Emmett Casciato: A Conservative Communicator
Casciato, founder of a popular veterans' museum, likes the direction of the current Transylvania County Commission but favors outreach to a range of residents and elected officials.
BREVARD — Transylvania County Commission candidate Emmett Casciato is a Republican through and through.
He’s a former organizer of the Transylvania County GOP’s monthly Breakfast Club and a one-time precinct chair. His positions put him in step with the current Republican-dominated Commission.
He’s skeptical of the current plan for the $68 million voter-approved renovation of schools and thinks it should be scrapped in favor of distributing funds for upgrades throughout the school district.
Like current commissioners, he’s a big believer in low taxes, though he accepts that an increase may be required to build a desperately needed new courthouse.
He says the Cedar Mountain Small Area Plan “will be on the back burner,” which is just where the Commission left it after accepting a reading of the document last year. He wants to “designate” land for industry and workforce housing in the Rosman Highway corridor being furnished with new utility lines. But like most commissioners shied away from the phrase and concept of “zoning.”
“Don’t put in there that I said ‘zoning,’ ” he said.
He’s dead set against the proposed Ecusta Trail and, despite the proven economic benefits of such projects in other communities, doubts it would bring millions in investment and increased property values.
“I don’t know why we need another trail when we have so many trails,” he said.
But Casciato, 74, might bring one difference to the Commission, he said in a recent, wide-ranging 90-minute interview.
The current group has contentious relationships with both the city of Brevard and the Transylvania County School Board, and Democratic Commission candidate Lauren Wise cited the “contempt” the commissioners have shown to, for example, the residents who worked hard to create the Cedar Mountain plan.
Though Casciato stopped short of such criticism, he said he’s built relationships with residents “on both sides of the (political) fence” as the founder of the Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas and has “good rapport” with Mayor Maureen Copelof and Council member Maurice Jones.
“I have lots of Democratic friends in this town and they’re beautiful people and we get along,” he said. “We all need to coexist with each other . . . We need to communicate better.”
School Maintenance
Casciato acknowledges he’s not a policy expert and won’t be until he has time to learn on the job. “I’m behind the eight ball right now,” he said. “I’m not privy to a lot of things.”
But he said he’s been active in local affairs since he and his long-time wife Toni — who died in May of 2020 — moved to Transylvania in 2015. Though he was never in the military — “never served a day in my life,” he said — he’s long been a collector of wartime artifacts. After displaying them to community groups, he began working to establish the museum, which opened in downtown Brevard in 2017.
And his history of community involvement goes back to his former home in Palm Beach County, Fla., where he worked as a physical education teacher, coach and athletic director at Lake Worth Community High School for 28 years.
“That’s where a lot of my leadership skills came in,” he said.
His time as an educator has helped form his opinion about the bond project earmarked for Brevard High School and Rosman High and Middle schools.
The School Board has justified one aspect of this project — replacing Brevard’s cafeteria and auxiliary gym built in 1959 — by saying that these buildings are dilapidated enough to represent a potential safety risk.
They don’t seem old to Casciato, who said parts of Lake Worth High were still functioning despite dating back to 1922. And though several Board members have blamed the district’s accumulation of $35 million in unmet capital needs (not including the renovation projects) on chronic underfunding from the Commission, Casciato questions how Transylvania County Schools managed to let its buildings fall into disrepair.
“This is what bothers me — why are our schools in the shape they are in?” he said.
The county has been setting aside $6.2 million annually since fiscal year 2020 in anticipation of issuing bonds. But County Finance Director Jonathan Griffin said the Commission can authorize money from this Education Capital Project Fund for other school projects “as long as it complies with any other applicable non-financial laws.”
That is exactly what Casciato favors.
“Why do we have a leaky roof? Why wasn’t that addressed when it occurred? That’s what the $6.2 million is for, problems at all nine schools,” he said.
Ecusta Trail
Casciato said his opinions about the trail have been shaped partly by his second wife, Jayne, the longtime owner of the Penrose home where he now lives and of its 11-acre parcel, which is bisected by the old railbed that will serve as the path of the trail from Hendersonville to Brevard.
Like some other residents near this path, he is concerned that the trail could expose landowners to potential crime, incursions of homeless people and liability claims from trail users — and that it represents a taking of their land.
“The people on here have been paying tax on that” right-of-way, he said. “You pay tax on that, you should own it. And guess what? When it's completed, the taxpayers still have to pay taxes on it.”
