2025 A Look Back: Nothing to see here award
Jackson County’s various governing boards spent much of the year demonstrating that governing does not require attendance, consistency, basic curiosity about consequences, respect for the law or for the feelings of taxpayers, voters and young people.
The all-Republican county commission started off the year with the quiet removal of interpretive plaques covering Confederate flags on the pedestal of a monument outside the courthouse, an act that managed to be both historically illiterate and procedurally improper. The plaques disappeared anyway, apparently under the theory that if context is inconvenient, erasure counts as leadership.
Next came the decision to withdraw from the Fontana Regional Library system. Commissioners voted to leave the eight-decade partnership despite overwhelming opposition and clear evidence that the move would cost more while delivering less service, fewer resources and diminished access — while also heightening the county’s exposure to First Amendment lawsuits. The county has forced taxpayers to pay extra for less, an economic philosophy usually reserved for people who attended Trump University and buy Trump steaks, Trump sneakers, Trump Bibles, Trump cryptocurrency or Trump phones off late-night infomercials.
Voters felt the impact again when commissioners approved a significant property tax increase during tough economic times.
The closure of the Western Carolina University early voting site by the county’s Board of Elections — again, ignorant of basic logic, fiscal responsibility and the opinions of the people most directly affected — sent a powerful message to younger voters: your participation is welcome, but elsewhere, and we thank you for helping to bring our $107 million annual budget down to a far more reasonable $106.98 million.
Attendance issues also became apparent throughout the year. Commissioner Jenny Lynn Hooper repeatedly missed advisory board meetings she was appointed to attend, prompting an opinion from the county attorney that the Jackson County TDA violated its own attendance policy — a good reminder that rules only matter when someone checks — by allowing Hooper’s continued “service.”
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Commissioner John Smith developed a similar pattern of absence — five of six meetings — on the Jackson County Public Library Board, even as commissioners debated leaving the system entirely. Oversight, it turns out, is optional.
Taken together, the year offered a masterclass in selective engagement. Laws broken. Treason celebrated. Libraries abandoned. Taxes raised. Votes suppressed. Meetings skipped. Rules disregarded. Constituents ignored. Nothing to see here.
