Amid growing financial concerns, Jackson County’s four Republican commissioners have spent the last few years fighting a culture war. On March 3, Primary Election voters will weigh in on their priorities. 

Over the past four budget cycles, Jackson County commissioners have overseen a steady expansion of county government, with the general fund growing from $71.7 million in fiscal year 2021-22 to $106.9 million in 2025-26, an increase of roughly 49% over five years.

I have supported libraries in WNC for over 12 years and been a lifelong library patron. I support all viewpoints being equally represented on shelves providing that librarian gatekeepers allow true balance. However, I do not support or trust an unaccountable bureaucracy with its thumb on the scales of public opinion that entangles three different counties causing unnecessary conflict.  

To the Editor:

As my grandmother used to say, the MAGA party “doesn’t have the sense it was born with.”  

The MAGA presidential candidate — a multiple-times-bankrupted felon convicted of sexual assault against one woman and of covering up his illicit liaison with another to protect his reputation — has nothing to offer against his opponent, the current vice president and former California attorney general and senator from the state with the fifth largest economy in the world (see Japan, California, India).  

To the Editor:

“How is it possible, what has lobotomized people who cheer and celebrate the most transparent fraud, the most outrageous liar, the most straitjacket-ready psycho ever visited on the body politic?” Those are the words of Hal Crowther, longtime journalist and essayist.