It's Now Open-Season on Boone's Steep Slopes

Last night the Watauga County Commission, under a new Republican chair Jimmy Hodges, voted unanimously to impose a 90-day moratorium on the former Boone Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) for the following types of land-uses only:

Asphalt Plants
Electricity Generating Facilities
Propane or Gasoline Bulk Storage Facilities
Chip Mills
Explosives Manufacturing
Chemical Manufacturing
Chemical Storage Facilities
Fuel Oil Bulk Storage Facilities
Electric Substations
Cement Mixing Facilities
Commercial/Industrial development with aggregate building footprint 50,000 square feet or greater

Though many ETJ residents who spoke during the public hearing mentioned large college student apartment complexes as a major concern in their ETJ neighborhoods, the moratorium does not apply to large college student apartment complexes, nor to single-family and other multi-family residences.

Perhaps that's why there was no pushback at the public hearing from big developers. None of them are planning to build any of the above, when the big money is to be made from renting space to college students. Even Phil Templeton piously said he was in favor of this particular moratorium, because it clearly does not apply to what he has in mind.

Of course, this moratorium could be quickly mooted by the three-judge panel in Raleigh that is considering the town of Boone's legal challenge to Senator Dan Soucek's ETJ power-grab.

A New Protection Racket

Last night at its July meeting, the Watauga County Board of Commissioners set a public hearing for August 19 on what to do about zoning issues in Boone's former Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). Until the passage of Senator Dan Soucek's "local bill" to strip Boone of its ETJ, county residents of the ETJ were protected by Boone's development ordinance. Watauga County has no such regs for development, other than very limited restrictions on "high-impact development," which do not as a matter of fact cover college student "quad" housing and other high-density developments.

Following its regular business, the County Commissioners opened the floor for public comment. From coverage in the High Country Press:

Of the four that spoke, only Jeff Templeton, a member of a family of local developers and a resident of the ETJ, spoke in favor of the elimination of the ETJ and told the commissioners he was “overjoyed” with the fact that this became law.

Noting concerns that this change might have on residents of established neighborhoods in the ETJ, Templeton said that the commissioners could approve of “some measure of regulation in order to protect property values” and the quality of life of residents in the ETJ once the new law goes into effect.

“The county should be able to adequately address [these concerns] without burdening everyone with overregulation,” Templeton said.

So ... the one who pulled the strings in Raleigh ... to make the axe drop on Boone ... to deprive ETJ neighborhoods of their zoning protections ... is now saying that maybe "some measure of regulation" might be needed "to protect property values" (just so long as they don't involve steep-slope development or "view shed" regulations).

That was mighty big of Jeff Templeton.

We assume that since he is now saying publicly that some zoning in the former ETJ is fine by him, there will be some zoning in the former ETJ, since the Templeton family is in charge of the known universe.

Less certain is what will happen with Jeff's father Phil Templeton's decree that Watauga County needs its own county-wide water system. The Templetons may discover that the universe they command ends somewhere short of publicly funded water.

Nullifying Boone's Town Elections

It would be a major shock if Dan Soucek and Jonathan Jordan's "local" bill to deprive the town of Boone of its ETJ did not pass the full NC House today, since it has already passed a second reading. The bill may already have passed by the time this gets posted.

What Soucek and Jordan have really done is nullify several elections in Boone that ratified steep slope regulations and other development rules, elections that also rejected candidates hand-picked by mega-developers, elections that made the town of Boone a progressive bastion in a sea of red and hence the object of intense conservative spite.

Legislators of the Soucek and Jordan ilk -- in other words, most of the Republican crop in Raleigh -- have been dedicated to crippling North Carolina's cities by any means necessary (the stealing of Asheville's water system is but one example among many). It's a stupid and ultimately counter-productive agenda, since our cities are also our major economic engine. What new or relocating business wants to establish itself in a town with bad schools and a ravaged environment, cluttered with cookie-cutter or ill-planned infrastructure? Maybe coal-ash ponds.

Legislators of the Soucek and Jordan ilk are also much into the idea of "nullification," simply ignoring or rejecting laws they don't like. Such ideological extremists do not like the land-use development rules ("zoning") implemented in cities, because development rules pinch the ambitions of people like the Templetons.

