Incumbents and Challengers Offer Sharply Different Views of County Performance

The race for Transylvania County Commission features four incumbents who strongly back the status quo and four challengers who say the county has neglected key duties such as fixing schools.

Republican incumbent Larry Chapman (photo provided)

BREVARD — As Transylvania County Commissioner Larry Chapman described his style of campaigning, it sounds less like running for office than, as the old-fashioned phrase goes, standing for re-election.

Yes, he and the three other incumbent Republican commissioners participated in candidate forums. And Chapman has been out meeting with voters, he wrote in an email accompanying his replies to a Brevard NewsBeat candidate questionnaire.

But his campaign has no website or social media page, and mostly he is running on — or standing by — his conservative record.

“Our citizens know me and my values and if they approve of my performance they will re-elect me,” wrote Chapman, who is seeking his fourth term.

Two other incumbents — Teresa McCall, who previously served three terms on the Transylvania County School Board, and Commission Chairman Jason Chappell, who is seeking a sixth consecutive Commission term — also seem to be relying on their long familiarity to voters who heavily favor Republican candidates.

Neither of them responded to questions or forwarded links to campaign websites. And all the incumbents have spread their message by way of comments at meetings — often on the heels of presentations from County Manager Jaime Laughter that portray the county as busily tackling major issues.

On Sept. 23, for example, she gave extended talks on the county’s efforts to boost the availability of affordable housing and expand utilities.

And among the total of $150 million worth of projects highlighted in Laughter’s “monthly capital update” were, of course, the long-needed improvements at all nine of Transylvania County Schools’ buildings.

This was the only one of these presentations that was the subject of later action — votes to advance the sale of $51 million worth of school bonds this fall and pave the way for a second sale before the end of 2028.

Which in turn was the subject of later comments in support of this approach by Commissioner Chase McKelvey, who was appointed after the May resignation of former Commissioner Emmett Casciato and faces business owner Christy Blakely in the race for the remaining two years of Casciato’s term.

Devoting $68 million in bonds for major overhauls of campuses in Brevard and Rosman, the plan approved by voters in 2018, would have left the county’s remaining schools facing the vast backlog of repairs he had seen on a recent tour, McKelvey said.
“If the original bond that people voted for actually went through and (the district) only fixed the two high schools, we would be in really bad shape,” he said. “What we are doing is trying to get everything back up to par.”

Blakely and the three Democratic challengers running for full terms —  Joe Smith, Rik Emaus and Bryan O’Neill — all tout professional qualifications and/or community service that qualify them for election on Nov. 5, or in early voting that starts today.

In answers to the questionnaire, they presented a picture of a Commission that, far from aggressively working to solve problems, has delayed or neglected a range of pressing concerns such as housing, land planning and the construction of a new courthouse and a new local campus for Blue Ridge Community College.

And rather than responding to the urgent need to upgrade schools, most of the challengers wrote, the Commission has starved the district of funds, allowed buildings to slip into disrepair and neglected the wishes of voters clearly stated in the 2018 referendum.

“There is NO plan to bring Transylvania County Schools to a level that will be required in the future,”  O’Neill, a current School Board member wrote, before adding in bold type:

“The decades of neglect have come home to roost.”

Schools

Democratic challenger Rik Emaus (photo provided)

Chapman is the second-longest tenured commissioner after Chappell. First elected in 2010, he “term-limited” himself in 2018, he wrote, before successfully running again in 2020.

He can also boast of two non-political careers, working 27 years in management positions at the former Ecusta paper mill and serving a total of 30 years as an active-duty officer and then reservist in the US Marine Corps, from which he retired as a full colonel.

His responses to questions about school fixes reiterated his previous public comments backing the approach regularly presented at Commission meetings under the cheerleading heading, “Lets Go!!!” 

“The bond sale is moving forward,” he wrote.

But the bulk of his answer to the question about these fixes criticized the Schools’ original proposal and blamed the Board for its failure to move forward.

“The initial plan presented to voters in my opinion was not realistic based on the scope of the work and the costs,” he wrote.

And the Commission, he wrote, was “never presented with a detailed plan, detailed cost estimates and other documents required by North Carolina law in order to even go to the bond agencies for action.”

The challengers, on the other hand, mostly blamed the Commission.

After Covid-inflated bids for the original plan came in far over budget in 2021, the School Board presented a dramatically scaled-down option for remodeling the two campuses at a joint meeting in January of 2022.

The Commission agreed to move forward with this proposal in June of that year but attached conditions that the School Board considered unacceptable.

That led to the approach to address needs across the district that has since been backed by both the Commission and the Board.

