side of "developers need complete freedom," but I tried to keep an open mind.
The first speaker from Foscoe Fire Department indeed brought the fire, and it was one of those moments where I am grateful to attend because I learned so much about my home county. I wish you could have heard his entire speech. He began, "For background, you need to know that Foscoe is pretty much the king of development in the county." In his experience, building plans are proposed as if they comply with the codes, but then developed without them. He gave two examples of large developments, something like 430 condos, 100 homes, all on a single water line. He shared a colorful story of how his fire department tried to respond to a call and the homeowner was upset at how long it took them to get there, and he asked us to imagine driving a standard fire truck up these narrow winding roads and, not only that, trying to enter gated communities without an entry code. He concluded in a despairing tone, that no matter what building codes the Commission writes, the developers won’t follow them. Honestly, I don't think anyone could listen to his story and not be very concerned. Indeed, anyone buying properties here should be asking questions about road safety, fire safety, and flood risks.
The next speaker was a homeowner, who said he was there on behalf of homeowners who can't build due to the codes. He was concerned as a licensed attorney and landowner that some of this is what he would call the "unlawful taking of land." He said county officials have been reasonable, but he wants to be sure that fairness is written into the codes. Next came a surveyor who referred to a county decision from last July. He said it used to be easier to develop a small parcel with three lots, but the planning board is now requiring a county standard road and a 10% grade limit. He asked if this is state-mandated.
After these speakers, one of the commissioners moved to form a committee made up of key stakeholders, including both firefighters and developers, a way to address these competing concerns. This situation is why fair representation on our county commission and boards matters, as well as public input and inclusion in critical decisions.
While I won't mention that over 22,000 of us didn't get to vote on a commissioner last November, I will share a concern that too many legislators in Raleigh seem extremely comfortable interfering with county and city decisions, taking power away from the public and undermining local efforts that involve any kind of thoughtful, problem-solving processes. Long story short: Gerrymandering harms us all.
Short updates:
Watauga Medics is going to merge with a company called Priority On Demand, which may affect the county's comfort with their long term contract with Watauga Medics (who were praised during the meeting as having zero complaints from citizens). This was to be further discussed in closed session.
J.J. Brown with Appalachian State asked for a partial release from a deed of trust, which would help them on the former high school property on 105 that is becoming student housing to serve 850 upper class students. This request was approved.
Robert Marsh described HVAC improvement bids that were approved.
Costs for the Powder Horn site were approved.
A budget adjustment for furnishings for the new Valle Crucis school was approved.
During announcements, a commissioner commented on a meeting in New River, in which affected businesses should watch for activity notifications. They are trying to find a happy medium between protecting our rivers and hellbenders and allowing the Army Corps access to do their work.
Proposed state bills could affect county emergency management
So far this year, the commission has voted to express support or opposition to certain bills in the legislature, but this was the first time one of the county staff asked for them to consider making such resolutions, this time regarding bills that could affect our county's emergency management capabilities. Will Holt asked them to oppose HB 675 and HB 219 (which didn't make the crossover deadline), but were still worth watching because they could make it harder to hire first responders. He also asked the board to oppose language in SB 257 that would remove authority from the NC Emergency Management (NCEM). He stressed that NCEM provided critical support to our county during Helene, and these changes could affect our ability to respond in an emergency. SB 257 also required mandated fees for the radio system that would be counterproductive, and he asked that the County instead support HB 675 as a more appropriate way to fund these emergency radio systems (called VIPER). After some discussion, the board approved these resolutions.
Helene Recovery Progress Report
Holt then reported many of the debris requests are getting closed out. Despite frustrations with the delays, the contracted company SDR is still below estimated costs and has until September to get the work done. Work on the waterway was paused, and if I understood correctly, this is because FEMA hadn't released new guidance. He said that 1,010 people registered for personal property debris removal, and 874 lots to be inspected. They were able to get the word out through local stations and word of mouth, and they had more than double the number of people registered compared to other areas.
Old 421 is improving. FEMA has a landslide task force because it's expensive to address. Sometimes the repair is clear, a structure is damaged, and you can assess it, but something like a Christmas tree farm can be hard to assess. There are also upcoming changes in how much (and how) FEMA will pay.
The damage to the Blue Ridge Parkway is becoming an increasing challenge because the repairs have been so slow and so many parts remain closed, which greatly affects tourism in our area. One person stated that the Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the most visited national parks in the United States. The Parkway apparently cannot accept outside help, turning down, for example, an offer of service from the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
County Budget Proposal
Although not posted on the county website, they announced a budget session on May 8th and 9th. I was only able to observe a portion of this, which seemed to echo what I observed in the county retreat at the start of the year. During the portion I observed, they met with leaders of the Watauga County Schools to discuss budget challenges in a collaborative and congenial manner. They also announced that the budget would be available online and that a public hearing on this budget would be held at the next county commission meeting on May 20th.
