I don’t often think deeply about the inner workings of the Town of Woodfin, a borough of 8,000 people nestled between Asheville and Weaverville.
That changed last week, and the thought that popped up was, “Just what in the bejesus is going on there with the mayor and town manager?”
What spurred my curiosity was a storyAsheville Watchdog published about immigration and whether Buncombe County is a “sanctuary” area. My colleague Peter Lewis, who co-wrote the story, interviewed Woodfin Mayor Jim McCallister.
And he quickly heard from Town Manager Shannon Tuch. This paragraph then appeared in the story:
Shortly after learning that The Watchdog had spoken with McAllister, Tuch called The Watchdog to say the mayor was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Woodfin government. “He does not represent the views of the town,” Tuch said.
Say what? Since when does an elected mayor not represent the views of the town? I mean, isn’t that what they’re elected for — to represent the people?
So I dug into this situation, and I found it’s like when you go to the dentist for a tooth that’s bothering you and the dentist says, “It’s just a small cavity.” Two hours later he’s drilled a small calcium mine in your jaw, you can’t feel your face, and you leave with a bill for 750 bucks and a notice that you need a root canal and a full crown.
Oh, what a painful cavity they’ve got in little Woodfin.
“It’s about as bizarre as anything I’ve ever encountered,” McCallister told me last week.
Some of this dates to April 2024 when McCallister confirmed to a local media outlet that the then-police chief was no longer on the payroll. McCallister told me Tuch was out of town, the rumor mill was running at warp speed, and he decided to divulge the simple fact that the chief was no longer employed, as it was public information.
Apparently, that did not go over well with the manager or some members of the town council, according to McCallister.
But the beans really hit the fan last September when McCallister held two impromptu news conferences at the town hall after Helene. McAllister had also pushed Tuch and the town police department to address road closures that were affecting local businesses, as two owners had reached out to him to complain about lost business.
As you may recall, in Helene’s immediate aftermath, state and local authorities were telling everyone to stay off the roads, as many were washed out or closed. So the Woodfin town council and its manager were unhappy with McCallister for drawing people to town hall, although McCallister maintains most of those townsfolk walked there.
At any rate, on Oct. 15, the town council voted 4-2 to censure McCallister for “repeatedly” violating the town’s Code of Conduct and Ethics. The censure stated McCallister violated the code by holding the news conferences, directly communicating with the Woodfin police department and directing it to take certain actions in the aftermath of Helene, and by providing inaccurate information to a news outlet. (McCallister said he was misquoted on the latter, and the publication updated the article.)
About 90 people attended a gathering at Woodfin town hall in the days after Helene struck the area Sept. 27. // Provided photo
“I asked questions of town manager and police, and I asked probing questions, ‘Why?’” McCallister said. “That’s what a mayor does in a crisis, in my opinion.”
He also told the council and town they should be “ashamed” to be bringing the censure charges, and he noted that Tuch was standing next to him at the second news conference and by the same logic probably should be censured, too.
At the same meeting, the town passed a measure designating the town manager as the sole spokesperson for media inquiries.
You won’t be surprised to hear that McCallister, who spent four decades in corporate management, disputes all of these allegations, although he did admit in the meeting that calling the town hall gatherings “press conferences” was “dumb” and “a mistake.”
I should note that when the council voted to censure McCallister, three of the four who voted in favor of the measure — Vice Mayor Elisabeth Ervin and membersKen Kahn and Hazel Thornton — said they did so “with great sadness.” That’s because, as several noted, McCallister is a high-energy mayor who’s done a lot for the town and cares about its residents and students.
Councilmember Eric Edgerton simply voted, “Yes.” McCallister noted during the meeting that he and Edgerton have had a “beef” dating back to the police chief matter.
Who should be a town’s primary spokesperson?
During the discussion about making Tuch the sole spokesperson for the town, McCallister stressed that the mayor should be a town’s primary spokesperson.
“The mayor is the person that I believe — I’m very confident that our residents want to hear from, in good times and bad,” McCallister said in the meeting. “It’s hard for me to be that kind of mayor, though, right now, because it is a struggle, and it has been for the last year and a half to know what’s going on.”
McCallister said he’s been shut out of updates and that Tuch will not keep him informed on town projects and actions. After the storm, McCallister said, residents literally were banging on the town hall doors seeking any information, and he was just trying to provide help.
