The Macon County Board of Commissioners stonewalled a request by Town of Franklin officials to allow alcohol at the gazebo and clock tower square as part of a planned social district.
None of the five commissioners made a motion to vote to amend the gazebo or clock tower square leases after Franklin Town Manager Amie Owens and Council Member David Culpepper spoke about it.
Owens gave the commissioners a recent history of the town’s discussions on the proposed social district. It’s essentially an outdoor area where people can consume alcoholic beverages in specifically marked cups sold by businesses during specific hours. Owens said 39 municipalities in North Carolina have a social district, the closest being Sylva.
Franklin has considered a downtown social district since February, Owens said, with multiple business owners, event promoters and restaurant owners speaking on the subject, with most in favor.
The planned social district would stretch from East Main Street in front of Town Hall, go along Main Street to Iotla Street, along Stewart Street, and continue down West Main Street to The Lazy Hiker at the Porter Street intersection. The gazebo and clock tower square are both county-owned properties with alcohol-free rules. Owens said Rankin Square would be excluded from the social district due to the monument and lack of seating there. The town currently leases the gazebo property from the county.
“This wasn’t done with no reservations from [the Franklin] Town Council, we did have concerns,” Culpepper said, explaining that they’ve had officials from Sylva talk about their own social district. “We feel good that we’re not going to lose control and it’ll actually be a benefit to the town and the community.”
Commissioner Gary Shields asked about the costs. Owens said the only costs were the cups and signage. Culpepper said Sylva had concerns about needing increased police presence but those turned out to be unfounded.
Shields said the Franklin Chamber’s Tourism Development Council hasn’t discussed the proposed social district.
“For me to have a vote, I’d like to discuss it with them,” Shields said of meeting with the TDC first.
Culpepper said it would be wise to discuss with other boards and said their request wasn’t to finalize the social district. Culpepper also noted the alcohol-free provision was put in the lease “about five or six years ago” by the county commissioners.
Owens said there are still multiple steps that need to happen over the next few months for a Franklin social district to happen.
“The only place people would have to sit would be the sidewalks,” Owens said of having a social district without the gazebo or clock tower square.
Shields asked if this would then trickle down to allowing alcohol in the county’s parks, to which Culpepper and Owens said inherently not, explaining that the county still owns and operates their parks. The county is still dry in terms of alcohol sales.
At the end of the presentation, Culpepper told the commissioners their concerns about drugs and alcohol were the same as his, noting he has two children.
“I will tell you as having a teetotaler father who said ‘alcohol is the devil,’ that didn’t help me growing up,” Culpepper said. “I didn’t know you could go to dinner and have a beer or you could go out socially and have a beer or two with friends, that was never represented to me.”
Culpepper said his kids see “crackheads on Depot Street” and that he can’t keep drug addicts off his properties, but believes the social district is a teaching moment and can help more than it can hurt.
“If you look at the map of dry counties in the United States and you look at the map of meth lab proliferation in the United States, they correlate,” Culpepper told the county commissioners. “Dry counties don’t keep alcohol out, they actually encourage more illegal drug use.”
In response, Board Chair Paul Higdon replied to Culpepper, “But your dad did a good job, don’t beat him up on it.” Culpepper clarified that he loves his dad and said he did do a good job, but said he struggled with alcohol issues for a decade stemming from his alcohol abstinence upbringing.
Speaking after the contentious discussion earlier in the meeting, Culpepper left the board with the quote, “When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction.”
Higdon then called for a motion, of which there were none, so the motion failed.
Main Street repairs
Before the Franklin representatives left, Higdon questioned them about Main Street, saying he saw an older woman faceplant “on that sorry excuse for a curb” in front of Outdoor 76.
Higdon said he and Owens have talked about the condition of the street “more than once” and want to talk about it more.
“It’s the heart of Franklin, it’s the heart of Macon County, we’ve got to do better, we got the money,” Higdon said, then unilaterally asking Roland as a county representative to “bring to this board a proposal, including a proposed design, a budget” to fix up downtown, specifically mentioning the clock tower square.
Owens said they are working with the LBJ Job Corps on sprucing up those areas. Higdon invited the Town of Franklin to “join us to see what we can do from the funeral home to the top of town hill with our street, handrails, designated ingress/egress.”
Responding to Higdon’s “hope for a resolution,” Owens said, “sounds like a plan.”
Commissioner Josh Young asked about hiring a design professional.
“I want somebody who designs things for a living to give us something special,” Young said, noting he liked Higdon’s direction.
Roland asked Higdon if this proposed project would be ADA or beautification-focused, to which Higdon said, “Whatever we can get out of it.”
“In our defense, we’ve rode DOT as hard as we could for the last decade to get downtown done, stuff is happening, downtown is getting better sidewalk-access-wise,” Culpepper said, noting that in the past, the town and county boards haven’t gotten along but “now they get along like wildfire.”
“With the town leasing the square and using the square for events and stuff like that and the county owning it, it’s been like the Spiderman meme where everyone’s pointing at each other just around a circle saying, ‘Well who’s going to pay for it,’” Culpepper said.
“We need to get this done, golly bum,” Hidgon said.
A few minutes later, after the Franklin representatives left and after approving a resolution in support of Operation Green Light for Veterans, Macon County Veterans Services Director Leigh Tabor said the sidewalks in front of their 104 E. Main St. office have been a major issue for veterans.
“They’re working on it now, but I don’t think it’s right,” Tabor said of the sidewalk work. Higdon then said the DOT is replacing a parking space with a flower bed at one of the Main Street crosswalks.