The Templetons have attempted to change the rules in Boone by selecting and campaigning for their own slates for the Boone Town Council, not once (as in 2013) but twice (as in 2007, in the famous "Citizens for Change" town elections). They lost both times. Unable to win at the ballot box, they've turned to their paid puppets in Raleigh, Soucek and Jordan, to accomplish for them what they could not accomplish on their own merits and through the democratic process.

Since the Tea Party take-over of our state in the elections of 2010, we've witnessed month after month such breathtaking acts of ideological extremism that have frankly beggared the imagination. Stripping Boone of its ETJ is now only the newest remarkable example of just how far this bunch is willing to go to drive our state back into a modern dark age. Boone is now the only -- the only -- city in the state to be singled out and treated in this high-handed and tyrannical way, all to suit the wishes of one wealthy family (and their wealthy friends).

The Law of Unintended Consequences
Throwing out steep slope and view shed rules on the mountains surrounding Boone was always just the first step. Getting Boone's water run up into those hills for student quadraplexes, etc. would be the next.

Boone is very short on water resources for new development and has been trying to obtain a new source on the New River in Ashe County for several years. The Templetons and other mega-developers want that water, and now, without development regs in the ETJ, they will use that water to support any new North Carolina Gatlinburg that they can imagine. And -- need we say it? -- they'll use their patsies Soucek and Jordan to enact another "local" bill in the General Assembly to simply seize the water from Boone. Count on it.

The Cottages is a Watauga County
development

Therefore, Boone needs to stop spending its taxpayers' money on the acquisition of a new water resource that will be taken away to enrich the special interests operating in the largely unregulated landmass known as Watauga County.

Court of Appeals Reverses Templeton Win From Last Year

The NC Court of Appeals has just reversed a Superior Court ruling last year which would have allowed Phil Templeton to build his methadone clinic on State Farm Drive very near the neighborhood surrounding the VFW.

This case has ping-ponged back and forth between the Boone Board of Adjustment and various courts since 2006.

Will the Court of Appeals decision end it? Probably not, as long as Mr. Templeton still has a higher court he can appeal to. We assume he gets pleasure out of paying lawyers when the object of his contempt is the Town of Boone.

The Templetons Strike Back at Boone

Anne Marie Templeton Yates, Chair of the Watauga GOP,
trying to block video coverage at the Dan Soucek
forum on education, Dec. 5, 2013

Senator Dan Soucek has introduced a "local bill" in the General Assembly (S865) to strip the Town of Boone of its extraterritorial powers to control and regulate development. The bill contains one primary sentence: "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Town of Boone shall not exercise any powers of extraterritorial jurisdiction as provided in Article 19 of Chapter 160A of the General Statutes." Boom.

If the senator didn't introduce that pluton bomb at the behest of the Templeton family, the Templetons certainly stand to profit handsomely by the elimination of the "steep slope" regs, among other ordinances that keep them from doing exactly as they please. Let's call S865 what it is: "The Templeton Family Enablement Act of 2014."

(NOTE: Jonathan Jordan is a part of this, because the rules governing "local bills" in the "short session" of the General Assembly -- now underway -- is that no local bill can move forward without the support of both House and Senate representatives. Voters in the Town of Boone and in the ETJ need to know that both Soucek and Jordan, who are both also up for reelection this fall, have targeted Boone -- and only Boone -- for this particular abuse of power.)

Senator Soucek tried this same move almost exactly two years ago in the short session of 2012. He stirred up a hornet's nest of opposition, and his bill ultimately got shelved in the House, primarily because of the opposition of Rep. Ruth Samuelson of Charlotte. Samuelson is still in the House and still powerful (though she announced last year that she wouldn't be running for reelection in 2014. Perhaps some skullduggery has gone on out of sight down there, and Soucek thinks he'll slip this one through. At any rate, he seems perfectly willing to stick his tongue on that frozen lamp-pole again. Has he forgotten the significant backlash two years ago among voters living in the ETJ?

The Templetons have now lost two historic elections in their lust to take over the government in Boone. Their last trump card is Senator Bobblehead and his co-conspirator, Rep. Jordan. Toadying to the rich is not a good look for these lawmakers in an election year.

Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub...

...three men in a tub, and they all sailed out to sea.

The three-man Republican majority on the Watauga County Commission formed a belt line last night and whipped the dickens out of Boone Mayor Andy Ball for having the gall to ask that sales tax distribution to the four towns in the county be returned to a more equitable per capita (population) basis rather than the current ad valorem (property value) basis.