Other than Councilmembers Philip Cohen and Johanna Young, who voted against censure, McCallister lacked support. Cohen expressed concerns about the timing of the measures and suggested an investigation would be appropriate, while Young said her vote spoke for itself.
Councilmember Kahn chastised McCallister for complaining about “not getting an update on schedule you’d prefer” during the storm, saying that did not entitle him to circumvent a then-casual agreement they had to let Tuch speak for the town.
“The second thing is, we are a body, a collective body, and we are supposed to move in one,” Khan said. “We are supposed to be able to trust each other that we are being up front with each other.”
Ervin, the vice mayor, said during the meeting that no one liked the timing of measures they were taking up, as the town was in the midst of responding to a major disaster.
“But as town council we must ensure we speak with one voice,” Ervin said. “As a council we may not all agree, but we are one body, working for and with the Town of Woodfin staff.”
Young said she prefers the town communicate with the media only through news releases.
“It’s not that I don’t trust anyone speaking one way or the other,” Young said. “I just feel press releases are the best way to go.”
Kahn noted that the key is “that everything that you’re able to say to the public is accurate and factual and has been vetted internally, unless it’s matters of pleasantry or non-consequence. To the extent that we can get there, I’ll be a happy councilman.”
The measure to make Tuch the sole media spokesperson for the town passed unanimously, 6-0. As mayor, McCallister votes only in tiebreakers.
I reached out to Tuch via email for comment.
“I’m not sure I’m the best person to speak with on this matter given that it was a council decision,” Tuch responded. “I’m copying our town attorney who may be able to help you.”
I replied, “You are the point person for town communications, though, right?”
Hey, I can’t help myself.
Let me pause to note here that I find the town council’s approach to communicating with the media stilted at best, ridiculous at worst. Since when are individual members of an elected body not allowed to have differing opinions? And are discouraged from speaking their minds? Should councils really move in lockstep on all issues?
One council member suggested reporters should have to submit questions in writing 24 hours in advance. To which I say, “Have you not heard of breaking news?”
As a journalist, I can tell you that emailed questions submitted in advance often lead to contrived answers, or just no replies. Live interviews are always best.
For this story, I’ll admit that I emailed a list of questions to all six councilmembers, as I suspected none wanted to talk about these matters. None replied, although the town attorney did.
McCallister saw the censure and the ensuing designation of Tuch as official spokesperson as a way to “muzzle” him. He told me last week that this whole matter “appears to be a very, very personal issue, in my opinion.”
“I can’t find anything else that would be behind it,” he said. “I am a nice guy, but I am a Scorpio, and I do piss people off from time to time. I do my best to be a team player. I’ve got a pretty good 40-year-plus track record of doing that in the corporate world, so I’m a little taken aback here.”
I’ll note that town council members said their votes were not personal. They just want the town to give out accurate, appropriate information.
A festering problem, according to some
For his part, Councilmember Edgerton explained in the meeting why the censure measure and media spokesperson issue were being brought up just a couple of weeks after a historically damaging storm.
“So the answer to that question is because we’ve been dealing with the problem for a year now,” Edgerton said. “We’ve been dealing with a specific problem of the mayor making statements or taking actions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with the guidance of the subject matter experts.””
Edgerton said encouraging people to attend a news conference right after the storm endangered the public and contravened official dispatches.
In an interview last week, Edgerton stressed that the town took the steps it did to ensure the public safety, and the accuracy of statements coming from the town.
“In my view, the two biggest goals that we need to be fulfilling in any town official communications are, 1. Being accurate. And then, 2. Making sure that our communications further would fit strategic interests,” said Edgerton, who works as an attorney for the city of Asheville. “And based on those two goals, I felt that it was appropriate and necessary to have our town manager serve that role as spokesperson.”
For now, McCallister says he’s being more careful about what he says to the media, but the town’s actions do not prevent him from speaking his mind.
“All I have to do, and all you can make me do, legally, is say the words, ‘I’m not the official town spokesperson. Shannon Tuch is,” McCallister said during that Oct. 15 meeting. “But if they said, “Well, can you still answer some questions?’ I am free to say, ‘Yes. What are your questions?’ And that’s how this is going to work. Because that’s what the people want.”
The legal perspective
John Henning, the town attorney for Woodfin, said McCallister is not being muzzled in any legal sense, and he noted the censure essentially recognizes a formal disagreement and “really doesn’t have any further legal teeth than that.” The town council has its own speech rights, and it has the legal authority to appoint designated spokespersons, as many municipalities do.
