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This article was written for and published in the
Cherokee Scout’s “The Far Blue Mountains” column on
Wednesday, April 1, 2009. Tom Bennett, writer of “The Far
Blue Mountains” is also the writer of the “WATR Column”.
Here’s a
news flash from the county Planning Board
By Tom Bennett
Murphy, N.C. -- The Cherokee County Planning
Board was working hard on recreation, protection of the fish
and wildlife, proper drainage of land, and pollution
control.
This didn’t happen last week, for there’s no such
board. It happened a quarter-century ago when Ronald G. Hill
was county manager from 1974 to 1981.
“There was tremendous pride then,” Hill said. “People
had a reason to not sit on their tails but to come out and
take part in the community.
“Gil Hargett was my ‘green’ person. He organized
community clubs to do roadside litter cleanups. Gil
discovered septic lines running straight into the Valley
River. After heavy rains, you could see toilet paper in the
trees.
“TVA provided boats and volunteers picked up trash in
the lake coves. We hired Buel Carringer and he did a
junk-car removal from yards.”
In a July 1980 speech to the National Association of
Counties at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Ron Hill
described how he upgraded mapping. Discarding the county’s
Ozalid bluelines of aerial photos without any grid lines,
registration marks or property boundary lines, Hill got
better maps from TVA.
He appointed Joanne Davis land records manager.
Together they persuaded the clerk of court and the registrar
of deeds to communicate better, and to route deeds first to
the tax supervisor.
“The number of parcels on record doubled, and land
values soared,” Hill said. There were landowners here who
had relied on their lawyers to exploit the primitive
record-keeping system and avoid paying property taxes,
according to Hill.
Hill recalls how Clifton Precision in the Peachtree
Community set a poor environmental example. “When I took our
industrial development prospects to see the plant manager,
he would brag that he took his waste out back and dumped
it,” Hill recalled.
This site is on the EPA’s Internet “Scorecard” of worst
U.S. polluters.
Clifton Precision serviced airplane parts. Its parent
company, Litton Industries of Woodland Hills, Calif., was
acquired by Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles in 2000 for $5.1
billion. Northrop Grumman also assumed Litton debt of $1.3
billion.
For $15,000 a year, Ron Hill was county manager, health
director, tax supervisor, emergency management director, and
even “child support enforcement director” to go after
deadbeat dads. A career Army officer and veteran of Korea,
Vietnam and the Gulf War, Hill left Cherokee County
government for three times the money. A major, he went to
Saudi Arabia as civilian administrator of a Pentagon program
to train the Saudi army. Later, Hill returned here and led
the John C. Campbell Folk School.
The Andrews native is 75 now and lives in Georgia. He
uses a hearing aid and has a vocal disorder. However, he
still can greet a visitor at the door and then talk non-stop
for hours.
“Are you sure they don’t have a planning board?” He
asked. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Were the Corridor K highway completed on each side of
Murphy, North Carolina and Tennessee would be required to
take part in planning and submit annual development plans,
said an Appalachian Regional Commission spokesman.
* * *
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek
community near Murphy, N.C., is a retired newsman and
Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition member/volunteer.
E-mail him at
farblumtn@gmail.com
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