“The current plan is something . . . commissioners have effectively forced the Board of Education to adopt,” Smith wrote.

Yes, the county and district need to work together to make fixes throughout the district, he and several challengers wrote, but the resulting delay in the face of soaring construction costs has left the district merely playing catch up on neglected repairs.

The $118 million worth of district capital needs identified in a 2015 study included significant new construction such as the replacement of a gymnasium and cafeteria at Brevard High, both of which were built in 1959.

Emaus was one of several challengers who noted that the recent report from the county consultant guiding current repairs included a slightly higher total (including engineering and other “soft costs”) to merely “stabilize and preserve . . . school facilities.”

Emaus, who has 30 years of experience in medicine as a doctor and chief executive officer of two large practices, has likely spent more time in the schools in recent years than any other candidate.

Several of his seven adopted children have attended county schools or are currently enrolled. He has worked as substitute teacher in the district and served as an assistant track coach at Brevard Middle School.

He is best known in the community for founding TC Strong to address the youth mental health crisis and continues to be involved with the organization’s Voice of the Students gatherings at local schools.

About half of the schools are near the end of their “useful life cycle” according to information he received from the district, meaning the county is pouring money into repairs as these structures “approach obsolescence,” he wrote. 

“This approach is simply not adequate and is not ‘cost effective,’ as has been touted. It doesn’t fully address critical safety and structural issues.”

Communications

Democratic challenger Bryan O’Neill (photo provided)

Could more better communication from the county to both Schools and the public have sped up this process?

The long history of conflict between the Board and the Commission seemed to be on its way to resolution in March when the two bodies held a joint meeting to address fixes in a spirit of “collaboration” and “cooperation.”

Since then, that work has progressed as planned, with agreement on a list of the most urgently needed projects to be tackled with proceeds of bond sales.

More recently, the Board and Commission have voted to direct Laughter, School Superintendent Lisa Fletcher and the two bodies’ attorneys to negotiate an agreement to manage bond projects.

But there have been plenty of spats over school financing along the way, including a charge from Laughter about Schools potentially “double dipping” from funding sources and a dispute about whether the county or Schools would bear the burden of covering the cost for an HVAC replacement.

Then there was the dramatic scene at the Aug. 26 Commission meeting following Laughter’s statement that the Board had approved spending for a new wrestling gym and other recreation projects as part of a list of high-priority work.

Not so, said Board Chairman Kimsey Jackson, who walked uninvited to the podium. “We did not put those projects on the list,” he said. “We flat voted against them.”

(The wrestling gym was on the approved list, but with a notation that said, “remove altogether.”)

Chapman wrote that the disagreements between the two sides had been “greatly exaggerated” by “the media and rumors.”

The county provides copious information to the public in presentations, agenda packets and on its website, other commissioners have said at meetings.

And in July, responding to a resident’s accusation that Laughter had misled the public about the Board’s approval of the recreation projects, Chapman delivered a full-throated defense of Laughter, calling her “the best damn county manager in the state of North Carolina and the one with the most integrity.”

Which is not how O’Neill sees it.

He has extensive business experience, most recently serving as chief executive officer of a battery distributor between 2011 and 2016 and leading it through a period of dramatic expansion.

Since retiring to Transylvania in 2017, he has served as chair of a Connestee Falls scholarship program and was appointed to the Board in 2023 after the resignation of a former member.

His business know-how gives him needed expertise about finances and management, he wrote, and his time on the Board has provided him an up-close view of the frustrations of working with the county.

“Despite the Commission’s claims, cooperation has been minimal and sporadic and, yes, it drastically needs to be improved,” he wrote.

A better model for collaboration on school fixes was outlined in an August letter from the Board to the Commission suggesting a joint facilities committee including Laughter, Fletcher and two members from both elected bodies.

“This option was completely ignored” by the Commission, O’Neill wrote, and serves as an example of the county’s overall style of communication, which he described as “obscure, opaque (and) misleading.”

The Courthouse

Democratic challenger Joe Smith (provided photo)

School upgrades are just one item on a long list of capital improvements carrying an estimated total price tag of about $300 million.

The county has completed or is on the way to completing several of them, Laughter has said in her regular capital updates.

These include a new cell to extend the life of the county landfill, the recently opened Emergency Management Services building, the county-funded extension of the town of Rosman’s utility lines on the US 64 corridor and the ongoing work to connect the water supplies of the town and the city of Brevard.

But that still leaves large, unaddressed needs, including for a new Blue Ridge campus and the replacement of the county’s historic-but-dilapidated courthouse in downtown Brevard.

A county financial consultant said in 2022 that building the facility would likely require a significant property tax increase.