“I understand a lot of folks assume a mayor to be elected to speak on behalf of the town,” Henning told me. “That’s not really true as a legal matter. Mayors in the state of North Carolina, unless their charters say something different, don’t have a lot of inherent authority to do many things.”
This is true. Most local governments in North Carolina are council-manager systems, and just about all mayors in the state are “weak mayors,” meaning that they largely have ceremonial powers and conduct council meetings. In North Carolina, town and city councils set policy and priorities for the professional managers to carry out.
Kristina Wilson, an assistant professor of public law and government at the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, said that in North Carolina, “no individual is empowered to represent the town.
“Individual council members and the mayor on their own have no legal power whatsoever,” Wilson said via email. “In other words, no single council member or mayor can do anything on behalf of the town without a majority of the board authorizing that action. So, the mayor is not legally allowed to be the town spokesperson or speak on behalf of the town, unless authorized by formal majority vote of the council.”
Council members’ and the mayor’s power “comes from their ability to vote as a collective. They have zero individual power,” Wilson said.
Regarding free speech, Wilson said the Supreme Court “has long held that the government can limit its own speech.
“The First Amendment is designed to limit the government’s power to restrict the public’s speech,” Wilson said. “It fully allows the government to limit its own speech, and by extension, the speech of public employees and public officials to some extent.”
But what about democracy?
Still, the town’s actions bug me, as a journalist and a free speech advocate. I like to be able to call up a mayor and ask questions, or text and email them.
I’ve been doing this for three decades, because they are the elected representatives of their community, and they and council members should be held accountable to voters. It’s good for democracy for towns to sometimes (or often, really) speak with multiple voices, especially before deciding on an issue.
Chastising elected members for speaking their minds or insisting on a monolithic response to media questions smacks of Big Brother. And it’s bad for democracy.
“It is bad for democracy,” Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper told me. “It’s OK to have disagreement, and it’s unrealistic to think everybody who’s elected is going to have the same voice.”
Cooper noted that Woodfin’s town charter states the mayor “shall be the official head of town government.”
In a way, designating the town manager as the only official media spokesperson also turns the organizational chart onto its head, Cooper and I agreed. As with most towns and cities in North Carolina, Woodfin’s org chart shows the mayor and council above the town manager. In short, they’re the manager’s boss, with the power to hire and fire that person.
Woodfin’s organizational chart shows the mayor and council are above town management. // Credit: Town of Woodfin
Yes, McCallister is technically a “weak mayor,” but that doesn’t mean town residents don’t look to him for information and leadership. Mayors certainly have a right to express their beliefs and opinions, Cooper said, “as long as they don’t overstep their bounds.”
“Mayors do this all the time,” Cooper said. “Click on social media and (you’ll) see small town mayors weighing in on everything from Donald Trump’s presence at the race the other week to immigration policy.”
Of course, the vote is the true power over who will be able to speak to the public, and McCallister notes that three town council seats are up for election in November.
“And all I’ve been telling people is I need two of you to step up and run for council,” McCallister told me. “We can fix this in November. Between now and then, I’m a stand-by mayor. I’ve been blocked from doing anything and saying anything.”
Woodfin had a sea change in its last elections, and McCallister rode that into office on what was an exceptionally high turnout for Woodfin. He’s not up for reelection for another two years.
I suspect this November’s election will be a hot one.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
SUMMARY: Catastrophic flooding in Texas has claimed 108 lives, including at least 24 children, with the death toll expected to rise. Search and rescue teams are combing through debris along the Guadalupe River, where floodwaters devastated an 80-mile stretch. Camp Mystic was hit hard, losing 27 campers and counselors, including young children remembered fondly by their families. Despite surge staffing by the National Weather Service, questions remain about the effectiveness of local alert systems, as some residents were not awakened by warnings. Officials recommend NOAA weather radios as a reliable alert tool during such emergencies.
The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend has surpassed 100.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-07-08 09:00:00
Tropical Storm Chantal caused four deaths and four tornadoes in North Carolina before moving off the New Jersey coast. Fatalities included an 83-year-old woman in Chapel Hill, a 58-year-old woman in Cedar Grove, and a man in Mebane, all found in vehicles during or after the storm. Two boaters went missing on Jordan Lake; one body was recovered, and searches continued. The state Department of Health could not independently verify deaths, deferring to local authorities. Tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service across Lee, Chatham, Alamance, and Orange counties. By Tuesday morning, road closures decreased to 66 statewide.
