Major I-40 Bridge Project Starting in Haywood County

Interstate reduced to one lane for two miles through winter

Acontractor for the N.C. Department of Transportation will launch a two-year project to completely replace two bridges on Interstate 40 in Haywood County on Monday.

Transportation officials have designed a traffic management plan to retain one lane of travel in each direction between U.S. 276 (Exit 20) and mile marker 18. By maintaining this pattern for six months, the contractor can reduce the overall construction time needed to replace the two bridges over White Oak Road.

Traffic conditions, depending on the number of vehicles on the interstate at one time, will likely mirror conditions travelers experienced last winter when a contractor replaced the I-40 bridge over Harmon Den Road and Cold Springs Creek. The contract calls for traffic to remain in this pattern until May 20 in order for crews to replace the bridges, which have reached the end of their service life.

Drivers to and from Tennessee may choose to merge into one lane or utilize I-26 and I-81 to avoid the work zone on weekends and during periods of heavy congestion. The route between Asheville and Dandridge, Tenn., — through Kingsport, Tenn., — adds about 45 minutes driving time compared to a traditional trip through the gorge. Drivers should plan ahead for delays and visit www.DriveNC.gov before driving through the Pigeon River Gorge.

“A wide variety of factors — the dire need to replace the decks, topography of the area, the proximity of the two bridges and traffic data from last winter — were considered before choosing this traffic management plan,” Division 14 Construction Engineer Mitchell Bishop said. “We hope drivers understand the need to balance infrastructure improvement with travel time and safety for drivers and workers.”

Crews from Kiewit Construction will work at both bridge locations at the same time. They will remove the two bridges and replace them with new structures. The westernmost bridge will be replaced with one bridge that includes two 12-foot wide travel lanes for both directions. The existing bridge over White Oak Road and Jonathan Creek will be replaced with one eastbound bridge and one westbound bridge. Both will feature two 12-foot travel lanes.

Both locations will feature wildlife fencing, with jump-outs, that create safe passage for bears, deer, elk and smaller animals from one side of I-40 to the other.

These necessary replacements are part of a five-bridge project, the first of its kind the state to be administered in a new method with the intent of forming a partnership between NCDOT, the contractor and design team. The Construction Manager/General Contractor method is designed to lower costs and expedite delivery from the first step in the design phase to the last inspection. Kiewit Construction earned the contract for $84.3 million.

Traffic will return to two lanes in each direction during the summer and through October of 2023, when lane reductions return so crews can complete the future phases.

Transportation officials are alerting drivers of delays well before they reach the work zone. Digital signs as far east as Burke County, as far south as Henderson County and as far west as Knox County, Tenn., will alert drivers of the lane closures and suggest I-26 and I-81 as alternative routes.

“Driving through the work zone will take the least amount of time on most days,” said Chad Franklin, NCDOT Regional Intelligent Traffic Systems Engineer. “But weekends and busy days, going through Kingsport will save drivers the most time. Planning ahead, and anticipating delays, is a very important part of trip planning this winter.”

For real-time travel information, visit drivenc.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.

Deborah Chen, MD, joins Haywood Regional Medical Center

Haywood Regional Medical Center (HRMC) welcomes Deborah Chen, MD, to its staff. She will be offering services in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob-Gyn) to patients.

Chen attended the University of Pittsburgh for her undergraduate education. She then went on to Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Chen then completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) in Asheville. Her clinical interests include prenatal and postpartum care, contraception counseling, pelvic pain, infertility, urinary incontinence, and more.

“I look forward to adding a strong voice of patient advocacy, with an eye toward improving the systems that impact women’s health. In my opinion, women are the core of a community, and without excellent women’s health care, a community cannot thrive.” She continued that she wants her patients to know “that [her] ultimate goal is to work with them to achieve a state of health where they can feel how they want to feel and do what they want to do.”

Dr. Chen begins seeing patients in November at Haywood Women’s Medical Center. Appointments may be made by calling 828.452.5042.

Ingles Nutrition Notes

written by Ingles Dietitian Leah McGrath

WHEN “NATURAL” ISN’T A GOOD-FOR-YOU CHOICE

Often marketers like to claim that their food, beverage, or supplements are “natural” to make you think that this means it is better for you. This is known as an “Appeal to Nature” logical fallacy. This plays on the mistaken belief that just because something is natural it is better for you; or if something isn’t natural, it is bad or harmful.

We can think of many things in nature that are natural and are bad for us. Eating mushrooms in the woods that may be poisonous or taking “natural” supplements in excess may have a toxic effect and make us ill. Arsenic is in fact a natural substance that can kill you!

The FDA’s definition of the word “natural” on labels is: “… nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in that food.”

Bottom Line: Just because a food, beverage or supplement is labeled as “natural” doesn’t necessarily mean it is a better for you choice. Be sure and read the nutrition facts label and ingredients and choose wisely – not based on a marketing label!