Follow-up vote to approve continued spending for monitoring county clean-up
For those brave souls who follow my reports closely, you may recall that there was a flicker of contention last time over approving continued funding for the company in charge of county flood-related debris removal. They approved it in the end, but apparently in order to receive federal reimbursements for the work, we also have to pay for specialized monitoring of this work. (I assume the monitoring can only ensure the work is done, not that the costs are fair, which seemed to be the concern raised in the last commission meeting.) At any rate, this time I heard more statements of frustration with the company doing the clean-up work, which won all bids for clean-up across the region. The company apparently started strong but ran into problems, partly in terms of access to equipment and partly because they are accustomed to cleaning up after hurricanes on the coast, not mountains, which offer unusual challenges. In the end, though there is frustration at how long the clean-up is taking, the Commission had no choice but to approve this to follow through on the vote last time.
My ears pricked up when the manager said that the county has been able to pay for everything so far with expedited funding from FEMA, but they are on hold right now, waiting for a FEMA call to see if there are changes. As someone following national news, I found that terrifying because even though the current Republican President isn't legally allowed to unilaterally cut off FEMA and make the states pay for it, the current leadership in Congress hasn't (yet) exercised their constitutional rights in the face of the President's transgressions. Conscientious and thoughtful (and slow) reform of FEMA may be a worthy goal (frankly, I could never oppose thoughtful, deliberative reform even of programs near and dear to my heart), but careless destruction of federal programs and systems is not reform. It's not just FEMA funding, but across the country, in the name of supposedly saving money, billions in investments are burnt to ashes because they're stopping the job halfway.
Votes on board appointments (and a question of ethics)
The board approved several appointments to the Watauga Medical Center Board of Trustees, the Personnel Advisory Committee, and the Voluntary Farmland Preservation Program. I will start with the assumption that all were qualified and appropriate appointments. However, I disapprove of one of these votes because I care about ethics–that ethics are what you do even when no one's looking.
To begin, I applaud the willingness of the board chair to ask the attorney to weigh in before the vote because I wouldn't have known of the potential conflict of interest until he brought it up. The question was if one of the commissioners should recuse themselves from the vote because the appointee is a family member. The county attorney said it was the choice of the commissioner because there was no financial reward for this appointment. These appointments were all likely to be approved, so there was no need for the commissioner to vote, but that commissioner chose to vote anyway. This bothered me. Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should have been enough to recuse oneself. The attorney only gave advice on the letter of the law, not the spirit that should guide all public service. Voting as a commissioner is not the action of a private citizen--it is a role where you represent and serve the public, not your personal family ties. I know it's not possible to be completely unbiased, and there will always be gray areas to navigate, but it is essential to consider ethics in every vote.
The outcome would not have been any different if the commissioner had recused, so the results aren't what bother me as much as the ongoing pattern in politics in which representatives do something because they can get away with it rather than pausing to ask themselves, is this ethical? The attorney spoke only to the law, not what I would consider ethics. Gerrymandering our state legislature and county commission are also unethical--the law may not have prevented Republicans from undermining democracy in our state and county, but a sense of ethics should have. And even though I'm attending and writing up these summaries, I know that not everyone is paying attention, so what happens in the county commission often is "happening in the dark." So we have to depend on our elected representatives to be ethical and responsible, even when they don't have to be. A very disappointing vote, and I am not naming names because this is not me criticizing the individual, but the principle at stake.
We have to demand that all politicians, at every level of government, care about ethics. I know there are abundant examples of unethical actions, including exponentially egregious ones in our current executive branch, but if we care about ethics and keep insisting on ethical governance, they will begin to care, too. Bottom line: anyone claiming to represent the public must strive to be ethical. Conflicts of interest matter. That has to be a starting place, and it requires us to pay attention and pressure them to rise to the occasion, even when it doesn't matter, actually, especially when it doesn't matter. In almost every case, the end doesn't justify the means--the process you take to reach your goals matters as much as the goal (consider, for example, the critical need for a public process to review our fire codes and planning expectations). Failing to honor ethics and process, not to mention the law and Constitution, can result in people giving up on our systems and our laws, eventually ignoring them or bypassing them entirely. Perhaps unjust laws should be challenged, but every law? Every system? By embracing corrupt approaches to politics, the people currently in power are, dare I say, playing with fire. Appendices, lengthy public processes, and ethics may not sound like "breaking news,” but they lie at the heart of what is worth preserving, worth crafting as a community trying to work together for the benefit of us all.
One final bit of tea: Oblique critique of one of our Senators
One of the board members did not mention Senator Tillis (I will, though). The commissioner stated that allegations were made online that our county was a sanctuary county, but Sheriff Hagaman has made clear that he is complying with all federal laws. (We Persisters were pretty angry with Tillis, too.)
Find links to additional reports on our County Commission at our main site, Monitoring the Watauga County Commission.