(The Center Square) – Four deaths and four tornadoes in North Carolina are attributed to Chantal, the tropical storm that swept in Sunday and by Monday evening had scooted off the New Jersey coast.
The State Highway Patrol confirmed the death of an 83-year-old Chatham County woman in Chapel Hill; the Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the death of a 58-year-old Person County woman in Cedar Grove; and a spokesman for Alamance County confirmed the death of a man in Mebane.
The bodies of each were found in vehicles trying to travel during or after the storm.
Two people boating on Jordan Lake in Chatham County went missing Sunday evening. One body was found on Monday. The search was suspended in the evening and resumed Tuesday morning.
The state Department of Health and Human Services, in an email to The Center Square, could not verify any deaths and referred requests to local lawmen.
Tornadoes have been confirmed by the National Weather Service in Lee, Chatham, Alamance and Orange counties.
At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the state Department of Transportation reported road closures were down to 66. One is a federal highway, three are state roads and 62 are secondary roads.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article presents factual reporting focused on the impact of Tropical Storm Chantal in North Carolina, including verified casualties, weather events, and infrastructure effects. It reports on the actions and statements of official agencies without expressing opinions or ideological perspectives. The language is neutral and straightforward, avoiding emotive or persuasive framing. The piece clearly distinguishes between confirmed information and ongoing investigations, reflecting standard journalistic practices. Overall, the article maintains an objective stance by simply conveying the facts without promoting or critiquing any political viewpoint or policy position.
The 2024-2025 school year in Western North Carolina faced major disruptions due to Hurricane Helene, causing significant instructional losses. Ashe County missed 47 days, including 24 from Helene, while Transylvania County lost only 10 days. To aid recovery, the legislature allocated \$9 million for the School Extension Recovery Program, funding summer intensive learning for grades 4–8. Districts are addressing academic gaps and rising behavioral issues linked to trauma, with investments in mental health supports. Experts stress that recovery efforts must continue for years, as the storm’s compounded impact on students’ education and well-being is profound and ongoing.
by Kate Denning, Carolina Public Press July 8, 2025
While Helene’s impact on North Carolina varied across the region, the 2024-2025 school year was anything but ordinary for most Western North Carolina school districts and created significant obstacles to student learning.
Districts like Ashe County, in the state’s northwestern corner, missed upwards of 40 days of in-person instruction, and counties across the region are preparing to make use of the legislature’s $9 million summer learning initiative, the School Extension Recovery Program.
Recipient schools receive a minimum of $20,000 to be used for intensive recovery in math and reading for grades 4 through 8 this summer.
Transylvania, on the South Carolina line, was one of the luckier Western North Carolina districts, missing just 10 days due to Helene and an additional two for teacher workdays, said Carrie Norris, Chief Academic Officer for Transylvania County Schools.
Even though the area faced challenges like loss of communication and student displacement, the district’s ability to get back to in-person learning swiftly made it so the district did not have to make significant changes to the remainder of the school year.
“We eventually just decided that, since it was 10 days, we did not extend the school year and we just provided support for teachers as to how to make tweaks just in our curriculum pacing guide so we could continue on,” Norris told CPP.
“We did not make any major changes, because it was really kind of like just bad winter weather for us that we are pretty familiar with doing.”
Other districts were not so fortunate. Ashe lost 47 days from its typical instruction time, 24 of which were due to Helene, said Superintendent Eisa Cox.
Of the 47 days missed, 16 days were conducted virtually. While it was important to maximize instructional time, Cox said, virtual learning simply isn’t the same as being in the classroom.
Ashe County students had just 99 days of school without virtual learning, delayed start times or early release this year.
North Carolina schools always offer summer reading programs for grades 2 and 3 as part of the state’s Read to Achieve program, and Transylvania has offered high school credit recovery opportunities in recent summers. The focus on grades 4 through 8 will be a new addition to the district’s summer learning programs, Norris said.
Cox said Ashe otherwise would not have been able to offer any summer school programs outside of the mandated Read to Achieve program due to a lack of funding prior to the Helene recovery bill.
The $9 million provided for the School Extension Recovery Program are nonrecurring funds beyond 2025. Lance Fusarelli, distinguished professor of educational leadership and policy at North Carolina State University, said summer interventions are going to be critical and the initiative should continue through the summer of 2027 at least.
