The National Park Service has finally chosen sides in the long-standing debate over whether to build a 30-mile road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park backcountry outside Bryson City.

The road, it appears, stops here. Now, elected leaders and citizens must demand a timetable for the $52 million settlement due Swain County.

The General Assembly is considering a bill that could solve a Catch 22 in election law: how to legitimately help nursing home patients vote without creating a climate ripe for abuse.

A state election investigator is trying to determine whether a Swain County voting drive targeting the poor and elderly crossed the line from exceptionally ambitious to improper.

Swain County is drafting a set of road standards that will serve its citizens well on two levels. First, the proposed ordinances would require developers to build roads that emergency vehicles can access, thereby providing protection for property and lives; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Swain’s relatively new planning board is getting its feet wet by learning what it takes to develop land-use regulations and turn them into law.

Not that many years ago, anglers and boaters wanting to gain access to the Tuckasegee River in Swain County essentially had to bushwhack their way to the water.

When a roaring forest fire whipped through a mountainside development in Swain County two months ago — burning nine homes to the ground — the narrow, steep road leading to the community stymied efforts of firefighters.

When Mike Clampitt was making get out the vote calls during his campaign for Swain County commissioner last fall, he noticed an interesting pattern on the voter registration lists.

Three weeks after federal officials rolled into town and abruptly shut down the Oconaluftee Jobs Corps Center in Swain County, the reasons for the closure are still being debated.

Swain County native Heath Shuler is doing his home county a favor by putting together a powerful congressional coalition to support a cash settlement in lieu of building the controversial North Shore Road. Truthfully, there’s little chance that this road was ever going to get built, so taking a $52 million payout seems a much smarter option than holding out hope that a decades-old promise would ever be kept.