Last updated 3/8/07   

Commission History  

Regional Councils blanket the State of North Carolina, and the entire United States; 17 across NC, 500+ nationwide. Alternatively known by many terms -- regional commissions, councils of local government, area-wide planning districts, lead regional organizations, economic development regions -- the structure and function of regional councils is universally consistent across NC and the US.  

Regional Councils are the relative new kids on the governmental agency block. Many eastern seaboard town charters go back 300 years or more to colonial times. County government was birthed in North Carolina in 1868 when our state constitution was revised. But, it would be another 100 years -- the mid-1960’s -- before regional councils were established here.

The Southwestern North Carolina Planning and Economic Development Commission (dba Southwestern Commission) was created in November 1965 by concurrent, joint resolution of the county commissioners of Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties, and the 14 (now 16) city councils therein.

The creation of the Southwestern Commission, and, in fact the creation of all our 500+ sister organizations across the country, was driven by many factors, including money, common challenges and common opportunities.

Initially the money factor was paramount. Between the 1965 and 1975 state legislatures and the US Congress ginned up thousands of grant-in-aid programs totaling billions in funds available to local governments. Funds were appropriated for water supplies, sewer systems, housing, solid waste, emergency medicine, juvenile delinquency, recreation, health care, law enforcement, economic development, job training, senior citizens services and a plethora of other purposes.

Local governments needed state and federal aid. State and federal legislators desired to prevent duplication and mismanagement of the local projects and services they funded. State and federal auditors demanded that the grants be administered properly.

Of the hundreds of conditions imposed on grants, the most universal was (and remains today) that requirement that applicants demonstrate partnership, economy-of-scale, regionalism, efficiency, leveraging, intergovernmental cooperation and written proof that a high priority was (is) placed on engaging in joint ventures with neighboring local units.

But, 40 years ago, few forums existed anywhere in the nation with a stated mission of engendering and ensuring that these specific objectives could and would be seriously addressed. And, nobody was in business – privately or publicly – to provide grant management services.

Accordingly, the Southwestern Commission and all regional councils nationwide were initially created with the primary intent of assisting member units in their pursuit of state and federal money. The Commission’s original bylaws state that the organization’s objectives shall be: …to develop regional plans and funding of programs on matters affecting …human resources, education, housing, health, transportation, criminal justice, recreation…environment, open space, land use…water supplies and sewer systems…and in other matters as authorized…

Forty years later nothing has changed. Forty years later everything has changed. These statements convey mostly opposite notions, yet both are mostly true.

For examples:

Yet, like other rural areas of the world, there still exists in our region a vibrant memory of our former leaders, their families and the communities they represented. Following is a historical perspective of our past leadership, beginning in 1965 and continuing to present.