Commissioners Nathan Miller, David Blust, and Perry Yates trotted out their lists of past beefs with Boone, their grievances, their grudges going back decades in some cases, but they readily admitted that their self-righteous spite sprang mainly from the on-going feud Mr. Yates's daddy-in-law Phil Templeton has with anybody and everybody who won't let him do precisely as he wishes as a millionaire land developer.

How dare the Town of Boone let its concern for maintaining development standards get in the way of Mr. Templeton's offer to buy the old high school property for $19 million! Well, Boone dared, and the three men in Nathan Miller's tub exacted their punishment: the redistribution of sales tax revenues so that Boone is hurt to the tune of almost $2 million, while the other three towns get a windfall.

Make that "a windfall" with a kick-back provision for the county: the three other towns get to keep 40% of their new sales tax allocation while kicking back to the county a whopping 60%. A gentlemen's agreement, so to speak (and begging the pardon of actual gentlemen everywhere). Everybody is making out like bandits, except Boone.

What's not to like about that? Government by revenge. The "social contract" as vendetta.

No one disputes the fact that Boone raises over 60% of all the sales taxes collected in Watauga. After Miller/Blust/Yates meted out their punishment last year, Boone now receives back some 12% of that revenue to support its budget. Before, when the distribution was based on population, Boone received between 24% and 25%. With four towns in the county, the largest and most productive, as far as sales tax revenue goes, was receiving one-fourth of those revenues, while raising most of it. Seems fairly equitable that one-fourth of the towns would get one-fourth of the revenue.

Last night, Mayor Ball asked Commission Chair Nathan Miller if he thought it was fair that Boone raise 60% of the revenue and get 12% of it in return. You could see the ire rise in Miller. It's plenty fair, he replied with noticeable venom.

(It's still remarkable to me that a man of this temperament, with this understanding of balance in the world of justice, is now seeking to become the District Attorney for the 24th Prosecutorial District. A prosecutor ready to ride a grudge into the ground.)

Last night, and with something of a rhetorical flourish, Commissioner David Blust asked Mayor Ball if ASU students wouldn't be included in any per capita calculation, as if to suggest... what? Mr. Blust never finished that thought. We assume he was implying something nefarious -- he has a history of malice-afore-thought toward ASU students. Perhaps he was suggesting that college students in the town of Boone aren't actual, "legitimate" residents, even while they drive our streets, walk our sidewalks, drink our water, and put great strain on our infrastructure, and even while they add tremendously to the grand total of sales tax revenue that Mr. Blust willfully denies the Town of Boone.

Anne Marie Yates, Commissioner Yates's wife and Daddy Templeton's daughter and incidentally the chairwoman of the Watauga County Republican Party, was doing a victory lap out in the lobby with leaders of the other towns. Ms. Yates was unable to get her slate of family and friends elected to the Boone Town Council last fall, but obviously the next best thing is to enjoy the suffering of the powerless.

Brace Yourself, Boone

Citizens for Change, the notorious political action committee of 2007, is returning, with Jeff Templeton at its head. (See the Certification to Return to Active Status for political action committee, "Citizens For Change," below.)

A little history from 2007: Citizens for Change formed primarily to fight the new Steep Slope Development ordinance and to rout the progressives in Boone. The PAC endorsed a slate of four candidates that year, one mayoral candidate and three town council candidates, one of them a multiple-term incumbent. Out of those four PAC candidates, only one of them won, but in the process their multiple-term incumbent (and most experienced public official) lost. (The Watauga Democrat did an eve-of-election run-down on all the candidates and the issues at that time. And please note that in 2007, Boone's municipal election was on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in October.)

The coverage of the Chamber of Commerce candidate forum that year in the Watauga Democrat makes interesting reading too, especially the report that developer Phil Templeton, Jeff Templeton's father and a prime mover in Citizens for Change, heckled incumbent candidate Lynne Mason from the audience.

We note that the Certification to Return to Active Status (pictured below) was dated October 3, which means that the PAC will not under current law have to report any contributions or expenditures until well after the election is over, in January 2014. We note that because the timing seems intentional, as though someone were willing to hide out until after the planned damage has been done.

For the record, in 2007 Citizens for Change raised $45,426.12 and spent most of it. That total in cash does not count what Phil Templeton individually spent on multiple newspaper ads (many of them full-page), though he was also a big donor to Citizens for Change.

