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NEWS
Black Mountain News
Like many Western North Carolina municipalities, bears are a part of life in Montreat.
Recently, the town of Montreat conducted a survey on bears in the town and those results were presented by Commissioner Tom Widmer at the Sept. 12 Board of Commissioners meeting.
The survey garnered 450 responses and of those, 92% were homeowners in Montreat. Widmer said this was a high number of responses compared to other surveys the town has conducted in the past.
Of these responses, nearly 42% said the bear situation in Montreat is "serious," with another nearly 27% saying the situation is "very serious."
When asked if they felt there has been an increase in bear activity this year, more than 83% of respondents said "yes." Nearly 75% of respondents said they see bears at least once a week, with nearly 10% saying they see bears on a daily basis.
Widmer said he was "really pleased" to find out that most Montreat residents did not know of anyone intentionally feeding bears, with 95% of respondents saying they did not know of anyone doing this.
Widmer said the purpose of the survey was to collect data about "bear experiences and perceptions" in the town to bring to a meeting with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to help find potential solutions.
"We're not the only ones having a problem, and our problem here is big," Commissioner Kitty Fouche said. "We're not just imagining it. It's a major problem."
During the public comment period, Arrington Cox, the liaison between the NCWRC and the town of Montreat, spoke of the bear situation as she sees it.
"We're giving these bears room and board, Medicare and food stamps," Cox said.
She said the problem is each individual resident's responsibility to "take this on," because there will be no solutions unless everyone helps.
Town Clerk Angie Murphy told commissioners that it is "more of a people problem than a bear problem" and that she has had to issue fines for individuals not securing their trash properly. Town Manager Savannah Parrish said that if an individual has multiple unpaid fines, trash service will be suspended until the fine is paid. She said this has been done "a couple of times."
Also in the final pubic comment period, Montreat resident and former commissioner Mary Standaert expressed her concern about the election filing process in Montreat for this year.
She said when the election filing period began, residents were informed that there was one mayoral seat and two four year commissioners seats available. It was not until the day before the filing period ended that the final seat, an unexpired commissioners seat, was also said to be up for election.
She said she was told that the town had not informed the Board of Elections that former commissioner Kent Otto had resigned. Widmer said this was not the case.
At the beginning of the meeting, Jake Quinn, the chair of the Buncombe County Board of Elections, gave an update on the situation and said some changes have been made.
"As you know, we had a bit of a snafu over the summer during the July candidate filing period," Quinn said. "There is a municipal election in the town of Montreat this year and the Board of Elections is very glad community members have filed to run for every seat that's up, but it was a close call."
He said this was because the incumbent who was appointed to the seat, current Commissioner Grant Dasher, did not realize he needed to file. Quinn said the board is "revising the correspondence" for municipalities to check and double check charters to know if a seat needs to be up for election.
"We continuously strive at Buncombe County Board of Elections to improve our processes," Quinn said. "Every month we find a new way to adjust, to tweak what we do to make it better, and we're grateful to have this opportunity to improve our communication with municipalities because our objective is to conduct smooth, fair, open issue-free elections."
Karrigan Monk is the Swannanoa Valley communities reporter for Black Mountain News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].