Newman, Gelbaugh triumph in Sylva elections

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER

Beating out two incumbent board members, Natalie Newman took the top spot in last week’s Sylva Board of Commissioners election.

She and incumbent Mary Kelley Gelbaugh, who came in second, will serve through 2025. Mayor Lynda Sossamon ran unopposed and will also remain on the board.

“I did a lot of campaigning,” Newman said. “We really tried to get my name out there and let people know who I am, and that’s the biggest thing, I think, is name recognition — to let people see your name and know that you really want it. I think that’s what it came down to.”

Newman ran a write-in campaign in 2019, but this is her first time appearing on a ballot.

When new commissioners are sworn in at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, she will become the first woman of color to hold elected office in Sylva. Danny Allen became the first African American to hold elected office in Jackson County when he joined the town board in 2001, said Town Manager Paige Dowling.

At 29, Newman is also one of the youngest — if not the youngest — people to win the position. However, Sylva has a tradition of electing younger people to its leadership board. Gelbaugh was 34 when she won her first election in 2013, and Commissioner David Nestler was 30 when first elected in 2015.

Unofficial Election Day totals had Newman in first place with 141 votes, or 29.38% of the total cast. Gelbaugh secured 125 votes in the unofficial tallies, edging fellow incumbent Barbara Hamilton by just five votes.

Carrie McBane finished fourth with 79 votes, and Luther Jones, whose decision to

withdraw from the race came after the deadline to remove his name from the ballot, received 15 votes.

Results won’t be final until the Jackson County Board of Elections completes its canvass, beginning at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 12. However, the ranking is unlikely to change. The margin between Gelbaugh and Hamilton falls outside the 1% distance required to trigger a recount, and the board will have only two provisional ballots and one absentee ballot to review Nov. 12 — not enough to overcome the five-vote separation.

While narrow, the results are infinitely more decisive than those of the 2015 and 2019 elections — both years, a coin toss was required to decide between two tied candidates. The 2021 election was more contentious than 2017, when Gelbaugh and Hamilton retained their seats after running unopposed. Voter turnout clocked in a 16.5%, with 249 of 1,511 registered voters casting a ballot — slightly less than the 256 people who voted in 2019.

The next four years could well prove pivotal for the small town, not least due to the N.C. 107 road project. The new commissioners will see Sylva through a period that will include a hugely disruptive right-of-way process and the first year and a half of a construction process estimated to last three to four years.

Other key issues will include guiding trail development and tourism at Pinnacle Park, addressing ongoing labor and housing shortages, and continuing to shepherd Sylva through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic recovery. The new town board will also inherit the deep divisions left behind following last year’s debates about the proper framing of Confederate history and an ongoing conversation about what law enforcement should look like in the small town.

In a pre-election interview, Gelbaugh said that her top three priorities if re-elected would be to complete the sidewalk project on Skyland Drive, support businesses adversely affected by the N.C. 107 project, and improve affordable housing options. Newman named the Allen Street project, housing and labor shortage issues, and acting as a listening ear for community members as her top priorities.

Dillsboro, Forest Hills and Webster also held elections last week. All candidates in those contests ran unopposed.

The results

• Natalie Newman........141 votes (29.38%) • Mary Kelley Gelbaugh ........125 (26.04%) • Barbara W. Hamilton...............120 (25%) • Carrie McBane......................79 (16.46%) • Luther Jones............................15 (3.13%)

Natalie Newman.

Mary Kelley Gelbaugh.

Triple-Win Climate Solutions: Answers to quiz “Test Your Climate Knowledge”