That need became less clear the following year, after the Commission first committed to the least-expensive location east of downtown and, later, to explore the option of initially building the smallest feasible courthouse with cost-saving building techniques.

That could reduce the cost to near the amount that financing could be covered by the $1.2 million in property taxes the county has been collecting for this purpose since 2019, Laughter told the Commission. The county has since hired a design team that will produce detailed pricing.

Until then, Chapman wrote, the cost of the project is uncertain, but he would favor funding the project with the proceeds of a quarter-cent local-option sales tax — if it is approved by voters this election.

Smith wrote that he moved to Transylvania full time in 2018 because he and his wife wanted their children to grow up and attend school here, and because his wife has deep local roots as a member of one of the county’s pioneering families.

He has 18 years of experience working for a large manufacturer of “cherry pickers” for bucket trucks, and is now sales manager for the Southeast region. This work, he wrote, has given him “technical knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and the belief in the power of collaboration and teamwork.”

He is one of several challengers who point to the failure to build the courthouse as a prime example of the Commission’s costly delays on key issues.

The county has been aware of the need for a new courthouse since at least 2005, according to a timeline on its website. But it only made the job a priority, Smith wrote, after a high-ranking judge sent the county a letter two years ago documenting the building’s many deficiencies and reminding the Commission of its legal obligation to provide adequate court facilities.

Neither Smith nor any of the challengers provided a plan to pay for the work, and he wrote that he doesn’t favor a property tax increase or using potential sales tax revenue for this purpose.

But he also wrote that it shouldn’t be a problem the Commission is currently facing.

“If the county had passed a plan (for a new courthouse) in 2018, as originally intended, we could have accomplished far more with the funds we’re now going to have to raise,” he wrote. “How much has this lack of vision cost taxpayers?”

Affordable Housing

Democratic challenger Christy Blakely (provided photo)

Blakely first came to prominence locally in 2020 as a leader of a group fighting the construction of a Dollar General store in a floodplain off US 276.

In that role and in her run for the Commission, she cited her 15 years experience in commercial real estate development, which gave her broad experience in construction and land use.

She favors some restrictions on development along the stretch of US 64 recently supplied with utility lines, action also backed by O’Neill and, most forcefully, Smith.

Unless the county “urgently” implements land planning in that corridor, he wrote, desired uses such as  “affordable housing and manufacturing won’t happen. Instead, we’ll end up with fast food chains, oil-change shops and endless traffic lights.” 

Blakely said other local governments she had worked with as a developer had used a water and sewer authority to reserve capacity for desired uses. She also favors “area planning” that enlists all local stakeholders to encourage development such as reasonably priced housing.

From her current perspective as the owner of a small business, the Cedar Mountain Outpost, she has seen the struggles of her employees to find housing and ranks its shortage as “the #1 limiting factor in Transylvania County’s future success.”

“It has a negative impact on our workforce, our businesses and our ability to retain or attract teachers, nurses, and first-responders,” she wrote.

She has been encouraged to see nonprofits and government agencies band together in the Brevard/Transylvania Housing Coalition to promote affordability, she wrote.

And though Blakely didn’t specifically criticize the work of the county, she said it should match Brevard’s “drive and commitment . . . at tackling housing shortages.”

Coalition members speaking at recent Commission meetings have been more openly challenging, blasting the county’s failure to use most of the $2 million affordable housing grant it received in 2021 from Dogwood Health Trust.

In response, Laughter said that the grant has paid for, among other work, an ongoing affordable housing study that may guide the spending of the remaining $1.6 million in grant funds, an approach backed by Dogwood.

A major but underappreciated contribution to boost housing is the county’s work to expand infrastructure, Laughter said in her extensive Sept. 23 presentation, which covered the many challenges to boosting affordable housing and the county’s history of efforts to overcome them.

The county, which does not run its own utility service, has secured or helped secure nearly $50 million for infrastructure improvements from outside funding sources for itself and utility providers Brevard and Rosman, she said.

Working alone, the county cannot provide the resources needed to build affordable and workforce housing, she also said. But it can and has been working with other partners, including members of the Coalition.

After such informational presentations, McCall often makes comments to emphasize their main points. She did so again on the topic of affordable housing.

“The work that you have done and that your staff has done has obviously been exhaustive,” she told Laughter, “and has demonstrated what a monumental task this is.”

Helene

Republican incumbent Chase McKelvey (provided photo)

Incumbents don’t just tout the effectiveness of the county’s policies, but of the employees who they say have created an unusually well-run local government.

“We at the county have what I know is the best staff in the state,” Chapman wrote.

This support was never clearer than after Laughter’s presentation on Monday about the county’s work in the days before and the weeks after the arrival of Helene.