Leah McGrath, RDN, LDN Ingles Market Corporate Dietitian @InglesDietitian Leah McGrath - Dietitian

news Election deniers are targeting North Carolina elections

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR

With dozens of debunked allegations surrounding a “rigged” 2020 election still fresh on the minds of right-wing conspiracy theorists, Western North Carolina’s election administrators are welcoming unprecedented levels of scrutiny in advance of the 2022 General Election.

But they may not be fully aware of who, exactly, they’re welcoming — a modest confederacy of self-appointed partisan “observers” consisting of election deniers, anti-vaxxers and people who have made racist statements, all hell-bent on gumming up the works so as to cast doubt on election results, no matter what they may turn out to be.

“It’s not just a local organized effort, it’s actually a national event, but as a state, there’s significant recruitment of people to serve as observers for the political parties,” said Robbie Inman, Haywood County’s elections director for the past 16 years.

Inman told The Smoky Mountain News on Oct. 26 that nearly one week into North Carolina’s in-person early voting period, things have gone off without a hitch despite substantial early voter turnout. His confidence in a free and fair General Election is 100%.

In the past, Inman said, the focus was on cyber security, ensuring that votes couldn’t be changed electronically from inside voting machines or from Italian satellites operating in outer space on behalf of the Vatican, as former NC-11 Republican Rep. Mark Meadows has repeatedly advanced without evidence.

Haywood County recently switched to paper ballots, which should alleviate much of the concern over fantastical hypotheses such as Meadows’.

Now, the focus has shifted to physical security — the physical security of voters and poll workers. On Sept. 2, the North Carolina State board of Election issued a press release calling attention to voter intimidation.

“… we at the State Board will do everything we can to ensure that the county boards of elections and county poll workers understand their authority and procedures to maintain an orderly and safe voting environment for all voters,” it reads in part.

The release also referred to “disruptive behaviors by some poll observers” that were noted during the May 17 Primary Election.

On Oct. 12, NCSBE issued a 12-page guide with the intent of ensuring that both voters and election workers “can carry out their duties free from harassment, intimidation and interference.”

“The thing that I think all of us have to truly admit to ourselves, a concern that we must at least admit that’s out there, is the threats from the inside, the person or persons who wish to participate and actually turn into bad actors at a particular site, or at a particular time or day, such as Election Day, and their intent is not honorable,” Inman said.

Indeed, Inman said that he’s seen a substantial uptick in the number of public records requests received by his office.

“By hundreds of percent,” he said.

In North Carolina, most documents received or produced by public bodies such as county commissions, city councils, appointed boards or local government departments like boards of election are public records. Anyone may request them and can be charged a nominal fee, but they’re often delivered for free. Public bodies like Inman’s are obligated to furnish the records in a timely fashion, with certain exceptions for individual privacy.

Because of that obligation, public records requests can used as a sort of cudgel, bogging down staffers who have plenty of other work to do.

“Most of them are template-driven,” Inman said. “What you’re referring to is what we refer to as ‘denial of service,’ when you get to a point in any organization, but especially ours, where we have to spend so much of our human resource time with very limited staff to do the retrieval of some of this information.”

In essence, requestors sometimes create a self-fulfilling prophecy by requesting prohibited information and then using the denial to bolster unsubstantiated assertions of some nefarious plot, like former President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of “suitcases full of ille-

Haywood County Board of Elections Director Robbie Inman says that thus far through early voting, there haven’t yet been any problems with

poll observers. Cory Vaillancourt photo

Early voting ends on Saturday, Election Day is Tuesday

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR

The ES&S DS450, a mid-range digital scan ballot tabulator designed for use as a central count scanner by medium-size jurisdictions, awaits action in Haywood County on Election Day.

Cory Vaillancourt photo

gal ballots” being counted in Georgia in 2020.

“Most of [the requests] are cast vote records, which is not a public document, but they’re being instructed to ask, for whatever particular reason, in such a way to where when I have to tell you that that is not a public record and in the state of North Carolina I cannot reveal those records to you, they become a little angry and hostile and believe that somebody’s withholding information that proves a certain theory correct or incorrect,” Inman said. “Nothing can be further from the case. It’s just, that’s the law.”

Melanie Thibault, elections director in Macon County, said she’s seeing the same things as Inman.

“I’m getting probably two to three a week. Some of that information is public and some of it’s not. It’s a lot of redacting for us. It’s a lot of work on us on top of everything else that we have to accomplish during the day,” Thibault said. “It puts things off. If these records requests continue the way they are, we’re going to have to hire another person in our office just to keep up with it.”

Thibault said that most of the requests she’s getting are for poll tapes — transactional voting records printed on receipt-like rolls of paper, dozens and dozens of feet long. Although portions of the tapes are public record, personal identifying information inked on them is not, nor are machine serial numbers.

