In this Issue of Hey Cherokee County…

✅ Note From the Publisher

✅ What Nobody Tells You About Running a County

✅ Murphy Fire Department Earns Best Insurance Rating in Its History

Cherokee County Events

July 17th

August 1st

September 16th-19th

September 26th

October 31st

November 21st

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Publisher’s Note: This is Part 2 of a multi-part series based on an exclusive interview with former Cherokee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Alan Bryant.

Most people have no idea what actually happens inside a county commissioners board. They show up to a public meeting, watch some votes get cast, and go home thinking they understand how local government works.

Alan Bryant spent a year and a half on the inside. What he found would surprise a lot of people.

Start with something basic: communication.

You would think five elected officials trying to run a county together would talk to each other regularly. Bryant says that's not how it works, and in some cases, it literally can't.

"We could talk to each other one on one," he said. "But if there was ever three of us in a discussion, it's against the law."

North Carolina's open meetings law prohibits a quorum of board members from discussing public business outside of a noticed public meeting. On a five-member board, that means three commissioners in the same conversation, even an informal one, can cross a legal line.

Bryant says the practical result was absurd.

"Some of the board members I may talk to two or three times in six months until we get to a board, and that's the truth,” Bryant said. “A couple of them I never spoke to at all, nearly in a year."

So how do you build consensus? Carefully, and one phone call at a time.

"Why would I call you and speak to you today and say, 'Hey, let's do this; don't you think that's a great idea?' But tomorrow I can call another board member and say, 'Let's do this, that's a great idea. The other board member agreed and said it was a great idea too.' I'm gonna call the rest of them tomorrow to keep from having an illegal conversation,” Bryant said. “But in five days I've called all of them within the week and told them all the same thing. Is it not dumb?"

And then there were the meetings themselves.

Bryant says commissioners would sometimes walk into a board meeting with no advance warning on major agenda items and then be expected to vote the same night.

"Another thing that aggravated me — walk into a board meeting and somebody throw a paper down and come by and say, 'Oh, this is something we need to look at,'” Bryant said. “And we're like, 'Okay, we'll look at that.' And, 'We need to make a decision tonight.' And you're like — how? I'm not making these wild decisions."

He said when deadlines were used as pressure, his answer was simple: "If we don't do it, then don't do it. Don't worry about it."

Beyond the legal constraints, Bryant described a culture of gridlock.

"You've got five board members, which in my opinion are too many,” he said. “I think three would be a plenty on commissioners."

The board dynamics frustrated him most when effort went nowhere.

"When you've got five people that have totally different ideas — not always, sometimes they are the same idea — but when you work so hard to do something in hopes that everybody should be on the same page and they're not on the same page, it's a tug and pull against one another, and therefore nothing ever gets done,” Bryant said.

He also had pointed words about accountability — or the lack of it.

"If you watch the meetings, some people like to blame people for the things that they can't achieve,” Bryant said. 

He didn't name names, but he was direct about a pattern he saw.

"Admit when you're wrong. If you can't get it done in four years, what makes you think you're gonna get it done in five months? You've got to get along with people,” he said.

The same reluctance to embrace accountability, he says, extends to county staff.

"Politics has became that they want the friendships to where they can get what they want when they need it,” Bryant said. “But when it comes time to get rid of people, nobody wants to do that. They're afraid to, you know, because a lot of people that work for the county have grown up in this county. Everybody knows everybody. And it's hard."

He understood why. He just didn't think it was a good enough reason.

"Nobody wants to walk in and tell a good friend, 'Hey, I gotta let you go,' because they're gonna be mad at you, their family's gonna be mad at you, they're gonna talk bad about you forever,” Bryant said. “But is that what — that's part of the job that you've acquired. If you're not doing your job, get rid of them."

Bryant says he came in wanting to make a real difference.

"That hurry up and wait game, man, that causes me so much anxiety,” he said. “That hurry and wait, hurry and wait. It was always hurry and wait."

For Bryant, the gap between what commissioners promise on the campaign trail and what they can actually deliver isn't a matter of bad intentions. It's a matter of how the system is built.

The Murphy Fire Department just hit a milestone it's never reached before.

Following a 2026 inspection by the North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshal, the department earned its best fire insurance ratings ever. Starting October 1, the Town of Murphy Fire District moves from a Class 3 to a Class 2 rating, and the Murphy Rural Fire District moves from a Class 4 to a Class 3. 

Officials say that makes Murphy the only fire department west of Buncombe County to hold a Class 2 rating, putting it among the top-performing departments in the entire state.

Since the last inspection in 2021, the department expanded full-time staffing, increased part-time coverage, upgraded equipment, and logged more than 29,000 hours of training over five years.

For homeowners and businesses, better ratings can mean lower property insurance premiums, depending on your carrier. They're also a signal to businesses looking to relocate that Murphy has serious fire protection infrastructure in place.

The department credited support from Cherokee County emergency services, Cherokee County 911, the Murphy Water Department, Public Works, Murphy Power Board, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and neighboring fire departments for helping make the achievement possible.

Click the image below to read the full story and original statements:

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