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When my homeowners association met for our annual meeting in June, those of us on the board of directors were a bit more anxious than usual. That’s because we were holding a vote on putting a potentially controversial clause into our neighborhood’s covenant.
The covenant already prohibited using homes as a place of business. However, after experiencing some negative situations with weekend partiers who diminished their neighbors’ qualify of life, board members wanted to take it a step further and let residents decide whether or not to ban all short-term rentals of less than one year, essentially getting our neighborhood out of the Airbnb and Vrbo universe.
In a group of 30 people, about 10 had something to say on the subject. Each took a turn sharing their perspective – from a homeowner who once lived next door to a loud Airbnb rental, to a real estate agent who expressed concern that the decision could lower property values – giving every other speaker the same respect they were shown.
At the end, we voted. Amazingly, it turned out to be unanimous, with every resident voting to keep our neighborhood a nice, quiet place for long-term, single-family homes.
When we finished, our board president and I looked at each said and almost said at the same time, “Why can’t our governments work like this?”
Why indeed, because they’re supposed to. Our governments are filled with people we elected to serve our best interests in town hall, the county courthouse, Raleigh or Washington. When they get together, it should be like a large family meeting around a dinner table to figure things out – an imperfect and sometimes heated process, but at the end of the day we still respect one another.
The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education took nine months to finally get together, but the Sept. 16 meeting showed why they should have met held months earlier. Contrary to the prevailing community opinion of continual conflict between the two sides since commissioners evicted Central Office and took a dedicated quarter-cent sales tax from schools, board members seemed quite agreeable to working together in order to provide better public school facilities.
And that’s exactly what we need – 12 people, pulling together in the same direction, with capable help from their staffs. While one commissioner’s desire to develop a plan that gets approved unanimously is unlikely considering the complexity and sentimentality of eliminating campuses, surely if our county’s best and brightest get together in good faith we can come up with a school plan that most folks could at least tolerate.
Then again, to some officials “planning” has almost been considered a curse word in Cherokee County. If some past local elections had gone differently, updated school facility plans would undoubtedly have been made by now.
Our lack of an overall plan was clearly shown in this year’s moves to get rid of the elementary school in Hiwassee Dam as well as middle schools in Martins Creek, Peachtree and Ranger. Since many future proposals involve building K-8 schools, eliminating them all at this point in time made little sense.
You can tell who the real leaders were at the joint meeting; they were the ones with open minds who were actively listening and searching for potential solutions. Then there were those who prefer to let everyone else solve the problem or just look for someone to blame.
As committees are formed to provide feedback to commissioners and school board members, it’s imperative that the makeup of those groups include educators, parents and students from across the county. They are the largest stakeholders in the school system and deserve to be consulted on every significant move – not just hear about it after a vote is taken.
Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Let’s heed those words from a founding father and make it happen.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 828-837-5122; email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com; or on X @daviddBstroh.