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. —William Wordsworth, 1798

1) Answer c: Climate is defined as the average weather for a large region of Earth and time period, usually three decades. See NASA, Climate page. 2) Answer b: Since the 1880s, when industries proliferated, Earth’s temperature has risen over 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit. A rise to1.5 and above means even worse extreme weather. North America suffers some of the worst effects. 3) Answer d: Burning fossils in industrial production, including electricity, causes more global warming emissions than other sectors, but these contribute significantly: In the US in 2019, transportation (industrial trucks as well as private vehicles) caused 29%, electricity production 25% plus other industry 23%; and agriculture 10%. NASA Climate, “Causes,” and the Union of Concerned Scientists’ “How Do We Know that Humans Are the Major Cause of Global Warming?” Jul 14, 2009; updated Jan 21, 2021 4) Money and power are strong motives for acting against the public’s best interests. Executives of major US fossil fuel corps stonewalled or lied outright to Congress this month and last. See Scientific American Oct. 26, 2015: “Exxon Knew About Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago.” Over 19771978, Exxon’s lead scientist warned its executives that oil and gas extraction were the main cause of climate change. So Exxon fired its scientists and hired “communication” and “marketing” experts. Since 2016 Exxon has spent over “$30 million on think tanks that promote climate denial.” It donates to Republican and Democratic candidates, but more to Republicans. 5) Answer b: A 2018 Republican-led House panel condemned Russian online disinformation for persuading some Americans to think climate change is a “liberal hoax.” The Guardian, “The Disinformation Age: A Revolution in Propaganda” and “How Russia Used Social Media to Divide Americans” 6) Answer d. Hurricanes and wildfires, flooding, droughts and crop failures are all worsened by climate change. We in WNC see all of these, most recently the flash floods in Cruso, Bethel, and Canton that killed six people, made hundreds homeless, damaged businesses, washed away crops, contaminated the Pigeon River with poisons, and did millions of dollars’ damage, at least $10.5 million to Haywood County Schools alone. 7) Answer d. The American Lung Association (ALA) found that the pollutants that increase global warming also increase numbers of premature births, childhood asthma, and under-developed lungs in children. ALA “Children and Air Pollution.” North Carolina Health News Feb. 1, 2021: Coal ash pits damage the health of people near them. EPA report, 2014: “Long-term exposure can lead to liver and kidney damage, cardiac arrhythmia, and a variety of cancers.” 8) Answer d. Peer-reviewed scientific articles, with sources, are read by experts in the same field; the original research can be duplicated by independent scientists. The most unbiased journal review is from a “blind” submission (author’s name unknown to reviewers). Definitions are in mainstream dictionaries. 9) Answer c. At least 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is humancaused. See NASA “Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate Is Warming.” 10) Answer a. The costliest electricity production is coal-fired. See Forbes Magazine March 26, 2019, “The Coal Cost Crossover: 74% Of US Coal Plants Now More Expensive Than New Renewables, 86% By 2025.” 11) Answer d. In subsidies, we US taxpayers give fossil fuel corporations about $15 billion annually, but there is more: “Currently, experts estimate that direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry total around $20 billion every year, $15 billion of that from the federal government. Indirect subsidies — policies that aren’t targeted at fossil fuel corporations specifically but still benefit them — total a whopping $649 billion per year in the US alone.” Fossil companies wouldn’t make profits without taxpayer handouts. See North Carolina Health News Feb. 1, 2021: “Under a settlement announced last week [end of January] by Attorney General Josh Stein, Duke Energy will bear partial costs of cleaning up coal ash from unlined pits. That work through 2030 is estimated to cost roughly $4 billion, so customers will still be footing three-quarters of the bill.” We pay $3 billion through state government taxes for cleaning up what Duke knew was damaging citizens’ health; Duke pays $1 billion. 12) Answer b, with a caveat. The easiest, cheapest cuts in atmospheric CO2 come from planting more trees and restoring lost forests. However, trees alone cannot begin to mitigate climate change enough. Nations must cut carbon and methane emissions to benefit their economies and people’s health. We must transition to lower-cost solar, mostly, for electricity; discourage development in high-risk areas, plan for water scarcity, make buildings energy efficient, and more. See, for example, Union of Concerned Scientists, Climate – Solutions. For a clear explanation of costs-benefits, see Yale Climate Connections, “Can the Economy Afford Not to Fight Climate Change?”

The WNC Climate Action Coalition is an allvolunteer group working to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis in our region.

By WNC CAC volunteer, co-founder and Triple-win. wncclimateaction.com Editor Mary Jane Curry, co-founder WNC Climate

Action Coalition; and Climate Reality® Leader

MJCinWNC@gmail.com Twitter: @WncAction