With more contentious development on the horizon, residents of the small town of Maggie Valley have plenty to consider at the ballot box this year.

With less than two months until Haywood County municipal elections are held, two candidates who filed to run back in July have decided to drop out of their races.

Incumbents wasted little time in declaring their intentions to defend their seats after municipal candidate filing opened at noon today, but there are already two incumbents hoping to move up in the ranks, if their campaigns are successful.

On Jan. 15, The Smoky Mountain News contacted almost every elected official in Haywood County for whom an email address was listed with the county’s board of elections. Around half failed to respond, but those who did were sometimes too verbose for print, so an excerpt from their response was used in the Jan. 23 edition of The Smoky Mountain News. In the interest of transparency, their full responses are included here.