“These requests are some of the most troubling because the redaction of certain information is extremely time consuming even with the most advanced software. That’s how you copy these tapes to where that they’re legible but at the same time do not reveal active serial numbers of the equipment that we have,” Inman said. “That may prevent someone that is of questionable intent to do research and import these numbers into particular places and spaces that are out there in the real technical world. It is not allowed, and we must protect those numbers and information.”

DC ROOTS, LOCAL FRUITS

At least some of those requests are coming from a group that calls itself the “North Carolina Elections Integrity Team,” or NCEIT, which recently held a training on poll tapes — how to get them, and what to do if your board of elections says no.

Laura Lee and Jordan Wilkie, investigative journalists writing for The Assembly, detailed the origins of NCEIT in a story published several weeks ago.

In the story, Wilkie and Lee chronicle the efforts of disgraced Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a Republican and a pivotal figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn an election he lost.

Mitchell, along with Meadows, leads a group called the Conservative Partnership Institute. For well over a year, the CPI has been engaged in efforts to use the Big Lie “to recruit conservatives as poll workers for the November elections,” according to a June story in the New Republic.

In January 2021, Mitchell convened a conference in Virginia “to teach people how to legally challenge election legitimacy in real time — giving a veneer of legitimacy to a mission built on conspiratorial beliefs about the 2020 election,” according to Lee and Wilkie’s reporting.

Mitchell’s group reached out to a number of right-wing North Carolina groups, including the Conservative Coalition of NC, Liberty First Grassroots, Asheville TEA Party, Yadkin Valley TEA Party and others to create NCEIT.

In attendance at the Virginia conference was Jim Womack, chairman of the Republican Party in Lee County, North Carolina.

Not long after the Virginia conference, in April 2021, Womack held a “voter integrity boot camp” at the Smoky Mountain Event Center in Haywood County. The so-called boot camp promised to teach attendees how to expose voter fraud. When this reporter registered for the boot camp and paid $15 to attend, he was refunded and turned away.

“My apologies for the confusion, but we were snowed with reservations the last day or so and Anedot [an online fundraising platform] did not cut off the reservation limits we had imposed before we shut down the link this afternoon,” Womack wrote on April 21, 2021. “Based on reported capacity, reserved headcount and safe distancing requirements, we had to refund those who exceeded the limits this afternoon.”

That may not exactly be true, says Myrna Campbell, chair of the Haywood County Democratic Party.

“I did drive up to the event center that day, and the parking lot on the side of the building was full; however, that shouldn’t constitute a sellout. You know how big that building is? It can easily hold 200-plus people,” Campbell said. “I’d estimate that parking lot doesn’t have more than 30 parking spaces, if that many.”

Regardless, the group’s lack of transparency is directly at odds with the stated goal of hosting an educational training seminar that purports to espouse transparency in the elections process.

That lack of transparency again manifested itself when NCEIT held an Oct. 17 poll observer training seminar on popular online conferencing platform Zoom.

When this reporter showed up to the event, which was publicly advertised by NCEIT, he was kicked out after just a few minutes. Upon rejoining the meeting, this reporter watched as meeting hosts struggled for nearly 10 minutes to figure out how to remove him again.

They weren’t successful. During the threehour meeting, host Jane Bilello referred to this reporter as a “creep,” a “creep-and-a-half,” a

The 2022 General Election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8 as early voting ends on Saturday, Nov. 5.

Through Nov. 5, sites across Western North Carolina will be open to those who want to cast their ballots in advance of Election Day. No reason is needed for those who wish to use what is called “InPerson Absentee Voting” or “One-Stop Absentee Voting,” and voters can alternatively make their selections by mail as well.

To vote early, voters must appear at the designated early voting site in their home county between those dates. Most voters don’t need to show identification, but those who are voting for the first time or the first time in a new residence might, so it’s probably best just to bring it along just in case.

Vote-by-mail ballots are no longer available. The last day to register to vote or to change party affiliation was Friday, Oct. 14.

To check your registration, to find your polling place or to view all the races you’re eligible to vote in, visit vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup.

EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS

Haywood County

Haywood County Senior Resource Center, 81 Elmwood Way; Canton Public Library, 11 Pennsylvania Ave.; Clyde Town Hall, 8437 Carolina Blvd. All locations

Jackson County

Jackson County Board of Elections, 876 Skyland Drive, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Cashiers Recreation Center, 355 Frank Allen Road, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Cullowhee Recreation Center, 88 Cullowhee Mountain Road, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Qualla Community Building, 181 Shoal Creek Church Loop, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Western Carolina University, 245 Memorial Drive, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. To request an absentee ballot, call the Jackson County Board of Elections at 828.586.7538.

Macon County

Macon County Community Building, 1288 Georgia Road; Highlands Civic Center, 600 N. 4th St. Both locations open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. To request an absentee ballot, call the Macon County Board of Elections at 828.349.2034.

Swain County

Swain County Board of Elections, 1422 Hwy. 19 South; Birdtown Community Center, 1212 Birdtown Rd. Both locations open from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday day through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. To request an absentee ballot, call the Swain County Board of Elections at 828.488.6463.