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City Lights owner to lead Sylva’s Main Street program
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER
Bernadette Peters, owner of City Lights Café, has been hired to lead economic development efforts in downtown Sylva.
The town announced on July 1 that Peters had been selected for the part-time position of Main Street economic development director from a field of six applicants. Town Manager Paige Dowling made the final decision after a hiring process that featured an interview panel composed of the Main Street Sylva Association President, a downtown business and property owner, and Dowling.
Peters will receive an annual salary of $25,000 from the town’s general fund and work 20 hours per week.
In addition to owning a downtown business for the past decade, Peters has also served at various times as MSSA president, chair of the MSSA Economic Restructuring Committee and attendee at two statewide Main Street conferences. Before owning City Lights, she worked in marketing for 12 years.
“We are very excited to welcome Bernadette as our new MSSA director,” said Dowling.
Peters began her new job on July 5. According to the posted job description, she’ll be responsible for promoting business, marketing and economic development in downtown and the surrounding areas and will also coordinate several annual events held throughout the year, including the Sylva Christmas Parade.
As director, she’ll also be responsible for administering the Main Street Program, which involves a significant amount of recordkeeping, data management, budget development and other tasks. Peters will manage the downtown revitalization program and will be the public face of the Main Street program, both in the press and before local, state and national leaders. She’s also tasked with finding, applying for and administering grant opportunities to benefit the town and with serving as a liaison between the town manager, town board and MSSA board.
Dowling has served as the town’s Main Street Program coordinator since September 2011, and when she was hired as town manager in 2012, she retained her Main Street duties. However, the board has for years discussed the need to hire a separate person to manage the Main Street Program as both that program and the town’s needs have grown.
“Everything has increased through the years,” Mayor Lynda Sossamon said during a 2019 budget work session. “I’m glad we’re doing all this stuff for the town, but I don’t think she (Dowling) can really keep up with all her work.”
The 2020-21 budget included funding for the town to contract with a firm to serve as Main Street Program Director, and the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce had been performing those services since July 1, 2020, under a $20,000 contract effective through June 30. During an Aug. 13, 2020, meeting town commissioners voiced concern over how the hiring process was conducted, saying that the MSSA should have been consulted during the process. Peters’ hire came following a search and selection process similar to the one commissioners said they wanted during that discussion.
Bernadette Peters
Man takes plea in fatal DWI case
District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch said a Haywood County man will serve the maximum sentence possible in prison after entering Alford pleas Friday in Macon County Superior Court to a DWI crash that left two dead.
Suspects who enter Alford pleas do not admit guilt but accept there is sufficient evidence to convict and agree to be treated as guilty.
A blood sample showed Jeremy Michael Clark, 28, of Canton, had used methamphetamine prior to an Oct. 31, 2018, wreck on U.S. 64 near Winding Stairs Gap in Macon County. While heading west, his pickup truck crossed the twolane highway’s center line and smashed headon into a vehicle heading east.
Clark’s girlfriend Megan Lurae James, 26, the mother of their two children and a passenger in the truck, died at the scene. Sixty-yearold Roger Dooley of Lake Wales, Florida, who was driving the vehicle Clark’s truck hit, died seven days later in a Georgia medical center. Roger Dooley’s wife, Brenda Dooley, was airlifted to Mission Hospital in Asheville with life-threatening injuries, including multiple broken bones and a lacerated spleen.
Assistant district attorneys Jason Arnold and Jim Moore prosecuted the case.
“As the court decides the path forward, the victims have come into this court for active consecutive sentences,” Arnold told Judge Coward. “As this court makes its search for justice in this case, the state of North Carolina (the District Attorney’s Office) can’t see how you could reach any other determination.”
Coward sentenced Clark to a total time of 165 to 232 months for two counts of felony death by vehicle and felony serious injury by vehicle. He ordered Clark to pay $7,840 in court fees, submit a DNA sample and undergo a substance-abuse assessment.
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