Also for the record, and in case anyone has forgotten the full extent of current Templeton family power: Phil's daughter (and Jeff's sister) Anne Marie Yates is chair of the Watauga County Republican Party and is named in one of the charges currently pending against the Republican majority on the Watauga County Board of Elections. Anne Marie Yates is married to Perry Yates, a new Watauga County Commissioner, and she is sister of Mark Templeton, a candidate for Boone Town Council in the November elections. Mark Templeton made a Citizens for Change-style endorsement of Matt Long and James Milner at the candidate forum last Tuesday, and presumably it is this "Team Templeton" that will be the object of affection for the reactivated Citizens for Change.

Phil Templeton Chokes, Rev. Harris Clears His Calendar, and the NC GOP Plans to Shift Taxes to the Middle Class

1. By the time this morning's meeting of the Watauga County Commission convened at 8:30 a.m., developer Phil Templeton had addressed a letter to the Commission withdrawing his offer on the old high school property, thus superseding at supersonic speed the letter his lawyer wrote the Commission yesterday saying that Templeton wanted another 60 days to decide.

Whiplash, anyone?

Naturally, Templeton blames the Town of Boone and its Affordable Housing ordinance, though the Town had exempted the old high school property from the strictures of the new ordinance. In other words, Templeton has now decided that his development is not feasible though nothing material has changed for that property since he made his original offer.

2. Rev. Mark Harris of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, who already has a notch on his belt in helping deny equal rights to gay couples in North Carolina, is considering running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

3. The new Art Pope budget proposal for North Carolina will be introduced this week, cutting roughly $1 billion from taxes on the rich and powerful and shifting that burden onto the middle class via new taxes on services. Maybe Rev. Harris could pray about that.

Transparent Man

Watauga County Commission Chair Nathan Miller volunteered the following analysis of the county's bullying of the Town of Boone over sales tax allocation, to Steve Frank at GoBlueRidge:

"Unfortunately, it appears that the Town Council has decided to play the fiddle while Boone burns. But unlike emperor Nero, the citizens of Boone will have the chance to vote these people out come November."

So all of this backdoor dealing by the county (including the kick-back scheme, whereby the resort towns kick-back 60% of their new sales tax proceeds to the county), all in order to punish Boone for the sake of a wealthy special interest, has been about ... wait for it ... politics.

We continue to stand amazed that Mr. Miller thinks that his treatment of the Town of Boone is going to reap benefits for himself, the Templetons, and his political party.

Government by Revenge

The three Republicans on the Watauga County Commission carried through on their threat last night to change sales tax allocation from a population-based system to a property-valuation system, thus giving a windfall to three resort towns in the county while depriving Boone of approximately $2 million annually. Boone contains about one-third of the county’s population and raises the lion’s share of those sales taxes (though the Republicans showed themselves both ignorant of and uninterested in the actual figures).

As the three Republicans made abundantly clear last night, their motive was pure revenge for Boone’s perceived failure to do everything that mega-developer Phil Templeton wanted done to pave the way for putting high-density “quad-style” student housing on the old high school site.

Many of the things that the three Republicans alleged last night about both Mr. Templeton and the Town of Boone do not jibe with a letter written just last Friday by Mr. Templeton’s lawyer and sent to all the commissioners and members of the town council. I’m looking at that letter right now.

1. Mr. Templeton says (via his lawyer) that his intention was always to develop the south portion of that property as a student housing project. In fact, one of his (new) demands, included in the letter, is that the property now be rezoned to R3 (multi-family). The property had already been rezoned at County Commission request to B3 (general business) by the Town of Boone, presumably to make it more attractive to Mr. Templeton. Last night, Nathan Miller alleged that Mr. Templeton’s plan all along was “mixed use.” Not according to Friday’s letter. 

2. Mr. Templeton has already been in negotiations to sell the south portion (presumably the most buildable) to another developer. Mr. Templeton has been trying to sell something that he doesn’t even own yet and thus needed many concessions from the town of Boone to make the resale more attractive. No one mentioned this fairly salient fact last night.

3. Mr. Templeton in his letter objected to any written guarantee to actually build out the commercial portion of a “mixed-use” development, a requirement that was in place for B3 properties when Mr. Templeton made his original offer on the property. And anyway, he isn’t interested in building mixed-use but in selling the property to someone else for development as student-housing alone. 

4. Mr. Templeton wants the property exempted from all town of Boone building regs, particularly steep-slope requirements. 