There were efficient evacuation efforts and dramatic rescues, she said. And with help from a range of partners, the county was able to shelter victims, supply them with needed food and water and coordinate the restoration of  power and cell service.

The work was exhaustive and exhausting, said Laughter, who choked up when she spoke of how the storm has devastated the lives of many Transylvania residents.

Chappell had been inspired by witnessing the “dedicated services of these individuals around the clock,” he said, referring to county staffers, and it should allay any doubt about their “professionalism, sacrifice and love for our community.”

McKelvey explained in an email that he was able to provide only partial answers to the candidate questionnaire because he has been working nearly nonstop since Helene to handle claims from customers of Chase Insurance Group, an agency he founded 11 years ago, 

Besides being a business owner, he wrote, he is a graduate of Brevard High School, a lifelong Republican and the husband of a teacher at Rosman Elementary School.

McKelvey’s priorities include economic development and repairing schools, and his website describes him as a firm advocate of limited government and personal property rights. 

He’s proud to be a Transylvanian resident, he said on Monday, and he is proud of the county’s response to Helene.

“I do believe our staff was the absolute best it could be.”

THE CANDIDATES

Christy Blakely, 48, Democrat

Personal: Married.

Education: attended University of Toledo

Professional: 15 yrs of previous experience in “real estate development, brokerage, business expansion and economic development.” Owner since 2021, Cedar Mountain Outpost

Public/Community: Board of Directors, Conserving Carolina

Online: christyforcommissioner.com

Larry Chapman, Republican, age not provided

Personal: Married, three grown children, lifelong Transylvania resident

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Western Carolina University, military training including US Marine Corps Officer Candidate School; management courses at the University of Michigan and University of North Carolina

Professional: Total of 30 years of service in active duty and reserves, US Marine Corps; 27 years at the Ecusta paper mill “in various management positions including manufacturing but primarily in marketing management.”

Public/Community: 12 years, Transylvania County Commissioner, including service on North Carolina Association of County Commissioners Board of Directors, Ecusta Trail Advisory Committee, Transylvania County Tourism Development Authority; civic organizations including the American Legion and the Military History Museum of the Carolinas

Rik Emaus, 66, Democrat

Personal: Married, father of seven adopted children, Transylvania resident since 2017

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Michigan Tech University, master’s degree in medical management, Carnegie Mellon University; doctor of osteopathy, Michigan State University

Professional: “30 years in medical practice and/or leadership,” including as CEO and founder of a medical group in Washington state with more than 200 providers

Public/Community: Founder, leadership team member, TC Strong; Board member, past president, Rotary Club of Pisgah Forest; Capital Campaign Committee, Cindy Platt Boys & Girls Club; several volunteer positions at Transylvania County Schools

Online: pickrik.com

Chase McKelvey, 39, Republican

Personal: Married, Transylvania resident since 1996

Education: Graduate, Brevard High School, degree in business management from American College

Professional: NC Farm Bureau Insurance; founder, in 2013, Chase Insurance Group

Public/Community: Transylvania County Commissioner since July; ordained minister

Online: chasemckelvey.com

Bryan O’Neill, 76, Democrat

Personal: Married, two sons (one deceased)

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Florida Atlantic University, master’s degree in business administration, Nova Southeastern University

Professional: CEO, 2002-10, Home & Business Storage Solutions, CEO, 2011-16, Primary Source battery distributorship

Public/Community: Past Chair, Connestee Falls Student Scholarship Program; former board member Connestee Falls Property Owners Association; current School Board member

Online: elect-oneill.com

Joe Smith, 44, Democrat

Personal: Married, two children who attend Brevard Elementary School; full-time Transylvania resident since 2018

Education: Bachelor’s degree in industrial design, Auburn University

Professional: 18 years with Altec Industries; currently manages sales team covering Southeast

Public/Community: Democratic candidate, Transylvania County Commission; assistant youth baseball coach

Online: LetsJoeTransco.com

Jason Chappell, Republican, age not provided

From county website: Married, two children. Lifelong Transylvania resident and graduate of Rosman High School; bachelor's degree in political science from Appalachian State University. Serving fifth consecutive Commission term, current chair. Previously served on the Board of Education; director, NCWorks Career Centers at Blue Ridge Community College

Teresa McCall, Republican, age not provided

From county website: Married, two children; lifelong Transylvania resident and graduate, Brevard High School; associate’s degree in business administration, Blue Ridge Community College. Completing first term as County Commissioner and previously served three terms on the School Board; 37 years with the National Park Service and retired as chief of administration of the Blue Ridge Parkway

Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com