New town leadership is looking forward to getting things moving again in the tiny Graham County municipality of Lake Santeetlah, after a pair of incumbents and a pair of former Town Council members won resounding victories repudiating actions taken by the town’s elected leaders over the past two years. 

Tuesday, Nov. 7 was an important night for out LGBTQ+ candidates across the country, the state and Haywood County, with more running — and winning — than in any previous odd-year election in U.S. history. 

They ran a noisy campaign, filled with distortions, misinformation and outright fabrication, but in the end, that’s all it was — noise. 

The Sylva Town Council could have three new members, including a new mayor after vote totals become official later this week. 

Three seats are up for election this November on the Sylva Town Council, and six candidates are competing for those spots.

The Town of Waynesville will no longer require speakers at its public comment sessions to reveal their addresses, after a raucous July 25 meeting where some speakers voiced concern over identifying their residences due to violent threats made against the LGBTQ+ community that resulted from a man’s unfounded allegations of indecent behavior at the Waynesville Recreation Center on July 12. 

The field got just a little bit smaller in the race for Waynesville Town Council last week, as one of the nine candidates seeking four available seats withdrew.

Adam Kimsey will join the Franklin Town Council after the board unanimously appointed him to fill a two-year unexpired term. 

After a mass migration from boardrooms to cyberspace last spring, one by one Western North Carolina’s public bodies have transitioned back to in-person meetings — with the exception of Sylva’s town board. 

The town of Franklin Board of Aldermen will now officially be referred to as the Franklin Town Council after the board voted 3-2 to change its charter.