5. “In addition to the 150,000 gallons of water per day of water set aside for this project [by the town of Boone], an additional 100,000 gallons will need to be set aside for use by 2015 or 2016.”

The above intentions and demands of Mr. Templeton were not a part of what the three Republicans alleged against the town of Boone last night. In their version, Mr. Templeton is a put-upon victim of personal animus. And the town of Boone is the personification of personal animus.

The Republicans Have a Plan
The ulterior motive behind the reallocation of sales taxes became clear when Mr. Perry Yates, a commission member and Mr. Templeton’s son-in-law, said – twice – that his town taxes were going to go up because of the vote he was taking but that he didn’t care because he was serving a higher purpose.

The Republicans intend to force Boone to raise its property taxes. That will in their fantasy lead to a voter backlash. Thus the hated Democratic members of the Town Council will be voted out of power. Pop the champagne corks!

These geniuses actually think that punishing Boone is going to make them – and Republican candidates in general -- more attractive to Boone voters.

Perhaps. But I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

A Footnote on Conflicts of Interest
Mr. Yates directed the commission’s attorney to read aloud a lengthy legal opinion last night on how Mr. Yates was not in violation of any ethical standards because of his close personal relationship to Mr. Templeton.

Yeah. Whatever.

Lengthy legal opinions are fig leaves that merely call attention to what they’re hiding.

Another Footnote on What Can Go Wrong with Best-Laid Plans
It also came out last night that the resolutions passed by the resort towns of Blowing Rock, Seven Devils, and Beech Mountain – the “kick-back resolutions,” wherein those towns promised to pay back to the County 60% of their new windfalls – are not legally binding.

Hmmm.

Government the Nathan Miller Way

Kellen Moore’s reporting last night in the Watauga Democrat revealed that without any public notice, any agenda item, any open meeting where a recorded vote was taken, County Commission Chair Nathan Miller has single-handedly and without due process struck a corrupt deal with the towns of Blowing Rock, Beech Mountain, and Seven Devils to redistribute sales tax revenues.

Why? To punish the town of Boone. That and that alone.

As Kellen explains, the scheme to redistribute sales tax based on ad valorem property values rather than population would incur a million $ plus penalty on Watauga County (let alone what it will do to the town of Boone). Except that Miller has come up with a kick-back scheme. The rich resort towns with higher property values will get more money, natch, but Miller is making them agree to kick back hefty percentages of what would otherwise be coming to them. Don’t know which is worse ... that the leadership of those other towns would agree to such a corrupt bargain or that the leadership of Watauga County would think up such a corrupt bargain and peddle it to the other towns, while the working-class town of Boone gets screwed to the tune of $2 million because of Miller’s eager water-carrying for the Templeton family.

Kellen Moore got one thing wrong when she wrote these words: “...the county is asking the other local towns to support its threat...” [emphasis added].

“The county” hasn’t done anything. Nathan Miller has done it all by himself. There has never been a discussion in a commissioners’ meeting about any of this, so there also hasn’t been a vote. I reject the notion that Nathan Miller is now “the county,” though evidently he’s quite comfortable acting as though it were so.

A vote on the Watauga County Commission will eventually have to happen, at which time all eyes will be on Mr. Perry Yates, a new member of the County Commission, the husband of the Chair of the Republican Party, and the son-in-law of Mr. Phil Templeton. Will he vote to punish the town for requiring his father-in-law to go through a normal permitting process? Will he vote with Nathan Miller, thus groping through the heavy fog of family loyalties to arrive at a gigantic and public conflict of interest? Will he give up any claim he might have had to statesmanlike integrity, or will he recuse himself as he should?

The answer already seems to have been handed to him, since his wife, Phil Templeton’s daughter and the chairwoman of the Watauga County Republican Party, has been sending out email appeals to her party to write her husband and the other commissioners urging them to punish Boone, punish Boone, punish Boone.

And why did the other towns snap so fast at Nathan Miller’s tainted bait? Lawyer Four Eggers is Nathan Miller’s lawyer on the County Commission; he’s also Beech Mountain’s attorney. Allen Moseley represents the Templetons; he’s also Blowing Rock’s attorney.

There’s enough incest right there for several Sunday sermons.

Revenge Drama

Taking instruction from the scorched-earth behavior of Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly, Watauga County Commission Chair Nathan Miller launches his own local version of "government by revenge."

