The Jackson County Board of Commissioners has approved three municipal grants for the towns of Sylva, Webster and Dillsboro. 

The filing period for candidates seeking municipal governing board seats in November began at noon on Friday, July 2, with several challengers and incumbents already declaring their candidacies. 

That’s right. It may seem like election season just ended, but it’s also just beginning, and in less than 300 days voters in every Haywood County town will again head to the polls to choose from candidates seeking a spate of municipal offices.

Representatives from the revamped North Carolina Women in Municipal Government visited Maggie Valley last weekend to recruit women from the towns of Western North Carolina. 

Franklin’s new and returning councilmembers were recently sworn into office and immediately started conducting business during the December regular meeting.

Ben King, the 28-year-old co-owner of Bryson City Outdoors, was not only elected to the Bryson City Board of Aldermen, but the young challenger was the top vote-getter among five candidates with 154 votes.

Franklin residents kept two incumbents and elected one newcomer to the town council to represent them for the next four years.

Sylva Mayor Lynda Sossamon took home an overwhelming share of the votes in her bid for re-election Nov. 6, easily winning four more years in the mayor’s seat.

Elections in Canton, Clyde and Maggie Valley resulted in some tight races and new faces falling into voters’ good graces, but the outcomes in Haywood County’s three smallest municipalities couldn’t be more different as one moves forward, one stays the same and one still seeks to fill some holes.

Canton Alderman Zeb Smathers isn’t quite mayor yet, but that didn’t stop one local brewery from releasing a “Mayor Smathers Victory Ale” over a month ago, nor has it stopped Smathers — who is running unopposed — from laying out an aggressive plan designed to make the last four years of Canton progress “pale in comparison.”