The Friends of the Eusta Trail has previously addressed this concern, saying that only 10 percent of the landowners on the 19.4-mile path of the trail have ownership claims on the right-of-way.
Because the corridor has been “railbanked” by federal law for possible future rail use, these owners cannot reclaim their land, but they can be compensated through an ongoing class action lawsuit.
The path is now owned by Conserving Carolina and leased by the city of Brevard, said Chris Burns, a Friends founding board member.
“Why in the world would somebody think you would pay taxes on something that you don’t own?” he asked.
Regardless, Casciato says, this is another example of poor communication that he sees as an obstacle to progress on an array of issues. The powers behind the trail should have met with property owners near its path, not merely informed them of plans by mail.
“A letter doesn’t suffice,” he said.
The Courthouse
Another letter recently reminded the Commission of its obligation to upgrade the courthouse.
Peter Knight, the senior resident Superior Court Judge for the district that includes Transylvania, sent an 11-page document to the county on Sept. 9 that outlined the building’s history, the discussion of replacing it that dates back to at least 2005, and its many deficiencies — leaks, mold, collapse-prone ceilings and cramped quarters that allow, among other potential dangers, accused criminals to pass next to people they are charged with victimizing.
The courthouse replacement was included along with school upgrades by County Manager Jaime Laughter in a list of legally “mandated projects” at the Commission’s recent capital improvements workshop.
The most recent estimate of the cost of a new courthouse, she said, ranges from $44 million to $57 million, depending on the location.
Funding that higher amount for the courthouse — as well as other mandated projects — would require a property tax increase of about three cents, according to a projection presented by financial consultants at the meeting.
“What else are you going to do? You need a new courthouse,” Casciato said. “I think right now that should be the top priority.”
One goal of the current Commission — and of Casciato’s — could reduce the tax burden on homeowners, at least in the long term. That is attracting more industrial development, such as the recently announced $55 million expansion of Pisgah Labs on Old Hendersonville Highway. This project also promises to bring 57 well-paid jobs to the county.
Because industry usually requires water and sewer service, this issue is tied to another of Casciato’s priorities, housing. Though recent studies have found long waiting lists and zero vacancy rates for rentals at all the county’s federally-backed, income-targeted projects, Casciato said the county’s focus should be elsewhere — on workforce housing.
“We already have subsidized housing here in Transylvania County,” he said. “I think what we need is more workforce housing . . . We need to serve our young school teachers, our young police officers, our young professionals.”
That requires dense development, he said. And that means Casciato is a big supporter of the county-backed extension of the town of Rosman’s utilities along the Rosman Highway corridor funded mostly by outside sources. He would also like to see sewer and water lines on Asheville Highway, east of Brevard.
Planning experts say that without zoning, there is no way to ensure such corridors will be used for desired purposes rather than feeding the high demand for upscale, single-family homes on individual lots.
Casciato says he does not have exact strategies for preventing that from happening, or for attracting manufacturing and reasonably priced housing. But he’s aware of the need to protect the county’s investment in utilities and make the best use of the county’s limited supply of developable property. If that requires some form of land planning, he’ll keep an open mind.
“Will we discuss that? Absolutely,” he said.
That’s his strength, after all. He’s a talker, and, he said, a listener and a “pleaser.”
“I don’t want anybody to think ill of me. It’s going to be tough for me to take some lumps,” he said, “but I do have to make some tough decisions to be a good steward of the people’s money.”
The Candidate:
Emmett Casciato, 74
Education: 1971 Graduate of Salem University in West Virginia. Studied Health and Physical Education, attended on a football scholarship
Career: Twenty-eight years as teacher, coach and athletic director of Lake Worth Community High School in Palm Beach County, Fla. Also owned home renovation business in Pittsburgh.
Public Service: Founder and, until running for office, curator of the Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas in downtown Brevard
Personal: Married, adult daughter who graduated from US Military Academy West Point
Community Connection: Pittsburgh native who moved from Palm Beach County to Connestee Falls in 2015 with his since-deceased wife of 40 years. Now lives in Penrose with wife, Jayne.
Gone hikin’: My son has graciously agreed to go backpacking with his old man in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’ll be gone for the next several days but will return phone calls and emails as soon as I return. Thanks for your patience.
I am proud to call Emmett a friend