“You’re looking at up to two months of schooling where they were not in school five days a week, and you can’t just make that up in the course of a year,” Fusarelli said.
“I think the effects will be felt for several years, and it’ll take some serious efforts and some serious interventions to help those kids get caught up.”
It’s too early to know the impact Helene will have on test scores across the state, but Norris said Transylvania is seeing three of its four elementary schools outperform last year’s scores, which she credits to teachers making every minute count once school was back in session.
The biggest change to testing in Ashe was being unable to regularly test students throughout the year, Cox said. End-of-grade testing ultimately took place in both counties as scheduled despite the irregular term.
“When we normally would have had those checkpoints throughout the year, we didn’t have them necessarily at the same time, so this year was just very different than in the past,” Cox said.
“I think it’s important to realize that no child should be measured by a single test score, and that at the end of the day, we do have some time to catch kids up, and hopefully we have the grace in which to do that.”
Despite missing relatively few days due to Helene, Transylvania also had a challenging year due to a number of tragedies that resulted in the deaths of five students in the district.
Norris said those events coupled with Helene’s impact on older students’ ability to communicate with each other indicated a need for more emphasis on mental health care.
“For this coming school year, we have added a crisis care counselor at the high school level to support students more with small groups,” Norris said.
“And then we have also purchased two programs for the coming year. One is based on teaching students to identify their own behaviors and how to problem solve, and then another program that we’re implementing is a bullying program.”
Ashe is taking a similar interest in mental health care and its effect on learning in its schools. The loss of instruction time and additional traumas students experienced due to Helene has brought on an increase in behavioral issues, Cox said. The district recently received a grant to hire behavioral specialists to help teachers tackle behavioral issues in the classroom.
“Trauma hits different children differently,” Cox said.
“So it’s a matter of making sure that we are aware of what’s going on, what that looks like in each child, and ‘How can we put the right supports in place so that all children are successful?’ So we’ve been looking at meeting the immediate needs of families, the needs of the students while they’re in school — not just academic, but for the whole child.”
The storm’s impact on learning didn’t start or end with school closures, after all. Fusarelli pointed out the unique challenges Western North Carolina faced even before Helene, including poverty and housing and food insecurity, that became exacerbated. Many students likely experienced the loss of their homes, their family businesses or their loved ones.
“It’s one thing to have schools close for a period of time, but for most people, when something hits, they might have disruption, but they might not lose their entire livelihood,” Fusarelli said.
“Well, when these towns were wiped out, you have a lot of family owned businesses that were wiped out. And so what do you do when you don’t know where your next paycheck is gonna come from? All of those stressors — no matter how much parents try to shield their kids from stuff like this, you just can’t.”
But kids are resilient, and school districts and the legislature alike are doing their part to help them recover, he said.
Drawing comparisons between Helene and COVID-19’s impact on learning isn’t difficult. Students in Western North Carolina who were school-aged during the onset of COVID-19 and for Helene experienced a “perfect storm” of significant disruptions, Fusarelli said.
Helene reignited conversations amongst administrators about how such disruptions to learning impact students and how best to support them through those changes.
“We’ve talked a lot about that here at the end of the year, honestly, since COVID we are still struggling with student stamina and working through the hard things to get to the next part,” Norris said.
“There’s been a lot of years where we, and rightly so, have focused more on the mental supports. But we also have to give them the tools to persevere past the hard things that come along. So building up that stamina, staying true to what our goal is, pushing them in an appropriate way — those are all things that we’re going to talk about.”
Cox learned from COVID-19 how to deliver meaningful instruction even during situations that are far from ideal.
“When COVID happened and we shut down, we really had to make sure that we had purposeful learning for students, because if not, what’s the point of school?” Cox said.
“So our kids have a driving purpose, and we want to make sure that education met those needs. So we learned from COVID, which I think helped us to plan better for this time of crisis, even though nobody would have ever imagined we would have a hurricane in the mountains of North Carolina.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The content provides a factual and balanced overview of the impact of Hurricane Helene on Western North Carolina school districts, focusing on educational challenges and recovery efforts. It presents perspectives from various educators and officials without partisan framing or ideological language. The emphasis is on practical responses to natural disaster-related disruptions, funding for recovery programs, and student wellbeing. The article avoids polarizing topics and sticks to community and educational issues, resulting in a neutral, informative tone characteristic of centrist reporting.
