Living in The Valley

During a divorce, one person is required to move out of the family home. After months of rigmarole and this and that, I decided that person would be me. No one particularly wants to leave the place where children grew up and memories were made but then again, it’s easier to cope with the emotions when you’re not constantly staring at wedding china or knick-knacks bought on summer vacations. 

No harm in striving to understand each person

By Hannah McLeod • Guest Columnist

Do not decry this generation for pushing the boundaries of respect/understanding/acceptance. 

People today like to deride certain aspects of our generation. They speak sarcastically about how “everyone has to have their own place, everyone is individual and unique, everyone deserves safe spaces.” As if this is somehow inherently wrong or a bogus notion. 

Cartoon, June 13, 2018

SB 99: Who will teach NC’s children?

This is about money. But it is also about the North Carolina Legislature’s Conference Report on Senate Bill 99, especially the public school portion of the budget for the coming fiscal year. 

This is not about the shoddy way in which the budget was moved forward. But it is about the disrespect shown to those not given a choice. 

Trails are just good for communities

Trails are good and we could have more here.

— The board of the Nantahala Area Southern Off-Road Bicycling Association

Our primary thesis is this: trails are good for communities and their economies, and if the political will existed, we could have more in Western North Carolina. We have public lands owned by local town and county governments, amazing terrain, and the potential funding opportunities exist. As a chapter of a regional mountain biking advocacy organization (the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA)), we hear about the amazing things trails have done for towns across the Southeast. We realize this is not common knowledge, nor is there any reason for it to be common knowledge, so we wanted to talk about some of the things we hear about in our advocacy world in a more public forum.

Bourdain’s death puts depression in spotlight

I was only vaguely aware of who Anthony Bourdain was when news of his suicide swept the internet last week. Even though his show “Parts Unknown” had been on the air for the past five years and he had developed quite a devoted following during that time, somehow I had missed out. All I knew was that he was a television personality of some sort and his show had something to do with food. I guess I had foolishly dismissed it as just another of the scores of cooking shows and didn’t bother investigating it further.

A sound decision and a wise investment

Town and counties never have enough money to provide all the services and amenities that their citizens — in a perfect world — would like. That’s an unrealistic expectation, so when local leaders do make smart investments that are somewhat unconventional, we think it’s worth noting.

The decision by the Sylva Town Board and the Jackson County commissioners to spend $250,000 each to conserve an additional 441 acres adjacent to Pinnacle Park is one of those admirable and wise expenditures. 

Students and teachers are on my mind

It’s high stakes testing week for students and educators in Haywood County. This is my 9-year old’s first year taking an End-of-Grade test and he is very nervous about it. When I was teaching, I remember this time of year looming ahead like an ugly, stressful punctuation mark to a well-constructed, creative sentence. 

Something is wrong with this picture

I’ve been covering local governments in North Carolina for 30 years, and a small item in Macon County’s budget for 2018-2019 caught my attention like a flash of lightning: the public education budget is $8.5 million, or 18 percent of the total budget; the public safety budget (law enforcement and jails) is $13.9 million, or 28 percent of the county’s budget.

For decades, education and human services (DSS and health departments) have traditionally been the most expensive items for county commissioners. Now we’ve reached a point where it seems law enforcement and jails will take an equal amount or more of our local tax dollars, which inevitably means local schools will be squeezed even tighter.

The party’s in there, and we’re out here

My wife and I are introverts who pretend to be extroverts, both personally and professionally, which means that we are the kind of people who plan a party, and then immediately regret it once the invitations are sent.  

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