Boone raises the bulk of sales tax revenues in the county but will under Mr. Miller's scheme get $2 million less of that money back. That's a knife in the back. Or the chest.

Why? Because Boone has done what no municipality can ever do and survive ... inconvenienced the Templetons. And according to the very interesting comment thread under that article, the Town of Boone hasn't even done that, certainly not like the Templetons have been claiming (whining).

Meanwhile, Mr. Miller has been wheeling & dealing with the other towns in the county for kickbacks, the "hybrid" solution, Mr. Miller called it, which "could possibly be executed with the other municipalities exhibiting a surplus so Watauga County doesn't end up in the red" -- kickbacks, say I. Such a scheme smells like corruption, not to mention the various conflicts of interest among the several lawyers involved.

This will make for a pretty good  lawsuit or for a subsequent news media investigation, whichever comes first.

Watauga County GOP Plan a Boone-Bashing Good Time at Their County Convention

Taking a look at the Republican establishment candidates being nominated on Saturday for the four top county offices might reveal an anti-Boone theme that's worth noting. The establishment's pick for chair, Anne Marie Yates, is Phil Templeton's daughter, and you can Google his name + "Boone NC" and get that war, chapter and verse.

The short blurb about Myra Scoggins (nominated for Secretary) includes this statement: "She feels the Boone Town Council stands in the way of progress for the county. Myra believes Boone needs a broader tax base which helps the county as a whole."

Wait. What? It's passing strange how obsessed this bunch is with Boone, to the point of blaming it for the lack of "progress" in the county. How so, Ms. Scoggins? And while you're at it, please enlighten us as to how a "broader tax base" in Boone would help "the county as a whole"? Dunno, but we take it that you're irritated that Boone isn't contributing even more property tax to county coffers, while being routinely and regularly denigrated, insulted, and dissed by folks like you.

Yeah, we're all ready to sign up for that.

But it appears from this ad in the High Country Press that the establishment candidates will have at least one insurgent to deal with. Victoria Smith is nominated by the party grandees as Vice Chair, but Casey Miller is apparently mounting an insurgency. He has his own list of four resolutions, too, which will be popular with this crowd, since all four of them ... wait for it ... bash Boone.

The He-Man Boone Bashing Club is now in session!

Soucek: It Depends on the Meaning of 'Developer' ... And What the Definition of Is Is

Sen. Dan Soucek gets wrapped around the Templeton axle once again in an interview with Jesse Wood of the High Country Press. Saith the senator about his push to lift all development rules in Boone's extra-territorial jurisdiction, "No developer, per se, has talked to me about this issue regarding anything they would like to do."

Per se. We call that parsing one's words. Step around that cow pie, Senator!

He also appears to admit that he's thrown in the towel on Senate Bill 949 for this session.

Templeton Loses in Court (Again)

Back a year ago, Superior Court Judge Ronald Payne ruled against the Town of Boone and said Phil Templeton could build his medical clinic in the single-family neighborhood of VFW Drive. The Town of Boone appealed that ruling. (Another Templeton lawsuit, challenging Boone's steep slope development ordinance, was thrown out of court earlier this year.)

Yesterday the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Judge Payne erred in substituting his judgment for the Boone Board of Adjustments: "The Superior Court was not free to find facts in place of the Board of Adjustment; its function was to determine whether the Board of Adjustment's findings were supported by competent evidence in the record before it." The Appeals Court noted that Judge Payne at one point declared that he himself planned to visit the proposed construction site (though whether he ever did that is unclear).

The Boone Board of Adjustments erred in not making a formal finding of fact, though the BOA had "substantial evidence" before it opposing the Templeton special use request, and so the case is remanded back to the Boone BOA so that a finding of fact can be made.

Once the BOA does that, it's possible that Templeton could appeal again. However, the Court of Appeal's opinion essentially holds that the record contains sufficient evidence to support denial of the permit, and that would seem to destroy Templeton's procedural arguments. So, assuming that the Board adopts sufficient findings on remand, Templeton should have little ammunition for another appeal.

Boone Town Council Appealing Templeton Ruling

The Boone Town Council voted -- unanimously -- Thursday night to go forward to the NC Court of Appeals challenging the Superior Court judge's ruling July 3 in the proposed Templeton medical clinic development on State Farm Road.

We'll summarize the arguments in the appeal when those documents become available.